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SPECULATION Rey's Power to be Explained by Amnesia?

Discussion in 'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' started by tm0910196, Sep 11, 2016.

  1. tm0910196

    tm0910196 Guest

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    Greetings, Cantina. Re-watching the Bourne films recently, a thought occurred to me about Rey. Much has been said about her sudden ability to powerfully use the Force, and there has been speculation by some that she was trained as a young child, but, for whatever reason, has forgotten said training. It does seem to be implied in certain elements of The Force Awakens that Rey might be forgetting parts of her past (for example, her true family).

    Now, how does Bourne tie into this? Well, for anyone who's seen The Bourne Identity, you know that the dude regains consciousness with no idea who he is, but he's able to intuitively engage his prior combat training to escape tough situations - all this before he even gets an idea that he's done that for a living. I think about this especially with Rey's mind trick: maybe, like Bourne, it's a specific "reflex ability" she remembers, even if she has no memory of learning it, and maybe in Ep. VIII it will be revealed that events prior to The Force Awakens resulted in amnesia for Rey. Thoughts?
     
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  2. BloodyShadow

    BloodyShadow Force Sensitive

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    That's a good idea!
    She may have been trained with Luke and that would explain why Kylo Ren knows her better than she knows herself.
     
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  3. Grand Master Galen Marek

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    That could happen, she looked surprised when she started using the force during the second part of the movie & how effective it was, I'm curious as to why her parents didn't tell her about her force sensitivity when they left.
     
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  4. Just Passing Through

    Just Passing Through Rebel General

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    This is probably the only explanation I will accept for Rey's rapid accomplishments. Unfortunately it seems as though TPTB have basically ruled out this option what with the fact that Rey was shown being abandoned on Jakku at a very young age, too young to have learnt all that she demonstrated in TFA.
     
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  5. Maximus

    Maximus Reel 2 Dialogue 2

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    an idea that's been bounced around on a few threads (not my idea) is an updated version of the kotor I story for Rey. it isn't completely unlike this amnesia idea.

    most on here will have played the Bioware game Knights of the old republic (2003), but for those that haven't, the character you play in that game wakes on a ship with no memory and goes on a rollercoaster adventure for the republic. your journey involves discovering the force and becoming a jedi, and your character has regular visions that he/she doesn't understand. there is a corker of a twist at the end as well... best and most surprising twist i've ever seen in a game before.

    obviously that story has been cast out to legends.. so they could definately have cherry picked the story/characters
    http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Knights_of_the_Old_Republic

    i'm sure this has been mentioned before... but does anyone see the likeness of Bastilla Shan and Rey? maybe just me lol
     
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  6. Just Passing Through

    Just Passing Through Rebel General

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    Yes, there has been a lot of people pointing to KOTOR as an inspiration for some aspects of TFA:
    • Kylo's mask looking similar to Revan's.
    • Rey bearing some resemblance to Bastila Shan.
    So theories of Rey suffering from amnesia like Revan and the monster of theory, Reylo, both arise from KOTOR inspiration.
     
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  7. AstromechRecords

    AstromechRecords Jedi General

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    I don't think Luke would be that brutal considering his personality to do that to Rey
     
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  8. mrverylongusername

    mrverylongusername Rebelscum

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    I am certain Rey has had training and yes the scene where she uses the jedi mind trick on the stormtrooper is the smoking gun. Her first attempt fails, *But then she remembers*. She clears her mind and does it again and succeeds. She has had training but for whatever reason does not recall it.
     
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  9. Boushhdisguise

    Boushhdisguise Jedi General

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    I still wonder if she sort of downloaded some of that knowledge from poking around Kylo Ren's head. Plus, just living alone in Jakku could be a skill learning experience as well.
     
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  10. Darth Daigo

    Darth Daigo Rebel Official

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    I would have preferred the amnesia explanation as well, but, as @Just Passing Through indicated, she seems to have been dropped off at an age too early to have learned all these skills from Luke. I agree with @Boushhdisguise that the Lucasfilm Story group will go with the taking-the-knowledge-from-Kylo-Ren-during-the-interrogation explanation.
     
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  11. Luciferous

    Luciferous Clone Commander

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    I think it's possible, but I don't like it. It just doesn't make sense to me. Why would she have lost her memories? One old theory was that she was trained by luke but had her mind wiped and was hidden after Kylo Ren destroyed the academy, but thanks to bloodline we know that didn't happen until a few years before TFA and she was left on Jakku long before that.

    I also don't get why people think her abilities need to be explained. What exactly did she do? She reached into Kylo's mind...when he reached into hers. A common theme in sci-fi with mind reading or mental links is that when you tap into someone's mind it's a two way street and they can tap into yours. I think this is what happened with Kylo Ren, when he reached into her mind she merely crossed the bridge he created and reached into his. Next thing she did was mind control a stormtrooper. A person raised from birth to be as simple minded as possible. To act, follow orders, and never think for himself. This would make the stormtroopers the easiest minds in the galaxy to control. As for how she knew about the mind control trick, she said that she knew the jedi and the force as myths, so it stands to reason that she heard tales of their abilities and figured she'd give it the old college try. Finally, her battle with Kylo Ren. A fight against a guy who had been shot in the gut with a powerful bowcaster that causes explosions. He was probably dying, then was worn out by Finn, before he faced her.

    I think it's obvious that Rey is naturally powerful with the force, but I don't think there needs to be an explanation or some secret as to why she was able to do the things she did.
     
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  12. Jedi MD

    Jedi MD Jedi Commander

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    Well said. The only thing I see differently is that Rey discovered the mind trick during her mental battle with Kylo
     
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  13. tm0910196

    tm0910196 Guest

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    I could easily accept this explanation, or, as @Luciferous said, she may have read or heard about mind tricks before. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Luke and Rey have some conversation to the effect of, "Yeah, all that stuff you did, you can thank Kylo Ren's mental interrogating for that."

    I do have to politely disagree with the idea that Rey's powers need no explanation whatsoever, because the films thus far have played a rather different tune as far as how said abilities are acquired. The first things that, say, Luke or Anakin did with the Force were not "direct" uses of the Force, as much as Force-assisted actions that could be done without the Force, strictly speaking. Luke landed the shot in the Death Star and Anakin was a human who could pod race. Luke got the lightsaber from the ice in Ep. V, which was a direct use of the Force. But he had received some level of early training under Obi Wan during A New Hope (see the lightsaber/remote scene), and we know Obi Wan talked to him after death as a Force ghost (Death Star, Death Star Destruction, Hoth, possibly more between Episodes IV and V).

    Rey is, for better or worse, a different case than we've seen before. Given that the title of the film is "The Force Awakens," it's very probably the case that the Force has truly awoken in Rey to an extent the movies have never shown us thus far, and that may be all the explanation required. If nothing else, the fact that she did pick up on the Force so quickly - whether due to Kylo's mind or otherwise - suggests to me that she's inherently more powerful than the Jedi we've seen before.
     
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  14. MagnarTheGreat

    MagnarTheGreat Jedi General

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    To Rey, the Jedi and Luke Skywalker are fairy tales that she's heard about while on Jakku.*

    Throughout the movie, she learns that they are real. So she's probably heard of how they use their "magic powers" like mind tricks in stories before.*

    Alternatively, Rey could have seen the JMT inside Kylo Ren's head and that's where she learned it from.

    * Rey's Survival Guide
     
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  15. Captain Haddock

    Captain Haddock Rebelscum

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    Pablo Hidalgo said (or at least implied) in a tweet that Rey did not have missing memories.
     
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  16. Jedi MD

    Jedi MD Jedi Commander

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    I think your last paragraph sums it up best. I posted on a different thread something similar about the title and Rey's abilities and while I love the SW saga and TFA, I do want something a little different moving forwards. Rey being a little different then what we've seen before would be fine by me. I would find that more satisfying then using a trope like amnesia or a mind wipe to put her back into the traditional box. Even if Rey is inherently more powerful in the Force, she is still going to have to learn how to properly use it and control it.
     
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  17. MagnarTheGreat

    MagnarTheGreat Jedi General

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    She does have thing that she cannot remember. It's been said across the canon in Rey's Survival Guide and kids books like Rey's Story - where she cannot remember how she got to left behind on Jakku or who exactly did it. Her background is a big secret to herself as said in the movie.
     
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  18. Crusifix

    Crusifix Rebel Official

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    It makes sense as far as there being an "Awakening". Perhaps there is something to some Jedi having their minds wiped and placed in different locations with false memories until the time is right. It seems like it would be hard to explain in good detail though.
     
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  19. LadyMusashi

    LadyMusashi Archwizard Woo-Woo-in-Chief
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    I don't see why her 'power' should have to be explained. We didn't need the explanation for Luke hitting a 2-meter (6.5 feet for Americans) exhaust port on a ginormous Death Star after having known about the Force for 10 minutes. We didn't need explanation except Qui-Gon's word for 9-year old Formula 1 driving, droid control ship destroying Anakin. Let's take Kylo on his word that she is powerful in the Force. He probed her mind, the Force has awoken, that's enough of the explanation.
     
    #19 LadyMusashi, Sep 12, 2016
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2016
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  20. MagnarTheGreat

    MagnarTheGreat Jedi General

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    The movie [Episode VII) sets up the explanation for why Kylo Ren is powerful in the Force: He's Vader's grandson and Leia's son.

    Rey doesn't get the same reveal (yet) so it creates a problem in the narrative.

    Episode IV explained why Luke was powerful with the Force: his Jedi father was too. This was further elaborated on by Episodes V and VI.
     
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