Snoke/Kylo story about Rey parents does not hold.

If you didn't like Space Jesus then Star Wars might be the wrong franchise for you:

The Star Wars science fiction media franchise is acknowledged to have been inspired by many sources. These include southern and eastern Asian religions, Qigong, philosophy, classical mythology, Roman history, Zoroastrianism, parts of the Abrahamic religions, Confucianism, Shintō and Taoism, and countless cinematic precursors. Creator George Lucas stated "Most of the spiritual reality in the movie is based on a synthesis of all religions. A synthesis through history; the way man has perceived the unknown and the great mystery and tried to deal with that or dealing with it".[1]

 

The Jedi didn’t cause an imbalance. They kept the balance. The Sith destroyed it. Anakin restored it. Luke maintained it for some time then lost it. The FO pushed it out of balance and now Rey or Rey and Ben together must balance it again.

 

How did they keep the balance? Thousand of lightside users vs 2 Sith. The Bendu is balanced but the Jedi are definitely on one end of the spectrum and not the middle thus causing imbalance. Isn't that a reason why Luke wanted them to end in TLJ?

 

Because 'balance' is a point of view and likely a useless concept to analyze anything in the saga and probably shouldn't have been introduced 18 years ago when the Jedi didn't even know what the fraking prophecy meant. Hell, they didn't even investigate Shmi for a reason that Anakin was born. It's not like they didn't know where she was. That shows how useless the Jedi, and likely the prophecy, is in the greater scheme of things.

 

The Jedi kept balance by stopping the dark side from taking over the galaxy. Luke’s issue was about failure and how the Jedi screwed things up. By the end he realised that he was too down on them and that the Jedi always evolved and found a way to bring balance.

 

Just because the force is strong with her doesn't mean she is going to accept the calling. It's like an athlete with insane talent. If they aren't interested in playing and working at their craft, they wont be as good as they can be.

First of all, this interpretation that Rey is insanely powerful is not accurate. She's advanced, but not abnormally.

So let's examine Rey's journey...

She does have a curiosity about the Jedi. In TFA she says to Han "The Jedi were real!" Almost like hearing Santa Claus is real. She knew the myth. She knew the things they can do. She just never had confirmation. Han confirms it and she's wild eyed about it. So we can establish that if she's excited about the existence of the Jedi, she knows what a Jedi can do, otherwise why be excited about them in the first place? So let's establish that Rey has knowledge of Jedi powers. Not how to execute them, but what some of them are.

The next time she experiences the Force is at Maz's castle. She hears the saber calling to her. She has the vision. She feels the force for the first time, and it scares the crap out of her. Max councils her and tells her the light has always been there. Close your eyes and feel it. She rejects, but the seed is planted that if she closes her eyes and focuses on this thing inside her that's always been there, she can use it. She's just starting to accept she may have this ability.

The first time she uses the force in a way we can see is the mind trick of the Storm Trooper. Right after she has connected with Kylo Ren in his attempt to read her mind. At this point she's SEEING someone with the force try and do the ultimate Jedi mind trick. Kylo is trying to penetrate her mind. BUT, she's able to resist and penetrate his mind. This most likely led to her trying to do the same thing to the Storm Trooper guard. She attempts it and fails twice. On the third try she tricks the weak minded trooper. As Kylo says, she just testing her powers. Now she has fully accepted that she can do stuff.

Finally during her battle with Kylo, she's motivated to use her powers because she just saw her friend get cut down. She reaches for the saber and it comes to her.
Why does she reach for the saber? Why does she know it's possible that if she reaches out and focuses on the saber it will come to her? Well in TLJ when Luke asks her what the Force is she says, "it's a power the Jedi have that control people and make things float". That's all she knew about the force from her mind probing with Kylo and her own personal knowledge gained on Jakku though stories, etc. That's all she needed thought, she floated the saber to her, fought Kylo and was losing until she let in the light. She did that when Kylo triggered her by saying he can show her the ways of the force. She remembered Maz. She let the force guide her and it "partially controlled her actions" like Obi-Wan told Luke the force would do in ANH.

That's the extent of her knowledge until Luke helps her connect to the force in the most powerful force temple in the galaxy. I'm sure that Island and that mountain top where Luke projected from is insanely powerful. She sits there and after a false start, is able to feel the force truly flow for the first time. Luke explains what the force is, and she sees it inside her.

In TLJ, Rey gets her butt kicked by Snoke. She struggles with the Praetorian Guards. She fights one while Kylo takes on two or three. She misses with her saber and screams. She gets cut. She gets taken to the ground. She wins, but barely. Remember, she already could fight. A pretty girl on Jakku had to learn to defend herself. Now that she has let the light in, she's a good fighter. But there is plenty more for her to learn.

The only other force power we see from her is lifting the rocks. Yes, it was a lot of rocks. But as Yoda says, size matters not. Luke failed with rocks because he didn't believe it could be done. He thought moving little stones and balancing Yoda on his foot was different than lifting an X-Wing out of the swamp. Rey doesn't think like Luke. She's a believer.

Rey still has a lot to learn. She will most likely self teach herself the Jedi texts. That's nothing new for her. She had to rely only on herself her entire life on Jakku. Teaching herself to pilot, to scavenge, to fix things, etc. Survival can be an amazing teacher.

There is more to the force than the tricks she's been able to do. That's why both Luke and Kylo tell her she needs a teacher. For some reason, the fans seem to have the same definaiotn of the force that Rey had...control people and lift rocks.

As for the other films and other Jedi. The situation is very different. Padawans are not just taught force tricks. They are taught discipline, commitment, and I'm sure normal schooling since they are so young. Being a Jedi is a lifestyle, not constant training. It's about trials, and testing yourself. It's about reaching out to see the future and the past.

Rey has a ton of potential, but we really haven't seen it displayed yet. Not if you are looking at the films objectively.

 

Rey's path of mastering the force is ridculously quick. You have already tried to explain her extraordinary display of telekinesis and mentioned the "size matters not" quote from Yoda. The thing is, there are obviously limits to the force. How do we know this? Well, it's simple. Noone before her in canon has achieved such a fast progression in skill and used telekinesis to the extend she has after mere weeks of training. We have seen talented, motivated forceusers, light and darksiders, who trained rigurously and under the supervision of powerful masters and none of them have mastered telekinesis to the degree she has. So there remains one question. What held these forceusers back from using the force like Rey and why is she so much more resourceful than any other forceuser in canon before her? She is just a nobody. What makes her different from Kit Fisto, Depa Billaba, Aayla Secura, Plo Koon and all the other nobody's out there. Why have we never seen anyone display such a masterful use of the force in such a short time? Why do all the other characters have limits but Rey doesn't? "Size matters not". Not to Rey at least. To everyone else in the more than 40 year old canon, including the one who made this statement, it obviously does...

 

First off, I appreciate your well thought out post. My main issue with the points you raise is it's based on Rey being an eager learner...which I agree, she's clearly eager to learn. I also agree that her eagerness helps her to learn faster than someone like Luke who seemed eager to give up at the first sign of difficulty. However, Anakin was eager to become a Jedi (and free the slaves). He was enamored with Qui Gon's powers and lightsaber. But he still required years of training to realize his power. He also experienced defeat to Dooku.

So far, Rey has received very little training, and I would argue based off of what we've seen in the past films, not enough training to be able to do what she's able to do. She also is undefeated in her fights through 2 films, and unless she loses to Kylo to close out the trilogy, she's going to go 3 for 3. Obi Wan, Qui Gon, Anakin, Dooku, Palpatine, Yoda, Mace, Kylo...they all experience defeat at some point. Are we supposed to just accept that Rey could be the only undefeated force user with little training all because she's an eager learner? That's a hard one for me to swallow

 

For those that think Kylo shouldn't have been defeated by Rey, remember one thing. He was unbalanced after killing his father and then having to fight a girl that he is probably attracted to. I mean Ben Solo was being forced to live a Jedi lifestyle. Then out of the blue he hears about a girl. He's like "what girl?" Then he sees she's a hottie with the force. INSTANT ATTRACTION! He's all like "I can show you the ways of the force". I bet he wanted to show her some other things too. The dude cannot fight her because he wants to BEEP her!

 

Shouldn't all of this belong in a Fan Fiction story thread.

Then published and submitted in a contest?

 

She got her butt kicked by Snoke. He was able to read her mind and find Luke. He toyed with her. She's not on his level. She's not even on Kylo's level since he fought of 3 guards to her 1. She's just been lucky so far.

Edit: She also lost to Luke. She just cheated and grabbed the lightsaber. She could't defeat a 60 year old man using an antenna as a sword.

 

Christ! When will this travesty of a rape fantasy end?

 

"You know I can take anything I want". What every girl dreams of hearing. Creepy Solo boy has no charm. He is not like his father! Then he follows it up with "You're nobody. You're nothing". He really needs to work on his pick up lines.

 

Depends on how good Kylo is in combat. He can defeat other apprentices and some guards. That's basically what Rey's done.

And we don't know what Yoda, Mace, Palpatine, Dooku, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon or Anakin did in training. Hell, they didn't even want to train Anakin. His training is probably what should have been covered in the PT, but it wasn't. The Jedi blindfolded toddlers and gave them training lightsabers. None of those kids missed a training bolt in that short scene. (The Jedi also sucked at everything and Obi-Wan couldn't figure out that Kamino was eras.....oh christ I'm getting flashbacks of anger).

Rey has shown a willingness to believe in herself more so than Luke did. You don't have to accept that, but we really don't have other canon to explain how kids learn about their abilities. Ezra makes leaps and evades capture repeatedly as a 14 year old and is able to build a lightsaber after a very short time of training, but he also has trouble learning to block objects with it that 5 year olds block without a problem. Everybody's different. We have images of Ahsoka levitating blocks as a baby - unsure about the canon of that. Pabloooooo!!!!!!!! As Filoni has said, midichlorians only indicate talent, not eventual ability.

And as I maintain, Star Wars isn't a role playing game, its a mythological soap opera and morality play about self-discovery. The choices make the hero, not experience points.

 

If these rocks are why you think she's more powerful than any other Jedi you are overthinking things and putting a display of raw strength over cunning, insight, sword play, patience, and mastery of your emotions. There's more to being a powerful force user than lifting rocks or mind tricks.

 

...”but not to me”.

SWOOOOOOON!

 

For the 10000th time it is not about the rocks. Get that out of the head. I will make it as simple as possible for you to understand why Rey is overpowered.

Step1. There's this force ability X. In 40 years of canon a lot of forceusers have displayed their ability to do X. Many of these forceusers were talented, motivated,trained and knowledgeable of the force. Because we saw the best of them do X we know what the limits of X are.

Step 2. Rey is a nobody. Naturally, we expect her to do X on the same level as all the other nobodies did X but she is far better than any of them. There needs to be a reason why she is so good at X or her character is badly written using X as a deus ex machina ignoring what we have learnt about X in the past.

 

Forget X. What is she better at?

 

Freaking telekinesis. I am not going to post the image where she levitates a huge mass of stones above groundlevel again. I already postedt that a bazillion times. She is also maxlevel at mindtricks (unless it was the first time Obi Wan did a mindtrick) and has the fastes learnign curve on any forceuser in canon. X is quite appropriarte since it shows the problem with Rey in connection with the canon. Why don't you go and google "why is Rey so powerful in the force" and see for yourself that many fans have an issue with her powers?

 

Have you ever thought the Jedi didn't value power over other traits? That maybe they stifled power? Were afraid of power? Could maybe that be why a raw power like Anakin they didn't want to train? Because they couldn't control that power and it would be easily seduced. Could maybe that be why the prequel Jedi weren't in touch with the living force and got WIPED OUT!?!