The Boy at the End of the Hallway

Great topic for a thread!

I believe it's Ben Solo, and I believe that little Rey may have been lured onto that ship that would end up dumping her on Jakku. If she had been tempted by some Knight of Ren with the prospect of meeting that boy who's supposedly part of her family but who she may never have met before, that would make a lot of sense to me. And then her world turns inside out, and she trips and falls - ending up on Jakku. I don't think she's entirely innocent when it comes to Luke's downfall; I think she has blocked that out.

 

It was on Bespin, and it was during the Vader/Luke lightsaber battle, so who else would it be other than Luke? You can even hear the "Noooo!" as she is walking towards it.

 

But why would she be interested in Luke as a little boy? His childhood is never an issue in TFA.

 

@FN NewGuy you've beat me to it with this thread! I read that yesterday and have been musing about it.
My guess is that it is Ben Solo. I believe that Ben once had a vision, similar to Rey, when he made contact with the saber.
I believe this vision is what Kylo refers to when he asks Vader to show him the Dark Side again.

The vision itself seems to show the journey of the lightsaber since Bespin but ties in closely with Kylo and Rey.
The shot of the clan massacre involving the KoR must happen well after Rey was left on Jakku as this happens after the academy destruction and so far as we know this all happened within 7 years of TFA.

In the original leaks for TFA, it said that Rey's parents were part of the Clan (that we see massacred) but they escaped with Rey.
Now, as I said above, it seems Rey can't have been there (unless this timeline of events is incorrect) but maybe her parents were?
This saga seems to be all about Rey and Kylo - the yin and the yang. So for me whether through family connection or not, their destinies are entwined and my view is that this ties them together with Anakin's saber and the visions.

 

You forget Luke is referred to as a "boy" frequently in ESB. "Boy" does not necessarily mean a child, but can also mean a young man.

Anyway, to me the vision is clearly Luke. It matches with the scenes in ESB.

 

this is my thought exactly. they are sharing this part of the vision.
this is also why i think they'll end up being Force-bonded (if they're not already).

 

Would you not call Luke in ESB a "boy"? It never says little boy, just a boy.

 

I'm talking about TFA. The vision must make sense within its immediate TFA context. Rey wasn't in ESB.

(And no - I don't remember Vader in a lightsaber duel with a "boy" in ESB. Luke was a grown man for all intents and purposes, the way I see it, and a worthy opponent to Vader even then.)

I believe the boy must be referenced to within TFA, and I can't think of anyone but Ben who fits that bill. He is the only one whose childhood is specifically mentioned in TFA.

 

Force visions tend to be intensely personal, so right away I'm thinking the boy Rey sees is someone either from her youth or someone from her family's past.

If it's someone from her youth, then Ben Solo could be a strong possibility, unless she had a brother.

If the vision is more along the lines of showing her the lineage of the lightsaber itself, then young Anakin or Luke become possibilities, and these possibilities perhaps speak to her family lineage, if she is indeed a Skywalker.

There can be other possibilities, given the abstract nature of the vision and the mysteries of the Force itself.

It's interesting that Rey runs both in the vision and immediately after the vision and speaking with Maz Kanata, partly in flight from the mysterious truth the Force was trying to impart to her, paralleling Luke's flight from Vader (by jumping) after learning Vader was his father.

Also interesting to note that, in the image at the top of this thread, Rey seems to be standing on what looks to be the same square in the hallway where Luke stood right before he engaged Vader in that scene.

While Rey's vision occurs so quickly in the film, having the novelization nearby to consult for parts like this can be nice.

If anyone here hasn't read it yet, I highly recommend (if you're not immediately inclined to buy it) to see if the book is available for borrowing from your local public or college library. Many libraries now offer eBooks as well.

JediMasterRobert

 

You don't say? I'm talking about the flashback. She is literally running down the hallway in Cloud City.

It must make sense in the context of the lightsaber, the reason for her flashback. What significant event happened on Cloud City, that involved the lightsaber, and Luke screaming "Nooo!"?

Who would be the closest person to a "boy" in that scene, at the end of the hallway, where Luke and Vader were fighting?

You say Rey wasn't in ESB, so what business would a young Kylo possibly have being there??

You say it must make sense in context, but you're taking it way out of context simply so it makes sense to you.

 

while i agree reading the book is a great idea and can enrich the experience, i caution taking too much from it as clear "evidence".

Foster wrote it from a script and apparently (according to at least one interview i read) without a deeper understanding of certain subtexts revealed in the film. the vision in particular contains contradictions and is sequentially different from what TFA shows us.
so we can speculate on intent, but it's probably best to take everything with spoonfuls of salt.

 

For me the boy is Anakin. He decided to become a machine before he could be a grown man and somehow the boy is still out there.

 

If Ben and Rey have the same grandfather, their link to the Cloud City incident is identical. It makes sense to me that the vision makes her aware of that link, especially if it turns out that Kylo has already touched the same lightsaber at some point before she did.

 

Yes, I know the book is not the final say on the matter, since the film was developed and edited after it.

Pablo had some good advice on this:




JediMasterRobert

 

It's Luke in the Bespin hallway.

It never said the boy was little.

 

I think the scenes in the vision are in chronological order. Thus, if the boy appears at the beginning of the vision, it must have happened prior to Rey and Kylo being born. Therefore, it is likely Luke or Anakin. I personally think it is Anakin, since the whole saga starts with him as a boy and he builds the lightsaber.

 

This can't be the case as Rey being left on Jakku has to have occurred before Kylo turned and destroyed the Jedi. If that happened at same time, the clan massacre flashback certainly occurred later.

It could well refer to Luke but I think it's Ben. I think this trilogy is about Kylo and Rey and essentially the impact that Vader and Lukes legacy has had on them.

 

Why does Rey have to be left on Jakku before Kylo turns? It is possible that he left Rey alive and didn't tell Snoke. It is pretty clear that Kylo knows who Rey is in the novel: "It is you!" Rey could have even been moved to another planet before Jakku (the rain massacre scene) and then dropped off on Jakku by Kylo. It makes more sense that someone like Kylo would drop her on a place like Jakku than a mother or father. I think the light side kept him from killing her (I assume she is his cousin). In the film the figure he impales is clearly striking at her. I'm guessing Kylo saved her life and dropped her on Jakku to hide her from Snoke.

By the way, the novel places the rain fight before the Luke and R2 scene. It seems like it was meant (in the novel at least) to be the temple massacre: "a distant, burning temple."

Then there is the voice she hears that needs to be considered:

The voice is clearly not a flash forward even though she is in Starkiller's forest. I think the boy (likely Ben) and the voice are non-chronological, but everything else is meant to be.

What they intended the vision moments to mean could be changed in the end, so it is up in the air as to what any of this means at the moment.

Unfortunately, we are back to multiple levels of canon with the novelization (especially with how Starkiller works), no matter how they try to spin it.