Who left Rey on Jakku?

8 times, still not enough as far as I'm concerned; I may go again this week just because! And to be clear, I'm not "positive" that Rey is Luke's daughter, I'm assuming in the sense that it is a possibility, there's a chance; it's also possible she's just a relative; it's also possible she's nothing at all to him, maybe not even a former pupil. I'm also assuming there's a chance she's Wedge Antilles daughter, what a bad ass: "Oh what, another Death Star?? Let me finish this ham sammich first and I'll get right to it." I am not ruling anything out that's even a remote possibility, because quite frankly its just fun to hypothesize, I guess.

As far as who left a little girl on a desert planet without a responsible guardian, never to return, well that's something a parent wouldn't do, not this parent anyways. That's straight up abandonment, equivalent to leaving your baby in a dumpster IMO. My theory is that whoever her parents are, they're either dead, or they believe Rey is dead or missing. Luke did not look at Rey as if she was his daughter at the end of TFA, unless it was there and I missed it or if he is her papa, he doesn't recognize her.

And furthermore, maybe there's a reason, after knowing Han Solo for what, 3 minutes, she sees him as a father figure? Maybe, in this version of a GFFA, Han and Leia had a daughter that they thought was killed (as I've previously mentioned) at Luke's Jedi academy? You could say, "But Leia would've known Rey was her daughter BECAUSE THE FORCE!!!!!!!!!!!" Well, that's total BS since Vader didn't know right away that Luke was his child (but the Emperor knew...bad dad Vader strikes again) and he obviously didn't know Leia was his daughter when he was mind-probing her in ANH or when he first confronts her: "You are part of the Rebel Alliance and a traitor, take her away!!" So yeah maybe Kylo/Ben did leave Rey there, but why there and basically alone? Let's say they're siblings, would a brother do that to a sister? Maybe, considering he's got issues. Even a 16-17 year old kid wouldn't leave a 5 year old with losers in a junkyard on purpose.

 

he would if the alternative was to kill her. if Ben/Ren was the one to ditch Rey, he might have done so to "wash his hands" of her blood. leave her to the fates, so to speak.

i don't think they're siblings. and less and less i think this is what happened, but there is a certain possible logic to it.

 

Anything is possible at this point, but I'm leaning more and more toward Rey as being a version of Jaina Solo, or at least inspired by her: piloting skill, mechanical aptitude, Force power, etc. Based upon this theory, if Kylo Ren killed Luke's other pupils maybe he either missed out killing his sister (theory, relax, just theory) or thought she was dead, or, he spared her to hide her from Snoke and tasked another Knight of Ren with hiding her? Or maybe someone else found her alive, or just had access to her, and hid her on Jakku temporarily; maybe they were killed and couldn't return, someone who had a relationship with Unkar Plutt, in some way. This could also be the case if she was Luke's child. If Kylo/Ben would have left Rey on Jakku, he would have started to suspect it was her, I would imagine, once she became relevant in his search for BB8. Regardless, there are many reasons as to how she could be Kylo's brother and neither he, Han nor Leia would realize she was who she was.

 

sure! we're all just speculating. my first impression from reading the book was that Kylo Ren definitely thought he knew her from the moment it was mentioned that "a girl" was on the freighter with BB-8. i've flipped on that position after subsequent viewings / readings, but there are logical ways for many of these theories to make sense.

the connections to Jaina seem to be borrowed, i agree (too many similarities). so maybe there's something in that or maybe they were just characteristics that suited the direction they're going in, regardless of who Rey turns out to be. we'll see!

 

We don't know exactly who dropped her off but we know she is waiting for her parents (or who she thinks are her parents) to come back for her. From Before the Awakening

Rey never allowed herself to consider it. They wanted to leave ((leaving with Devi and Strunk) but Rey had to stay. At least until they came back for her. If she left, her parents would have no way of finding her.

 

You know, imagine if after all this theorizing, it turns out that her parents are no one of consequence....

 

Well that happened to Analon Skywalker...his mom was of no consequence...maybe Rey's parents were of no consequence and they adopted her but her REAL parents are of importance (?) .

 

Themore I think about it, the more I think this might be the case. Well, either this or it's Kylo Ren who dropped her off. I really can't imagine Han, Luke, or Leia doing something like this. They would have at least left her with a family to take her in.

 

To be fair she was left in the care of Unkar Plutt .

 

Yeah, that's not a guy I trust to take care of a kid.

 

Or, like someone said, she was kidnapped from her parents and delivered to Unkar as a "payment" and the ship/people Rey is screaming to "come back" and "stuff" are the people who took her and she wants them to not leave her ...

 

This is just speculation, of course, and I'm extrapolating a lot from dialogue spoken in completely different contexts, but: What if Rey vaguely remembers Han because she connects his name with her father, as her father's best friend?

There's this weird thing Han says to Leia at the base, which strikes me as odd dialogue in that situation. In the previous scene, 3CPO has just explained to BB8 that R2 has been in low power mode ever since Luke went away. And in the very next scene, Han says to Leia that "every time you look at me, you're reminded of him." I remember going "who - Luke?" both times I saw the movie. Now I know they end up talking about Ben/Kylo but to me as audience that association between Han and Luke was obvious. These two are always the ones we've seen together, and now we only got one part, and we want the other half back. Which is exactly what I think the movie is going for - using characters as visual reminders of situations/relationships in the same way they claim to use props like memory sticks and lightsabers.

So I went back to Rey's first encounter with Han and started wondering if this encounter didn't bring back memories of her own childhood. She excitedly remembers Han Solo as a smuggler, which could have been one of the stories her father told her about his best friend - war stories are probably boring. She remembers the Millennium Falcon/parsecs story. Most importantly, she learns that he knew Luke, and that's when the bonding starts. Rey even keeps a "fatherly" mental image of Han in her head after declining his job offer. All that tells me that Han functions as a visual cue to some memory Rey is trying to clarify. The human version of the data thing in BB8.

I could actually imagine now that Rey and the Falcon arrived on Jakku in separate events, and that it was Unkar who came back in the Falcon (after having acquired it on Takodana) and told Rey that story about Ducain. The ship doesn't seem to remind her of her abandonment, but I believe it was dumped there on purpose as another visual cue of "happy times", to get her to leave voluntarily.

I do believe that Luke visually recognized Rey in the final scene - at least the script heavily implies that he is supposed to, and she hasn't dared change her outfit in 10+ years. But I admit it was badly executed.

 

The "reminded of him line" is strictly regarding Kylo and is meant to help demonstrate the pain Han and Leia went through and part of the reason for there separation. It had no context to Luke

The scene where Rey and Finn learn that the person they have just come across serves a few purposes. It serves as an introduction of Han to Rey and Finn as well as newcomers to the SW saga. It tells the new viewers in a succinct way that Han was a smuggler and a war hero. It apps shows the difference in Rey and Finn's upbringing. Finn being brought up in three FO knows Han as a rebel general. Rey who grew up in a backwater planet of scum and villainy has heard stories about Han the smuggler.

 

Not sure.... but they're never coming back!

 

From what is given in the movie, I'm not expecting to ever meet or know who left Rey on Jakku, or why. Maz seems to spell it out pretty directly there. But one thing is in the back of my mind. And you know what that is? Ben telling Luke his father was killed by Darth Vader. So, I'm a little hesitant to chalk Maz up to literally truths; I can easily imagine a scene in the next movies somewhere with Rey saying to Maz "You said they were never coming back" and Maz "What I told you was true- from a certain point of view"

 

Those are all good points, but I think the real nail in the coffin is this: although Ben/Kylo is now older than he would have been had he been the one who left Rey on Jakku, he would not be unrecognizable. He showed Rey who he is and Rey showed no sign that she knew him previously. That tells me that, at the very least, Ben/Kylo did not personally take Rey to Jakku and hand her off to Unkar Plutt. It also tells me that he did not speak to her about her family coming back for her at any time.

That said, it's not outside the realm of possibility that Ben/Kylo engineered her arrival on Jakku. It's unlikely, but not impossible.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 26, 2016, Original Post Date: Feb 26, 2016 ---

If Rey is a Solo, and thus Ben's sister, there would have to be some mind-wiping involved there. We have seen that Ben's aptitude with using the Force to probe minds is strong, so it's possible. I like the bit about tasking another Knight of Ren with taking her to Jakku. It makes more sense to me than him sparing her, taking her to Jakku, and wiping her mind before giving her to Unkar.

 

And he could have killed that Knight after the deed. Killing the witness. The secret's safe with him then. That would be Kylo-ish.