Why doesn't Rey know who her parents are in TLJ?

i guess i don't understand.
she never says she doesn't remember them or know who they are.
she was waiting for them. that tells me she does know who they are, maybe even knows their names and/or other information.
she's just in denial about the fact that they are scuzzy losers that aren't coming back for her.

maybe i'm missing something?

 

Then you obviously have led a very fortunate, and safe life. Congratulations.

 

Exactly! Thanks to the directors/writers we know it was the correct impression. We can all get different impressions from the same source but in this case anyone who came out under the impression that her parent's identity was important was reading into the film something that was not there, as stated by the makers of the film.

 

Her parent's identity are important! They're important to Rey, who desperately wants to believe they are good people. More than that she wants to believe they left her on Jakku for a reason beyond just booze money. She doesn't want to come from nothing. She wants to be somebody. Her main drive throughout TFA and TLJ is to find a purpose, to find someone that will comfort her, and will tell her she is important. That's why it's so crushing for her when she is forced to face the truth, and why it is so comforting when at the end of the film she does finally find the people that will embrace her.

 

It doesn't matter who her parents are. She is just as important no matter what.

 

Her waiting and pining to know who her parents were is what held her back. When she went into the cave and faced the mirror, she got her answer. She got her identity. And she accepted it and moved on.

 

I think I found the script, not sure if 100% correct, I guess what the OP and some of us are saying is that the dialogue with Kylo implies that Rey expected to be the the daughter of someone important. Why would Rey ever expect this? There was no reason or previous indication to this, so it seems like Kylo is talking for the audience.
Rey only wanted to know if her parents loved her or why they didn't come back for her, she has no reason to expect that her parents are anything but two nobodies from Jakku, only the audience does.

Do you wanna know the truth
about your parents?


Or have you always known?


And you've just
hidden it away.


You know the truth.


Say it.


Say it.


They were nobody.


They were filthy junk traders


who sold you off
for drinking money.


(SOBS)


They're dead in a paupers'
grave in the Jakku desert.


You have no place
in this story.


You come from nothing.
You're nothing.


But not to me.


Join me.


Please.

 

Exactly! And I cheered for her at the end on the falcon.

Conversation with Leia was like a mother-daughter one. Rey Solo still happened but not biologically!

 

Well no. She didn't accept it, and move on. "I thought this place would show me what I wanted, but instead it showed me nothing." Even knowing the absolute truth, she still wasn't able to move past it until Kylo forced her to admit it.

 

She wanted parents who loved her. That’s it. Love, not specialness.

It’s why she has her mental block, she thought they’d come back for her because they loved her, not wanting to face the truth that they didn’t. Never did.

 

thank you for finally clarifying the issue.

i guess it's not that Rey expected to be somebody.
this is Ben projecting her worth on her.
he is obviously somebody and has been told his whole life that his destiny is critical to the galaxy.
he's essentially telling her: you're nobody but i want you to share my destiny.

i see now that you're saying that the lines are there for the audience's benefit, and i don't disagree, but they work in context of the scene.
Ben is drawing a distinction between his own privilege are her nothingness. he's doing that. not her.
as @Withred says, all she cares about is that she wanted to be loved and wanted (which is actually his problem too).

 

What I'm saying is;she got to a place where she was able to stop looking back as Maz stated. They still may explore it in IX because it may be a weakness similar to Anakin. It is an attachment of sorts.

 

So he wanted to share his special sparkly destiny with her! When all she wanted was simple human affection (not romantic) and not to murder innocents.

--- Double Post Merged, Dec 18, 2017, Original Post Date: Dec 18, 2017 ---

Nope. Well she didnt know their names, but she probably got cynical ideas when she was older that they were simple cruel people who didn't love her. And that was her entire reason for staying on Jakku. So she blocked it.

 

In all honesty, she gets that in the end. From Finn, Leia and even Poe.

 

She follows the Derrick Zoolander method; helping people instead of killing and enslaving them.

Also, small resistance and new jedi order VS leading FO with a hunky man with an 8 pack...I know which one I’d pick!

 

"You have no place in this story."

Clearly aimed at the audience.

 

That's a good interpretation but I'm not certain I agree it makes sense, this implies like I heard a lot of times lately that the Skywalkers are some kind of royalty or nobility or heirs to anything. I don't think Kylo's position of power in the FO has anything to do with that, it's simply because he is strong with the force and Rey is even stronger from what we have seen so far. So I don't understand what is Kylo supposed to be sharing here in relation to their lineage.