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- “Something inside me has always been there, but now it's awake. And I'm afraid. I don't know what it is or what to do with it, and I need help.”
- ―Rey[src]
Rey (later self-proclaimed Rey Skywalker) is the protagonist of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Rey is a lone scavenger who gets tangled in the war between the Resistance and the First Order. She uncovers her potential as a Force-user, while on her quest to seek out the sole existing Jedi, Luke Skywalker, to save the galaxy. During her journey, she develops an intimate and intricate relationship with the central antagonist who is the son of Princess Leia and Han Solo, Kylo Ren (whose real name is Ben Solo).
In the Star Wars: The Last Jedi, after being mentored by Luke Skywalker, his death makes her the sole known existing Jedi. In Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Rey helps to turn Kylo Ren back to the light when she risks her own life to heal and save him from his fatal wounds, and his love for her and his parents makes him decide to become Ben Solo again. She is also revealed to be the granddaughter of the Emperor, Darth Sidious. However, she later chooses to adopt the "Skywalker" name to honor the people she truly considers her family.
Background[]
Rey was born to Dathan and Miramir.[6] Dathan (her father) was an imperfect, good-natured clone of Darth Sidious with no connection to the Force and the Emperor considered him as his "son". She was born on the planet Hyperkarn and at the age of five, she was dropped off on the planet Jakku and sold to Unkar Plutt by her parents to prevent the Sith Eternal and Sidious' assassin Ochi from finding her.[3]
For the next fourteen years, she awaited her family's return, without knowing that they had been murdered by Ochi. Over the years, she became a proficient scavenger working to Unkar Plutt, and had to turn in any piece scrap she could salvage in return for food. Throughout her entire life since her childhood, Rey has a recurrent dream or nightmare about a man's[7] voice saying "Stay here, I'll come back for you sweetheart, I promise",[1][2][3][8] and she assumed it was a memory of one of her parents speaking with her. She clinged to this voice in moments of doubt as a reminder that her parents would come back for her, but she never was really able to figure out who the voice belonged to.
Personality[]
- “The galaxy may need a legend. I need someone to show me my place in all this.”
- ―Rey to Luke[src]
Rey is a loner due to being abandoned by her family, but hopes for them to return despite many years of their absence. Despite her years of isolation, Rey is kind, caring, and optimistic. However, she is also a very reserved person, tending to work alone and not to share her personal matters with others. Despite having vulnerabilities, Rey rarely shows them in front of others and often keeps her feelings to herself, only showing them to very few people as Leia and Kylo Ren, both of whom she sought for comfort and to share emotional struggles.
Having spent her life on Jakku, Rey imagined outside worlds, despite initially not wishing to leave the planet while she was expecting her family to return. Because of this, she is easily amazed by the beauty of nature. While living on the desert planet, she admired the beauty of the flowers of Jakku and used to collect the ones she found to put on display in her home, thought it was very hard to find them. The first time she saw the green forests of Takodana and upon seeing rain on Ahch-To, she becomes completely mesmerized. On the Resistance base at Ajan Kloss, she also spent a few moments contemplating the green forest she had spent a whole year in while training before leaving to a new journey.
Her years of scavenging in Jakku's unforgiving climate and atmosphere have shaped her to become highly adaptive, tough, and resourceful. In order to survive on Jakku and defend herself from thugs who would try to steal from her, she developed combat skills using her quarterstaff as a weapon. She is also an intelligent and gifted mechanic, knowing about all types of ships from studying the crafts parked at Niima Outpost and having built her own speeder. While working as a scavenger, she also recovered a computer which she used to practice flight simulations, turning her into an experienced pilot. Her versatility also allows her to find her way out of situations by unorthodox methods.
She is very hard-working, curious, and focused in her goals. On Jakku, Unkar Plutt considered her to be one of his best scavengers, as she always found and brought him good parts.[1] After getting possession of the sacred Jedi texts, she spent hours studying the books to find out more about the Force and to search for answers to questions she had, such as the nature of her connection with Kylo Ren.[3] She also becomes very interested in healing abilities and studies to learn how to use them. During her Jedi training at Ajan Kloss, she isolates herself in the forest of the planet to improve her combat skills and Force powers. Because of her intelligence and talent, during a single year, she is able to become much better and expand the variety of Force powers she can use.
Rey is usually calm and level-headed, even in life and death situations. In her first duel against Kylo Ren, Rey even maintained herself and persisted, despite the odds against her. However, Rey's emotions can sometimes cloud her judgment, such as when she runs in fear after having Force vision upon touching the Skywalker lightsaber.
She is plagued by loneliness after her family left her and has retained a child-like hope that they still would find her, but simultaneously, she also doubted if they really would. Because of this, Rey fears she is alone in the galaxy. She relies on her own self-identity too much on that of her parents, so her search for them is also a way to find out who she really is. Her need for her parents also makes her seek them in other people, such as Han Solo, Luke, and Leia, all of whom she soon views as parental figures in her life.
As noted by Maz Kanata and later by Kylo Ren, this is proven to be Rey's greatest weakness, as her belief that her parents will be back is shown to be a constant denial to protect herself from the truth that she deep down knows that they will never return. That is why she becomes devastated when the mirror cave shows her own reflection after she asked to see her parents, which makes her feel abandoned and think she is in fact completely alone. Her worst fears seem to be confirmed later, when Kylo Ren (who saw her past memories in a vision) reveals to her that she always knew and believed her parents were "nobodies" and that they were both dead, but she had repressed those painful memories because she was afraid this would mean that there was no place in the galaxy for her. As her parents were apparently nobody significant, this meant she would have to find her identity all by herself, which is the hardest thing she could have heard at the time.
Despite her internal struggles, Rey's kindness and compassion remain for everyone and everything, even Kylo Ren. They sympathize with each other because of their similar feelings of loneliness and abandonment, and try to comfort the other assuring that they are not alone anymore. After learning the full extent of his past through their bond in the Force, she becomes determined to bring him back to the light. Even when her attempts fail, Ren is legitimately touched by her genuine warmness towards him and, as result, they fall in love with each other. Later, her love is one of the key things that encourage him to leave the dark side, redeem himself, and be willing to sacrifice everything for her.
Rey also has a strong sense of justice, honor, and good morals. While living on Jakku, she heard stories about the Resistance and the Jedi and came to admire them. That is why she is surprised upon finding a very pessimistic and bitter Luke Skywalker on Ahch-To. In addition to this, because she is very stubborn and confident about her own beliefs, she continuously tries to convince him that the galaxy needs him and the Jedi again, and that joining the fight is the right thing to do.
Sometimes her sense of justice makes her act on impulse. During the third lesson Luke taught her, he lies by telling her the Caretaker village is being attacked, which makes Rey immediately run towards the village holding an ignited lightsaber to help despite Luke's warnings that the Jedi never acted on impulsive feelings. Upon finding out that the Jedi Master tricked her to see how she would react, she becomes infuriated as she expected very different behavior from the legendary Luke Skywalker she heard about and admired, and is disappointed by his decision to not join the war and wanting the Jedi to end.[2]
Upon sensing the conflict within Kylo Ren and seeing a future vision of him turning and the two of them fighting together, she also immediately decides to meet him. She goes to the Mega-class Star Dreadnought Supremacy believing she just needs some convincing to make him change sides, not caring about entering an enemy territory alone and ignoring Luke's warnings about the darkness inside Kylo. Afterwards, although she becomes disappointed and heartbroken with Kylo's decision to remain on the dark side, she recognizes that she was hasty to think that his decision was simple, as him rejecting his master didn't mean he would resist the pull the darkness has on him. Realizing her own impulsiveness, she decides to be patient and wait while hopefully expecting him to come back to the light on his own terms someday in the future.[2] However, despite her faults, it is because of her sense of rightness that Luke later recognizes Rey as the one who should succeed him and carry on the Jedi legacy in a new beginning.
While attempting to stay on the side of good, Rey repeatedly finds herself called towards the dark side, being filled with feelings of aggression, frustration, and wrathfulness, all of which become worse over time. While normally her anger is righteous, an outrage towards injustice, she starts to become more vicious and more likely to lash out during intense circumstances, such as when her safety and that of her allies are being compromised. In these situations, Rey rarely hesitates to become violent while suffering from such stress. This leads her to causing serious injuries towards Kylo Ren after a ferocious assault, as well as threatening Luke Skywalker with his father's lightsaber after learning of him nearly killing his nephew, whom she had grown more fond of due to their interactions during the Force-bond connections. Despite often being tempted by the dark side, and sometimes even actively seeking it like when the mirror cave called her during the meditation and later when she decides to go to the cave, normally her morals and desire to remain on the good side will bring her back to the light and make her reject the darkness, to the point that she even rejects Kylo Ren's proposal because he is on the dark side, despite being in love with him and wanting to be with Ben Solo, but only if he returns to the light.
After believing she had killed Chewbacca, coupled with discovering her ability to access the dark side power of Force lightning, Rey starts to doubt if she is truly a good person, especially following the discovery of the truth of her heritage. The revelation that she is a descendant of the Emperor shocked and horrified Rey even more than when she thought she was a "nobody", because she began to fear becoming just like her grandfather. The reveal that the Emperor had ordered her parents' deaths makes Rey feel vengeful towards him, which only heightens her doubt about herself. Rey faces her fear upon experiencing visions of a dark version of herself as well as of Kylo Ren and her sitting together on the Throne of the Sith. She reaches her limit during her duel with Kylo Ren on Kef Bir, where she gravely injures him. Her rage drives her to nearly kill Ren, but she senses the death of Leia and manages to let go of the growing hatred inside her, immediately feeling regret for brutally injuring Ben, who had become very dear to her. In an act of unconditional love for Ben, she decides to save him, sacrificing part of her own life in the process to heal him. This gesture of love and trust not only saves Kylo's life by healing his body and mind, but also ends up motivating him to turn back to the light.[4] Later, this detachment of hatred allows her to face the Emperor as an embodiment of all the Jedi.
Ashamed of her lineage and completely taken by the fear that her own actions would result in the dark side dominating her, causing her to become like her grandfather, Rey decides to live out in exile as Luke did once to stop herself from harming anyone else. However, when meeting Luke's Force spirit who reveals that he and Leia always knew of her lineage, Rey is comforted by Luke who tells her that "some things are stronger than blood", meaning that the dyad is more powerful than any Force-bond or bloodline and that Rey's choices prove that lineage does not define her.[4] This also makes Rey realize that the Force, friendship and love are stronger than blood. Luke assures her that despite what she did to Kylo, her saving his life right after and be willing to die for him in order to do it, shows that she has a good heart, which the Jedi Master and his sister were always able to sense in her.[3] This gives Rey the courage to confront the Emperor, but not out of hate as she decides to do it in order to save her friends.
Ultimately, so many years alone on Jakku made Rey yearn for a connection and someone who understood her. Ironically, the only person able to understand what Rey is going through is her enemy, Kylo Ren. He had suffered similar feelings of abandonment, so he tells her she is not alone, and repeatedly tries to assure her that he knows and understands her as he does during their duel on Kef Bir. Kylo longs to have her beside him, ending their feelings of loneliness. Although she denies his statement about knowing her and takes time to admit her wish to accept his hand, Rey is in wonder upon discovering her dyad connection with him. When a redeemed Ben Solo comes to her rescue while she is confronting her grandfather, they both finally feel that their connection is right, good and it is like coming home, and she realizes what the Emperor and Snoke had taken from them when Ben was corrupted to fall to the dark side.[3]
After Darth Sidious is defeated, Rey wakes up in Ben's arms after being revived by him, and she becomes joyful, kissing him to celebrate their dyad and that they found each other, but this soon turns into panic as she realizes that he sacrificed himself for her. She cries for Ben, feeling that half of her soul was ripped from her and wishing she had the chance to be with the man she loves. She mourns the loss of their dyad connection, which had become precious to her and is what she longed for after so many years consumed by loneliness. She is only comforted upon hearing his voice through the Force as Ben and the dyad itself are not truly gone.[3]
Sometime after the Resistance victory, Rey thinks about the ones she has grown to care about, and that without them, she wouldn't have survived her grandfather: her friends, the Jedi who came before her, and also Ben Solo, who sacrificed everything out of love for her.[3] She decides to renounce her lineage and take on the "Skywalker" surname not only to honor their legacy but also having recognized them as her true family.
Physical appearance[]
At the age of 25 during the first two films and 20 in the third film, Rey is a young girl with hazel eyes, brown hair, fair skin with brief freckles, and a slender but muscular body, as result of her tough life on Jakku. Despite the hardships of her life, according to Kylo Ren, she has a face that looks lovely.[3] Her short hair is often tied in three buns, similar to her mother's hair, and as it was when her parents left her.
During the several years she spent on Jakku until the age of 25, Rey is seen only with this hairstyle as she wants her parents to recognize her if they eventually return, and also because it is simple and practical for the life in the desert. Her outfit at this period consists of mostly beige clothes, including the arm wraps, capri-length pants, a shirt with long fabric pieces draped over her shoulders, in addition to a leather belt and bracelet on her left wrist, dark brown boots, and a brown pouch. She often also wears a mask with goggles that she uses when scavenging.
After the events on Starkiller Base, she changed most of her clothes to grey colored ones, including the capri-length pants and a vest, along with dark grey boots and a white shirt. She still wears her leather belt and the arm wraps, but the wraps are now white or grey. She is sometimes also seen wearing a hooded grey cape.
During her visit to the mirror cave, she falls inside a lake and her buns are undone, but instead of tying them afterwards, she spends some time with the hair worn down. Upon deciding to leave Ahch-To to meet Kylo Ren on the Supremacy, she keeps the loose hair and changes her outfit to even darker color tones. She then wears Jedi clothes that include a long black shirt with long fabric pieces draped over her shoulders that are grey colored, along with grey pants, leather boots, belt, and bracelet, and white arm wraps. While fighting the Praetorian Guards on the Supremacy, she also got a large scar on her right arm.
Sometime after the Battle of Crait, Rey changed her hairstyle to the three buns again and now wears Jedi clothes that are completely white, including the capri-length, the long fabric pieces draped over her shoulders, and a shirt that now includes a white hood. Her white arm wraps are now shorter, ending before her elbows, and she wears a leather arm guard on her right arm besides the leather bracelet on her left wrist. She also wears leather boots and a belt, which she clips the Skywalker lightsaber and later Leia's.
The dark side version of herself that she started to see in her visions, uses only black clothes, which contrasts with Rey's current white outfit. Dark Side Rey wears a long black dress with long sleeves and a long hooded cape, and she also has a black ring on a finger of her left hand.
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
- The Force: Rey has an astoundingly strong connection to the Force. She is gifted with raw strength in the Force and is described by Ben Solo as stronger than she realizes. Besides being a member of the Palpatine bloodline, a powerful family lineage, she and Ben Solo are also part of the prophesied Force dyad. The dyad in the Force, two that are one in the Force with the power of life itself, have the potential to acquire and share a great variety of Force powers. However, until learning from Luke Skywalker, she had received very little training, and depended mostly on skills she learned before she knew she was Force-sensitive or watched someone else using the Force. Her Force powers also started to improve after her awakening, and when Ben tried to interrogate her. As the two of them are a dyad, she was able to quickly learn abilities from his mind, as exemplified by the mind trick, so she became stronger through their bond. Rey's Force powers are rivaled by Ben Solo, her other half and equivalent in the Force, at his peak. According to Snoke, in time, Rey would grow stronger with the light side of the Force to match the strength of her counterpart, Kylo Ren, who was in the dark side. By the time of the events of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, her Force powers were such that after only a year of training, and with aid from all the Jedi from the past, Rey was able to destroy her grandfather, Darth Sidious by redirecting his Force lightning back at him using two lightsabers. This is something that Mace Windu had also once done when armed with one lightsaber, but had only succeeded in scarring the Sith Master.
- Telekinesis: Rey can telekinetically move objects or other individuals without physically touching them, and she utilizes it for offensive or defensive purposes, allowing her to freeze, and otherwise influence the movement of a targeted object or an individual. Her power was proven to rival that of Ben Solo. In an event that Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber was calling to her, she was able to pry the lightsaber out of Ren's own telekinetic grip when he tried to summon it to his hand, causing it to fly past him and into her hand instead. Additionally, after the Battle of Crait, Rey proved capable of lifting and moving a pile of small boulders simultaneously without much effort to open a passageway out of a cave for the Resistance. After a year of training with Leia on Ajan Kloss, Rey was able to levitate both herself, and large piles of stones high in the air. During the time of Darth Sidious' return to power, her power was great enough to tug a prison transport vessel towards the ground, though she still struggled immensely to do so, and held the medium-sized starship in a contested grip with Kylo, whose power matched hers. Additionally, while attempting to contact the Jedi from the past during meditation, she was able to make herself levitate, and cause several rocks to orbit her in a manner similar to planetary rings.
- Force Push: Rey can telekinetically send her opponents flying through the air, causing serious injury or temporarily incapacitating/knocking them unconscious, depending on how much power is unleashed. She did this with Finn to keep him away from her fight with Kylo Ren.
- Force Pull: Rey can telekinetically pull her opponents or objects towards her. She repeatedly has been able to summon the Skywalker lightsaber to her with ease, once holding it in a contested grip with Kylo Ren, who was similarly attempting to summon the weapon, until it was broken in half and unleashed a burst of energy that stunned both of them.
- Force Grip: Rey can telekinetically lift her opponents off the ground and into the air to immobilize them. She demonstrated by directing the aim of a Sith Eternal guard towards a second, as well as telekinetically slamming a third into the floor before casting him aside.
- Force Stasis: Rey can telekinetically slow down or completely halt the motion of a target, holding it in place with a paralyzing grip. She managed to use this technique to block and momentarily freeze Kylo's lightsaber blade in place as the two of them dueled atop the ruins of the second Death Star, though Kylo managed to pull his lightsaber free from the grip.
- Force Levitation: Rey can telekinetically levitate herself or slow down her fall to the ground. While training at the Resistance base on Ajan Kloss, Rey is seen levitating herself while she is meditating and trying to contact the Jedi of the past.
- Force Throw: Rey can telekinetically cause objects, and even individuals, to be hurled toward a target at an astounding velocity.
- Saber Throw: Rey can telekinetically guide her lightsaber towards her opponents, similar to a boomerang or shuriken. She performed this technique while practicing in the training course run by Leia, casting the lightsaber through the woods and then telekinetically guiding it back to her hand, all while simultaneously summoning a stick from the ground and smashing a training remote against a tree.
- Force Deflection: Rey can telekinetically redirect incoming attacks such as blaster bolts or Force lightning, with or without her lightsaber, although it was difficult to do so. She used this power against Sith Eternal guards surrounding Darth Sidious on Exegol, telekinetically catching and turning their blaster fire back at them. While assisted by the spirits of the Jedi, Rey was able to use both the Skywalker and Leia's lightsabers in conjunction with her Force powers to turn Sidious' lightning back on him, which disintegrated him.
- Telepathy: Rey can telekinetically communicate with other individuals over small or vast distances, especially Ben, due to their Force-bond.
- Mind Probe: Rey can telekinetically sense and sift through the thoughts and memories of other sentient beings. She was able to resist Kylo's attempt to probe her mind for the map to Luke Skywalker's location and even turned his attack back on him, although it should be noted that he was intentionally restraining himself while searching her mind. Upon overcoming him, she found herself inside his mind, and discovered Ben's own fears of inadequacy in the shadow of Darth Vader.
- Mind Trick: Rey can control the minds of other sentient beings, except for individuals with stronger wills. Rey learned this ability from Kylo Ren when she looked into his mind after turning his attempt to probe her mind against him. It took her three tries to master it, as she used it on a stormtrooper. She has since become exceedingly proficient with this power, being able to easily use it on more than one stormtrooper at the same time with a wave of a hand.
- Taming Beasts: Rey can control the minds of animals. Using her power to heal others, Rey was able to tame a vexis snake.
- Force Vision: Rey can see visions of the past, present, and future. However, like all Force-users, her visions are not always clear or sometimes they happen without warning. Due to her Force-bond with Ben, she had visions with him at least once before they met (when she touched Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber), causing her to recognize him the first time she sees him on Takodana. When they touched hands through their connection, she foresaw him turning to the light side with her help and fighting beside her in the future. She was plagued by visions of a dark version of herself and saw this version sitting on the Throne of the Sith together with Kylo Ren, events which ended up not happening.
- Force Sense: Rey can sense other sentient beings' emotions, the future, ripples in the Force caused by momentous or traumatic events, impending danger, and the presence of other light or dark side Force-users. She used this power while living on Jakku but was unaware of it, and just learned about it when Kylo attempted to use it against her. Due to her Force-bond with Ben, while on Jakku, she sensed his fury as he was dominated by the dark side just before he killed "Ren", the leader of the Knights of Ren. After her Force powers awoke, she was able to sense Kylo's fear to not be strong like Vader as well as the light that still existed inside him and the remorse he felt for killing his own father.
- Force Valor: Rey can temporarily push past physical limitations and renew her morale, stamina, accuracy and overall battle prowess through sheer concentration and willpower. This allowed her to defeat the more skilled, yet injured, Kylo Ren in battle by meditating on the Force as Maz Kanata taught her. Rey hearing the spirits of the Jedi gave her the strength to endure after being partially drained of life by Sidious along with the renewed Ben Solo and long enough to redirect his Force lightning back at him, an effort that while allowing her to successfully destroy him, ultimately proved fatal.
- Focused Rage: Rey can channel her anger to amplify her strength, durability, endurance, speed, ferocity, aggression, and the potency of her combat prowess/attacks, although doing so comes at the risk of corruption by the dark side of the Force. While first meditating on the Force for strength, her rage assisted her in overwhelming the weakened Kylo Ren in their first duel. Due to her growing frustration with Kylo and her fear of her own lineage, Rey used these aggressive emotions during her subsequent fights with him, although to a lesser effect, due to his recovery from his injuries and greater resolve, as well as her own unbalancing. During their final duel, it took Kylo being distracted by sensing his mother's death, which caused him to drop his lightsaber, for her to gain the upper hand. Dominated by rage, Rey grabbed the lightsaber, and impaled him with his own weapon. However, sensing Leia's death herself, she was able to let go of the hatred, and come back from the brink of the dark side of the Force. Realizing what she did to Ben in her moment of anger, she immediately regretted it, so she healed him.
- Force Jump: Rey can jump or leap at great distances. She performed this power twice on at least two separate occasions: once while dodging Kylo's TIE whisper and during her battle with him on the ruins of the second Death Star.
- Force Dash: Rey can move at amazing speeds.
- Force Dyad: Rey and Ben have a special kind of Force-bond, a Force dyad. Their dyad is a bond not seen in generations and its return was prophesied in ancient times by the Sith Eternal. It is an unbreakable bond that links Rey and Ben, spanning across space and time, and inextricably joins their lifelines, making them one in the Force. Furthermore, this connection allows them to use a great number of Force powers related with it, gaining access to skills that are even beyond the grasp of the most powerful Force-users. The dyad deeply connects them as one, transcending their physical beings. Together, the two halves of the dyad are believed to be capable of unlocking a power that knows no limits.[9]
- Force-Bond Connection: Rey and Ben's Force-bond is a unique one that connects them at random moments, despite them being separated. During the connections, they are able to see, talk and touch each other through spaces. This bond also links their minds, allowing them to understand each others feelings, facilitating telepathy, and enabling them to assimilate each other's powers and abilities besides allowing them to have shared visions. In the case of Ben and Rey, they are also able to physically interact during a connection because of their dyad, which is something that never occurred with other kinds of Force-bonds. As a consequence, Rey can instantly transport or receive an object through time and space during a Force-bond connection. She used this ability to send one of her lightsabers to an unarmed Ben Solo, so he could defeat the Knights of Ren. Rey was able to use this power because of her unique kind of bond with Ben.
- Force Healing: Rey can heal herself or other sentient beings from physical injuries. Rey learned about this power while she was studying one of the sacred Jedi texts, and used the descriptions of the book to heal the broken kyber crystal of the Skywalker lightsaber. She also used this power on a vexis snake, and later she was able to heal Ben Solo of a mortal wound she herself inflicted, although this left her in a state of exhaustion that persisted for a long time because of the large amount of life force she willing gave to save him. Rey was able to use this power because of the nature of her connection with Ben, as this is a power that individuals in a dyad possess.[5]
- Force Lightning: Rey can create and project lightning from her hands, but she has no control over it. This power might be a consequence of her Palpatine bloodline or an indication of the dark side dominating her in moments of fury. When she was triggered by her anger and desperation, she accidentally used this power to destroy a First Order transport that she believed was carrying Chewbacca. Knowing this power was of the dark side of the Force, and later discovering her connection to the Sith Master, she never used it again.
- Telekinesis: Rey can telekinetically move objects or other individuals without physically touching them, and she utilizes it for offensive or defensive purposes, allowing her to freeze, and otherwise influence the movement of a targeted object or an individual. Her power was proven to rival that of Ben Solo. In an event that Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber was calling to her, she was able to pry the lightsaber out of Ren's own telekinetic grip when he tried to summon it to his hand, causing it to fly past him and into her hand instead. Additionally, after the Battle of Crait, Rey proved capable of lifting and moving a pile of small boulders simultaneously without much effort to open a passageway out of a cave for the Resistance. After a year of training with Leia on Ajan Kloss, Rey was able to levitate both herself, and large piles of stones high in the air. During the time of Darth Sidious' return to power, her power was great enough to tug a prison transport vessel towards the ground, though she still struggled immensely to do so, and held the medium-sized starship in a contested grip with Kylo, whose power matched hers. Additionally, while attempting to contact the Jedi from the past during meditation, she was able to make herself levitate, and cause several rocks to orbit her in a manner similar to planetary rings.
Abilities[]
- Expert Staff Duelist: Rey is a very skilled staff duelist, having used her quarterstaff most of her life and developed combat skills with it, becoming very experienced while she was still living on Jakku. In order to defend herself and survive on the desert planet, she used her quaterstaff as a weapon, eventually becoming a very skilled and deadly duelist while fighting with it. This is shown when she is at the Niima Outpost, where a pair of thugs sent by Unkar Plutt try to capture BB-8 because she had refused to sell the droid to him. She wields her staff against the thugs and easily manages to fight and knock out them both by herself, despite them being larger and therefore physically stronger than her. Using her experience with the quaterstaff, Rey was also able to adapt her combat skills to duel with a lightsaber, but she still continued to train with the staff as seen when she was on Ahch-To. Later, she was capable to even surprise the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, knocking him down with the staff and briefly fighting with him using it after discovering that he had attempted to murder his own nephew, Ben Solo. Despite Luke having more years of experience in combat, which allowed him to defend himself from her furious attacks, she was able to keep up with him until she was disarmed of her quaterstaff, but she subsequently immediately called the Skywalker lightsaber, causing Luke to fall on his back on the ground and ending their confrontation. During her Jedi training on the Resistance base of Ajan Kloss, Rey used a regular tree branch as a staff to take down a red blaster probe droid. Later, on Kijimi, she used her quarterstaff and was able to take down Zorii Bliss and her spice runners with ease, until she used the Skywalker lightsaber to halt Zorii in her trail. Afterwards, while constructing a new lightsaber, she had considered making it double-bladed, fitting into this fighting style, but she later gave up the idea upon seeing the dark version of herself using one.
- Expert Lightsaber Duelist: Rey is a very skilled lightsaber duelist. She initially only had experience fighting with a quarterstaff as she developed combat skills with it in order to survive and defend herself from thugs who would try to steal from her on Jakku. Therefore, despite having no training with a lightsaber, she was quickly able to adapt to using one. Reading the mind of the Dark Jedi Kylo Ren while he attempted to interrogate her, also helped to unlock her Force abilities, develop her own skills, and to adapt to use the lightsaber, as part of his Jedi training was quickly assimilated by her due to their Force-bond. As such, Rey was able to defeat Kylo Ren on Starkiller Base, despite the dark warrior being a far more skilled and experienced lightsaber duelist then she was. She was able to overpower him after meditating on the Force as Maz Kanata taught her. However, it should also be noted that Ben had already been wounded by Chewbacca, was emotionally unstable because of Han Solo's death and had no intention to kill Rey, thus, he was not at the peak of his strength. Despite Rey's short time training with Luke, she improved enough that she was able to fight Snoke's Praetorian Guards on even terms alongside Kylo and eventually with his aid, overpower and kill the eight deadly warriors, despite the two lightsaber duelists being outnumbered. As of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Rey's lightsaber combat skills greatly improved to the point that she was able to fight on par against Ren, but she was ultimately no match for him, as the dark warrior eventually overpowered her. This was demonstrated during their last confrontation on Kef Bir, where she only managed to mortally wound him when he was distracted by the interference of his mother, Leia Organa. Later, on Exegol, Rey was able to defeat the Sovereign Protectors while being empowered by the dyad that was stronger than ever, to the point that she was able to fight in sync with Ben Solo and watch his back to warn him about one of the Knights of Ren trying to attack him from behind.
- Skilled Hand-to-Hand Combatant: Rey is a skilled hand-to-hand combatant.
- Skilled Markswoman: Rey is skilled in utilizing blaster pistols.
- Master Pilot: Rey is highly skilled in piloting various speeders and all types of flying crafts. She first gained experience by practicing on a computer which ran simulations with several types of flying crafts. This eventually made her a very skilled pilot while she was still living on Jakku, despite her not wanting to leave the planet at the time. Later, these skills are useful when she acquires the Millennium Falcon. In one of the Star Wars Adventures comics, Rey also is shown to be skilled piloting an X-wing when Poe Dameron takes her on a flying training run, fulfilling her dream of flying this model of ship.
- Master Engineer/Mechanic: Rey has a good understanding of engineering and mechanics. Working as a scavenger for so many years allowed her to learn about the things she collected and she also studied a lot about all types of crafts by poking around the ships that were parked at the Niima Outpost at night. As result, she became knowledgeable about multiple different machines, ships and weapons. Using these skills, she was able to construct her own speeder with the parts she collected while scavenging and recovered a computer which she used to practice flight simulations. Besides this, she also constructed and set traps around the AT-AT she used as her home, so thugs would not steal from her. Her skills are proven to be useful when she accidentally comes into possession of the Millennium Falcon. She knew how to work a ship's computer and circuitry systems, which allowed her to fix its motivator and later prevent the Falcon from breaking apart by removing one of the ship's circuits. She later uses her knowledge to construct a new lightsaber from parts of her quaterstaff.
- Genius-Level Intellect: Rey is amazingly intelligent and wise, which allows her to learn very quickly in different areas of knowledge. Besides being gifted and experienced on mechanics, piloting, languages and combat from the time she spent on Jakku, she later is shown to be very talented in acquiring new knowledge and powers using her newfound sensitivity to the Force. She was able to improve her lightsaber combat skills after training briefly on Ahch-To. After only one year training her use of the Force and reading the sacred Jedi texts, she was able to greatly improve and expand even more the variety of Force powers she can use, being Force healing the most noticeable of them.
- Meditation: Rey can further amplify her connection to the Force with a clear mind by meditating.
- Rebuke: Rey can reflect Force powers back at their caster, as when she reflected Kylo Ren's mind probe back at him.
- Multilingual: Rey is capable of fluently speaking Basic, Shyriiwook, and Binary.
Weapons and Equipment[]
Lightsabers[]
Rey's valued weapons and possessions are her blue and later yellow-bladed lightsabers. Not counting the hinged double-bladed lightsaber Rey saw her dark self wielding, so far, she has had three lightsabers.
- Skywalker Lightsaber: Rey first encountered Anakin Skywalker's (later Luke Skywalker's) lightsaber in Maz Kanata's castle, suffering visions after touching the weapon. According to Maz, the lightsaber was apparently calling to Rey through the Force, but Rey refused it, so Maz gave it to Finn instead. It was not until the battle on Starkiller Base that Rey finally wielded this lightsaber with great skill and kept the weapon during her journey to find Luke. Rey had offered this lightsaber to Luke on Ahch-To, but he refused it. Later, Kylo Ren used the weapon to kill his own master to save Rey's life before returning the lightsaber to her, so she could fight the Praetorian Guards. The weapon was broken in half when Rey and Kylo both tried to Force grab it, and she took both pieces with her. She later was able to repair it, using the healing techniques described in the sacred Jedi texts to heal the kyber crystal of the weapon. On Exegol, she utilized it in conjunction with Leia's lightsaber to destroy her grandfather, Darth Sidious, by redirecting his own lightning at him. She would later bury both lightsabers on Tatooine at the Lars Homestead, retiring the weapons as well as honoring the Skywalker family where their legacy began.
- Leia's Lightsaber: After Rey briefly exiled herself to Ahch-To out of fear that she was becoming exactly like her grandfather, Darth Sidious, the spirit of the late Luke Skywalker gave her Leia Organa's lightsaber, trusting her to complete his sister's Jedi path. She utilized it in conjunction with Anakin's lightsaber to destroy her grandfather, Sidious, by redirecting his own lightning at him. She would later bury both lightsabers on Tatooine at the Lars Homestead, retiring the weapons as well as honoring the Skywalker family where their legacy began.
- Third Lightsaber: While she was at the Resistance base on Ajan Kloss, Rey started to built a yellow-bladed lightsaber from parts of her quarterstaff, and she finished to construct it sometime after defeating Sidious. At first, she considered building a hinged double-bladed saber, but she gave up the idea after seeing the dark version of herself using one during the vision in the ruins of the second Death Star, so she opted for a single-bladed lightsaber. The hilt of this lightsaber has a blocky shape as the end of the quarterstaff, and an unusual rotating gear-based activation matrix instead of the button and switch-plate activation switches found in most lightsabers. When ignited, the emitter flashes green and blue before becoming yellow. This weapon is resistant to impact and overuse because of its heavy solid armor.
Blaster[]
- NN-14 blaster pistol: Rey acquired this pistol from Han Solo. She wielded this weapon on Takodana, the Twilek home planet, and on Pasaana. But according to The Rise of Skywalker visual dictionary, she has more collections of that blaster pistol in the Millennium Falcon.
Other Weapons[]
- Quarterstaff: Created by Rey, this staff served as her initial weapon of choice and navigation tool. The staff was crucial to helping Rey explore downed Star Destroyers on Jakku, as it helped her choose her steps wisely. It was also a useful weapon to defend herself against thugs at the Niima Outpost. Rey continued to use her staff to defend herself after leaving Jakku, as seen when she wielded it while training and also to confront Luke Skywalker on Ahch-To, and later to take down Zorii Bliss and her spice runners on Kijimi. She would eventually deconstruct it to create her own lightsaber.
Film Appearances[]
Star Wars: The Force Awakens[]
On the desert planet of Jakku, Rey discovers an astromech droid named BB-8 and acquires him after rescuing the droid from a scavenger. Unbeknownst to her, the droid carried a piece of a map that led to the location of Luke Skywalker, causing Rey to become a target of the First Order. She meets a renegade stormtrooper Finn and together they use the Millennium Falcon to get off Jakku. While Rey is unaware of his true identity, Finn lies to her in saying he is with the Resistance.
After the Falcon breaks down, they are abducted in a larger ship by the Falcon's previous owners, Han Solo and Chewbacca. Rey accidentally releases some rathtars which prove useful in their escape, as Han's dealings with a couple of gangs did not go so well, though she does rescue Finn at one point from one of the monsters. Han explains to them that Luke attempted to rebuild the Jedi Order, but went into exile after one of his students (who was also Han's son Ben) turned to the dark side and destroyed all that Luke built up.
Han and Chewbacca take the trio to Takodana to meet with Maz Kanata. Before going in, Han gives her a blaster and offers Rey a job to work for him in taking care of the Falcon, but Rey refuses, as she feels obligated to return to Jakku and wait for her family. During their meeting with Maz, Finn tries to leave the planet with a couple of aliens and reveals his backstory to Rey, offering her to escape with him to run away from the First Order. Rey refuses as Finn starts to leave with the other aliens.
Rey then hears the screams of a young girl in the lower part of the castle, where she discovers the lightsaber that previously belonged to Luke and Anakin Skywalker. Upon touching the saber, she receives a number of visions showcasing the past and future. She sees the corridors of the Death Star, Luke and R2-D2 before a burning Temple, the dark Force-user Kylo Ren along with the Knights of Ren in a rainy place, herself as a child when her family abandoned her on Jakku, then a forest covered in snow where she runs into Kylo Ren again, and during the vision she also hears the voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. Maz finds her and explains to her about the Force and that the lightsaber was calling to her. She tells Rey that whoever she is waiting for at Jakku will never come back but there is someone who still could, and that the belonging she seeks in not in the past but in the future. Maz asks her to take the lightsaber, but Rey refuses to be part of the war and leaves the castle in fear as BB-8 follows her into the woods.
When the battle on Takodana begins, Rey is still in the woods with BB-8. She asks BB-8 to hide and makes her way back to Maz's castle, but then she sees TIE fighters fly and destroy it. She runs back into the woods and fires on stormtroopers with the blaster that Han gave her earlier. She then encounters the figure she saw during the vision, Kylo Ren. Terrified, she fires on him, but he deflects all her attempts with his lightsaber before using the Force to freeze her and search her mind. Upon discovering that Rey had witnessed BB-8 show the map that leads to Luke, Kylo decides to take her with him instead of continuing to chase BB-8, so he causes her to collapse unconscious with the Force and carries her in his arms to his shuttle.
Rey is taken aboard Starkiller Base, where she later finds herself before Kylo who is watching her waking up inside the interrogation room. When Kylo states that he can still sense Rey's desire to kill him, she calls him a "creature in a mask", prompting Kylo to remove his helmet and reveal his face to her, surprising Rey as she sees that he is a young man. Ren attempts to question her for information about BB-8, but Rey refuses to tell him anything, so he uses the Force to search her mind again. He senses how lonely she is, sees the island and the ocean that she sees in her dreams, and how she considers Han Solo as a father figure. To this last thought, Kylo states that Rey would be disappointed with Han as a father. As Kylo uses the mind probe on her, Rey discovers what Maz meant when she found her in the castle basement - she is Force-sensitive and is able to use the same abilities Ren is trying to use on her to turn the tables. She enters his mind and senses that he is afraid he would never be as strong as his idol and grandfather, Darth Vader, which makes a surprised Kylo stop his mind probe.
Having failed to interrogate her, Kylo goes to consult his master, leaving Rey alone in the room with a stormtrooper guarding her. Rey uses the Jedi mind trick on the stormtrooper and hones her new abilities to escape. She later reunites with Finn, Han Solo, and Chewbacca, and is glad that Finn chose to stay behind and help the Resistance. They then plant thermal detonators inside the base in order to help the Resistance destroy the base, during which they witness Han Solo's death at the hands of his son, Kylo Ren. The three fire at Ren in rage, and later escape the crumbling base.
Finn and Rey later confront the injured Kylo in the snowy forest, and Ren uses the Force to knock out Rey unconscious by pushing her against a tree. Finn uses the lightsaber Rey found earlier to fight Kylo Ren and defend her, but loses and is severely injured. Before Ren can retrieve the blue lightsaber from the snow, Rey uses the Force to take it and duels him herself. Kylo initially has the upper hand, but when he corners her on the edge a rift, he offers to train Rey on the ways of the Force. Rey refuses, using his moment of hesitation to her advantage, Rey finds her strength in the Force and manages to overpower and defeat the already injured Kylo Ren, leaving a gruesome scar on his face in the process. Then, the planet starts to fall apart, causing a rift to open between Kylo and Rey, separating them. Rey finds the unconscious Finn before they are rescued by Chewbacca and escape to D'Qar.
As she and Leia mourn Han's death, R2-D2 wakes up, and using BB-8's missing piece, they discover where Luke Skywalker is hiding. Rey decides to go find him, but before she does, she kisses the comatose Finn on the front, thanking him for everything and saying that they will see each other again. Then she, Chewbacca, and R2-D2 go to Ahch-To, where she meets the older Luke Skywalker and presents him with the Skywalker lightsaber.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi[]
Rey's journey picks up from where Star Wars: The Force Awakens left off, with her presenting the Skywalker lightsaber to Luke. However, Rey is caught off guard when Luke tosses the weapon away and leaves. Rey, dumbfounded, recovers the lightsaber, follows Luke across the island of the First Jedi Temple and desperately tries to recruit his aid for the Resistance, but Luke continually refuses and asks her to leave. During this time, Rey stumbles upon an ancient tree containing some of the last Jedi books and manuscripts from the very origins of the Jedi Order, saying that the tree was familiar to her, as she had seen it in her dreams. Intrigued by this, Luke asks her to elaborate on these feelings, but instead, she continues to press Luke about aiding the Resistance. Luke again refuses, revealing that he has come to Ahch-To not to hide, but to die and end the Jedi Order where it began. When Rey and Chewbacca explain that Han has been murdered by Kylo Ren, a shocked Luke agrees to give Rey three lessons the next day at dawn on the Force and the Jedi, and why the order should end.
The next day, Rey discovers she has a Force-bond with Kylo Ren, and while they can see one another, neither can see where the other is. Frightened, Rey tries to shoot him, only to blast a hole in the wall of the hut she was sleeping in (but still causing him to feel the blast). Hearing the shot, Luke asks her if something is wrong, to which she lies and says she misfired her blaster while cleaning it. As he promised, Luke takes Rey to a high outcropping of rock for the first lesson on the Force. He then explains to her that the Force is more than being able to move objects and controlling the will of other people as she has experienced; but rather that it is the energy that binds both light and darkness and all living things together. He instructs her to reach out with the Force. After some miscommunication (further exacerbated by Luke playing a trick by tickling her hand with a blade of grass), Rey reaches out with the Force and feels the light and dark sides, only to be drawn to a cave filled with dark side energy beneath the island. Despite Luke's warnings to resist the temptations of the cave, Rey is still drawn to the cave and Luke is forced to snap her out of her trance, frightening Luke and causing him to compare her Force awakening to Ben Solo's, prompting him to leave the area. Later that day, Rey, unperturbed by her experience, practices with her quarterstaff on a rock overlooking the sea. She took notice of the lightsaber. Putting the quarterstaff away, Rey summons the lightsaber to her hand and continues practicing, finally slicing the stone in half. Unbeknownst to her, Luke silently watches her, and is unnerved by her prowess and speed.
As her training continues, Rey finds herself in constant contact with Kylo Ren, who talks to her and asks if she knows the truth of why the Jedi academy was destroyed. During her second lesson, Luke tells her that why he chose to go into his self-imposed exile: during Ben's training, Ben had been warped by Snoke, causing his fall to the dark side, forsaking his name of Ben Solo. According to Luke, Ben had destroyed his Jedi Temple, murdered most of the other apprentices and took a handful of like-minded students with him, leaving him sad and broken. In the evening, Rey is once again contacted by Kylo, and she asks him why did he kill Han Solo. Ren replies that he didn't hate his father and that Rey seems to be too attached to her parents even after them abandoned her. Kylo then tells her his own side of the story, claiming Luke had tried to kill him while he was sleeping, and Rey accuses him of lying. Right after, instigated by this conversation, Rey travels to the blowhole leading into the dark side mirror cave beneath the island to search for answers about her parents. She is swept into the cave by a wave, she then approaches a giant crystal mirror in the cave's heart and experiences another Force vision: she sees multiple versions of herself, and wonders about her place in the galaxy and the fates and identities of her parents, but as two shadow figures in the giant mirror walk towards her, they merge and turn into another reflection of herself.
After failing to discover the identities of her parents during her time in the cave and her training with Luke, Rey tells Kylo about the events inside the cave and confides him about her feelings of loneliness and despair. Sympathizing with her feelings, Ren assures her that she is not alone; Rey returns his gesture by telling him that he isn't either and then reaches out her hand to him. As Ren takes hold of it, Luke enters the hut to see them holding hands, horrifying him and causing him to destroy the hut in anger. Rey, in turn, angrily attacks Luke with her staff, only for him to disarm her, causing her to once more summon the Skywalker lightsaber and demand to know the truth about Kylo's turn to the dark side. Luke confesses to Rey that he was indeed prepared to kill Ben Solo in his sleep, but hesitated. By the time Luke realized that he had his lightsaber activated and over his nephew's body, Ben was awake and the look in his nephew's eyes was that of a scared child, not the eyes of Snoke or the dark side. The horror of what he had almost done and the ramifications resulting had also left Luke full of shame.
Rey tells Luke that when she touched hands with Kylo, she could sense the massive conflict within his heart, much like Luke could with his father, Darth Vader. Though Luke asserts to Rey that Kylo Ren is beyond her ability to save, Rey believes that Ren can be turned back to the light. Rey offers Luke the Skywalker lightsaber one more time in a last attempt to invite him to fight for the Resistance, but as Luke refuses it again, Rey declares that Ben Solo is their last hope to win the war before setting out to face Kylo alone. Unbeknownst to Luke, before leaving the island, Rey takes the sacred Jedi texts from the tree library with her aboard the Millennium Falcon. Upon returning to the Resistance fleet, Rey orders Chewbacca to launch her in escape pod towards Snoke's ship, the Mega-class Star Dreadnought Supremacy, where Ren is waiting for her. Rey is quickly taken into custody by Kylo's accompanying stormtroopers.
- “You don't have to do this. I feel the conflict in you. It's tearing you apart. Ben, when we touched hands, I saw your future. Just the shape of it, but solid and clear. You will not bow before Snoke. You'll turn... I'll help you, I saw it.”
- ―Rey to Kylo Ren about the vision she saw when they touched hands[src]
As they approach Snoke's throne room, Rey reminds Ren that he still has a chance to redeem himself as they ride up in the elevator. She tells him that when they touched hands, she saw a vision of him turning back to the light in the future with her help. Kylo replies that he also had a vision in which he saw her past and the identity of her parents; because of this, he is certain that she will join him and they will be together in the dark side. Arriving in the throne room, Snoke welcomes Rey and removes her handcuffs. The Supreme Leader then Force-pulls her lightsaber to him and sets it on the arm of his chair, disarming her. Snoke gleefully remarked that the former scavenger was Kylo Ren's opposite in the Force; the light to oppose his darkness. Snoke uses the Force to pull her towards him and proudly falsely claims he is the responsible for creating the Force-bond between Rey and Kylo in order to find and kill Luke Skywalker. When Snoke directly pries her for Luke's location, Rey boldly refuses and tries to summon her lightsaber to fight the Supreme Leader; In response Snoke merely redirects the weapon's course, causing the saber's hilt to hit her in the back of the head.
Amused by Rey's tenacity, Snoke brings her before a magnifying holo-projector to show the remaining members of the Resistance being destroyed by his forces, and vows she will join them as he will not allow anyone with the spirit of a Jedi to oppose his rule. Still defiant, Rey summons Ren's lightsaber from his belt with the Force and tries to engage Snoke, only for Snoke to easily restrain her once more. After Snoke successfully tortures her with mind probe for information on Luke Skywalker's location, he orders Kylo to kill the helpless Rey, confident his apprentice would do so, boasting that he could not be defeated or be betrayed. But as Snoke brags, Ren subtly uses the Force to turn the Skywalker lightsaber as he readies his own and activates it, cutting Snoke in half and killing him. After freeing her from the Supreme Leader's control, Kylo returns the Skywalker lightsaber to Rey, and she stares at him surprised that he saved her life. Armed with the lightsaber again, Rey finds herself in a truce with Kylo as they engage and kill Snoke's Praetorian Guards in a vicious and terrifying duel.
After killing all the guards, Rey pleads Kylo to help the Resistance. Instead, Kylo Ren holds out his hand and offers Rey the chance to join him to rule the galaxy by his side and reshape the galaxy in their image, saying that the only way they will both be free is if they sever the ties to their past and destroy the Jedi, the Sith and Resistance alike. Out of hope to convince her to join him, Ren reveals to Rey the truth about her parents: they were simple junk dealers who traded her away to Unkar Plutt for money and died on Jakku, where they lay buried in an unmarked grave. He also adds that her parents were "nobodies", but then confesses that he does care about her even if she is nothing to anyone else in history or in the galaxy.
Upon realizing that Ren would not come back with her, Rey is disappointed and heartbroken. She hesitates, but even after he pleaded for her to take his hand, she refused his offer. However, unlike when he asked her to be his apprentice on Starkiller Base, Rey rejected him with a broken heart as she genuinely have come to care about him. She then attempts to pull the Skywalker's lightsaber back to her as Kylo Ren attempts to pull it to him in an attempt to keep her from the weapon. The pressure of the Force from both users prove to be too much for the sword and splits the weapon in half, knocking both Rey and Kylo Ren unconscious in a blast of Force energy. Waking up first, Rey recovers both halves of the lightsaber and manages to escape the Supremacy, now starting to break apart and explode from the Resistance flagship slicing through it in a suicidal hyperspace jump.
Rey quickly reunites with Chewbacca aboard the Millennium Falcon and regroups with the Rebels on the nearby planet Crait. The pair arrive right as the Resistance is taking heavy losses from the First Order's assault; with Rey manning the Falcon's blaster turrets, Chewbacca is able to lure the attacking TIE fighters away from the battle through the planet's crystal caves and canyons, buying time for the Resistance to hold out and find a way of escaping. Despite Rey and Chewbacca's successful diversion of the First Order's air forces, the Resistance is still pushed back by the First Order's superior firepower. As Luke Skywalker marched out to delay the First Order's final assault and hold off Kylo Ren via Force projection, the Resistance sought to escape through a network of tunnels behind their base.
Following a two-way beacon provided by Leia (given to her before she left to find Luke) Rey and Chewbacca land near a back entrance to the old Rebel base, which is covered with boulders. Trusting in the power of the Force, Rey accepts her destiny as a Jedi and uses her powers to clear the exit, allowing the surviving Resistance members to escape. As she does, she feels Luke become one with the Force, and senses that he is at peace in his last moments. After getting everyone safely on board and reuniting with Finn, Rey shares one more interaction through the Force-bond with Kylo Ren. At first she becomes surprised upon seeing him, she briefly hesitates, but when Ren reaches out to her again, she shows her disappointment by closing the Falcon's door on him. Safely in hyperspace, Rey is reunites with Leia, who assures her that the Rebellion, and through it, hope, would survive to fight another day.
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker[]
Rey has been training under the tutelage of Leia for a year since the events of The Last Jedi. On the planet of Ajan Kloss, through apprenticeship to her master and through study of the texts she took from Ahch-To, Rey's Force abilities have grown to unprecedented levels, as she is now able to levitate herself and a series of stones through the air while meditating. By this time she had also repaired the Skywalker lightsaber, and has been utilizing it in her training. However, during one of her training sessions, Rey begins to have a shared vision with Kylo Ren, causing her to lose control and fail the obstacle course.
After learning from her friends Poe Dameron and Finn that the Emperor had returned to life on the Sith world of Exegol, Rey chooses to go with them to investigate information on how to find the planet given to them by a mole in the First Order ranks. The information on how to find Exegol is, according to the spy, inscribed on a Sith artifact that led to a rare Sith wayfinder. Kylo Ren already had one, but there was another that could still be found.
Traveling to the world of Pasaana, Rey, Finn, Chewbacca and Poe take C-3PO and BB-8 with them and find themselves in the native's Festival of the Ancestors. There, she has a Force-bond connection with Kylo who warns her that the Emperor wants her dead. Kylo asks Rey why she rejected his offer to join him, but Rey then asks why he didn't kill her when he had the chance. Kylo tells Rey that he does not want her dead and that she will eventually accept his hand, before stealing the necklace she gained in the festival with the intent to find out her location. Rey warns the others that Kylo will soon be coming after them. While trying to hide from First Order Stormtroopers, the group is fortunate enough to run into Lando Calrissian, who directs them to the ship where Ochi, a Sith assassin, kept the relic that would lead to the wayfinder. Rey is disappointed however when Lando declines to join in the fight against the First Order.
En route to Ochi's abandoned ship, the group is ambushed by First Order Jet Troopers, but they manage to destroy their attackers in a high-speed chase. Unbeknownst to them, the Knights of Ren are also following the group, waiting for Kylo Ren's orders to strike. Approaching the abandoned ship, the group is sucked down by the Shifting mires, a maze of black quicksand surrounding the wreck. Falling into a maze of tunnels, Rey and her friends discover Ochi's bones, alongside a large reptile known as a vexis snake. Though the snake appears hostile, Rey, seeing the animal is injured, uses the Force to heal its wounds, thus taming and calming the creature and causing it to reveal a way out of the tunnels the beast had created under the sand. Upon entering the ship and finding the relic, a dagger, Rey can sense the deaths the weapon had caused. C-3PO discovers Sith runes upon the blade, but is forbidden from translating them due to his programming. During the mission, Rey can sense Kylo Ren and leaves to confront him, while Finn simultaneously discovers that the Knights of Ren captured Chewbacca.
Confronting Kylo Ren, Rey waits for him to attack in his TIE whisper, and subsequently destroys it by slashing its wing with her lightsaber while leaping over to avoid being hit. Rey then tries to stop the transport carrying Chewbacca and the stolen Sith dagger using the Force. Kylo tugs back, and the subsequent fight causes Rey to issue a blast of Force lightning from her fingertips in anger, destroying the transport. Horrified by what she had done and thinking she killed Chewbacca, Rey barely manages to escape in time, taking C-3PO to the world of Kijimi, where Spice runner Zorii Bliss agrees to help them (at saber-point) to have the protocol droid translate the dagger's runes. Though it cost C-3PO his memory, the inscription is successfully translated, and Rey snuck aboard the Resurgent-class Star Destroyer Steadfast to retrieve the dagger and Chewbacca, who Rey discovers that is alive.
Infiltrating the ship, Rey makes her way to Kylo Ren's quarters, where she finds the dagger and Chewbacca's bowcaster and accessories. Drawn to the dagger, touching it causes Rey to have a vision of her parents' deaths, causing her to learn that they sacrificed themselves to save her. Sensing her presence, Kylo used his Force-bond with her to try to find her, proceeding to duel her during his search. Their bond allows them to see and fight physically even from afar, eventually revealing her presence in his quarters when their fight causes his table of ashes holding Darth Vader's helmet to fall in front of him. As Rey tries to escape, Kylo confronts her once more, revealing to her the truth: she is the Emperor's granddaughter and that they are a Force dyad, two that are one in the Force. He asks her to join him to defeat the Emperor and take his throne together. Despite her temptation to join him, she refuses and escapes on the Falcon that had come to rescue her. Still shaken about the truth of her origins, she goes with her comrades to Kef Bir, one of the moons of Endor.
Allying with a group of former stormtroopers who deserted the First Order, Rey makes her way to the wreckage of the second Death Star, aligning the dagger with the wreckage to pinpoint the location of the Sith wayfinder. Taking a skimmer to surf through the surging water, Rey enters the Death Star's throne room, where she confronts a dark version of herself. Escaping from this vision, she is confronted by Kylo Ren, who shatters the Sith wayfinder. Rey quickly attacks him and the two of them duel in the Death Star ruins. During their fight, Kylo Ren hears his mother call to him through the Force as she dies. Distracted, Kylo Ren is rendered helpless as Rey stabs him in the gut. Sensing Leia's death, Rey is able to let go of the rage that she was losing herself into and realize what she had just done. Rey instantly regrets having hurt someone dear to her and uses the Force to heal him, saving his life and healing all his wounds, including the one she gave him on Starkiller Base. Before she left, she says that back on the Supremacy after killing Snoke, Rey wanted to take Ben Solo's hand, not Kylo Ren's when it had been offered, confirming to him about her romantic feelings but that she would never join him in the dark side.
Shaken by her own recent actions and by the fact that her grandfather was the Dark Lord of the Sith, Rey takes Kylo Ren's TIE whisper to Ahch-To, where she burns it and then tries to dispose of the Skywalker lightsaber. Rey is stopped from destroying the weapon by the Force spirit of Luke. Luke confides in her that he always knew that Rey was a Palpatine and that Leia did too, and encourages her to face her fears, as is the destiny of all Jedi. Luke assures her that she has a good heart, saying some things are stronger than blood. Inspired and with her faith restored, Rey is given Luke's T-65B X-wing Red Five and Leia's lightsaber, which she takes with her to Exegol using the Sith wayfinder recovered from the TIE whisper wreckage to face her destiny.
Charting a course for the Resistance to follow, Rey makes her way to Exegol, where she faced the Emperor inside the throne romm. Rey refuses to give in to hatred as the Emperor wants to transfer into her once she kills him. Bringing down the chamber ceiling, Sidious shows her the Resistance losing the battle against the Sith Eternal forces, saying she can end the conflict by assuming his throne and letting him transfer his spirit into her, so that she can rule as the Empress of the new Sith Empire. Rey, desperate and feeling that she has no other option to save her friends, accepts to oblige his wishes. However, this confrontation of wills is broken by Kylo Ren, now redeemed as Ben Solo once more, arrives to help her. Sensing through the Force how he is changed, a tearful Rey is inspired to confront Sidious. Rey pretends that she will strike his grandfather and grant Sidious' wish, but instead she gives the Skywalker lightsaber to Ben using their Force-bond. As they are both empowered by the bond, Ben uses the Skywalker lightsaber to defeat the Knights of Ren while Rey fights Sidious' Sovereign Protectors.
Sidious then uses the Force to drain both Jedi of their Force dyad and restore himself completely to life. He then knocks Ben into a chasm with the Force and begins attacking the Resistance fleet with Force lightning in an attempt to stop them from destroying the Sith Eternal's fleet, the Final Order. As the Sith Lord gains the upper hand, Rey is called out by voices of many of the past Jedi, including Luke, his father Anakin, Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ahsoka Tano, Kanan Jarrus, Yoda, Luminara Unduli, Aayla Secura, Mace Windu, and Adi Gallia, who encourage her to keep fighting, lending their strength to her and she stops Palpatine from attacking the Resistance fleet. Sidious unleashes a storm of lightning against her, declaring himself as all the Sith, while Rey, using the Skywalker's and Leia's lightsabers, deflects it back at her, declaring herself to him as all the Jedi. His power turns against him, the Emperor can only watch as Rey, his own granddaughter, finally kills him once and for all, ending the battle between Jedi and Sith forever as the remaining forces of the Sith Eternal are destroyed by the people rising up against him. Exhausted, Rey collapses to the floor, dead.
- Ben: "I will always be with you."
- Rey: "No one's ever really gone."
- ―Ben and Rey after he vanished[src]
Ben Solo, having survived being thrown into the chasm, returns to her. Heavily injured from the fall, he crawls towards her and gathers her in his arms, seeing that Rey has sacrificed herself to kill Sidious. Ben embraces her and mourns the loss of his beloved, but he then decides to give Rey a second chance by transferring his life force into her, successfully resurrecting her. As Rey wakes up, she and Ben kiss passionately and smile at each other in love before he, while still in her arms, peacefully vanishes into the Force, having used all of his life force to revive Rey, sacrificing himself in a selfless act of genuine love.
Reuniting with her friends, Rey celebrates their victory against Palpatine and the Sith Eternal. After this, Rey travels to Tatooine and journeyed to the Lars Homestead where Luke had grown up. Having built her own lightsaber, Rey buries the Skywalker and Leia's lightsabers. When a passing local asked Rey her name, she looks around and sees the Force spirits of Luke and Leia watching over her. She replies that her name was "Rey Skywalker", honoring the Skywalkers and Ben's love and sacrifice for her, while renouncing her Palpatine lineage and taking the Skywalker surname with the blessing of Luke's and Leia's spirits, who watch proudly in the distance.
Television Appearances[]
Star Wars Rebels[]
Although she was not yet born in this period, her voice can be heard when Ezra Bridger is wondering in the Word Between Worlds. At the same time that Kylo's voice is heard speaking with Vader's burned helmet, it is possible to hear Rey saying "We'll see each other again. I believe that" something she tells to an unconscious Finn at the end of The Force Awakens.
Star Wars: Forces of Destiny[]
Rey appears in the animated miniseries, Star Wars: Forces of Destiny, with Daisy Ridley reprising her role.
In "Sands of Jakku", which takes place after Rey rescues BB-8 from scavengers, Rey takes the droid to her home. As they cross the desert, they are chased by a Nightwatcher worm that tries to eat BB-8. She saves her new friend, and, out of compassion, gives the worm something else to feast on. In "BB-8 Bandits", Rey and BB-8 are on their way to Niima Outpust, but end up getting chased by Teedo and two others. Riding speeder bikes, Rey and BB-8 are chased across the desert and into the wreckage of a Star Destroyer, where the Nightwatcher that Rey and BB-8 encountered in the previous episode shows up and attacks Teedo.
Then, in "Tracker Trouble", which takes place aboard the Millennium Falcon with Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Finn as Rey tries to disarm an explosive tracking device hidden aboard the craft by Unkar Plutt.
Finally, in "Porg Problems", some porgs steal her lightsaber during her Jedi training on Ahch-To, and she gets it back from them, which turned out to be an expected help for her training.
Video games[]
Disney Infinity[]
Rey makes an appearance in the third game, being playable in The Force Awakens Play Set and the Toy Box. She can also be used in the other Star Wars play sets when the player collects her crossover coins in each play set.
Star Wars: Force Arena[]
Rey is a playable character in Star Wars: Force Arena as a Legendary squad leader card.
LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens[]
Rey is a playable character in LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Her role in the game is very similar to her role in the film, albeit with some changes due to game levels and character abilities.
Disney Parks[]
Rey is a rare meet-and-greet character in the Disney Parks and was added to the Star Wars: A Galaxy Far, Far Away stage show at Disney's Hollywood Studios on June 30, 2017.
Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge[]
Rey appears in attractions and live performances in Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge, during events set on the planet Batuu sometime after the Battle of Crait. During this period, Rey travels to the planet while the Resistance is temporaly rebuilding. The First Order also appears on Batuu as Kylo Ren goes there while searching for Rey.
Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance[]
Rey appears as a hologram during the queue of this attraction. She tells the guests that a Resistance group infiltrated the First Order Star Destroyer, but as it is no longer safe, they have to board on transports and escape.
Live Stunt Show[]
During a live stunt show at the parks, Vi Moradi infiltrates a shuttle of the First Order to steal a datacard, but is captured when Kylo Ren uses the Force to freeze her and questions where is the location of the new Resistance base. However, Rey appears and frees Vi from Kylo's hold, telling him that the Resistance is everywhere, not just on a single place. Vi escapes, while Rey duels him. Kylo states that those fighting against him will fall and asks her why she is risking so much for a hopeless cause like the Resistance so Rey tells him that they fight for what they will win. Their duel ends when a stormtrooper tells Kylo about an incident on the destroyer, causing him to leave. After Kylo left, Rey reunites with Vi and Chewbacca as they escape the shuttle, and Rey says that General Organa is waiting for them.
Relationships[]
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Rey is the second female Jedi to be a lead character in the Star Wars universe, the first being Ahsoka Tano.
- She is the first leading female Jedi in the films proper.
- Rey was originally called "Kira". This name, spelled different, would later be used for the female protagonist of Solo.
- Rather than "Ray" - the typical spelling within the United States - the character's name is spelled as "Rey" - the typical spelling in all other Spanish and Occitan-speaking regions.
- "Rey" is also the word for "king" in Spanish and Portuguese (spelled "Rei" in the latter case). This became convenient with the reveal of her Imperial lineage.
- In the global casting call for Episode VII, Rey's name was changed to "Rachel" for the audition scripts.
- In the Bible, Rachel was the sister of Leah, a name which is also spelled as "Leia", a reference to the lead female character of the original Star Wars trilogy.
- Despite being born as a member of the Palpatine family, she has no known surname at birth, as all the Star Wars material refers to her only as "Rey" before she adopted the "Skywalker" name.
- In Colin Trevorrow's version of episode IX, her birth name would be "Rey Solana".
- Rey was infamously absent from Star Wars: The Force Awakens-themed merchandise, including a Monopoly set, and had very few figures on sale. She was apparently not included in the Monopoly set out of fear of spoiling her Force sensitivity and role as the true protagonist of the sequel trilogy, but was later included in a later version, sporting the lightsaber she wields in the climax.
- Director Rian Johnson states that the Force connections between Kylo Ren and Rey in Star Wars: The Last Jedi were used to make the two characters talk and develop their relationship, because if he put them face to face they would either fight, or make out, or one of them would have to be tied up.[10]
- During one of these Force-bond connections in The Last Jedi, a scene that caused some controversy is when Rey sees him shirtless. This scene, despite being somewhat gratuitous in nature, was established by Rian Johnson as Rey being able to see Kylo Ren entirely wherever he was and during whatever he was doing when they are bonded through the Force, not just seeing his eyes or hearing his voice. The director also explains that his intent was to show the progressive increase of intimacy between the two characters.[11][10]
- In The Last Jedi, after fighting Luke on Ahch-To, Rey states that Ben Solo is the "last hope" to win the war. Ironically, Ben Solo was named after Ben Kenobi (Obi-Wan), who Leia considered her last hope to win to the war, as seen in A New Hope when she records a message pleading for his help.
- Rey is the only protagonist of a Star Wars trilogy who didn't lose his or her right hand in the trilogy's middle film. However, she does receive a large scar on her right arm in The Last Jedi.
- According to The Rise of Skywalker: The Visual Dictionary, word about Rey in the Resistance's ranks helped the army's desperate need for recruitment to rebuild their numbers after the Battle of Crait.
- During an interview on "Jimmy Kimmel Live", Daisy Ridley revealed that she was not sure about Rey's lineage throughout the production of the sequel trilogy. She explains that it was initially considered that Rey would have a connection with Obi-Wan Kenobi in The Force Awakens, but there were different versions until it was finally decided that Rey would be no one in The Last Jedi. However, during the production of The Rise of Skywalker, director J.J. Abrams told her that she was the Emperor's granddaughter but he was still uncertain about this decision, so he changed his mind several times throughout the production of the film before making his final decision.[12][13]
- In the documentary The Skywalker Legacy, Rey and Ben's Force dyad is explained by one of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker screenwriters, Chris Terrio, as the Force acting as fate to bring them together, making them soulmates in the Force. Thus, even if they are on opposite sides of the war, their bond unites them, allowing them understand each other.[14]
- In Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: A Junior Novel, their connection is also described as them being twins, though not by blood but because they are two halves of one in the Force.[8] "Twins of the Force", as they are called in this novel, is also a reference to "twin souls" which is synonyms of "soulmates".
- In this same novel, Ben and Rey are also referred as "two stars sharing the same orbit", in other words, a binary star.[8]
- Rey has similarities to characters from legends:
- The "Legends Continuity" previously had given Darth Sidious a grandson named Ken, who was also a Jedi Knight and declared by Luke as a "Jedi Prince". Like Rey, Ken had been conflicted over his lineage as a Palpatine and renounced his family.
- Similar to Rey, Nat Skywalker (Bantha Rawk) abandoned his family name and changed it to "Bantha" Rawk. He also wields a yellow-bladed lightsaber and is an expert mechanical, repairer and creator. Finally, both him and Rey died to save the Jedi Order and Rebel armies, but unlike Nat, Rey was revived.
- Jaina Solo Fel also has a "twin in the Force", but the difference is that Jacen Solo and her are in fact blood related as the twin children of Leia and Han. Jaina also represents the light side while fighting in the Second Galactic Civil War, while her brother Jacen falls the dark side, abandoning the heroic ideals of his family to seek order through the darkness. However, while Jaina is forced to slay Jacen during their final duel, Rey quickly regrets stabbing Kylo Ren in a blind rage and heals him, saving his life and bringing Ben Solo back to the light.
- Bastila Shan wields a yellow-bladed lightsaber which she later replaces with a double-bladed saber, and then she replaces the yellow kyber crystal for a red one when she falls to the dark side. This resembles Rey having a yellow-bladed lightsaber while her dark side version wields a red double-bladed saber, and in Colin Trevorrow's version of episode IX, Rey would also have used a double-bladed version. Like Rey, Bastila also fell in love with a dark side user that she shares a Force-bond with, and he turned to the light after she saved his life (and the Sith that Bastila fell in love with, Darth Revan, used to wear a mask and had a very similar design to Kylo Ren before leaving the dark side).
- Similar to Cade Skywalker, she is a Jedi who rejected her biological family's legacy, uses Force lightning, has access to a very rare Force healing technique that the main villain exploits to restore himself, and is tempted by the dark side but chooses to fight for the light.
- Rey is one of the few Jedi that uses Force lightning along with Yoda and Count Dooku. In Legends, Luke Skywalker, Plo Kloon, Cade Skywalker, Jaina Solo, and Jacen Solo, among others, also use this ability.
- Rey is one of the Star Wars characters that has a clone as a father. The others are Boba Fett and the adoptive children of a clone trooper defector called Cut Lawrence.
- Rey is the first live-action character that wields a yellow-bladed lightsaber in the Star Wars universe. The other characters in the canon continuity that are known for using yellow-colored blades are the Jedi Temple Guards from the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels.[15]
- In The Star Wars Book, it is revealed that sometime after the events of The Rise of Skywalker, she acquired the rank of Jedi Master and is helping the galaxy to restore its long-awaited peace.[5]
- Despite never meeting General Hux in person, Rey's actions make him despise her for ruining his military career, though he is pleased when she defeats Kylo Ren, as revealed in The Last Jedi: Visual Dictionary that Hux becomes very delighted after Rey took down Kylo Ren on Starkiller Base and that the dark warrior needed to be rescued from the base's collapse. In The Rise of Skywalker: Expanded Edition, it is revealed that despite his hatred for her, his last thoughts before dying are of Rey defeating Kylo Ren once and for all.
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Alan Dean Foster (December 18, 2015). Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Del Rey Books.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Jason Fry (March 6, 2018). Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Expanded Edition. Del Rey Books.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Rae Carson (March 18, 2020). The Rise of Skywalker Expanded Edition. Del Rey Books.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Kristin Baver (April 6, 2021). Skywalker: A Family at War. DK Publishing.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Pablo Hidalgo, Cole Horton, and Dan Zehr (October 1, 2020). The Star Wars Book. Dorling Kindersley.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "'Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith' exclusive excerpt: Rey's parents showcased in Luke Skywalker-centric story". USA Today (May 19, 2022).
- ↑ "Mysterious Man's Voice". Imgur (September 13, 2021).
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Michael Kogge (April 21, 2020). Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: A Junior Novel. Disney–Lucasfilm Press.
- ↑ Marc Sumerak (October 12, 2021). Star Wars: The Secrets of the Sith. Insight Kids.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 "Q&A: Rian Johnson on the evolution of the Force in ‘Star Wars: The Last Jedi’ and more spoilers". Los Angeles Times (December 18, 2017).
- ↑ "'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' director explains why he decided to do that shirtless Kylo Ren scene". Insider (December 26, 2017).
- ↑ "Daisy Ridley Confirms Rey Was Almost a Kenobi, Then Her Parentage Got Retconned". IndieWire (September 9, 2020).
- ↑ "Guest Host Josh Gad Interviews Daisy Ridley". Youtube (September 8, 2020).
- ↑ "The Skywalker Legacy" (March 31, 2020).
- ↑ "Star Wars: The Lightsaber Collection" (October 20, 2020).
External links[]
- Rey on StarWars.com (backup link on Archive.org)
- Rey (Star Wars) on Wikipedia
- Rey on Heroes Wiki
- Rey on Love Interest Wiki
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