Rey

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Character
Name: Rey
Occupation: Jakku scavenger, Jedi
Relationships: Finn (friend), Chewbacca (friend), Luke Skywalker (former teacher), Leia Organa (former teacher), Sheev Palpatine​ (grandfather), Kylo Ren (dyad, love interest, former enemy)
Fandom: Star Wars, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Other:
Rey, The scavenger by ArtofFlo. View original here.
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Rey is a main character from the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens. She is played by Daisy Ridley.

Canon

In The Force Awakens, Rey first appears as a lone scavenger on Jakku. For most of the film, she is determined to return to Jakku and await the return of her parents, who left her there as a child. She and Finn help BB-8 escape from the First Order, but she is captured by Kylo Ren. During interrogation, she is shown to have force sensitivity. She escapes and defeats Kylo Ren in a lightsaber battle. At the end of the movie, she receives Leia Organa's blessing to search for Luke Skywalker; she travels with Chewbacca to do so.

In The Last Jedi, Rey is training with a reluctant Luke Skywalker, when she discovers she is linked by the Force to Kylo Ren. She leaves Luke, her training incomplete because she believes she can bring Kylo to the light side. When Kylo brings Rey before Snoke, she is tortured and Snoke commands Ren to kill her. He instead kills Snoke and the two battle Snoke's Praetorian Guard together. After the battle, Ren asks Rey to rule the galaxy by his side, but she refuses. Rey escapes, rejoining Chewie. They rescue the remnants of the Resistance from the planet Crait.

Fandom

Fanon and Common Tropes in Fanworks

  • Pilot - Rey's piloting skills are often highlighted, with her continuing the pilot the Millennium Falcon or learning to pilot X-wings and other ships.
  • Mechanic - Rey often spends time working on the engines of various ships, especially when she's frustrated or upset.
  • Jedi - Rey is often depicted as training with Luke Skywalker to become a Jedi. Sparring and meditation are common elements of fanworks. There are also pre-canon works that imagine Rey was a student at Luke's school. In many of these fics, a force user altered Rey's memories before leaving her on Jakku, so she no longer remembers her time as a padawan. See also Jedi AU.
  • Virgin Rey - Rey is often depicted as inexperienced, having had no previous romantic or sexual encounters.
  • Rey's Parentage - Theories around Rey's parentage arose post-The Force Awakens, with popular theories appearing in fanworks. Often Rey is the daughter of Luke Skywalker or the granddaughter of Obi Wan Kenobi. The character tags Rey Skywalker and Rey Kenobi both appear on AO3. These fics were jossed by the release of The Last Jedi and would now be considered canon divergent. Fans who didn't link her to existing characters sometimes came up with fanon family names for her, especially in AU fics where the lack of a family name would have been weird. Particularly popular family names included Niima, Johnson, and Jackson.
  • Force Bond - As Rey is shown to be a strong Force user, she is often one side of a force bond with another character. These works appeared immediately following the first film in the trilogy but grew in popularity after the release of The Last Jedi.
  • Modern AU
  • Rey was frequently depicted with a double-bladed lightsaber she used like a quarterstaff, even before the release of The Rise of Skywalker in December 2019, when it was confirmed in the final scene.

Terminology

  • Rey Random, Rey Nobody: Some fans theorized that Rey was either a Skywalker, a Kenobi or a Solo, while others insisted she was (and/or should be) a "random" character unconnected to previously established families. Some fans felt strongly about the topic and insisted that making Rey a Skywalker would mean the Force "discriminates" or that too much of the canon focuses on how special the Skywalkers are. There were also shippers and anti-shippers concerned with her parentage to determine which ships counted as incest.
  • ReySky: The theory that Rey is a Skywalker. See above.

Fan Reactions

ok i just like rey sO GODDAMN MUCH like, she at once feels very familiar as a heroine, and yet I can’t think of other female characters (except in a certain niche genre of 80s/90s young adult fantasy with strong heroines, a la Tamora Pierce and Robin McKinley and Patricia Wrede) that really resemble her in any real way. ... rey is Emblematic of the kind of heroine i have always loved, and that i feel like we need right now. she’s not overly serious or cynical or jaded—she’s a character whose faith in the world *changes* the world. she’s innately powerful, and her character arc stems out of *realizing that she is powerful*. and again, that she is enough. [1]

Shipping

Rey appears in several common ships with other new characters from The Force Awakens, including Finn/Rey, Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey, Poe Dameron/Rey, Rey/Kylo Ren, Rey/Hux and Rey/Jessika Pava. Rey has also been shipped with several of the original main characters: Rey/Luke, Rey/Leia, and Rey/Han Solo. Her designation in ship names is usually either her full name or "jedi".

Parallels in Legends

Rey shares many attributes in common with Jaina Solo from the old Star Wars Expanded Universe (now Star Wars Legends), including her mechanical aptitude, Force abilities, and a similar appearance. Sometimes the two character appear together in crossovers incorporating both Legends and Disney elements.

Notable Fanworks

Fanfic

Fanart

Vids

Fan Films

  • The Distant Echo Short fan film in which Rey encounters Jaina Solo in a vision on Ahch-To.

Other Fanworks

  • Rey's confusion upon meeting Luke Skywalker for the first time is frequently parodied, as with the filk "You're Welcome", ostensibly about Luke's exploits.

Archives and Communities

Tumblr

Meta/Further Reading

References

  1. ^ Tumblr post by wavelette, 2018. Archived on Dec 13, 2019.
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