I’d like to tie-in content from the blog with content I am uploading to Instagram to make things more “seamless” from one platform to the other. But Instagram is not really the place to have an in-depth discussion about a topic as it’s primarily a visual platform. Which is why I want to do this here so I’m testing the waters to see how things go.
I blogged about this on IG yesterday and received a few replies but I’m really keen to know what my readers here think about this particular part of the final trilogy.
Do you agree with the ending for TRoS that Rey deserved to become a Skywalker? Do you think she did enough to earn that right? Or do you think the writing about this was sloppy and simply silly and that Rey shouldn’t be a Skywalker?
Personally, I am torn over this. A big part of me doesn’t agree that the trilogy should have ended this way because Rey was never a Skywalker. There is also the fact that Rey was a Palpatine, even if she denied that blood-tie to Darth Sidious. It’s still canon that she had her power primarily because of her bloodline.
That said, however, Rey did overcome a terrible and lonely existence on Jakku and never had a family to truly belong to. She also chose to pursue the light side of the Force even though she was tempted several times including Kylo Ren’s pursuit of her as his partner in darkness. As a character, this shows a lot of strength and resilience which I admire. It’s the same trait that led me to admire Luke as a Jedi.
And here’s a little GIF I made for IG the other day:
So let me know in the comments what your thoughts are on Rey becoming a Skywalker!
Stay safe, keep creating and I’ll catch you in the next post or in the comments 🙂
darksiderconfessions.blog 
I’m torn over it as well and I get that she went through a lot but the truth is she is still a Palpatine. I don’t know I just was not a fan of her taking the Skywalker name.
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Yeah, I feel the same like something just doesn’t sit right. And I get why they called the film The Rise of Skywalker but it wasn’t really. She wasn’t a Skywalker and Ben Solo who was died lol
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Yes the title was so confusing and I don’t know a lot of stuff in that movie just kind of felt weird to me. It was like they were trying to recreate the originals but they didn’t do a very good job at it.
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Haha yeah and then they killed Ben Solo and made Rey the substitute Skywalker lol some funny stuff going on in that movie for sure 🙂
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Yup for sure
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I’m not 100% sure (as Star Wars stories can be urban legend) but I’m fairly certain that George Lucas intended the Jedi to be called “Skywalkers” originally, with Luke being called Luke Starkiller in his early drafts. The Skywalkers also had a precognitive “Force Vision” ability that allowed a Knight to “see” incoming laser bolts/dangers and react almost before the action happened. This was touched on in the Thrawn books where the Chiss force sensitives could navigate hyperspace lanes avoiding asteroids etc (this technique was called “Skywalking”)
So I am wondering if Rey was “gifted” the Skywalker name because she may rebuild a new Jedi Order and they will end up being called Skywalkers after her (remember Luke said the Jedi had to end but that could just mean a name change).Plus a lot of people wouldn’t trust a Palpatine descendant.
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Hey FT! Thank you for replying and wow, I didn’t even know that about the Skywalker name. Seems that there is a lot more reading I have to do lol! But I did know that Luke was orginally called “starkiller” and it was changed later on. That’s interesting that you mention the Jedi might be called “skywalkers” because I do remember reading about why JJ Abrams named the last film “The Rise of Skywalker”. I don’t think a lot of the fans think of it that way though because as far as they’re concerned, the Skywalker name belongs to the family of Skywalkers and that doesn’t mean Rey. That is kind of how I think of it too. But the whole concept that “Skywalker” could refer to any Jedi out there that that find their path to the light is kind of nice too. And about Rey building a new Jedi Order, I’ve read that somewhere too as a possibility should her character return in any capacity in the future.
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Thumbs down
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Oh you need to elaborate on that haha 🙂 I’ve had so many great replies to this question both here and on Instagram. People have such unique and wonderful ways of looking at the story and the character of Rey, it’s amazing really 🙂
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The common refrain as a counter to the scene is that Rey is a Palpatine. Genetically this is true, she has Palpatine DNA so she is related to the Emperor. Except, I can and do appreciate what Abrams is getting at in that moment: give Rey the final word on the family she is choosing to belong to. Since she was initially a nobody (thanks to TLJ, and Abrams at least reaffirms this when the little alien girl asks her for her name and she says “just Rey”) I like the idea of Rey making the choice of surname, and by extension, the family she will belong to in the end. It makes sense, especially as a commentary on what “family” and “familial love” is.
Except, Rey has no real connection to the Skywalker family that is genuine. Putting her aside for a moment, the family comes with baggage and we all know this. It’s sorta the point of the prequels and original trilogy telling us about Anakin Skywalker and his relationship to Luke Skywalker. I won’t go any deeper into those two, but Rey doesn’t exactly fit into any of that. The closest she gets is with Luke, but TLJ does a pretty solid job of making her less than impressed by him. Besides, TLJ then goes out of its way to show that the relationship with Luke that matters is Kylo’s relationship. Rey is just the catalyst that gets them to confront one another.
So when the final scene comes around in TROS and she says she is Rey Skywalker it gets confusing for me at least because I can’t figure out what her connection is on a familial level. I don’t buy that she is taking the name to actually join the family in an authentic way. In fact, I personally find it more likely that she is taking the name as a sign of something else, a commitment to preservation of the balance. In this regard, I would see her taking it not as a surname but as a title. She is Rey Skywalker, the next in a line of Skywalkers who are charged with maintaining the Force. (It is more complicated than this and if you want I can write a post about it).
The reason I say thumbs down, though, is because I don’t think this is actually what Abrams is going for in that final scene. I think it goes back to the name being a surname, that she is identifying herself with the Skywalker family, and to me that just really doesn’t make sense (but I won’t repeat myself).
Instead, she should have chosen Organa. Leia was more of a mentor to get than Luke, and taking Organa as her surname would have signified a far more important symbolic end to the SW narrative. If Skywalker is the philosophical alternative to Palpatine, Organa is the political alternative because she (and her father/planet) represented the opposite of Empire. And THAT is, to me, far more important than the philosophical alternative. The Skywalker story had been completed, but the Organa story was not. Plus, and this is key, Leia was adopted by Bail Organa and identified as an Organa, never as a Skywalker. And Rey could have alternatively chosen to adopt the name. It would have been a really unique and profound way of honoring Leia in the end.
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Ahh thank you so much for this reply. I’ll get to replying on my lunch break as I am just about to log in for work 😀
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I think if Rey was taking the name for some other reason other than wanting to be part of the Skywalker legacy, I have no idea what that would be. I think this is further confirmed by Luke and Leia’s ghost appearing when she says the word “Skywalker”. It’s kind of like they are giving her their blessing to become one of their family members. But I also think there might be something in what you say about the Skywalker name representing a movement like the up and coming Jedi. I recall reading something that J J Abrams said about the name “Skywalker” pertaining to “all the Jedi” or something similar.
That’s a good point you make about Rey being the catalyst that brings about the showdown between Kylo and Luke at the battle of crait. I never really thought about it like that but that’s totally what happened.
I never really liked Rey’s character, to begin with. But I can totally see why a lot of people do like her. I just couldn’t get my head around her being the “Luke Skywalker” for this generation. What Luke represents to the Skywalker legacy is so much greater in my opinion. Rey is barely scratching the surface of what that means to the fans. Luke was the original hero, after all.
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She is definitely getting the “blessing” to take the name at the end of the film when Luke and Leia show up. And given the setting, on Tatooine where we met Luke, this also adds symbolic significance to what she is doing. My issue with this, though, is two-fold:
1) Leia has absolutely no connection with the name “Skywalker” beyond what is revealed in ROTJ. She has never, ever been identified as a Skywalker, so having her appear with Luke in that moment is meaningless. It is really just a way to get Leia into the final scene of the movie.
2) Rey has literally no connection to Luke’s homestead on Tatooine. Abrams is using nostalgia in overdrive, which he does through-out the entire film, but this point just reeks of irrelevance, especially since, again, Leia has literally no connection with Luke’s homestead. For her to show up there is weird, for Rey to bury Leia’s lightsaber there is even weirder.
Here is what I think ultimately happened: when Abrams decided Rey was going to be a Palpatine he ended up walking himself into a narrative hole he didn’t really know how to handle. Since this directly contradicted the notion that Rey is a “nobody” she was now, all of a sudden, very much a somebody. I’m not sure why Abrams decided she had to be related to the biggest bad guy in Star Wars but he did. Then, in turn, he needed her to wrestle with what that means: how does she cope with being a Palpatine? She wrestles with it and ultimately discovers that “hey, just because I’m related to the guy doesn’t mean I have to be like him!” Wow, that is right, good job Rey. Congratulations, you figured out that ideology is not transferred via DNA (even space DNA). So, blah blah blah, Star Wars stuff happens, Palpatine is defeated (again…unless he wasn’t?) and Rey lives (thanks Ben?). But then we have a problem: Rey beat Palpatine, her grandfather, but Rey is still, technically speaking, a Palpatine because, you know, space DNA and all. So we have walked our story into a narrative conundrum: Rey is a Palpatine, but Rey has chosen to not BE a Palpatine, so what do we do? Well, we just switch things and give her the Skywalker name because, you know, Skywalker is (as I said) the philosophical counter to Palpatine. If, in the final scene of the film, she takes the Skywalker name then this allows her to officially shed herself of the Palpatine name for good AND allows us to use the name Skywalker in the title! Hooray! Oh! and throw in her near-death experience and have all the Jedi show up to tell her to “rise” and then you have a really fun title!
In the end, then, the name Skywalker is used to cancel out Palpatine, but this is entirely unnecessary because Rey ALREADY did that. Her actions speak louder than words. More importantly, her actions speak louder than names. The story is incredibly powerful (even with Palpatine being in it) because she can decide what type of person she wants to be, she is not bound to familial fate (it is really just retelling the moral of ROTJ with Rey). But then, all of a sudden, by taking the Skywalker name, the final scene of the film completely undercuts that moral. She showed us with her actions she was greater than a name, but then this is undercut by taking not only a different name, but the most IMPORTANT name in all of Star Wars…and this just wasn’t necessary.
She could have, and should have, just ended the Trilogy being “Rey.” But Abrams loves nostalgia and was trying waaaaaaay too hard to force connections that didn’t need to be there.
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I agree entirely with what you’ve said. The arguement that Rey didn’t need to become a “Skywalker” is probably one of the strongest once there is in terms of JJ Abram’s writing. I actually admired Rey a whole lot more when she was a nobody. Because that meant that she had a lot more to discover about herself, and that we, as the audience, would be discovering that with her. But because they made her a Skywalker, for me, it defeated the entire purpose of her having nothing to hold onto and STILL defying the odds and the dark side to having, well, the legacy of the Skywalkers (which when you look at it closely is extremely flawed). Imagine if they had used the Solo name instead? Like you suggested? That would have been absolutely amazing. Which brings me to my other huge beef with her becoming a Skywalker. It’s like that was Ben’s right, not hers. Yet she still gets to live because a Skywalker saved her. But she did nothing to honour that at all. In face, it seemed to me that she was quite happy to just forget that whole debacle on Exegol and walk off into the sunset on Tatooine with BB-8 as if nothing happened. What about Ben’s legacy? What about BEN period. He sacrificed himself to save her so she could be the hero of the story but nothing is even hinted at this sacrifice afterward. She just looks into the sky and sees Luke and Leia and Ben isn’t even there! What a complete travesty. I feel so bad for Ben the character. He is kind of an afterthought in all of this because it’s really all about Rey becoming a Skywalker no matter how weak that is.
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