Rey

Rey grew up alone on Jakku, scavenging derelict starships for food and supplies while waiting for her missing family. Her encounter with BB-8 and Finn drew her into the Resistance's conflict with the First Order and revealed an extraordinary connection to the Force. She trained under Luke and Leia, confronted Kylo Ren and Emperor Palpatine, and ultimately chose the name Skywalker.

Rey's growing connection to the Force becomes part of a larger search for family, meaningful mentorship, and a place among people whose loyalty she can trust.

Growing up amid the wreckage of Jakku

Rey's home on Jakku is a former AT-AT walker, one of the many remnants of the Galactic Civil War scattered across the desert. She earns food by salvaging components from wrecked military equipment and trading them to Unkar Plutt. The work gives her technical knowledge, patience, and familiarity with machines, but little bargaining power in an economy where a trader controls access to essential supplies.

Her daily routine centers on the hope that her family will return. She marks the passage of time and remains close to the place where she was left, even when departure might offer a safer life. This combination of practical independence and emotional dependence shapes her early decisions. Rey knows how to survive without parents, but she has not yet accepted that she may need to build relationships elsewhere.

BB-8, Finn, and the departure from Jakku

Rey protects BB-8 from a scavenger who tries to take the astromech and subsequently meets Finn, a First Order stormtrooper who has deserted. Their escape from Jakku aboard the Millennium Falcon forces Rey to use skills acquired in isolation alongside people whose needs she cannot ignore. She proves an able pilot and mechanic even though she had never commanded the Falcon before.

Their journey to Takodana and encounter with Maz Kanata place Rey among people who recognize capacities she has not yet learned to understand. Maz invites her to confront the legacy of the Skywalker lightsaber, which evokes visions of violence and separation. Rey initially resists what the weapon seems to ask of her, seeking an ordinary return to Jakku instead of a role within a much older struggle.

Captivity and the Force on Starkiller Base

Kylo Ren captures Rey after the First Order attacks Takodana and attempts to extract information about Luke Skywalker. Rey resists his probing and discovers that she can use the Force to influence others. Her escape leads to a reunion with Finn and Han Solo, but Han's murder by his son turns the struggle into a personal loss as well as a military crisis.

Rey confronts Kylo on Starkiller Base and draws Luke's lightsaber to herself. Her victory depends on courage and awakening abilities rather than completed Jedi instruction. She leaves the collapsing installation with Finn and Chewbacca, then joins the search for Luke at the remote world of Ahch-To.

Luke Skywalker and the last Jedi texts

Rey finds Luke living in isolation after the destruction of his Jedi training temple. He initially refuses to teach her and questions whether the Jedi should return. Rey pushes him to explain what happened to Ben Solo and why an institution intended to defend peace failed so disastrously. The relationship places a newcomer who needs education before a master who doubts his own authority.

On Ahch-To, Rey learns to approach the Force with greater awareness but also develops an unexpected connection with Kylo. She eventually leaves to confront him, believing that he may still choose differently. Her decision resembles Luke's earlier willingness to reach out to Vader, but the consequences are her own: Kylo kills Snoke only to demand that she join him in another project of domination.

Choosing the Resistance after Snoke's death

Rey and Kylo fight together against Snoke's Praetorian Guards, then separate when Rey rejects his offer to rule with him. She returns to help the Resistance escape on Crait, using the Force to move rocks blocking an exit from the old Rebel base. The act saves people who possess no special power and demonstrates a concrete purpose for the abilities she has been learning.

She also saves the ancient Jedi texts from Ahch-To. Their preservation matters because Luke's personal disappointment does not remove the value of accumulated teaching. Rey can inherit a tradition without being required to recreate every choice its earlier leaders made.

Training under Leia and relationships within the Resistance

After the Resistance's escape, Rey continues studying the Jedi texts and receives instruction from Leia Organa. The training develops her control of the Force, but also requires her to confront fear and anger that cannot be solved through technique alone. Leia provides a model of leadership rooted in care for other people and sustained political commitment.

Rey's friendships with Finn, Poe, Chewbacca, BB-8, and C-3PO extend beyond shared combat. They involve disagreement, trust, and ordinary dependence on someone else's knowledge. Rey's experiences as a solitary scavenger give her useful self-sufficiency, but the search for Exegol cannot be completed without a team.

Pasaana, Kijimi, and the search for Exegol

When the revived Emperor Palpatine announces a Sith fleet, Rey seeks a wayfinder capable of locating his hidden base on Exegol. The pursuit takes her and her friends to Pasaana, Kijimi, and the remains of the second Death Star on Kef Bir. Each stage depends on knowledge held by different people, from an old Sith inscription to the work of a droidsmith who can retrieve inaccessible information.

During the search Rey accidentally releases Force lightning, frightening her with the possibility that her powers may resemble those of the Sith. Her reaction shows how inherited stories about the Force can shape self-understanding before a person knows the reasons for their abilities.

Is Rey related to Emperor Palpatine?

Kylo tells Rey that she is a granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine and that her parents hid her on Jakku to protect her from him. The revelation changes the meaning of her childhood separation, but it does not explain away the choices she made while surviving alone or the friendships she built afterward. Her ancestry is a fact about biological descent, not proof that the Emperor possesses a claim over her future.

On Kef Bir, Rey wounds Kylo in their duel, then heals him with the Force after sensing Leia's death. She withdraws to Ahch-To, afraid of the darkness she has encountered within herself. Luke's Force spirit rejects the idea that her bloodline determines her character and urges her to face the danger rather than abandon others to it.

The dyad, Palpatine's defeat, and Ben Solo

Rey reaches Exegol to confront her grandfather, who attempts to make her the vessel for continued Sith rule. Ben Solo arrives to help her after abandoning the identity of Kylo Ren. Palpatine exploits the pair's unusual connection through the Force, but Rey ultimately resists his demand that she kill him in anger and accept his legacy.

With the support of the Jedi whose voices she can hear, Rey turns Palpatine's Force lightning back upon him using the Skywalker lightsabers. The effort kills her, but Ben gives his life to restore hers. The battle ends the Emperor's final attempt to establish an empire, while the loss of Ben adds another layer to Rey's experience of family and grief.

A scavenger's staff and a Jedi's weapons

Rey's staff, goggles, scavenging equipment, and improvised home on Jakku express a life organized around physical work and scarce resources. The Skywalker lightsaber initially belongs to a history she fears entering. Later she carries both Luke and Leia's weapons while confronting the Sith, linking her training to two mentors with very different lives.

After Exegol she buries those lightsabers at the Lars homestead on Tatooine and reveals a new, yellow-bladed saber of her own. The act gives visible form to a decision about inheritance: she honors what her teachers gave her while accepting responsibility for her own place in the Jedi tradition.

Anthropological assessment: belonging beyond bloodline

Rey's history illustrates how kinship can be made through care, teaching, and mutual obligation rather than biological descent alone. The Emperor's claim to her rests on ancestry and an assumption that inherited power must reproduce inherited authority. Leia, Luke, and her Resistance companions offer relationships grounded in choices made over time.

Her decision to identify as Rey Skywalker expresses that distinction. It does not conceal the existence of her Palpatine ancestry. It places greater weight on the people and institutions whose responsibilities she has chosen to continue. The central transformation is from a person waiting for an absent family to a person capable of defining belonging through action and recognition.

Related anthropology

Lucasfilm Databank: Rey · Leia Organa · Kylo Ren / Ben Solo

Collector note: Rey cards connect the sequel trilogy, Jakku, BB-8, the Skywalker lightsaber, her yellow lightsaber, and the final battle on Exegol. Her changing costumes and weapons make her a strong visual subject across the trilogy.

Sources and further reading

1. Rey, StarWars.com Databank