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Rey, 'Star Wars,' And The Search For Identity

Family Isn't Biology - At Least, Not All The Time

By Christina St-JeanPublished 4 years ago 4 min read
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One of my favorite movie lines ever has to be from Black Panther, when T'Challa's mother Ramonda tells her son on Challenge Day, "Show him who you are!"

It's a powerful line, to be sure, and one I have frequently been reflecting on in my aftermath of watching Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker. Identity has been a theme throughout the #StarWars saga, whether you're watching the original trilogy, the prequel series, or this current final trilogy of the #Skywalker saga. Think about it: in the original trilogy, Luke is fighting to become more than just a moisture farmer, and then everything he knows about himself goes sideways as he undertakes the personal journey of a lifetime and learns that family isn't always blood. In the prequel series, Anakin - Luke's father who eventually becomes #DarthVader - is also trying to determine who he is as outside of his mother, he really doesn't have anyone to call family. Obi-Wan Kenobi comes close, but he casts that aside and forges his own path because Palpatine, who has ultimately become a father figure to him (and later becomes the Emperor), has demonstrated pride and faith in his abilities when he never felt he had that with Obi-Wan.

In this final trilogy, Rey begins by really not knowing anything about herself beyond the fact of her parents leaving her on Jakku and her spending a lifetime waiting for them to return. Of course, everything goes sideways again, and she is thrust into motion on a path she never would have predicted for herself, given she has always been convinced she was "just" one thing or another. In fact, to an extent, she resisted what she was learning about herself and about what these other people who were now in her life were meaning to her. She turned down an opportunity to fly with #HanSolo and #Chewie in spite of the fact that she felt closer to both of them than she had anyone previously. She resisted learning about the fact that she was Force-sensitive until that capability ultimately became too big to ignore. She even resisted the knowledge that, according to Kylo Ren at least, her parents were nothing and sold her.

Rey's search for identity has probably been one of the most profound throughout any of the nine films in the Skywalker saga. Like Anakin Skywalker before her, she really knows nothing about herself beyond a few shady memories. To an extent, what she learns as she begins her journey frightens her, but as with most new things we learn about ourselves as we go through our own personal journeys, she eventually comes to accept these parts of her history in spite of being afraid. In fact, this fear eventually makes her strong enough to continue exploring her path, which pushes her onward to her destiny.

She is far more vulnerable than either Anakin or Luke, however. When she is first introduced into the series, she is truly alone on an isolated planet, surrounded by aliens who would probably just as soon throw her out an airlock as care for her. When she and Finn cross paths, she is wary and understandably has her guard up, knowing that strangers can hurt her. She is vulnerable because she doesn't understand what's happening around her or how she came to be involved in any of what's happening, yet she approaches all of it with an open heart and spirit. Like a young child, she is curious about these new people and while she is initially wary of them, she warms to them quickly and jumps to help.

Although Rey doesn't realize at first that these people are fast becoming her family - she's very much still attached to the idea of her parents coming to find her even though she's effectively a grown woman - she is as invested in Finn, Poe, Chewie, Threepio, BB-8 and all the others as though they were blood relations to her. She starts on a path towards understanding that family doesn't have to be blood to be family, and nowhere is this more evident than with #TheRiseOfSkywalker.

While #StarWars is very much a space opera, it's also about family, redemption, and finding one's identity. Each main character in each of the three trilogies - Luke in the original Star Wars trilogy, Anakin in the prequel trilogy, and finally Rey in the final trilogy - have their own paths and their own journeys as they explore who they really are. To be sure, they learn more than they bargained for along the way, but ultimately, they discover who they were meant to be, and that is really part of what Star Wars is about.

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About the Creator

Christina St-Jean

I'm a high school English and French teacher who trains in the martial arts and works towards continuous self-improvement.

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