‘Star Wars’: Who Is Rey’s True Master — Luke Skywalker or Leia?
“Always two, there are – a master and an apprentice,” Yoda solemnly intoned during The Phantom Menace. However, when it comes to Star Wars, the Skywalkers tend to have more than one master.
Just as Anakin answered to both Qui-Gon and then Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke answered first to Obi-Wan, then to Yoda.
So it goes with Rey, but Rey has an even more complicated history. In addition to the controversial issue of her parentage, Star Wars fans are now debating whose master Rey really was. Leia or Luke? Fate may have had a hand in that answer.
What happened with Rey?
When we first met her in The Force Awakens, she cut a mysterious figure. She was strong and capable but also seemed rather adrift and forlorn, waiting for the return of her family who had abandoned her.
She insisted that she was “no one” before finding out the Force was particularly strong with her – so much so that she has been called a “Mary Sue.” Some say she was unrealistically gifted, others said it was sexist to call her that.
Then, the controversy around Rey intensified when, first, Luke Skywalker initially refused to train her. The Last Jedi said that her parents were nobodies who left her behind for drinking money. Not only was Rey distraught at this revelation, so were fans who had predicted she was some kind of “chosen one,” as Anakin Skywalker had been.
Then, The Rise of Skywalker doubled back and made her a Palpatine, specifically the emperor’s granddaughter.
The Rise of Skywalker also revealed that she had taken Force training from Leia. The movie didn’t have the opportunity to explore it more because Carrie Fisher had passed away after completing The Last Jedi.
Rise of Skywalker repurposed footage from The Force Awakens so that Leia could appear briefly in the film, although this hasn’t stopped people from thinking Leia was more the master than Luke was.
Who do fans think is Rey’s master?
A topic-starter on Reddit said, “It always bothers me how people refer to Rey’s master as Luke, when he only trained her for a couple days. Leia is her true master and she trained her for over a year.” That person likened it to how Vader kept saying Obi-Wan taught Luke well, when Yoda was the one who gave Luke most of his training.
Another person suggested, “I think the reason people think of Luke as Rey’s master rather than Leia, is because of show don’t tell. We see Luke training Rey over the course of TLJ and they have a lot of screen time together whereas TROS just tells us that Rey trained with Leia for a year off screen and they have 3 minutes together as master and padawan. Even though her training with Luke was only for a few days, it seems more important due to the fact we actually see it.”
This could be an example of how Fisher’s untimely death hobbled The Rise of Skywalker. Fans have often said that the sequel trilogy didn’t have a plan, which led to uneven storytelling, but it seems that Lucasfilm had the idea that the sequels would focus on a different Original Trilogy character.
Force Awakens was Han Solo’s movie, The Last Jedi was Luke Skywalker’s movie and The Rise of Skywalker was supposedly meant to be Leia’s movie.
Will we see more of Rey?
The end of The Rise of Skywalker found Rey finally feeling content, having adopted the last name of Skywalker, which honors both her masters. The prospect of seeing her again seems doubtful – much of the hype surrounding Episode IX was that it would wrap up the Skywalker saga, and that definitively includes Rey.
That doesn’t mean, however, that we’ve seen the last of Daisy Ridley in sci-fi trappings. Last week, Lionsgate dropped a trailer for the long-delayed Chaos Walking. Ridley plays Viola, a woman who crash-lands on a planet without women, and that endangers her life, although Tom Holland steps in to help. Pandemic willing, the movie is expected to hit theaters in January of 2021.
