5 'Star Wars' Theories On Who Rey's Parents Could Be

When The Last Jedi premieres on Friday, fans are hoping they'll finally get answers to some of the questions raised by The Force Awakens in 2015. The number one mystery, and perhaps the key to the entire new trilogy, is who are Rey's parents? The heroine of Episode VII has an even murkier back story than Luke Skywalker, and fan theories abound. At least Luke had an aunt and uncle and a semi-normal childhood on Tatooine; Rey, on the other hand, raised herself in the ruins of a war zone, and her earliest memory is of being abandoned on Jakku. Who did that to her, and why?

Just about every theory you can think of can be backed up with specious "clues," but a lot of them can easily be disproved, as well. But for all we know, an important quote from an actor or director may have been misinterpreted somewhere down the line, or there may be a continuity error that accidentally "disproves" the truth (though I doubt it). If the third Star Wars trilogy follows that same pattern as the others, we're on track to learn about Rey's family in the second film, as Luke's father's identity was revealed in Episode IV, and Boba Fett's in Episode II. Here's who it might be, according to fans:

Han & Leia

What if Rey is Kylo Ren's little sister, and she was sent away to protect her from him? An even more far-out version of this idea, courtesy of Nerdist, posits that it was actually Kylo Ren that left Rey on Jakku. After destroying the Jedi Academy with the Knights of Ren, the theory goes, Kylo was directed to kill the younglings, like his grandpa once did, but he couldn't bring himself to hurt his little sister, so he dumped her on Jakku to hide her from Snoke, even letting his parents believe that she was dead. That's a fun one, but back in 2016, actor Daisy Ridley explicitly stated on Entertainment Tonight that she is not Han's daughter.

Luke Skywalker

This the theory with most "evidence" in its favor, and that's probably exactly why it's not true. Confirmation of such an obvious choice would feel like a letdown. But still, let's discuss. Rey has super-strong Force powers, despite not even knowing what the Force is. Anakin and Luke's lightsaber called her, and obeyed her over Kylo Ren. Those visions of her are very Luke-centric, including things that only he saw or heard. All this amounts to nothing, though, because The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams told fans during a Tribeca Film Festival question and answer session, "Rey's parents are not in Episode 7." Couldn't be more clear-cut than that.

Obi-Wan Kenobi's Love Child

The tricky thing about the Star Wars franchise under Disney rule is that what happens in the cartoons is considered canon, so if you're not up to date on those, you'd never even know about the clues that point to Rey being Obi-Wan's granddaughter. According to Inverse, young Obi-Wan had a girlfriend, Mandalorian leader Duchess Satine Kryze, on The Clone Wars (despite the rules on Jedi fraternization). A generation later, on Star Wars Rebels, another Mandalorian called Sabine popped up with sick Force skills and no idea who her parents are. Perhaps she found out after giving birth to her daughter, Rey, who she then hid away to protect those who would hurt her because of her bloodline?

Snoke & The Force

Even casual Star Wars fans might recall one of the weirdest aspects of Darth Vader's origins: he has no dad. In The Phantom Menace, his mom, Shmi Skywalker, casually tossed out the fact that she had a virgin birth. OK! Many fans believe that's because Darth Plagueis, a long-ago baddie, used the Force to create life, and that life was Anakin. Following that logic, maybe Supreme Leader Snoke did the same to create Rey.

Nobody Special

J.J. Abrams already established that midi-chlorians are out the window, and anyone can become a Force-user, regardless of who their parents are. The Last Jedi director, Rian Johnson, told Entertainment Weekly that the identity of Rey's parents is "important insofar as it's important to her," not so much to anyone else, and Ridley told the magazine that it's really no big deal: "It's not like, oh, I know who my parents are so now everything falls into shape, especially in the Star Wars world." And as for all those theories that hinge on Rey being dumped on Jakku to protect her because of who her parents are? They were all quietly disproved in the 2016 novel Star Wars: Bloodline, according to i09. Books are also canon, you see, and Bloodline covers the Knights of Ren attack, which happened six years before The Force Awakens. You'll remember that Rey was clearly abandoned for much longer than six years, so it appears the two events were unrelated.

Regardless of who Rey's parents are, we can all agree that she's awesome, and if Star Wars has taught us anything, it's that taking after your parents is absolutely not a given, so it doesn't really matter, anyway. Of course, I'm still dying to know, anyway.

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