Despite Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker’s attempt at retconning Rey’s lineage, Rey “no one” was still far better than Rey Palpatine. The main character in the Star Wars sequels, Rey was introduced as one of Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ many mystery boxes. The second teaser for The Force Awakens hinted at some sort of Skywalker lineage, as it used Luke’s “the Force is strong in my family” line from Return of the Jedi. However, while Kylo Ren was revealed to be a Skywalker son of Leia and Han Solo, Rey’s parents remained a mystery – one that the sequel trilogy didn’t know how to properly answer.
Some of Star Wars’ most important and powerful Jedi do not necessarily come from a family of strong Force-sensitives. In fact, most of the Jedi introduced in the Star Wars prequels or animated series like The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels didn't hail from bloodlines of relevance. Still, The Force Awakens was marketed as a legacy sequel to the original trilogy, which had two major Skywalker family twists. Star Wars would never be able to replicate The Empire Strikes Back’s Darth Vader reveal, yet The Force Awakens set up the idea that Rey could be the daughter of a very important character.
