Hot Take: Rey being a “nobody” in TLJ was a great choice

Okay, I realize that this may be a bit controversial for a lot of people but hear me out.I, like the majority of the fandom, was deeply intrigued by the idea of Rey’s lineage by the end of TFA. I had read a great many theories about how she’s a possible Skywalker (which is why Anakin/Luke’s lightsaber called to her), a Solo (which is why Han was so familiar with her in a short time), and even a Kenobi (which is why she hears Obi-wan’s voice telling her to take her first steps) and to be fair, I thought all of them were pretty neat.Then came the revelation in The Last Jedi (TLJ) that Rey’s parents are truly nobody who sold her for drinking money. At first, I had neutral feelings towards the reveal but came to admire it the more I thought about it following my initial watch at the theater. Both Rey and the audience were obsessed with her parentage and assigned her worth and value to it. Rey had until then wanted to believe that she and her parents were special and her abandonment in Jakku had a purpose. It is only poetic that both would struggle accepting the rather painful reality.Thematically speaking, it was also a great choice because it truly showed that the hero of the galaxy, and the final hope of the Jedi, could truly be anyone—even the child of two random junkies. Rey grows from defining herself from a highly idealized hypothetical relation to her parents, that is nonexistent, to placing value to the bonds she actually forms with others who actually love and support her--Finn, Han, Leia, Luke, Chewbacca, etc. She forges her own purpose and place by the end of TLJ where she fully commits to the path of the Jedi and the Resistance's cause instead of relying on Luke.And TRoS backtracks on most of these. Now I think that Palpatine’s return in TRoS and Rey being Palpatine's "granddaughter" were nonsense but that’s besides the point so I'll not really be doing dealing with it here. I realize why JJ Abrams chose this path-he wanted to imitate concepts from ESB (hero related to the bad guy and afraid of turning out like them) and RotJ (truth from a "certain point of view"). The problem is that they don't really fit much less be compelling. The plot point about Rey's lineage was already concluded in TLJ and she had already overcome her flaw of defining herself through it there as well. Rey being Palpatine's granddaughter only served to remove what made her truly special both story-wise and at a more meta level as well.The most common counterargument to the Rey nobody reveal I heard is that being related to one of the big bloodlines would explain her powers. And I would answer that with the fact that this isn't truly necessary. Extremely powerful force users like Yoda, Windu, and Palpatine himself came from regular backgrounds. There's no reason why Rey nobody can't be powerful like them as well. via /r/StarWars https://ift.tt/kOgxl7U