A breakdown of the Death Star fight and why Rey stabbed Ben
Took me a while to figure this out, so maybe I’m late to the party but if not, hear me out.
At a first view, I didn’t really understand why Rey would stab Ben when he’s most vulnerable (he’s not even looking and he has dropped his saber) making herself look like a coward and so OOC, especially because soon after she cries over him and heals him.
BUT! The whole sequence on the Death Star had several details that I just didn’t seem to understand, and once I put all of them together I realized everything might be connected to The Stab ™.
First of all, it starts on the Falcon after the revelation that Rey is a Palpatine. I don’t have footage of that, but Rey is seemingly talking to herself and she looks hypnotized. She says something like “he (Palpatine) killed my mother. And my father. I’m gonna destroy him”. Finn is there and he goes “this is not like you, Rey” and indeed it is not. But Rey says the infamous line “everything keeps telling me that they know me, but no one does.” and the convo ends at that.
Fast forward to Endor and the DS wreckage. She enters the throne room and finds the sith wayfinder and Dark Rey in a side-room hidden behind a wall that opens as soon as she stops in front of it. Dark Rey tells her not to be afraid of who she is, they fight, and Dark Rey shows pointy teeth and tries to bite her (it may look ridiculous but remember the pointy teeth for later). Rey falls behind and out of the room, the door closes, the sith wayfinder rolls on the ground until Kylo takes it.
Yep, Kylo’s there and Rey jerks up in an unnatural way.
From this point on, she looks rigid and completely out of it (and if you watched the movie and saw how much Ben changed when he got rid of the dark side, how he suddenly wasn’t rigid or controlled anymore, you might get a sense where this is going).
Kylo tries to convince her that the dark side is in their nature, but Rey doesn’t really seem to listen as she only demands he gives the wayfinder back. But the way she demands it… is creepy, to say the least. She speaks in hissing whispers and her eyes are wide and fixed.
Kylo destroys it and she snaps. She screams and she immediately attacks him with all she has. They bring the battle outside, where she keeps being very aggressive and keeps showing her teeth in more than one instance (remember Dark Rey?).
But then, at some point, she starts looking like she has no idea what she’s doing or why she’s there? She looks exhausted and confused to say the least.
Rey and Ben are equals in the Force, that’s why their battle could go on forever, but somehow, Rey starts losing? She doesn’t even look convinced of what she’s doing.
What point I’m trying to make? Rey is possessed by the dark side, but she’s fighting it. That’s why she starts aggressive, but then starts to crumble. She has an inner fight going on, but she can’t really get rid of the influence of the dark side, until…
Leia calls out to Ben, he’s distracted. He drops his weapon. Rey takes it and stabs him. At the same time, Leia dies, seemingly giving her energy to Ben (but this is for another meta).
As soon as this happens, Rey snaps out of it. She’s herself again. She looks down and sees what she’s done to Ben.
She proceeds to heal him and she looks like she’s extremely guilty for what she’s done. I’m not sure he knows what happened to her, but I would say he does understand something. I’m speculating maybe they were both influenced by the dark side since the Death Star might be one of those places where the Dark Side is very strong.
In this moment, Rey realizes she’s a danger to herself and others. Her dark side can take over any moment and make her do horrible things. That’s why she runs away, but not before telling Kylo that indeed, she wanted to take his hand. But Ben’s hand. Which leaves him speechless (but again, this is for another meta).
She jumps on Kylo’s fighter and you can see her processing (looks at how she shakes her head) what has just happened and making one final decision (to isolate herself on Ach-To).
That’s it! It bugged me that Rey would just kill Ben in cold blood like that and then suddenly act like she didn’t know what she was doing, so I put some thought into it. The problem with this movie is that everything is skimmed over so you don’t really get a sense of anything when you first watch it.
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