TROS junior novelization: “Stay here. I’ll come back for you, sweetheart. I promise” + some post-TROS era thoughts
I’ve been writing a big ass post compilating all of the “Stay here. I’ll come back for you, sweetheart. I promise” throughout the books up until TROS and analyzing them, and I wanted to wait for my TROS junior novelization to arrive to keep building it and post it but I’m just too excited because THE VOICE IS BACK so I gotta talk at least about this
Some days ago I did a post (which you can check here) talking and speculating about the TROS junior novelization and how it was upon us, and that I could’ve misunderstood the voice in the TLJ junior novelization (I talked about the voice months ago, compiling the parts where it appears in the TLJ junior novelization, here), and funnily, I HAD misunderstood it but at the same time I HADN’T
The reason? Yes, the “Stay here. I’ll come back for you, sweetheart. I promise” was a coping mechanism of Rey... but there was more to it, something I started to suspect again after reading pre-TROS some more times a certain fragment from the TLJ junior novelization where “the voice” and the phrase were mentioned
The TROS junior novelization may look like it has lots of yikes for what I saw on some pages floating around, but look at THIS (analysis below):
“The Force surrounds you, Rey. Feel the Force flowing through you, Rey. Let it lift you. We stand by you, Rey.
Rey, the Force will be with you, always.
There were so many up there—so many stars, so many voices—Rey could not keep track. But there was a light inside her that shone brighter and spoke louder than all the others.
Stay here. I’ll come back for you, sweetheart. I promise.
She looked deep into that light and saw there were two. A binary star. And though the voice that said those words was her own, the love behind them was not.”
Okay, so, first of all: *unholy pterodactyl screeching of excitement*
For what it seems, each voice in the World Between Worlds (because yes, this is the WBW, the descriptions of this scene in the TROS non-junior novelization just leaves no room for doubt: “the battle above disappeared. Instead, Rey saw a perfect sky, vast with stars. Peaceful. Light-filled. It was like she was staring through a window to somewhere else, a place between places.” [...] “More voices came at her fast but gentle, as though she lay at a confluence of the Force, possibilities, futures and pasts all stretching away from her, or maybe leading toward her. The cosmos, time, energy, being—nothing was the way she’d thought it was.” [...] “Presences filled her awareness, some recent, some ancient, some still anchored to the living in a strange way. Rey didn’t understand. But she accepted.”) corresponds with a light... and when Rey peers into a light inside of her which is brighter and louder than all the others, she hears the phrase AND sees the light is A BINARY STAR
... So, a light brighter than the rest—which is fitting with Ben’s description in the TROS non-junior novelization, where it’s said that his light is so bright it helps Rey resist Palpatine’s influence: “Rey continued to approach. His power was intoxicating. She found herself raising her weapon, almost against her will. If not for the other presence in her mind, bright and shining with light, she would not have been able to resist him."
And that light inside her, brighter than the rest, being like a binary star—which fits as well, and only with, Rey and Ben being one in the Force
And apparently the words were hers, but the love behind them was not—so, Ben’s feelings echoing through their Dyad bond (and the WBW? Through both?) across time and space because a Dyad bond (just like the Force) cares not for such boundaries
Also if I remember well (need to find the pic or get a photo myself when the novel arrives), in the TROS junior novelization, when Ben and Rey are circling each other in the hangar of the Star Destroyer (on Kijimi) they’re described like in a way that looks pretty much like a binary star reference
I’ve been basking in all of this for days, even though thinking it’s Ben basically sends me back to the heavy feels lol
I mean, these words Rey repeated to herself for 14-15 years seem to be (it only makes sense to be) echos of Ben (of hope) from the future, and that helped her survive and cope with her own pain and despair... I’m not okay your honor
And there’s just no way it can be anyone else but Ben, given all of this and the contexts. I’ve read comments saying maybe it could refer to her parents or even Luke and Leia, but... it just doesn’t fit? The light is INSIDE Rey, brighter than the rest, and it’s a binary star. It’s simply Rey and another person, and that other person can only be Ben, her soulmate
The best thing is that they actually could use this to bring Ben back to Rey if they wanted, because they didn’t go very deep into the theme of the Dyad AND when the WBW is involved ANYTHING could happen (and it’s not as if these could be the only methods to bring someone back)
To quote the TFA junior novelization: “Rey did not want the owner of the voice to come back. She wanted the speaker to stay.”
Disney/Lucasfilm have a golden opportunity now to either cast the group again for a live-action or animated series, or a movie (or movies), fixing stuff. It’s not gonna make TROS go away nor fix it all, but there’s A LOT of stuff that could end up in a WAY better place than it ended up in TROS, and I’m pretty sure if they pick up some people that know what they’re doing and the premise is good, the cast would want to be back to fix the mess
If they can’t get the cast, just... do an animated series. Or, heck, if it could be done, both would be soooo amazing? (Although I don’t think we’d end up with both, if we end up with something it’ll be one or the other I think) A movie would be ideal to fix stuff, but a series (live-action or animated) would be ideal for something that could go on for a long time with new adventures. DLF could just attract back so many fans (including the new ones, which they should know already are vital to keep a franchise alive) that they’ve pushed away with TROS
I mean, look, if even my lizard brain can come up with viable ideas on how to fix so many mistakes from TROS, DLF certainly can, and there’s people with the talent AND care to do it, so... yeah
We’re getting some WBW mentions (and things that could be hints too) after TROS, other characters have been able to come back from worse and less vague deaths, we still don’t know what a Dyad bond is fully capable of *coughs in suspicions that The High Republic might show some of this and maybe serve as a preamble to Ben’s return*, a good post-TROS fix is absolutely needed, and DLF would make an obscene amount of money if they brought Ben back and did a post-TROS mending a lot of things, so right now I’m proceeding with cauting and keeping my feet on the ground just in case, but my hopes are kinda going up