The question of Rey’s parentage won’t be answered until the release of Star Wars: Episode VIII at the earliest, but Daisy Ridley has recently given both a confirmation and a denial about her character’s mysterious backstory.
In what could be read as some pretty heavy teasers for Star Wars: Episode VIII, Daisy Ridley basically told Vulture that we’ll have to wait “a year” to get all our questions answered. This definitely gets our hopes raised, but it still doesn’t tell us who Rey’s parents actually are. However, Ridley did confirm who Rey’s probably not related to: Jyn Erso, the lead in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
“I mean, I think historically it wouldn’t work, because she is … Darth Vader is there … so she would ultimately be my great-grandma; no, she would be my grandma,” Ridley said.
This isn’t the first time Ridley’s brushed aside the theory that Jyn Erso is Rey’s mother. She brought it up all the way back in April, right around when TMZ leaked some Lucasfilm filings that suggested a bigger overall role for Jyn Erso in upcoming Star Wars films, because of how much the company had secured in merchandising rights.
Director J.J. Abrams also caused a stir a few months ago when he said that Rey’s parents weren’t in Star Wars: The Force Awakens, leading lots of people to think that it all-but-confirmed Jyn Erso. He later “clarified” his comments to mean that she didn’t discover who her parents were in Episode VII, but that they might already be in her world. That could mean any number of people we’ve already encountered in Star Wars so far, and might also disprove Jyn Erso, since for all we know she wasn’t in The Force Awakens.
One of the biggest theories is that Rey is Luke Skywalker’s daughter, given their similar backstories, temperaments, and how Rey’s quest to find where she belongs led her to him. However, some also think she could be related to Obi-Wan Kenobi or even Supreme Leader Snoke. One of the latest theories is that Rey is a Palpatine, given his journey to Jakku during the Clone Wars in search of dark power, as described in Aftermath: Life Debt.
In the end, though, we’ll just have to rely on Ridley’s advice until Episode VIII finally hits theaters: Just sit tight.”
