'Star Wars 9' theory: Prequels predicted Rey and Kylo Ren's big twist

Long before the release of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, a leak from Making Star Wars revealed how the powerful bond between Rey and Kylo Ren could play a key role in their final showdown with Emperor Palpatine. Now that the movie is out, we know that leak was correct, what we don’t know is how their connection works or where it comes from.

Thankfully, the Star Wars Speculation subreddit is here to help with a clever new theory that could explain how George Lucas seeded the idea of a “dyad in the Force” back in the prequels. And it’s pretty damn convincing.

Major spoilers ahead for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.

If you somehow haven’t seen The Rise of Skywalker yet, here’s a quick summary. When Rey finally shows up in Palpatine’s evil lair, he asks her to kill him, which would cause her to absorb his soul (and all the Sith before him) as she become “Empress Palpatine.” Rey refuses, but when Kylo Ren shows up, Palps figures out the two younger characters for a “dyad” that allows him to zap their strength and restore himself to full “unlimited power.”

Where did this whole “dyad” thing come from? Did J.J. Abrams make it up to appease Reylo shippers? Maybe. But maybe this idea has its roots in the first chronological movie in the Skywalker saga.

Episode I: The Phantom Menace pivots around an ancient Jedi prophecy of a Chosen One who would bring balance to the Force. Star Wars creator George Lucas maintains that Anakin is and always will be the Chosen One, regardless of the sequels and the fact that the Force presumably got unbalance in the thirty-year gap between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.

But prophecies aren’t an exact science, and The Rise of Skywalker may have posed another way to help bring balance to the Force. From a certain point of view, anyway.

Redditor u/JgfromSpace argues the Chosen One prophecy never foretold exactly when balance to the Force would finally be restored. After all, Anakin may have been the Chosen One, but Palpatine’s unnatural longevity likely meant the Force balance wasn’t fully realized. With that in mind, it’s possible Rey and Kylo came together to simply finish what Anakin started.

“Their bond forms this Dyad in the Force,” u/JgfromSpace writers. “The power of this Dyad defeats the Sith who represents a poison, or perversion, of the Force.”

The crux of the theory lies in the idea that Rey and Kylo are two sides of the same coin, brought together from the Light and Dark sides of the Force to bring peace to the galaxy. In short, it was a physical manifestation of their mental and emotional bond to finally bridge the divide between the Jedi and Sith, one that had been ongoing for thousands of years.

Anakin, born of no father, kickstarted the Chosen One prophecy. If we’re to see him as part of the cyclical legacy of both the Jedi and Sith, then the parallels become clear. Kylo is a descendant of good, while Rey is a descendant of evil. Together, they cancel out Palpatine, who was, in his own way, the physical manifestation of the imbalance in the Force. In the end, it’s ironic that the dyad was what Palps needed to regain his full power all along, not knowing that Rey and Kylo’s combined strength would also be his downfall.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is currently playing in theaters.