The Last Jedi may have hidden a mysterious little bombshell in plain sight–one that escaped most fans including me. I for one was completely oblivious to this point until recently, and when I reread the novel to confirm it gave me chills. If it’s true, it totally changes how we would interpret Rey meeting Luke. Let’s discuss how Luke knows Rey’s name.
This point was brought to my attention by a recent video from Star Wars Coffee. Credit goes to StarWarsCoffee for finding this, but I think I have a satisfying explanation below. I further researched to find that people have posted this on Quora, only to be ridiculed by most of the responders! To me if this is true, it’s major–Rey never tells Luke her name, but somehow he knows.
Credit: Jonathan Olley/ILM/© 2017 Lucasfilm Ltd.
Let me explain. Rey never says her name to Luke. I reread the novelization to confirm, and she never does. When first asked by Luke “Who are you?”, She responds by telling him that she’s seen the library and the island from dreams. I’ll get back to dreams in a moment. But instead of giving a name, she just says she saw this place in dreams. Then she goes on:
Rey – “The Resistance sent me.”
Luke – “They sent you? What’s special about you? Jedi lineage? Royalty? An orphan, this is my nightmare. A thousand wannabe younglings showing up on my doorstep hoping they’re the Chosen Whoevers, wanting to know how to lift rocks. Where are you from?”
Rey – “Nowhere”
Luke – “No one’s from nowhere.”
Rey – “Jakku.”
Luke – “All right, that is pretty much nowhere. Why are you here, Rey from Nowhere?“
Now you might say that Rey could given her name earlier, but it wasn’t anywhere explicitly in the text. Not only that, but a couple pages earlier in the novel, Rey mentions how few words were exchanged, implying that the few words between them in the book were all there was.
He’d spoken! She’d decided to count that as progress, and smiled as she followed him back down the well-worn path, trailing him until they reached the tumbled rocks and narrow beaches that fringed the shoreline.
Now, you might say that this was just left off, but I don’t think so. I find it very hard to believe that this is something that they could have forgotten. Something as simple as an an introduction, like “Hi, I’m Rey” is hard to leave off. Consider the scene at the end with Rey and Poe. Rey doesn’t hesitate to say “I’m Rey” at the end of the film. Rey needed no introduction to Poe, and her reputation preceded her–but did she also not need an introduction to Luke?
To me, when I look at their exchange, they key piece of information that Luke needed was that she was from Jakku. A girl from Jakku immediately triggered the Luke’s awareness of her name. I’m reminded of when Kylo Ren heard that FN-2187 and BB-8 may have had the help of a “girl”–what girl? he responded immediately. What is it about this “girl from Jakku” that everyone seems to know about?
Was it through the Force? Well, Luke has clearly closed himself off from the Force, as stated in the movie. He has closed himself off from the Force for years, so how could he have been given information about Rey?
Force-Dreams
A Force-dream is a dream where you are given a vision from the Force. The vision might be of the future, of the past, or of an alternate present. In fact, Chapter 1 of The Last Jedi novelization has exactly this. Luke experiences a Force-dream about Camie. Recall how Anakin had precognitive dreams of his mother. We discussed this a few weeks ago, and about how sleeping/dreaming puts your mind in a more relaxed, receptive state, where the Force is able to get in even if you normally try to close yourself off from it. According to Luke:
That was no ordinary dream, and you know it […] The Force was at work here–it had cloaked itself in a dream, to slip through the defenses he’d thrown up against it.
In the novelization, it is implied that Luke recieved a Force-dream even though he had closed himself off from the Force. It is also pretty clear in the movies that Rey has been given Force-dreams. She has even mentioned that she dreamed about the island on Ahch-To where she would eventually meet Luke. To me, the most likely scenario is that Luke, Rey, and also Kylo Ren have been dreaming about each other. Luke without his choice and despite his best efforts to close-off the Force, and Rey without even knowing what the Force was. This would explain how Kylo Ren knew of a girl on Jakku (what girl?), how Luke knew Rey’s name, and how Rey knew of the island. The Force has been planting these visions all along.
What do you think? Was Luke receiving Force-dreams about Rey before she even got to Ahch-To?
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