Dark Rey

Submission 8,452

Part of a series on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. [View Related Entries]

About

Dark Rey refers to a series of jokes and memes about footage of the character Rey in the trailer for the 2019 science fiction action film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. In the film, Rey, who has been protagonists in the previous films, Star Wars: The Force Awakens and Star Wars: The Last Jedi, can be seen using a red lightsaber and wearing the garb associated with the Sith, the series' antagonists.

Origin

On August 26th, 2019, the official Star Wars YouTube account published a "Special Look" of the film Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker that included a shot of the character Rey (portrayed by Daisy Ridley) unfolding a double-sided lightsaber and dressed like a Sith lord. The video received more than 12 million views in 24 hours (shown below).

Spread

Following the release of the trailer, people online began commenting on the presence of what was soon named "Dark Rey." For example, Twitter ^[1] user @cirifreya tweeted, "If I am killed by dark rey DO NOT prosecute her, cause SHE caught me SLIPPING. That's on ME." The tweet received more than 8,500 likes and 3,000 retweets in 24 hours (shown below, left).

Twitter^[2] user @darkyIoren tweeted a joke expressing the charater Kylo Ren's reaction to Dark Rey in the form of a No One meme. The post received more than 3,600 likes and 1,000 retweets in 24 hours (shown below, center).

Others posted theories about the cahracter. Twitter^[3] user @ScavengersHoard tweeted some of the most popular. They wrote, "Pick your dark!Rey theory of choice: – Force vision – Dream/nightmare – Clone – Secret twin sister Rey was separated from – Rey turned to the dark side – Rey possessed by the dark side/Palpatine" (shown below, right).

That day, Redditor ^[4] h8rproof99 posted a theory on the /r/fantheories subreddit. They wrote:

The reason Palpatine is reappearing is because the Death of Snoke. What if Palpatine’s contingency plan if he ever died consisted of secret apprentice or force sensitive underling (Snoke, unknown alien race, who was extremely wealthy) in the Unknown Regions financing a cloning operation for different force sensitive bodies for Palpatines spirit to posses, and also to mantain a fleet ( hence the OG star destroyers in the new trailer, and confirmed Sith Troopers) But Snoke wanting more power and to fill the void of no Emperor, comes from hiding in the Unknown Regions and creates the First Order using improved Imperial technology (which is why after many years have passed since the OG trilogy the First Order looks essentially like the Empire and even had a bigger Death Star with Starkiller base . The whole time since Palps death, Snoke was somehow suppressing Palpatine from possessing a clone, and once Kylo killed Snoke, Palps spirit was free to possess. Rey comes into this as she was one of those clones and somehow she was freed and sent to Jakku which is why she has no memory of her past and in TLJ when shown her “parents” she just saw hundreds of versions of herself. And the Dark Side Rey we saw in the trailer is just another Rey clone possessed by Palps.

Several media outlets covered the theories, including iO9,^[5] CNN,^[6] TIME,^[7] The AV Club^[8] and more.