Lyin' Kylo

I was reading an article online about Star Wars recently that unnecessarily delved a bit into the topic of Rey's parents.  If you're not aware that this is a controversial topic, good for you.  It appears that some fans believe her parents should be well known characters in their own right, and powerful in the Force.  Of course, in The Last Jedi it was revealed that her parents were nobodies.  This article pointed that out, but then held out the tantalizing possibility that Kylo Ren was lying when he told her this.

Most current Star Wars fans did not live through the story the way it was presented to the world, starting in 1977 with the original movie that was at some point later re-titled and re-marketed as occurring in the middle of a continuing story.  So most current fans do not understand that the expectation or hope that Kylo Ren was lying in the latest movie parallels the controversy introduced by the second movie (The Empire Strikes Back) -- whether Darth Vader really was Luke's father.  In the context in which this claim was first presented, there are more reasons to believe that Vader was outright lying to Luke than there are to believe Rey's parents were major characters.  So if you're going to decide after The Last Jedi that the writers have gotten it wrong somehow, please remember that Lucas himself got it wrong a long time ago, and then went and created an elaborate and tedious backstory to cover up his error.

I am worried about people who assume Rey must have the "proper lineage."  It tells me that they don't see people as individuals.  Yes, to some extent it is a convenient shortcut to form your opinion of someone based on your already existing opinion of the group they belong to.  It takes more time and effort to approach someone as an individual.  Most people in a group will fit the mold of the group nicely, but these aren't the people that stories are written about because these people do not learn or grow until they start differentiating themselves from the group.

The stories people read tend to be about unique individuals.  And this can be taken too far -- in many stories the characters have a pre-destiny to succeed that they have not earned or even worked for.  The untrained peasant should not be able to go toe to toe with the trained knight in combat and prevail (as happened in The Force Awakens).  But once is it established in the context of a story that a character has merit, you should not complain simply because you have preconceived notions from outside of the story about whether they should have merit.