Maybe I’m beating a dead wampa here, and maybe you’re tired of listening to certain types of Star Wars fans go on and on and on about Rey, Rey from nowhere, Rey Skywalker – but I’m asking, just this once, for you to indulge me. With the ten-year anniversary of The Force Awakens soon upon us, I think it’s time to sit back and consider that Rey wasn’t so bad after all.

I can’t ever accurately express the way seeing The Force Awakens in cinemas after a decade of no live action content felt for me. Wide eyed, excited and curious I was my own Scavenger girl from a desolate planet searching for belonging in the galaxy. And I found it.

Padme Amidala was always too glamourous, too well put-together and so endearingly in love for me to ever find a connection with her. Despite watching the Prequel trilogy on repeat, much to the strain of my VHS player, I was deeply familiar as a child and a teenager with every facet of her character. Strong, elegant, firm and committed – and these were feelings I wouldn’t experience till much later on in my life. I doted over Obi-Wan and Jar Jar was my best friend, but I still hadn’t found her. Padme was beautiful and enchanting, but I was nothing more than an awkward, anxious child who wasn’t quite ready for the wider world, so I moved on.

It’s true that no one can hold a candle to Carrie Fisher and her performance as Princess Leia – an icon to women and girls everywhere, the embodiment of a strong, female character and to many the very essence of feminism in a universe of swashbuckling, opinion-swinging, and often incapable men. Now, don’t get me wrong – her passionate, witty, razor-sharp replies to the even the slightest word coming from Han Solo’s mouth had me developing a deep fondness for Leia as a character but still, there was something missing. I struggled to speak up in conversations with my peers, let alone have the confidence to take the lead. I wasn’t brave and bold and beautiful like Leia, so I moved on.

Then…there was her. Like I mentioned earlier, there aren’t enough words in the English
language to fully express that feeling of seeing Rey for the first time. She looked scruffy and worn and rough round the edges but clearly capable and strong and set to a task she’d obviously done hundreds of times before. As a musician, my place at the piano is often the only time I feel truly confident in myself and that alone is because of repetition. Immediately there were connections being made that only now, ten years on, I’m fully aware of.

The reveal of Rey pulling aside her face wraps to see a young, dirt covered and smudged fase that was full of so much yet gave away so little, I was hooked. ‘On the edge of your seat’ is a term many people use to describe an enthralling cinematic experience, I literally was on the edge of my seat. Desperate to grab every second of Rey on screen and burn it into my memory.

Never mind Kylo Ren or Poe Dameron – all I cared about was her. My heart raced, my fingers tingled with a renewed and pure excitement I’d not felt since watching The Phantom Menace, but even this time it was different. More. Better.

By the time the end credits rolled, I’d practically booked my tickets to see it again the next night. All I could think about was her. She was me. We were the same. Curious, lonely, confused, gifted with abilities she had yet to understand and approaching every rich aspect of the Star Wars universe with equal parts wariness and enthusiasm. She was all of my social awkwardness that underneath craved to be accepted and understood, all of my intense inquisitiveness that regularly drove my parents to exhaustion, she was…everything I was and more. The best parts of me molded and shaped into a galaxy and world I loved so deeply.

And maybe I’m being naive. Maybe I was the perfect age, at the perfect point in my life, maybe it’s even because we look so similar (I can’t possibly comment, that’s for you all to decide on) but she clicked. Rey fit like a puzzle piece I didn’t know I was even missing and my love and passion for Star Wars multiplied a thousand times that day and that insistent, burning flame of fandom has continued to stay ignited, hence the reason I’m still doing Star Wars podcasts after all these years, why I still re-watch the films over and over again and when asked what my favourite is? Without hesitation, it’s The Force Awakens.

Rey’s journey from no one to someone, more specifically a Skywalker, is one that I loved and adored every second of. I’m not using this space to attack people who feel differently or even take the time to meticulously defend every criticism and contradiction – for which I’ve seen many. I’m simply here to try and get you to understand how and why Rey is so special for the people she was written for.

I could level my own criticism at the Sequel trilogy, but the same applies to the Prequels and the Originals, no collaborative universe like this can ever be perfect, in fact I’m more sure, now than I ever have been, that perfect doesn’t exist. In fact, the perfection of Star Wars for me comes from the fact that it is imperfect. Flawed, convoluted and beautifully mixed and muddled together like the wiring of a cantankerous droid. Rey was a streak of clarity amongst an endless expanse of stars and I will gladly and proudly defend her, her character and addition to Star Wars with every last nerdy breath.

I love Rey, I love cosplaying Rey, I love being Rey for the hundreds and hundreds of kids who watched this with their parents for the first time and when they see me, their faces light up and their little hearts sing with a joy that I felt nearly a decade ago. Maybe you didn’t get it, and that’s okay. Maybe she didn’t click with you the way Luke Skywalker and Boba Fett did – but we all have our own Rey. Star Wars is seemingly and joyously endless and long may it continue.

This December, sit down, grab yourself some popcorn, turn the lights out and take a minute to remember all the kids and all the young adults that sat down that night in the cinema and found the connection, the community and the character that changed everything. If they can find that magic, so can you.

I love Rey, and I hope you can too.