Rey Can Access Ben’s Powers?

Amy commented on my post about Rey’s piloting. I meant to just reply there, but it got longer and longer and finally I decided it would be better to make a post of it.

So this was Amy’s comment:

The little I’ve read on Rey’s background in the books and the part of TLJ book that talks about how Rey has access to Ben’s training…I hate what they’re doing to her character. I always believed it was the force that allowed her to pilot the falcon so well during their escape (her and Finn meeting in the hall afterwards commenting on how great each other did…they both seemed really surprised – I took Finn’s surprise as his finding his identity and skill set outside of being a storm trooper and Rey’s as general shock). And by saying she has access to Ben’s training just devalues her abilities. If people would just take a moment to look at the vast arsenal that canon jedi’s have it answers all the questions – ability to understand languages, reflexes, mechanical understanding, “luck”, the list goes on…it’s like everything constantly contradicts itself.

And this was the reply I decided was too long to be just a reply:

Okay, so this is where that notion comes from in the TLJ novel. It’s Rey’s thoughts immediately after their first Force connection, as she’s following Luke up to the temple for his first lesson. She’s remembering her push-back during the interrogation on Starkiller Base, which is when and where all her Force abilities came about. Awakened, if you will.

Rey followed Luke across the grassy saddle above the huts and then up another set of winding stone steps. This staircase followed a rocky prominence that loomed above the island and the sea beyond.

She was still shaken by the manifestation of Kylo Ren, in a place she had come to think of at least as Luke’s sanctuary, even if it wasn’t hers.

After he’d immobilized her on Takodana, Kylo had taken her to Starkiller Base, to pry her memory of the map to Luke out of her head. He had probed her thoughts, sifting and sorting, and seen much that she would have kept from him–him and anybody else.

Her desperate certainty that her abandonment on Jakku had been a mistake, or a grim necessity that would be put right by her lost family, if only she waited long enough and patiently enough. Her terror and despair that she was deluding herself, and would spend her days in solitude, ending up as anonymous bones in the sand. Her dreams of an island amid a trackless ocean–the very island on which she now found herself.

Kylo had rummaged through these hopes and fears, things he had no right to. But as he searched, something had changed. Even as he callously rifled through her mind, he had somehow revealed his own. Rey found herself in his mind even as he invaded hers. She felt his rage, like a ruinous storm that filled his head, and his hatred, and his lust to dominate and humiliate those who had wronged him. But she also felt his hurt, and his loneliness. And his fear–that he would never prove as strong as Darth Vader, the ghost who haunted his dreams.

Kylo had retreated at finding Rey in his head–had practically fled from her. But that had not been the end of that strange, sudden connection. She had seen more–far more. Somehow, almost instinctually, she knew how he accessed some of the powers at his command–even though she didn’t understand them. It was as if his training had become hers, unlocking and flinging open door after door in her mind.

But now Rey couldn’t shut those doors–and she feared what had been set loose.

Kylo had urged her to let him be her teacher–had pleaded with her, almost. She had rejected him–only to be rejected, in turn, by Luke.

Until this morning.

Rey had traveled halfway across teh galaxy so that Luke would help those who needed him so desperately–Leia, Finn, the Resistance, the people of the galaxy. But she also helped he would help her.

Given that context, I don’t think they meant that Rey got practical abilities from Ben, like piloting and fighting. That’s just not how it works. She did both those things long before she got a glimpse into Ben’s head, and you’re right, Amy–to those who are sensitive, the Force affords them something of a sixth sense, and theoretically, that’s what has allowed Rey a level of skill she wouldn’t necessarily have as someone not attuned to the Force. I don’t think her piloting had anything to do with Ben. That was all her: her hours of virtual flight training, knowledge of mechanics, and Force-sensitive instincts, though Rey had no idea she was Force-sensitive.

The above passage is Rey freaking out about the vision of Kylo Ren that just happened; she was afraid that she was unwittingly summoning Kylo Ren, or that, because they’d seen inside each other’s minds, they were somehow able to appear to one another. Which wasn’t that far off. She goes on to hope that Luke’s teachings could help her–presumably to “shut those doors” aka block Kylo, or at least figure out what’s happening and how to control it.

I think of her dialogue: “Something inside me has always been there–but now it’s awake, and I’m afraid. I don’t know what it is, or what to do with it. And I need help.”

“[A]s if his training had become hers”–I think she’s referring to the fact that she was suddenly able to push back and invade his mind. She doesn’t know how, but while he was browsing around her mind like a hipster in the vinyl section, she turned around and did the exact same thing to him.

And then, because she’d done that, she wondered what else she could do and successfully Force-ordered a trooper to let her go. I assume that was one of those powers of Ben’s that she could suddenly, inexplicably, perform. She’d never been trained to do it; but he had.

I remember reading this article that was paraphrasing interesting tidbits from an ARC of the TLJ novel a couple weeks before it came out. One of the topics was: “Rey accesses Kylo’s Force powers, while he accesses her memories.” I’m assuming the passage I quoted was what prompted that paraphrasing, and it was just misleading. I don’t think whoever wrote it understood what he/she read–and then it got passed around and confused people.

I can’t guarantee my understanding is right, but this makes more sense to me. Hope this helps, Amy. 🙂

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