WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, in theaters now.
Following Star Wars: The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi, all signs pointed to Daisy Ridley's Rey being the most powerful Jedi of all time. Even Marvel's Star Wars comics teased the idea in the build-up to The Rise of Skywalker as we witnessed her using the Force in ways the Skywalkers never could, and in ways that Yoda said could only be achieved by the most elite.
And in director J.J. Abrams' conclusion to the Star Wars sequel trilogy he started in 2015, this idea is more or less confirmed. However, the latest Star Wars movie also positions Rey as the ultimate Sith.
THE GREATEST JEDI EVER
While fans started this movie divided whether or not Rey's the greatest Jedi of all time, the film begins making the final case for the idea with her training under General Leia. She's levitating, using telepathy and moving with superhuman agility. She's able to use her lightsaber like a boomerang by willing it away and back to her, and is able to leap long distances in a single bound. She wields Jedi mind-tricks better than Qui-Gon Jinn or Obi-Wan Kenobi, and last but not least, and even uses the Force to heal near-mortal wounds.
Later on, she even uses her lightsaber to withstand the full blast of Palpatine's Force strike, which says a lot as well. He knew Rey would surpass him and it's why he used his clone Snoke and Kylo Ren as pawns to manipulate her into striking him down and become the Empress. But when Rey opts to instead rebel against him, Palpatine decides he's going kill her anyway only for the dead Jedi legends to remind her they're all with her.
Luke constantly told her she'd never be alone and ironically, these ghosts were something Rey sought out since the beginning of the film using Luke's sacred texts from Ahch-To. By the time she does deflects Palpatine's lightning using Luke and Leia's lightsabers, Rey does indeed absorb the essence of all the Jedi that came before. This inspires her to return to Tatooine to bury the Skywalkers' lightsabers as she triumphantly lights her own yellow lightsaber. even though she still ultimately did what Palpatine wanted.
SITH HAPPENS
While Rey is triumphant after disintegrating Palpatine into ash using his own lightning, there are a couple signs that foreshadowed earlier on how she'd become the ultimate Sith. Firstly, Rey fights her dark self on the fallen Death Star on the Kef Bir moon of Endor, hinting that she always had a darkness inside her that Palpatine wanted out. We see as much when she stabs Kylo Ren before healing him, and when she lost her cool she generated her own lightning and brought down a First Order prisoner vessel, much like a Sith would.
Still, Rey fights against the Dark Side but in the finale, battling Palpatine and the ghosts of the dead Sith Lords he had with him, whispering and trying to push and corrupt Rey into murder at the Sith temple on Exogol. Kylo appeared scared of these ghosts when he encountered them at the beginning of the film, and Palpatine tries to convince his granddaughter once she slays him, as he embodies every Sith, their souls and spirits will be transferred into her.
Rey could've become the equivalent of a Sith god, but she fights against this destiny since she wants to remain on the Light Side. Despite that, Rey does eventually kill Palpatine, so there's a chance she may well have absorbed his life essence and every Sith that he held within as well. After all, every Sith must eventually kill their master, and that's essentially what she did here. While she may have stopped his return, Rey could have ultimately completed his plan, bringing both sides of the Force into herself.
THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS
While there's no indication that she will ever lean into the Sith power she may have absorbed, a very compelling case can be made for the idea that Rey is the most powerful Force-wielder of all time. With her yellow saber, she's now both a Guardian (a Jedi warrior) and a Consular (a Jedi scholar). And between her lightning, understanding of Kylo Ren's journey and the negative emotions she feels towards Palpatine for killing her parents, Rey could well have a way to balance the Dark Side too by embracing it, especially since Kylo told Rey that they were a Dyad.
In The Last Jedi, Luke made it clear that the Chosen One had to understand both the Light Side and the Dark Side to balance them and bring equilibrium to the Force and life itself. While there's no certainty around the idea of Rey becoming a Gray Jedi, she does seem to be someone interested in how this duality evens each other out.
After all, she knows how normal people could wield the Force, as we saw with Rian Johnson's stable boy and arguably with Finn in this finale. With the deaths of all the Skywalkers dying (including a redeemed Ben Solo) and Palpatine, both the Light Side and the Dark Side could have paved the way for Rey to absorb both aspects of the Force because she was always positioned as the fulcrum and successor that they both placed hope in.
Directed and co-written by J.J. Abrams, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker stars Daisy Ridley, Adam Driver, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Kelly Marie Tran, Joonas Suotamo, Billie Lourd, Keri Russell, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Billy Dee Williams, and Carrie Fisher, with Naomi Ackie and Richard E. Grant. The film is now in theaters.
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