Episode II: Who are Rey and Snoke?
In Episode I, we mused upon the Force and certain relationships, which were pretty evident.
Now we get into speculation about-- Who is Rey? Who is Snoke? And what about Finn?
Remember, nothing is definitive until the series reveals such, but we can get an understanding of parallels from mythology that has been notably admitted to being an underlying construct.
So on to Rey…
Look at the name. It means king in Spanish and is derived from Rex in Latin. The other mythology that influences Star Wars most prominent to me are the King Arthur legends from Geoffrey of Monmoth to Cretin De Troyes, which are built out of Celtic mythology and the fall of the Roman hold in Britain. Rey=King. So look at King Arthur first.
King Arthur was born of a magical coupling, a creepy one at that, and then whisked away to live in obscurity with no knowledge of his origin or past. When the time came, after a few trials and training by Merlin (mentor and old wizard who lives in the wild. Sound familiar Obi-Wan Kenobi), he encounters a mystical object, by accident in a way, and pulls the sword from the stone to restore prosperity to the land. Lightsaber at Maz Kanata’s castle anyone?
This would all be so easy if… Luke Skywalker did not do the Arthur thing first. Like I said, none of this follows a linear path or follows the previous narratives. It takes pieces and jots them together in novel forms from the familiar story. Parallels to parallels. Elements do tend to be recycled and modified.
However, this got me thinking about Lancelot, the greatest of the knights of Camelot. The one told to be invincible. Maybe Anakin was Lancelot-type merged with Arthhur as Arthur did have some dark times. Then, the Jedi Council would reflected the Knights of the Round Table, just look at the council chamber, and the Republic representing Camelot and Arthur.
Lancelot couldn’t help himself. Even with such skill he lusted and had a secret affair with the queen. Uh queen, who else was a queen? Oh yeah, Padme. Then, in some stories, Lancelot is enchanted, seduced, and has an illegitimate child who is raised in obscurity, doesn’t know who his parents are, and then comes on the scene as greater knight than Lancelot.
That would be Galahad, the dude who survived the siege perilous. Not the one in the Marvel comics and cartoons. Siege perilous just means the perilous seat. True, it did kill people if they weren’t the person who found the Holy Grail, but that’s beside the point. So, again, the Galahad thing could be Luke, but it could be Rey if Rey is a Skywalker in some way. Or Rey is the actual King Arthur and Luke was the Galahad. Maybe Rey is an Organa? Leia’s cousin? Organa sounds like Morgana. Huh?
Leia was adopted by this royal family and their planet was blown to bits, so perhaps a refugee royal family who had to drop off Rey on Jakku to protect her from the old Alderaan families fighting for the remaining power left from the Alderaan royals, and that’s why Leia recognized her. Alderaan did help with the Rebel Alliance and perhaps the First Order wants to hunt down all the remaining members of that lineage to quell influence. So given the name and the mythology behind it, Rey could the actual King Arthur of the story and the Skywalker family was a Lancelot offshoot. Or she could be a modified Galahad construct.
Funny thing. Galahad is in some people’s estimations to be a remake of Fion from Celtic myths. You might know him by his more popular name, the one and only Finn McCool. Yup. Finn. Finn. Finn.
Who is Finn?
In the Celtic myth, Finn McCool (Fion mac Cumhaill) avenges his dad’s murder by Goll mac Morna after he is swept off to obscurity, trained by the fighting woman Liath Luachra [Captain Phasma perhaps?], got a magical gift by a salmon (I know, weird), defeated magical beings, and killed the dude who killed his father and became the greatest warrior. Some said he slept in cave and never died awaiting revival. In the Star Wars franchise, however, I suspect they are just using the name Finn to allude to the Arthurian and Celtic myths and not have the character named Finn follow the course since Rey is the one with the focus. But, daddy issues are common in this franchise along with awaiting destiny to be revealed.
But as a wilder speculation, maybe the team at Disney decided to say screw it. Let’s make Han Solo the Lancelot and he had an illegitimate kid when separated with Leia and Kylo Ren is Rey’s half-brother. Then, the Finn McCool myth can be used so Rey avenges her father’s death. But all of this leaves out Arthur and Mordred concept unless you use Luke as Arthur and Mordred as Kylo Ren because in some tales Mordred is not Arthur’s son but Morgause’s (sometimes merged with Morgan Le Fay in modern tales) and her husband King Lot. In that version Gawain is Mordred’s brother or half-brother and Gawain is Arthur’s nephew. He is, of course, famous for the Green Knight tale that involves trickery, seduction and magical testing of valor.
Perhaps the Gawain tale will be used in the Kylo-Ren backstory. The Green Knight who tests Gawain is a giant. Snoke is a giant as a hologram. The Green Knight’s appearance is due to magic and not his real self, which could hold true for the Snoke hologram. The Green Knight is in reality Bertilak De Hautdesert (High Desert) who was transformed by the sorceress Morgan le Fay who intended to tests Arthur’s knights and frighten Guinevere to death. The leads to an interesting note from J.J Abrams. They did not know who Snoke was and said the character might possible be a woman right up until shooting the Star Wars: Force Awakens, at least according to the Wookiepedia entry on Snoke. Does that mean Snoke is really a version of Morgan le Fay?
Morgan le Fay was one of Merlin’s students, so Snoke would have been a Jedi. Morgan was not an evil being, but was corrupted, who then reconciles with Arthur and gets back her role as one of the sorceresses queens who takes Arthur, after his death, to Avalon (the good old magical island of apples, seriously, apples, look it up).
As an aside, sometimes I just think Sifo-Dyas is Snoke since original Sifo-Dyas was just a cover name for Sidious called Sido-Dyas and not a new character. But, Sifo-Dyas was a Jedi and after his ship crashed, as ordered by Count Dooku, they only found his lightsaber. Perhaps, Sifo-Dyas lived, was mutilated by his crash, thought he was betrayed by the Jedi and went into hiding. During which, he fell to the Dark Side or formulated a "corrupt a strong Light-Sider" plan like ol’Sheev Palpatine did with Anakin. Snoke seduced Kylo-Ren because he was a perfect blend of Light and Dark, a material to be sculpted if you will as one of the novels said. Maybe a powerful but corrupted Light-Side user will have more abilities than just Dark-Side practitioner alone. But I don’t know. Where just keeping to cannon materials here kids even though the Expanded Universe/legends had huge influence on the new movies and tv shows.
Okay, back to Morgan le Fay. She was also Arthur’s half-sister. His mom had a child with her husband Gorlois and not Uther Pendragon, Arthur’s dad. Funny how there are so many TH and UR/ER sounds. Sounds sort of like Darth and Darth Vader. Darth Arthur. Darth Uther.
Sort of irrelevant now since Lucas no longer tells the tales and most accept Darth Vader as a modified portmanteau of Dark Invader.
Other weird stuff is that Morgan and Morgause were sisters and both enchantresses. So who knows, in keeping with Snoke being Morgan le Fey, maybe Snoke is Sheev’s younger brother or twin, who Sheev Palpatine tried to kill or keep imprisoned. A sort of a "Man in the Iron Mask" homage. Also, according to the Star Wars wiki on Snoke, they considered making Snoke female. But if you made Morgause into Sheev and then Morgan would be Snoke. Perhaps the legend influenced the backstory in that manner.
Why not flip the script on Luke and Leia and do it for Sheev and Snoke. Makes sense. Both have names that start with the same letter and here’s another element. Sheev is from Naboo. Just like Padme Amidala Naberrie. Perhaps Naboo is Britain. Hell, the capital city is named Theed, sound British. This might connect the Palpatines and the Naberries. Perhaps they are related. Making this whole thing a crazy family drama/opera, which it is already, but even more so.
And if the whole Trimurti concept is true, the gods Shiva and Vishnu are siblings and you got your cosmic conflict between two great forces. This must then play out on a human level/scope so the story can be related to by the audience with more common myths about family and power struggles. The power struggles are both internal and external; hence, Anakin Skywalker being the encapsulation of the story. Sorry for the trapped/encapsulated in the cybernetic armor pun.
Oh, and who do I think Rey is? If you combine the idea that King Arthur died and went to Avalon, waiting to return to restore Britain when he was needed and the avatar idea of Vishnu, then it would appear she is Anakin Skywalker reborn or a completion of this "Choosen One" Force cycle where to go forward, we must go back. Sort of like the cartoon The Last Airbender. Though the special circumstance of birth, Anakin not having a father and was conceived by the Force like the Christian story that follows many special birth stories from Greek mythology and even Buddhism (Siddartha was born able to speak and walk and where he walked lotus flowers came from the earth. Lotus flowers, huh? Padma/Padme means lotus), is not present yet.
And Finn, perhaps they do keep the Celtic myth straightforward and have him be the son of a king/leader who becomes a great warrior, discovers his heritage and kills the person who killed his father. That would make him unrelated to the rest of the family drama but still bind him to the mythic relationships that the Star Wars cycle is based.
In conclusion, I would not be surprised if Snoke and Sheev Palpatine were bros and maybe Rey is a royal as her name signifies. Maybe even a royal from Naboo, which means…??
That's for you to suss out. Perhaps all of this is a ruse and misinformation to lead us down the path of the plot twist and none of the characters, now, have a basis in myths, which would be too bad since George Lucas did all that research into the subject. Just find his interviews with Joseph Campbell.
So ends the drunken rambling on the new characters but in Episode III we will get to how the House of Atreus (Greek mythology), and Dune might have influenced the series.
May the Force be with you!!
~JLAJ
BTW, I have spoken to some people about Japanese influences and considered the myths of Izanagi and Izanami as the divine twins as reflected in Luke and Leia, or the Dark Side and the Light Side of the Force but their offspring Amaterasu, Susanoo, and Tsukuyomi don’t follow a pattern that fits with Star Wars. But that doesn’t mean they are not added to the new characters. And yes, Jidaigeki is a genre that has samurai flicks and from where Lucas got the term Jedi, which was originally Jedi Bendu. Perhaps Bendu is from the term in Sanskrit that mean point or center and this tends to be lent credence in the Star Wars Rebels cartoon with the Bendu who proclaims he is the middle, the point in between the Light and Dark Sides. Or it could be a reference to Buddhism, which is a philosophy of the “means in between the extremes.” Or as previously stated in Episode I it could be Brahma.