At the end of Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker, Rey is seen to defeat Palpatine in combat after a long and well-fought battle between the two’s allies.
Palpatine was believed to have the “ultimate power” in the Star Wars universe, existing as one of the most influential and powerful characters to ever grace our screens. As such, it is difficult to imagine why Palpatine lost to Rey, and how Rey was able to overcome the experienced Sith Lord in combat.
That’s why we’ve put together this article explaining how exactly Palpatine lost to Rey at the end of the trilogy.
Who Is Rey?
Rey Skywalker was a female Jedi Master who fought alongside the Resistance in a war against the First Order that ravaged the galaxy.
She was born on the planet Jakku in 15 ABY where she resided as a scavenger until the end of the New Republic Era, where she met the droid unit BB-8 and promptly began her journey.
She was born to a father, known as Dathan, who was a bioengineered Strand-Cast cloned from the genetic template of Darth Sidious, and a mother, Miramir, who was a junk trader on Jakku. Due to her distant ties to Darth Sidious, Rey Skywalker inherited his ties to the Force.
With this in mind, let’s explore the reasons why Rey Skywalker was able to defeat Emperor Palpatine.
#1 Rey Used The Spirits Of Past Jedi
Perhaps the main reason that Rey was capable of defeating Darth Sidious is because she had the ability to call on the spirits of all past Jedi to lend their power to put a stop to the Emperor.
When Rey was almost entirely deprived of her power, she called on the spirits of all past Jedi to help her to defeat Sidious. With their help, she was able to turn the Emperor’s newfound power against him using Anakin’s and Leia’s lightsabers, utterly destroying Sidious.
This meant that she was able to wield ultimate power over the light side of the Force for a period of time to combat the ultimate strength that was held by Palpatine.
As such, she was then able to rival him in force ability and turn his abilities against him in their final showdown.
#2 Rey Had A Strong Force Link
Rey had an incredible natural force ability, which was displayed various times in her journey towards Sidious. Some of her abilities, although inherited from Sidious, were able to be called upon to fight using both the light side and the dark side of the force.
Rey’s most powerful ability was her focused force rage. This allowed her to channel her anger to increase her speed, strength, endurance and ferocity at the risk of corruption to the dark side. She used this effectively in her final fight with Sidious to become a worthy opponent and eventually beat him.
She was also one of the limited number of Jedi who were able to use Force Lightning, and showed the first ever case of being able to use a Force Bond Connection to Fold Space and transport objects through matter.
You can find out if Jedi are able to use Force Lightning here.
It is largely as a result of these powers that Rey was able to defeat Sidious effectively.
#3 Sidious Let Rey Kill Him
A strong theory is that Sidious actually let Rey strike him down in order for Sidious to grow more powerful. It is shown in the movie that Darth Sidious’ original plan was to have Rey kill him so that he could possess her body, although the plan ultimately failed.
This would have allowed Palpatine to live through the body of a Jedi and grow his powers to greater degrees than before. However, Rey refused to strike Palpatine down out of anger, which led to Rey almost losing the fight before she called upon the spirits of other Jedi to aid her.
This could have meant that Rey would have continued the line of Palpatines leading the dark side and she would have become the new Emperor, replacing Sidious as a younger and potentially more powerful Sith Lord.
Conclusion
There is much ambiguity around the fight between Rey and Sidious for a number of reasons, with the first being that not much is explained in the movie. For example, they fail to explain why Palpatine did not enter Rey’s body after she killed him, which was his desired plan all along.
Furthermore, they fail to mention exactly how Rey was capable of calling on the power of all Jedi to defeat Sidious.
This would suggest that maybe the most plausible reason for Sidious’ defeat is Rey’s natural abilities. Because she was a clone of Sidious she had inherited some of his force traits, making her a powerful adversary to the Sith Lord.
As such, maybe it was this that led to his demise and her victory for the Resistance.
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