The Rise of Skywalker: So Rey’s dad was a Palpatine clone, too?
Fans continue to unearth new information about Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker in the novelization of the movie by Rae Carson. Just this week, we learned that Emperor Palpatine was actually a clone the whole time, a reveal that could have appeared in the film but didn’t. So in order to produce Rey’s parent, that means someone did the nasty with Palpatine’s clone, right?
Well, no, apparently that’s not what happened. Fans, who are furiously reading and rereading that book, have focused on a new passage that reveals that Rey’s father was actually a failed clone of Palpatine.
Why do you like to hurt me, Star Wars?
"Palpatine’s Clone Son page. Not an identical clone. from StarWarsLeaks"
"The heretics of the Sith Eternal toiled, splicing genes, bolstering tissue, creating unnatural abominations in the hope that one of these strandcasts would succeed and become a worthy receptacle. The heretics would do anything, risk anything, sacrifice anything to create a cradle for their god-consciousness.Nothing worked. But their efforts were not entirely in vain.One genetic strandcast lived. Thrived, even. A not-quite-identical clone. His “son.” But he was a useless, powerless failure. Palpatine could not even bear to look upon such disappointing ordinariness.The boy’s only worth would lay in continuing the bloodline through more natural methods."
And there you have it: Rey’s father was a huge disappointment to his dad, so he kicked him out of the house to fend for himself, and voila: Rey was born, through “more natural methods.”
The idea of Palpatine being a clone with a clone son reminds me of the prequels. Recall that Jango Fett was the source of the clone army, but he also wanted a genetically unmodified clone of his own, which is how we got Boba Fett.
Fans have been pretty irritating with these increasingly bizarre factoids arising from sources other than the movie. You know, none of this would be happening if J.J. Abrams hand’t retconned the whole “Rey’s parents were filthy junk traders” thing from The Last Jedi. Now we have a hero who’s the daughter of a failed clone of a clone, but also she takes the name Skywalker in the end for some reason?
It’s all become pretty messy, and I anxiously await more head-scratching reveals from the novelization.
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