One afternoon on Jakku is not sufficient. Rey ends up spending five days there. But in the end, she climbs back into the Falcon and sends a curt message with more excuses than explanations back to her friends at the Resistance. Then she takes off for the Unknown Regions. She jumps to hyperspace from the westernmost part of the known galaxy with full shields up.
Why is she doing this? Mostly because leaving things up to the Force is a convenient fatalism that avoids her taking actual responsibility for making a decision. And she's not agreeing to anything, she's just doing due diligence. Testing the waters for whether an alliance with Darth Plagueis is really what the Force wants. She knows that she's being manipulated by her compassion for Ben. But if there is anything the Light should be weak for, it's forgiveness, she rationalizes. So, hoping for the best, Rey surrenders her future to the Force.
She pretty much assumes that a Sith Lord in exile will live someplace creepy, dark, and prone to random flashes of lightning like Exogol. But Zakuul turns out to be a sunny, temperate world covered by lushly wooded swampland. There are wide areas of tall grass plains that interrupt the predominant forest landscape, but no settlements that she can identify from the air. Rey sets the Falcon down next to the one above-ground structure she can identify. As she descends closer, she discovers it to be a rambling stone villa complex complete with its own landing pad. Her eyes flit uninterested over the picturesque orchard setting. She's past the point of being impressed by trees. But the mechanic in her is impressed by that vintage chromium-plated cruiser parked on the landing pad. It looks to be Clone Wars era and in mint condition. Is that Darth Plagueis' personal ride? She wonders.
Enough stalling. She grabs her knapsack with Luke's books and her new saberstaff weapon and heads down the Falcon's ramp. Never one to stand on ceremony and nervous for what lies ahead, Rey marches right into the manor house. Inside, the place is fancy, like she knew it would be. But Rey looks past all that. For as she bursts in and follows her senses to where the life forms are congregated, all she can see is him.
"Ben!" The word bursts out, revealing all of her surprise. Neither can she contain the smile that accompanies it. For here, seemingly in the flesh, is the man who stood with her, Jedi blue sword in hand, to oppose the old Emperor.
He's alive!
Her heart skips a beat with excitement. Truthfully, she wouldn't be here if she didn't believe Darth Plagueis when he promised he could resurrect Ben. Rey has seen for herself the awesome power of the Force. It heals mortal wounds, like the deep stab wound she gave Ben on Endor. It revived her on Exogol. And so, it didn't seem a big stretch that in the hands of a fully trained, seasoned Sith Master, the Force could coax back a dead Skywalker. But seeing is believing. And in this moment, Rey fully believes. For behold: anything is possible in the Force. The unnatural Dark art of a Sith resurrection ironically fills her with hope. Suddenly, Rey is very glad she came.
He's alive!
"Rey." Ben says her name softly. It's a whisper that carries across the expansive room.
"You're hurt." He might be alive, but Ben looks awful. He's sprawled in a chair wearing a loose, light colored tunic and pants that look like medical garments. One leg is in some sort of splint and one arm is in a sling. Otherwise, he's barefoot. He's also noticeably paler than his usual white complexion. There are deep shadows under his eyes. Taking it all in, she's concerned.
"It's nothing." That's the response she would give were their roles reversed. So, Rey nods back. And that's when she becomes aware that they have an audience. Two old men in black stand by the far door. Darth Plagueis himself stands watching closely from the head of the room, arms crossed before a large old-fashioned hearth.
The towering Sith with the ruined face now attempts to ingratiate himself. "As promised, here is he is. Alive and well."
"You kept your promise." The issue was never whether Plagueis could revive Ben, but whether he would do it. And also, at what cost. Rey had come here, bringing the Jedi books he requested, expecting to negotiate. She didn't anticipate that Plagueis would preemptively bring back Ben in advance. She's caught off guard, but in a good way.
Her exchange with Plagueis alarms Ben. "What did you agree to?" he hisses. The expression he gives her is full of suspicion that verges on horror.
"Nothing. I agreed to nothing," Rey answers fast. She showed up here to see what she could get. Mostly, it was to satisfy her curiosity and to appease her nagging conscience.
Ben still looks spooked. Like he fears she has sold her soul in exchange for his. But she was never going to do that. If the price was too steep, she was going to walk away. Figuring that in such instance, she would have done her best and she could make peace with her survivor's guilt.
"Precisely right," smooth Darth Plagueis inserts himself. "This isn't a business arrangement, this is a homecoming. At long last, my daughter is delivered to me. Let us welcome her to the family, Lord Ren."
Lord Ren. Rey's eyes narrow.
But Ben is the one who reacts first. "Daughter?"
"Lord Ren?" she whispers. Lord Ren as in Darth Ren? Rey looks from Ben to Plagueis and back again.
Explanations are in order. "Yes. You, Lord Ren, are my great grandson and Lady Rey here is my daughter. She's a Skywalker of a sort. A child of the Force. Don't believe what Sidious told you about her being his granddaughter. That's rubbish! I made her like I made your grandfather." Their host announces this as if conjuring people in the Force were commonplace. Which apparently it is for him.
"We're related?" Rey asks weakly. She's understanding for the first time now that this mysterious leftover Sith Lord is not just claiming credit for her creation, but for the Skywalker family too. The implications are enormous. The Skywalkers have been driving galactic history and politics for generations now. And if they are his progeny . . . well, then Plagueis has been setting things in motion for quite some time.
"Ben, you're his kin as well?"
"Well, naturally," their host answers for him. "I created the Skywalker line long ago. I think that makes you cousins of some kind, or maybe you're some sort of aunt. I'm not sure." He's fuzzy on the details and doesn't seem to care.
But she does. "Oh." Rey processes his bizarre news, uncomfortably aware that she has been having fanciful daydreams about a man who was fundamentally unsuitable as a romantic interest for reasons wholly separate from his Dark Side affiliation. Rey is dismayed. Embarrassed too. "That's . . . uh . . . wonderful."
Ben immediately accuses, "That's a lie!"
Plagueis is nonplussed. "Search your feelings. You will know it to be true."
Rey gulps. She understands much better Plagueis' reaction on Tatooine when she declared herself a Skywalker and not a Palpatine. She was right even if she didn't know why. Looking back, the whole exchange takes on a new meaning now.
"Even if what you claim is fact, this isn't some blood relation," Ben asserts.
"We are a family," Darth Plagueis proclaims staunchly. "Reunited at long last. My dear, everything you have ever longed for is here." He begins cooing temptation to her, "A family, a home, a teacher, and a—"
"Cousin?" Ben snorts. "Hell no!"
Plagueis shoots him a sharp look. "This is your only warning, Lord Ren. More of that and I will discipline you as my Apprentice."
Lord Ren. It's not lost on Rey that Ben is objecting to being called her cousin but not to being given the title of a Dark Lord of the Sith. The realization adds to her dismay. "You're Lord Ren now? Kylo Ren? Not Ben?" she chokes out. "He calls you his Apprentice," she whispers. "Is that true?"
"No!"
She looks to Darth Plagueis for confirmation.
"Oh, never mind about that Rule of Two bit. I broke with that decades ago. I haven't been a proper Sith since before the Clone Wars," he assures her. "Never fear, Daughter, you can be my Apprentice as well."
It's not what she's hoping to hear. As her sense of dread deepens, Rey gives vent to her fears. "I never agreed to be your Apprentice! I never told you to resurrect him! There is no deal!" Suddenly, she feels coerced into something she never agreed to. Ben is back, being presented as a fait accompli, and she fears he and Plagueis believe she has signed up to become Darth Rey.
"Think of him as a present," Plagueis even suggests wryly.
She's a bit dumbfounded by how this meeting has taken such a quick turn. Across the room, Ben has that super intense expression on his face that reminds her of their conversation in Snoke's throne room. He had that look in his eye when she refused to join him. When he started yelling at her to let the past die. The Force fairly crackles around them as he now asks a very leading question: "You want me dead?"
And no, that's not right. She wants him Light. All along, she has wanted him Light.
"No, no," Plagueis jumps in to fill the silence of her hesitation. He tries to soothe things over. "She was still deciding when I left her. She needed time to think it over-"
"You did?" Ben acts hurt. And that's confusing because surely he knows that they are enemies if he is Dark. Does she really need to spell this out? She's Resistance, he's First Order. She's going to be a Jedi and he's standing in a Sith Lord's living room being called the Apprentice. They are fundamentally opposed to one another and there is a war going on. How is it in any way a surprise that she didn't leap at the chance to bring him back from the dead? The easier path seemed to be to leave well enough alone. She didn't want him dead, but she was prepared to accept it.
But all eyes are on her. She needs to say something. So, she does. "It depends . . . Who are you? Are you Kylo Ren or Ben Solo?" It's an honest question. It also feels like she's giving him another chance to step up and declare himself reformed.
Ben stalls. Her heart sinks.
"I'm both men," comes his reply. But all Rey hears is 'I'm still Dark.'
It provokes a strong, immediate reaction. "I don't really know you at all, do I?" Rey chokes out. He keeps disappointing her. And like a fool, she keeps coming back for more. When will she learn? She knows better than to allow herself to be so vulnerable. And with Ben of all people.
He struggles painfully to his feet now. "Rey—"
"Every time I think I understand you, I am wrong," she half wails. "On the Supremacy, on Exogol—"
"Rey—" he stumbles forward.
"Luke was right! He told your mother that he couldn't save you . . . he was right! I can't save you either." This is the lesson of the confrontations with Snoke and with Darth Sidious—that she cannot redeem him. Ben has to redeem himself. She's miserable that he is so stubborn in his refusal. But where before on the Supremacy she was sad, this time, she is angry.
"Rey—"
She overrides him, snarling, "Lord Ren! Lord Ren?" Suddenly, she feels as upset as she did when she shot Force lighting on Passana. "Did you just promote yourself to Sith? Or does he get to do that?" she jeers, gesturing to Darth Plagueis. "You keep trading up on Masters, don't you? Always looking for more power. Are you still Supreme Leader in your mind, or do you prefer Darth?"
"I am through being the Apprentice," Ben answers.
Yeah, right. Does he think he's going to outclass Darth Plagueis the Wise who raises the dead? Ben might be able to kill the puppet Snoke, but she doubts he's up to the task of taking out Plagueis.
It's a standoff now as she glares at Ben and he glares back. Did he mislead her? Or did she mislead herself? He's always intense, but right now he looks very upset. Almost like he's the one who feels misled. Abruptly, Ben turns and stumbles back to fall into his chair. He's facing away from her now. She watches in silence as he runs a hand through his wild hair. The hand squeezes to a fist in a silent gesture of barely controlled fury.
Her anger cools as rapidly as it flared. She swallows her emotions and strives for detachment and control. Reaching for Jedi calm to balm the implicit rejection she feels, Rey masters her emotions. She is resigned and composed when she speaks. "Tell me the truth. You're Darker than ever now, aren't you?"
When Ben doesn't answer, she addresses Darth Plagueis. "This is your theory in action, right? Luke and Leia are gone now and the Light has dimmed. So the Darkness rises in you, him, and Sidious . . . it's going to offset the Resistance victory, isn't it?"
"Wrong. He is like you, equally capable of Dark or Light. A microcosm of the conflict implicit in the universe."
She shakes her head. "I've never seen him be Light."
"Then you're not looking," the Sith who works miracles informs her curtly.
She restates her position. "I've seen him do things I thought were Light, but they were for his own purposes. I just misunderstood his intentions." She blames herself. And that humiliation makes her want to flee. "I'm done here," she mutters gruffly as she re-shoulders her bag of books and glances back to the way she came in.
She's disappointed, so disappointed. Yes, resurrecting Kylo Ren instead of Ben Solo was always a possibility. But she was so certain in that magical moment when her eyes opened on Exogol that she was looking at the real Ben Solo. He had smiled at her—actually smiled!—and in that moment, anything felt possible. For he was finally the hero she had always known he could be. But she was wrong, it seems. And now, things are even worse than she understood. For Darth Sidious is alive, Ben is still on Team Dark Side, and now he has a new Master in the form of this scary Snoke lookalike whose motives are anyone's guess. Meanwhile Luke and Leia are gone and she's left alone to fend for herself as the champion of the Light. She has no teacher, just a few books and examples to follow. That doesn't feel like enough. Because if Luke couldn't succeed on his own, how can she? Rey feels things spiraling down fast. For in the end, Exogol wasn't even close to a victory. It didn't solve anything. Her friends in the Resistance need to know that.
Yes, she is most definitely done here. She needs to get back where she belongs. Rey hangs her head down and grumbles, "Goodbye."
"Run away!" Ben hisses softly at her. "Run away again!" It reminds her of the time he told her he was a monster.
Plagueis objects. "Nonsense. She just arrived. And here you are, back from the dead. The least she can do is stay a while. Rey, there's no rush."
"Let her go." Ben is almost goading her to leave. He's all but showing her the door to compound his rejection.
"Really, you two," Lord Plagueis harrumphs. "Is this how young people flirt these days?"
Red faced Rey squints over at Ben across the room. She wonders aloud, "Is he even fully alive? Or is he another Force trick like Palpatine did with Snoke?"
"Oh, he's alive," Plagueis assures her.
"I'm no puppet," Ben growls indignantly.
She's not convinced because Snoke had been so convincing. She cocks her head and looks Ben over again. "He might be a projection . . ." Come to think of it, that would make perfect sense from a duplicitous Sith. Plagueis would love to gain her goodwill by tricking her into thinking Ben is back in the flesh and she owed him her allegiance as a result.
"He's alive." Plagueis seems affronted by her doubting his resurrection. "Why would I project him injured if I were trying to fool you?"
For his part, Ben looks irritated by the whole debate. "What do you even care, Rey? You want me dead. You're always swinging a sword at me—trying to kill me. You stabbed me on the Death Star!"
Yeah . . . that wasn't her best moment. "I healed you!" she counters defensively.
"There's another Death Star?" Plagueis asks. He's intrigued.
"It was an old one . . . the second one . . . it's in pieces on Endor," she explains.
"Whew," their host exhales. "Three were enough. Sheev and his Death Stars . . . He never learns, does he?"
She ignores him to address Ben. Time to apologize before she leaves. She makes it as perfunctory as possible. "That was a mistake on Endor. I shouldn't have done that. But I healed you—"
"And then you ditched me."
"You followed anyway!"
"Because you took on Darth Sidious by yourself on a suicide mission—"
"Yeah, well, thanks for your help . . . " she grumbles.
Ben sneers back. "Why thank me? You didn't need me. You don't need anyone except yourself! Tell me, why did you even come here?"
"She came at my request. She is my guest," Plagueis shoots Ben a quelling look. "This is her home and she is always welcome here."
Rey is lost in the confusing dynamics between Master and Apprentice. But she does wants to get one thing straight before she returns to the Resistance: "Are you really alive?" she addresses Ben.
"Yes."
"Prove it."
"How?"
Darth Plagueis intervenes to command, "Apprentice, kiss her."
"What?" she gasps.
"No!" Ben reacts. It's more rejection, and it stings.
"You heard me. Kiss her. Show her you're real. You two can reenact your dying moments."
Ben is very unenthusiastic. "How about we shake hands?"
"Where's the fun in that?" Plagueis pouts.
She glares. "I don't want to kiss him!"
"I don't want to kiss her!" Ben retorts.
"Nonsense. Pucker up, Apprentices!" the old Muun crows. When neither of them makes a move, he relents. "Fine, kick her."
"With pleasure." Ben actually gets up on his feet and lumbers over.
She retreats. "Hey!"
"I'll show you I'm real," Ben growls. "Then, you can leave."
Enough of this. She ignites her new sword. That stops Ben in his tracks. Just like on Jakku, when you brandish a weapon it gets everyone's attention fast.
Except the attention is somewhat deflating. Her sword fails to impress. Ben has the effrontery to squint at her creation. "Yellow? That's . . . different. Where did you get that crystal?"
"From Maz Kanata."
"Who?"
"It's more gold than yellow," Plagueis appraises slowly. "Could be worse. It could be green."
"You're right," Ben agrees with complete seriousness. "I hate green swords. What is that exactly?" He tilts his head to inspect her creation.
"It's a staff on one side and a saber on the other. I made it myself."
"I can see that," Ben smirks. It makes her long to wipe the sardonic twist off his face with a swing of her new weapon.
Amused Plagueis snorts. "Somewhere Darth Maul is rolling over in his grave."
"Who's Maul?" She doesn't know that name.
"He was half the Sith but double the sword," Plagueis answers with the ghost of a smile about his lips.
Now it's Ben's turn to snort.
She looks from one man to the other. What's so funny? She's not following.
"Rey, turn that off," Ben orders. "You're going to get yourself killed."
"Oh, I think you'll be the one on the ground," she threatens above her buzzing sword.
She starts to spin it, and Ben steps back to raise his hands in surrender. "You win. Now, put it away and leave. I am unarmed and injured," he tells her with a reproachful look. It makes her want to squirm with shame. And that's all wrong because he's the bad guy, right? But there's her proof that Ben's real because a Force projection wouldn't fear injury, she decides.
"Must you two fight so much?" their host Plagueis complains with a heavy sigh. "All families fight, but you take it to an extreme."
It's true. All she and Ben ever seem to do is fight. That's partly her fault, she recognizes. She knows she's not good at communicating. She's not charismatic like Finn or outgoing like Rose. She doesn't have Poe's ability to diffuse tension with humor and charm. Too much time alone in the desert has left its mark. More and more, she's realizing just how ill-equipped she is for life outside Jakku.
That's especially true where conflict is concerned. On Jakku, conflict was resolved with a win or a loss. There was never a draw. You were the victor or the vanquished. And since Rey was determined to survive, that meant she started her share of fights. It's a habit she can't seem to lose. Unfortunately, Ben Solo seems to bring that impulse to the forefront time and again. Plagueis is right—he gets under her skin. It's for reasons she understands and for reasons she can't explain. But time and again, she finds herself facing him down, usually with a sword in her hand. Like now.
So, with a deep breath, she deactivates her weapon.
Ben's shoulders visibly fall at the de-escalation. Even Plagueis looks a bit relieved. "Now that's out of the way, where are the books? Did you bring the books?" the Sith Lord demands.
She puts a firm grip on her knapsack with her hand and with the Force. "They're mine."
"Nonsense. You stole them."
"I scavenged them." That's different.
"I abhor all thievery but my own," Plagueis announces blithely as he plucks the knapsack from her grip with his power. He proceeds to dump it out on a nearby table and start flipping through the books. "Uhm, yes, just as I suspected . . . "
She immediately approaches to peek around him. "You can read that Old Aurebesh?"
"Oh, yes. I am quite proficient. There's nothing new here." Plagueis casts aside one book to flip through another. "This looks equally unimportant," he decides after a moment before he reaches for a third volume.
"Hey—watch it—those are sacred Jedi texts." He's manhandling the delicate pages in a way that is giving her great anxiety. Those massive clawed hands of his are far from careful. "Watch it!"
But the Sith Master unceremoniously drops the third book to begin poking at yet another. "There's nothing good here. These aren't worth your time," he concludes. Then he gathers up the full set, stuffs them back in her dirty knapsack, and walks across the room.
Rey is hot on his heels. "Those are mine—"
"You don't need them." Plagueis tosses the knapsack into the empty hearth. Before she can react, the Sith points a finger and zaps them with Force lightning.
Rey watches in horror as the ancient texts that are her only source of guidance catch fire. "NOOO!" she screams as she dives for the flaming books. She doesn't get far. Darth Plagueis freezes her in the Force. It's the same trick Ben used on her on Takodana.
"Don't, my dear, you'll burn yourself," the Sith Master chides. He holds her frozen until the tombs crumble to grey-black ash. Then he lets her go.
She is aghast. She trusted the Force and it delivers her here for this to happen? Incensed, Rey lights her sword again. "You had no right!" she sputters in utter frustration.
This is like when Ben smashed the Wayfinder on Endor and declared that the only way she would get to Exogol was with him. That's essentially what Plagueis is doing now—acting as a gatekeeper for the knowledge of the Force. Now, the only way to learn the Light is through these Sith, filtered by their theories and perspectives. It's paternalism at its most insidious. In the moment, her resentment at this treatment is downright Dark. She summons her power and everyone in the room who matters senses it.
"Rey—" Across the room, Ben is on his feet again. "Rey, stand down!"
"Indeed. Don't you dare swing that ridiculous thing at me," Plagueis warns. "You have a lot of spirit, my dear, but tamp it down. I am not your enemy."
Rey keeps the sword lit. "I needed those books—"
"You don't."
"I didn't turn Sith for my grandfather—
"He's not your grandfather."
"-so why would I turn Sith for you?"
"You mistake my intent. I don't want you to be Sith. That religion is dead. I want you to balance the Force."
She jabs a thumb in the direction of Ben Solo. "Tell that to him. He's the Chosen One."
"So are you. Henceforth," Plagueis proclaims, "there will be no more Jedi and no more Sith. Let the past die. It was terribly flawed."
She fumes. "That's all nice but Darth Sidious—the super Sith Master—is still alive!"
Old Plagueis grunts. "For the record, I am the super Sith Master."
"And yet you're here hiding in exile," she jeers recklessly. "Because Darth Sidious drove you out!"
"He did resurrect me," Ben points out in support of his new Master.
"Fine! But he still can't beat Darth Sidious!"
"Rey, Lord Ren and I are all you need to learn the Force," Darth Plagueis assures her. "Together, we can deal with my old Apprentice."
Does he think she's an idiot? She can't learn the Jedi way from either of them. These men are the latest in a long line of Dark Side megalomaniacs who bend the galaxy to their will. They are completely unsuited to mentor her. "You are the Sith!"
"Not really," Darth Plagueis freely admits. With a glance over at Ben, he judges, "He'd never make it as a true Sith and let's just say that I am much reformed from my younger days. Never fear, the Light will be as vibrant as ever in time. But for that, we need your help. Time to learn from Lord Ren."
"Him? You want him to teach me?" Rey pulls back and lifts her chin with frosty dignity. "Are you mocking me?"
"Not at all. He's the real deal. I let him live as a Jedi Padawan for years so he would learn the Light. I assumed wrongly that Skywalker would protect him from Sidious. But alas, by the time I realized my old pupil had sunk his teeth into the last of the Skywalkers, it was too late. That's why you're around. I created you in the Force as a fallback plan."
"Oh." So she's Plan B to balance the Force? Rey doesn't like the sound of that.
But Plagueis is oblivious to all but his own aims. He shrugs off her reaction. "It worked out well in the end. I have two of you. Now then, Lord Ren will be your tutor. He's your authority on all things Light."
That's ridiculous. "He doesn't know the Light!"
"Sure, he does. Apprentice," Plagueis calls across the room. "What is the first lesson of being a Jedi?"
Ben answers immediately. "The Force is for defense, never for attack."
Not surprisingly, Plagueis dismisses that wisdom out of hand. "That's a stupid rule. Attack when it is to your advantage, defend when attacked. Got it? Done. What's the second lesson of the Light?" he calls again to Ben.
This time, Luke's fallen student is rusty. He has to think a moment before he comes up with, "Trust your feelings."
"Yes! Trust your feelings. But more importantly, allow yourself to feel emotions, Rey. Listen to the Force speaking to you and acting through you." The old Dark Master casually suggests, "You know, be a little Sith."
"This isn't Jedi training," she scowls.
"It's not supposed to be. Lord Ren will teach you the Light Side of the Force, not Jedi dogma. There is a difference." Plagueis turns now to Ben. "Teach her what you learned was right and what you learned was wrong and be sure to explain why. Put it all in context. Light and Dark must be in context. The Force has nuance."
She again complains. "This isn't Jedi training."
The comment earns her a stern look. "I told you on Jakku—I will not allow you to rebuild the Jedi Order. Their fire has gone out of the universe. But I do want you to learn the Force. I would train you myself, but I'm busy."
"Buying art?" Ben suggests dryly.
"No. Thwarting Darth Sidious. It is a round-the-clock task some days," the veteran Dark Sider sighs wearily.
"What exactly are you doing?" Ben wants to know.
"It requires a great deal of concentration, so don't bother me with trivialities. I am hard at work saving the galaxy for you two." Grumpy Plagueis makes it sound like a thankless task. But the half smile on his ruined face tells Rey that's he's delighting in it nevertheless. And that makes sense—he's a Sith getting his revenge. "Now do your part and get to work learning something. Lord Ren, the vacation's over," Plagueis scolds as he heads for the door flanked by the two watchful old men in black.
Rey is left still holding her lit sword. She's even more uncertain now about what to do than she was on Jakku. Because what are these guys—some sort of self-styled modern and reformed Sith? They're scrambling the usual codes and archetypes of Darkness to keep it freshly seductive—is that it? All the familiar touchstones are there—black outfits, red swords, cynicism, and manifestos. But there are new twists as well, and Rey doesn't know what to make of them.
For the big baddie isn't the big baddie, he just looks like who you thought the big baddie was. It is deception on a whole new level. Naturally, he's out for power. But he's not angling for Dark Side dominance. Instead, he wants to rule the whole Force through some amorphous concept of balance. So he's a zealot who destroys relics in an effort to obliterate the past. His predecessors may have destroyed planets like Alderaan and Hosnia, but this book burning control freak wants to destroy ideas.
His newest sidekick Apprentice turns out to be more petulant than commanding. Ben Solo will never live up to the legacy of Darth Vader because he's very easy to pity. Ben's a mixture of pain and hurt so raw that it makes him altogether too appealing for straightforward villainy. This time around, the bad guy is also a victim—both of his Light Side family and of his original Dark Side Master. And that's not counting the damage that is self-inflicted. It makes Rey want to help Ben, especially when he begs 'please' when he asks her to join him. That's not the usual power move. In fact, it was very nearly effective. Because somehow all Ben's complexity has her convinced that he's due for the happy ending he doesn't seem to want. And here she is again today finding herself all too susceptible to giving him more chances.
As she hesitates with more indecision, Ben approaches as fast as he can limp. "Rey, you need to leave. Leave now. This is a trap." His voice is rushed and hushed. Just whose side is he on?
Slow-moving Plagueis overhears, of course. He half turns. "This is not a trap." Is that statement for her benefit? Maybe for Ben's?
Well, she isn't fooled. "I know it's a trap. But I suppose I've already fallen for it," she admits. With a mournful look at the ashes in the fireplace, she sighs. "I really needed those books."
Plagueis is firm. "This is not a trap, and you don't need books. All you need is him," he points an emphatic finger at Ben.
But Lord Ren is mutinous again. He urges her, "Get out of here—now! Before it's too late. I'll try and hold him off for you."
Plagueis grunts and crosses his arms. He adds an eye roll for good measure. "As if you could ever stop me—"
"Go now! Rey, listen!" Ben isn't yelling, but the intensity of his words has the same effect. He really, really wants her to leave. She's befuddled by his motivation. There are undercurrents here she doesn't comprehend.
And now, Plagueis looks less annoyed. He seizes upon his wayward Apprentice's plot to help her escape. "You wanted to see the Light in him? See it now! Honestly, girl, you are very stubborn. Either that or blind," he harrumphs.
The Snoke lookalike now announces, "I'm going back to work now. Rey, make your choice. Flee if you must, but know that this is where all the knowledge you seek resides. We three are the key to defeating Lord Sidious. You want to be a hero? Stop running away and face your fear of Darkness. Lord Sidious must be stopped. On that all depends." With that impatient speech, the Dark Side sage continues his progress towards the door.
It leaves her staring at Ben.
"Rey, he's letting you leave. Go now!"
"Is it true? Is balancing the Force the only way to defeat Palpatine?" She doesn't know why she's trusting Ben to answer the question, but she does it anyway.
"I don't know. I just know what didn't work last time. Look, I'm sure Plagueis wants to use us as an instrument of his revenge. He wants our dyad."
"Like Sidious."
"Yes!"
That dyad had done wonders restoring Palpatine's power. But the bond is gone, at least for now. Because first she died and then Ben died too.
"Plagueis was always going to resurrect you, wasn't he?" Rey realizes aloud. That wily old Sith made himself two Chosen One chances to balance the Force. Of course, he wasn't going to let one get away if he could prevent it with a Sith resurrection. Yet again, Ben is being used. And his fate was never really in her hands, Rey now understands. He was just the lure to get her here.
"Can you make it to the Falcon?" she whispers, looking down at his bandaged leg.
He shakes his head. "I can't run anywhere. I'll only slow you down."
Yes, she can see that. "How long until it heals?"
"About ten days, I hope. Sooner for the shoulder and the rest of me."
"Ten days . . ."
"Rey, you need to leave—"
"Not without you." She can't defeat Darth Sidious on her own. She needs help. And since the Sith devil you know is better than the Sith devil you don't, she's left with Ben as her best ally. So, with a deep breath, she decides, "I guess I'm staying for now." At least until Ben can escape with her or they balance the Force, whichever comes first.