Half-a-Dozen Doubles and a Dyad
In The Rise of Skywalker, Rey and her friends Finn, Poe Dameron, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and BB-8 go on a mission in search of a Sith Wayfinder. Along the way, they encounter characters who mirror each member of the team.
First, when the team takes over Ochi’s abandoned ship to escape from the planet Pasaana, BB-8 finds Ochi’s old droid, D-O. D-O is BB-8’s double because both are small droids that roll around on one wheel. Moreover, D-O holds information for finding the lost Sith planet of Exegol, just as BB-8 once held information for finding the lost Jedi planet of Ahch-to in The Force Awakens. But the droid is also C-3PO’s double: both are programmed to be excessively polite — when D-O is frightened, he says “No thank you” — and C-3PO also holds information for finding Exegol because he can read the markings on the Sith dagger.
Second, when the team goes to the planet Kijimi to recover the message on the Sith dagger now locked inside C-3PO’s memory bank, they meet the spice runner Zorii Bliss and the droidsmith Babu Frik. Zorii is Poe’s double: he used to be a part of her gang, and later in the film she’ll join the Resistance just as he did. Babu is Chewbacca’s double: both are furry aliens who speak in languages only understood by their smuggler friends (Han Solo and Zorii, respectively), and Babu has to reconstruct C-3PO’s brain just as Chewbacca once had to reconstruct C-3PO’s body in The Empire Strikes Back.
Third, when the team goes to the planet Kef Bir, they meet Jannah, an ex-Stormtrooper, making her Finn’s double. Like Finn, Jannah was kidnapped by the First Order as a child and her name was replaced with a serial number. She “mutinied” when the First Order “told [her] to fire on civilians,” just as Finn did in The Force Awakens.
All these doubles set up the expectation that Rey will also have a double, and she does — two of them. First, on the Star Destroyer above Kijimi, Rey learns that she has a psychic bond with Kylo Ren because the two form a dyad in the Force. Second, in the ruins of the Second Death Star on Kef Bir, she is confronted by a phantom clone of herself as a Sith. All the other doubles reflect the heroes vaguely, more by analogy than by appearance, to recall aspects of their pasts. But this final double mirrors Rey entirely, revealing the darkness within her, to show her possible future.
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Characters: Babu Frik / BB-8 / C-3PO / Chewbacca / D-O / Finn / Jannah / Kylo Ren / Poe Dameron / Rey / Zorii Bliss
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Concepts: doubles
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