Lost Children of the First Order
In the middle of The Rise of Skywalker, Rey and her friends go to three different planets during their quest for a Sith Wayfinder. Children are either seen or mentioned on each planet, revealing the generational consequences of the First Order’s reign of terror.
First, on the desert planet Pasaana, the youngsters who watch the puppet show at the Aki-Aki Festival of the Ancestors are enjoying childhoods that have yet to be affected by the First Order — that is, until TIE Fighters and Stormtroopers descend upon and disrupt the festivities. It’s significant that the festival they disrupt is explicitly a celebration of former generations. Together with their families, the children of Pasaana had been participating in a ritual that preserves memories of their heritage.
Second, on the mountainous planet Kijimi, Zorii Bliss tells Poe Dameron that the First Order has been rounding up and abducting the planet’s children. Whereas on Pasaana the First Order broke up a celebration of family ties, on Kijimi it has gone further to break up the families themselves. Later in the film, the First Order will destroy the planet, turning Kijimi’s lost children into homeless orphans.
Finally, on the watery planet Kef Bir, Rey and her friends meet Jannah and other ex-Stormtroopers who were abducted, conscripted, and brainwashed by the First Order when they were children. Though Jannah and the others have defected and escaped from the First Order, they are unable to remember, let alone return to, the families the First Order took from them.
The lost children of the second and third planets are a harbinger of what could happen to the children of the first planet if the First Order is not overthrown: the First Order ends childhoods and families, obliterating even the memory of them.
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Characters: Jannah
Films: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker
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