Originally Posted by
godisawesome
It’s actually a bit more clear than that; Palpatine came back for the same reason Rey’s story got derailed in TLJ and why she became a character simultaneously too powerful for an external conflict yet too weakly drawn as a character to be interesting after a promising start in TFA:
LFL couldn’t bare the idea of Kylo Ren being the main villain and having to cash the check TLJ wrote of him ascending to leadership.
Really... its’ actually pretty simple of you realize that every argument made about why Rey Skywalker would be “boring” and “predictable” was actually being used hypocritically on Kylo, who’s so pathetically banal and unsympathetic it basically required neutering any of Rey’s potential either as a Random or as a potential Skywalker because that wouldn’t let him exploit the monopoly on the family tie he had.
Basically, it’s a three part mistake:
- It’s all but confirmed that Rey’s original version was a Solo sister (Thea) to the earliest version of Finn/Ben (Sam), but when Abrams and Kasdan created Finn for the male lead and combined the Jedi Killer with Sam’s Solo blood, they decided to do a mystery box on Rey. This was ultimately a stupid idea, because it mean that either the next writer would have to make the neccessary explanations for the only answer that could really work to maintain equilibrium, embrace an anti-Skywalker stance where to maintain equilibrium Kylo is portrayed as completely unsympathetic, or worst of all, get distracted by Kylo... and **** up Rey, Finn, Kylo, and the Skywalkers all at once.
- Then Rian Johnson... fucked up Rey, Finn, Kylo and the Skywalkers all at once. Finn got demoted and shoved aside out of apathy for not being Kylo, Luke got grown under the bus only for Kylo instead of at least trying to use him for Rey’s sake, Kylo got reinterpreted as a pretty boy we should care about in a hypocritical double standard he enjoyed, and Rey got made into a plot tool for fawning over Kylo.
Fundamentally, TLJ is where things got screwiest with Rey and the Skywalkers. Wonder Woman and Captain Marvel show you can have über powerful female heroes and still tell a good story with good characterization for them... but you can’t have good characterization if Rey's main thing became falling for the Neo-Nazi School Shooter who tried to sexually assault her mind and murdered and maimed her found family.
- Then because TROS was trying to respect the characterizations of TLJ, and because LFL couldn’t bear letting their golden boy be the target of audience boos, we got Palpatine back so we could pretend that TLJ’s characterizations made sense and get Ben Solo as Rey’s parasitic abusive love interest.
Yeah, I’m saying that Palpatine's back more because of LFL wanting to follow up Reylo and Ben Solo apologism than any attempt to help Rey.
Because honestly, of helping Rey was LFL’ priority, than she’d either have been retconned into a Skywalker, or we wouldn’t have to waste time with Ben Solo.