Star Wars: Does Rey really need a romance in Episode IX?

Is Rey going to have to contend with an actual romance in Star Wars: Episode IX, and does that actually need to happen for her?

Not to knock the shippers of Star Wars — Stormpilot is, to me, not only a cool portmanteau but also a ship I would be happy to see fly among the stars in canon — but we’re pretty sure Daisy Ridley is over the idea of a relationship for Rey in Episode IX, thanks to some footage found by Star Wars News Net.

And, frankly, it’s not really a huge surprise. Really, Ridley’s defense alone is pretty well-put and could summarize accurately our own feelings on the matter. For all our love of the romance between Han and Leia, they’re not, at the end of the day, the hero who defeats the Emperor and saves his own father. That’s Luke.

Luke does not get the big, life-changing romance bit. He eventually does, over in the old Expanded Universe (Mara Jade, we still miss you), but in the movies, he’s off doing galaxy-saving type stuff. The princess turns out to be his sister anyway.

We’ve been arguing since April of last year that Rey is the hero of this trilogy, and by extension its Luke Skywalker. The traditional role of the Star Wars trilogy main character is not to be half of the romantic role — and for all that Star Wars: The Last Jedi made nods to the prequels, we don’t think that we have another Anakin and Padmé situation on our hands here. No, not even with Rey and Kylo Ren. (At least we hope not.)

But even beyond that, as Ridley herself pointed out, there’s something lovely and wonderful about deep friendships. Rey and Finn have gone through a lot together, and we sincerely hope that J.J. Abrams and Chris Terrio don’t decide to have Rey lose her mind over the budding Rose/Finn relationship. Even in Poe’s introduction to Rey, this writer didn’t read romantic attraction — but she did read a deep respect in Poe’s “I know.”

Leave Rey’s romantic endeavors, when and if she has them, to the realm of the books and other materials — or integrate them so well that we believe she’d actually fall for someone and see her happy instead of constantly having to deal with an overgrown child who started his Jedi training too late like Padmé.

Next: A shipper's guide to Star Wars: The Last Jedi

Rey’s gone two movies without having an explicitly romantic relationship, and we think she can handle a third all by herself.