Star Wars Reveals Darth Vader's Role In Rey's Birth

The mystery around Rey's lineage is one of the central narratives in the Star War sequel trilogy. From Star Wars: The Force Awakens' opening day, fans had their theories, and Star Wars: The Last Jedi seemed to squash all of them only for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker to provide a surprising answer: Rey is Emperor Palpatine's granddaughter, and her father a genetic strandcast (not quite a clone) of the Sith lord. Now known to have taken the name Dathan, he escaped from Palpatine's realm and lived the life of a family man until his father's agents came searching for Rey.

But it turns out that Darth Vader played an unwitting role in Rey's birth, as revealed by the Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith, the new novel by Adam Christopher that acts like a prequel to the sequel trilogy. Dathan (known throughout his early years simply as the Abomination) had been trapped on Exegol, the Sith world where Palpatine had created him. How did he escape?

It took a visit to the planet from Darth Vader and Ochi of Bestoon to provide Dathan the opportunity to escape. We know that Vader and Ochi visited Exegol at least once thanks to Marvel Comics' Darth Vader series. This particular visit came at the right time for Dathan. At this point, is old enough to feel like a prisoner on Exegol and to know he wants nothing to do with whatever the Sith Eternal has planned for him. With the help of a Symeon slave named Dathan (whose name he then borrows), the strandcast stows away on Vader and Ochi's ship, remaining unnoticed until the ship touches down and he flees.

It is from here that Dathan is able to begin his life anew, away from Palpatine's gaze. He worked on a ship for a time before coming to live on the planet Hyperkarn. There, he met and married Miramir. Then Rey was born and they began their life on the run from Palpatine's agents looking to collect his granddaughter.

But none of this would have been set in motion without Vader landing on Exegol that fateful day, unknowingly allowing Palpatine's unwanted scion a chance to escape the life he'd been born into. Given the rocky relationship between Vader and his master by this point in time, one has to wonder if Vader may have sensed something in the force and allowed it to happen anyway.

Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith is on sale now.