Entertainment

Is This Proof Jyn Erso Is Rey's Mom?

by Kadeen Griffiths

The moment we have all been waiting for has arrived, and the Rogue One trailer has finally dropped into the hands of eager Star Wars fans. The trailer follows Felicity Jones as Jyn Erso, who is pulled into a band of Rebel fighters with one goal: to steal the plans for the Death Star. As you can tell from that premise, it's a prequel story that takes place during the original Star Wars trilogy, but there is something more important on fans' minds: is Jyn Erso Rey's mom? The mystery of Rey's parentage was left unsolved in The Force Awakens, and fans have been promised a satisfying answer to that question, but it appears that they've already decided that the answer here is yes. And that's not a crazy thing to think, because there's one particular moment in the Rogue One trailer that proves Jyn Erso is Rey's mom. At least, in my opinion.

That moment is the second that Felicity Jones opens her mouth and speaks. Jyn's accent — British Received Pronunciation — is identical to Rey's. That they have British accents at all is pretty notable, since, according to Vox, within the Star Wars universe, that particular accent is known as "Coruscanti dialect of Galactic Basic Standard... associated with the capital planet of Coruscant and the Galactic political elite." As Vox points out, it's "not an accent that Rey would have picked up in a backwater like Jakku" — nor an accent that a described rebel like Jyn Erso, left on her own since the age of 15, would have casually picked up without raising a few questions about her own past as well.

While it's been speculated in the past that this accent could make Rey the daughter of Obi-Wan Kenobi in the past, the fact that Jyn shares it in the trailer makes it pretty obvious to me that she's as good a candidate as any for being Rey's mother. She might be a little young, but, if she survives the movie, she's got plenty of time to produce the badass heroine of The Force Awakens after her own badass adventure is over.

So watch the trailer again, listen to Felicity Jones speak, and just try and tell me you're not tempted to believe from her accent alone that she and Rey are totally related.

Image: StarWars/YouTube; Giphy