Spoilers for Forspoken and the Star Wars sequel trilogy aheadAs Luminous Productions strove to make Frey Holland a plucky, modern girl with a knack for magic, theForspokendeveloper might have made its protagonist similar to another popular heroine from a recent pop-culture blockbuster. Specifically,Frey Hollandappears to have a lot in common with Rey from theStar Warssequel trilogy, especially when looking at their lineages.
With only one title to go off in what could become a wholeForspokenfranchise, the best comparisons between Frey and Rey come from their starting motivations and their parents. More specifically, how both of these characters relate to the villains of their given stories tie the two heroines together.
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Frey and Rey Both Feel a Conflicting Need to Find Home
Though motivations in theopening ofForspokenare muddy, with Frey going from wanting to leave New York to desperately wanting to return, her wish to find home is familiar. On the surface, it appears to be the opposite of how Rey treats Jakku during the opening act ofStar Wars: The Force Awakens, wanting only to stay put and wait for people who might never come back. However, the deeper desires that pull at these motivations are similar between what both Frey and Rey are looking for.
Right from the start, both Frey and Rey are desperate to belong somewhere and have a family to live with. Since both were seemingly abandoned at a young age, the ties that bind them to their respective homes and make them want to return revolve directly around a need for a family. This means that, in both cases, their new relationships with those in the new worlds begin to establish their growth. That includesFrey’s connections to Cuff, as well as Rey’s connections to both Finn and Han Solo.
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Similar Relationships with the Tanta and the Sith
Another key feature that binds Frey and Rey is the way they are related to the lead villains in their respective stories. In the case of Frey, it is revealed byChapter 8 ofForspokenthat one of the parents who abandoned her in New York is one of the Tanta that rules over Athia. By the time the game’s narrative kicks off, most of the Tanta are no longer benevolent rulers, and are instead violent oppressors responsible for wiping out almost every living person and creature in the world.
Similar to Frey learning that she’s related to one of the Tanta, Rey learns inRise of Skywalkerthat she is the granddaughter of the franchise’s overarching antagonist Emperor Sheev Palpatine. It comes as a major hit to the character, as Rey has to struggle with the source of her connection to the Force being one of the most evil Sith to ever live. This relation is an important part of bothFrey’s character struggles, and the conflict that runs through Rey’s abandonment across theStar Warssequels.
However, similarities don’t stop at the truths about their ancestry, but also continues on to the revelations why each heroine was seemingly abandoned in the first place. While both Frey and Rey are related to antagonizing forces, their immediate parents both sacrifice themselves in order to save them from the true antagonists pulling the strings. Even thedeeper layers ofForspoken’s loremanage to reflect much of the writing on display at the core of Rey’s story in theStar Warssequel trilogy.
Forspokenis available now for PC and PS5.
