Still Not Over Rise of Skywalker? Have Some Answers About Rey's Real Father

One of those reasons was the episode trying to hastily jury-rig together a plot after the previous episodes left it pretty much with nowhere to go, or at least with not enough for a feature-length movie. This resulted in things happening without a setup or explanation.

While "somehow, the Emperor returned" was probably the most infamous example, the whole business with Rey being Emperor Palpatine's granddaughter, her parents and the whole associated fetch quest also came out of the left field.

Rey's parents got a particularly raw deal. Aside of brief flashbacks of the couple leaving her on Jakku and protecting her from a Sith assassin, nothing was shown or explained about them.

Even the basic timeline of the Emperor siring a son who could then become Rey's father did not really add up, given that Palpatine already was an old man in the prequels.

The Rise of Skywalker novelization, at least, tried to explain things a bit, stating that Rey's father was in fact the Emperor's clone.

The recent Star Wars: Shadow of the Sith novel by Adam Christopher elaborated on his origin. Palpatine made a batch of clones of himself in his research of immortality, at the time when he ruled the Galaxy, and Rey's father was the only clone to survive.

While he was deemed a failure due to pretty much lacking any sort of affinity with the Force, Palpatine left him alive. Not out of pity of course, but because he needed a subject for various cruel experiments.

Treated like a slave, and not even given a name, the clone eventually adopted the name of a fellow slave, who became his mentor, Dathan. He managed to escape the hidden planet Exegol, by sneaking aboard Darth Vader's transport ship.

And for a time Dathan was successful in laying low, for long enough to marry and become a happy father.

But eventually the Sith managed to track him down, forcing him and his wife to leave Rey on Jakku, in hopes that pursuing assassins would follow his own trail and ignore the kid.

Talk about a terrible and tragic life – Rey's father really got the short end of the stick.