The Rise of Skywalker wasn’t as gruesome as we’d originally imagined, but it would seem that Lucasfilm wants to fix this in future Star Wars movies by killing off two of the main characters from the Sequel Trilogy.
The last film in the Skywalker Saga, while full of action and spectacle, was generally consequence-free when it came to plot developments. Rey accidentally causes the death of Chewie, which in hindsight served as a powerful character tool, but the gang quickly discovers that he’s okay. Threepio, as the living memory of the entire series, gets his memories wiped, but then Artoo uploads a backup and restores them. Rey kills Kylo Ren with hatred and anger, but proceeds to heal him using her Force powers. (Which, I guess, is a thing now in Star Wars? It would’ve been really handy if Obi-Wan knew how to use the Force to save Qui-Gon.)
Of course, we could go on and list several other instances where the movie got away with hoodwinking fans, but you get the gist. Additionally, almost all of the new characters introduced in the Sequel Trilogy survived the last battle, but it seems that Lucasfilm looks to change that in future Star Wars projects.
According to sources close to We Got This Covered – the same ones who told us about Palpatine and Rey’s connection in The Rise of Skywalker, that Hux would be revealed as a traitor and Ahsoka Tano will show up in The Mandalorian season 2, all of which turned out to be true – Rey and Finn’s story arcs will end with them dying. Exact details on how this will go down are still unclear, and we still don’t even know if the two will appear together in future projects, but it’s likely that we’ll see them die at the end of their respective Star Wars journeys, much like their mentors in the Sequel Trilogy.
Of course, plans can always change as they so often do, but as of right now, at least, both Rey and Finn are set to be killed off at some point in the franchise’s future. Though with both of them reportedly lined up for more appearances in that galaxy far, far away before then, fans can take comfort in the fact that it probably won’t happen for a while yet.