Rey and Finn: Responses to political and economic oppression

In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.
-Anatole France

I have written before about how Finn’s decency was an act of subversion against the militaristic totalitarianism he grew up under. There’s another character in TFA who is also kind and selfless in an unjust system, and that’s Rey. The difference is the kind of oppression these two characters lived under, which are diametrically opposed but just as corrosive in their different ways.

Finn was a slave soldier of a totalitarian dictatorship, while Rey was an exploited worker under a capitalist who could rob and swindle people in the absence of law and order. To put it in a simplified way, Finn lived in a system with no freedoms while Rey lived in a system of unchecked freedoms. And while freedom without any restriction might sound like a wonderful thing, in practice it tends to mean that people with power and capital get to restrict the freedoms of people without such advantages.

( A comparison and contrast of Finn's and Rey's backgrounds )

(This essay was originally posted to Tumblr on January 26, 2017.)