rey’s original hairstyle is full of purpose in the force awakens. it gives her a marketable, unique, recognizable silhoutte. she lives a rough desert life. she is clinging to her past & ignoring her reality. she is still, in many ways, in the mindset of being an orphaned child.

her change of hair in the last jedi is extremely significant. it’s still a warrior’s style— half up, half down. but when she discovers the partial truth about her parents in the cave, the waters wash her style from childhood away. she is a grown woman who is coming into her own.

she is not using others to define herself, her legacy— she’s choosing to cling to a false-promise a little bit less. costuming is a deliberate thing in film. after the last jedi, we meet rey in tros— and it seems that she has reverted to her previous ways. ignoring what

they did to rey’s character from a narrative stand-point, they gave her back her three buns. honestly, i love that style. she looks great. it’s functional, sure. but it’s also significant in that it says she’s in a similar mindset to that of the force awakens. waiting for

confirmation from others. clinging to threads from her childhood. i think this would’ve been a great way to show an alteration of her perspective had they handled it correctly. they could’ve been going from the angle of rey wanting to shut out the progress she’d made

in the last jedi after having these residual conflicting feelings to deal with, her struggle with the dark side, & the hurt she faced with ben. it could actually make sense. however, for this to work, i think rey would have needed a new hairstyle in her final scene. to show that

she feels found and free. that while she honors her past, with things like fragments of her jakku staff in her yellow saber, she’s moving forward. she’s living both the present AND the past. but for me, having her wash the battle clothes she died in and appear in the same

hairstyle as ever just doesn’t work. it doesn’t mean she shouldn’t have practical hair— they could’ve went with a sort of braided half up half down look or something similar to the last jedi— but yes, hair and wardrobe says a lot about how the audience is meant to interpret rey.

to add to that, it’s not really a nit-picky thing for people to notice. think about all of leia’s hairstyles. padmé’s. the significance they have for narrative and character. it’s an aspect of the final film product. always has been.