Now I know that some people love Rey, and if you're one of them then good for you. But I have a different opinion on her, and this is me just laying down some Star Wars facts.
Ok, I'm pretty much obligated to take up a contrary position, based on our past discussions. First off, I don't "love" Rey, although apparently I have different issues with her than most other people.
With that out of the way, every Star Wars fan knows The Empire Strikes Back, and there are probably zero fans who hate it. The movie pushed the bounds, it built upon A New Hope, it showed us amazing cinematography that had aged beautifully throughout the years, it showed us Luke Skywalker officially training and honing his skills with the teachings of a tiny, but powerful Jedi Master. It showed us one of the most iconic love stories ever told, it made Vader even more scary than he already was. Boba Fett was a badarse. It also went way dark with literally everything that happens in the third act. We hate Lando only to love him when he makes the right decision to help Leia and Chewie. We are heartbroken when Han is taken away, and then I'm sure everyone is left in a state of shock when Vader lays down the cold hard truth after chopping Luke's hand off. It is arguably, the best Star Wars film when it comes to being a fan favorite. (I personally think Return Of The Jedi was the best).
But let's get to my point. During TESB Luke is doing some physical training with Yoda on his back. Yoda tells Luke to run, to use the Force. But then he tells Luke to be wary of something else. Of anger, fear, aggression. They are the Dark Side. Luke asks if the Dark Side is stronger and Yoda quickly tells him it is not, just easier and more seductive.
I think Yoda may have a bit of a biased opinion here. And I'm going to say that the Dark side is only easier and more seductive if you've already been trained in the force (Dooku and Anakin come to mind). But I'm going to say that pretty much no Sith from Darth Bane on through Darth Maul would say that their training was "easy" by any stretch of the imagination. Or if it is "easier," it's because the Sith want power more, and so they work harder to get it.
Also, as far as training time goes, the best estimates I found for how long Luke's training with Yoda lasted is somewhere between 1-3 weeks. The longest estimate I found was 3 months, and that was really pushing it. In any event, still a much shorter amount of training than the lifetime of training, starting at a VERY young age, that most jedi in the Republic era had. (Here's a link to the best answers I found on the Luke/Yoda training question.
https://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/13776/how-long-was-luke-skywalkers-training-with-yoda )
Guess who's had the quick and easy path throughout her two movies and collection of comics. Let me spoil it for you. Rey.
She beat Kylo Ren when he tried to find the map in her head. She beat him again when they fought. She taught herself to wield a lightsaber, when her skills in fighting should be limited to fighting talentless thugs.
Her lightsaber skills are abysmal. I'm not sure why anyone is really surprised that she could beat Kylo in combat though, since his skills aren't much better. For that matter, Luke was never really formally trained in lightsaber combat, he merely mirrored his father in combat by instinct. Rey at least has some martial weapons experience beating up talentless thugs.
She is drawn to the Dark Side within the island yet is never tempted by the Dark Side itself the way Luke was tested when he went into the cave on Dagobah. Luke drew his weapon first, killed Vader, and saw himself as Vader, saw what was a possible future where he becomes what Vader is if he stays on a path of anger towards Vader for killing his father and Obi-Wan, though Luke would not realize this until ROTJ, and later draw a comparison between the vision and the time when he fought C'baoth's Luuke clone.
Good explanation of the scene in the tree, but really Lucas just wanted to foreshadow the relationship between Vader and Luke. That aside, why would she be tempted to the Dark side on the island? The tree was meant to test Luke. If I recall correctly, the traditional Jedi test that it is most similar to is to "Face the Mirror." To confront your own darkness and overcome it. The island just had a hole in it. There's nothing for the Dark side to tempt her with or to.
Rey is red hot angry at Kylo Ren for killing Han, yet that anger was never played on and instead simmered down within a week while they Force Skyped each other. Rey while in that weird cave, sees nothing but herself. She doesn't learn anything besides the fact that she is alone and has no parents. "She is her own baby mama." in the words of parody Picard.
There's a theory on this that she sees only herself because she's a clone. She literally has no parents.
She goes back for Ben, thinking there is good in him, when it took a good year for Luke to realize there was good in his father still and made the decision to try to save Anakin. Yet after a week at best, Rey is ready to forgive Kylo for kidnapping and torturing her, killing Han (who by the way is Kylo's father who just wanted Ben to come home) and almost killing her first ever best friend Finn.
Trying to redeem someone, to save them, to prevent them from killing anyone else that you happen to be friends with, does not require you to forgive them for things they've already done. To stay in universe for a moment, I'm pretty sure Revan was not forgiven for the things he did as a Sith, but he was brought back to the light none the less. The jedi wanted him to come back to the light. Leah never forgave Vader for blowing up Aalderan (among other things), but I'm pretty sure she was still happy that Luke managed to bring him back to the light. Saving and forgiving do not necessarily relate.
She fought off Jedi killing guards when Luke Skywalker never even trained her in the Jedi art of saber combat, she was even able to defeat her opponents while Kylo Ren clumsily struggled through the ending and was almost killed. And then of course, the Force tug of war. And after all that crazy, Rey is fine.
Like I already said, both her and Kylo's lightsaber skills are poor at best. She at least has what I guess are the equivalent of street fighting skills. And she improvises well, probably partially due to not being locked in any type of formal training.
She's in the Millennium Falcon's gunner position whooping and grinning while shooting down TIE fighters as if the experience with Kylo Ren and Snoke never happened. As if she hadn't just accepted the fact that her parents never loved her and that, according to the guy she just decided to save, called her 'nothing' and 'no one'. That should've been crazy traumatic.
Ok, here I have to take serious exception at your definition of "traumatic." I doubt Kylo has any idea what her parents (if she had any) thought of her, and is merely trying to get her to join him. She refers to herself as "no one" I don't know how many times over the course of the two movies, so telling her that other people see her as she sees herself isn't all that "traumatic." Like she said, she's trying to find her place in everything.
After Luke's traumatic experience he's broken down, feverish and emotionally numb. Even in the book he gives up hope when the Falcon's hyperdrive doesn't work. He's not helping at all with the escape. He's far too busy being a human being with actual emotional depth.
Yes, having your hand cut off, finding out your father is possibly the greatest monster in the galaxy, and that your mentor lied to you about your father being "dead" might make you broken down, feverish, and emotionally numb. Oh yeah, and hanging upside down with the very real possibility of falling into a gas giant planet that has some really wacked out things living in it's atmosphere might have an effect on your physical and mental wellbeing. Somehow, I think that anyone would be in worse shape after that than just having someone tell you "hey, you're a nobody" and not causing a bit of bodily harm to you. I'm willing to bet Luke would have been pretty much fine if Vader had just pushed him down and called him names too.
Rey, goes on to help the dozen or so Resistance fighters and uses the Force to lift a hundred boulders out of their path. All the while a confused expression morphing into a smile on her face when Finn appears. - Well, she just proved Luke wrong about the Force being used to lift rocks (I don't think there were hundreds of them by any stretch). And her best-est new friend is still alive and she last time she saw him he was in a medical capsule, so yes, she might be a bit happy.
Anakin did not grin and easily tame The Children on Mortis. - How the F can you compare moving rocks to subjugating the living embodiment of the light and Dark sides of the Force? No S he wasn't grinning. That actually took some effort. Like, a lot of effort, especially since the life of your Padawan and best~ish friend hang in the balance.
Yoda struggled to lift a big cylinder that was going to crush Anakin and Obi-Wan. - Again, life or death situation after a fairly rough duel with your former apprentice who you're unhappy about losing to the Dark side. But again, solid stone pillar probably a lot more difficult than some rocks. Although I would like to point out that if he had swung the cylinder the other way, he would have hit Dooku's ship and prevented him from escaping.
Galen Marek struggled greatly to get that Star Destroyer's engines killed just so gravity could take the destroyer down. - Don't get me started on the abomination that this is. If I had a time machine, preventing the existence of those games would be on the list of things I'd do.
And let's not forget that in the novels for the Sequels Rey literally downloaded Kylo Ren's training when she pushed him out of her head, and later again downloaded his training when they touched hands during a Force Skype call. - Great. Now she knows... um, … probably not much more than she did before that. Maybe how to Force grab a lightsaber better, and if she had the opportunity, possibly stop a blaster bolt. Not really sure what else Kylo can do... except now she probably is capable of whining more...
Rey is going down a very quick and easy path to power, yet hasn't been truly tempted to become evil. Even when Kylo Ren offers his hand, Rey doesn't even hesitate to start begging for him to turn away from all that and come with her. And when he refuses, she takes a breath and abruptly goes for the lightsaber.
This isn't a temptation. If Kylo had said, "Join me and I'll spare your friends" that might have worked. But he was going to kill them regardless, and she knew it, so there was really no decision there.
Maybe The Rise Of Skywalker can fix this problem, but we were already teased with Dark Rey in the TLJ trailer and that was total trickery. So for now and probably forever, Rey does not belong in the Star Wars universe as an accurate character and Force User. She's Kathleen Kennedy's fanfiction character and Mary Sue at best.
May the Force be with you.
Actually, as I thought about my response to this post, it occurred to me that Rey fits perfectly in the Star Wars universe as an accurate character. She's the embodiment of exactly what a jedi is supposed to be and supposed to do. She's let go of her anger, let go of her hate, freed herself from attachment, resisted all attempts to have her join the Dark side, and just generally been a good person. Reading back through the Republic and Old Republic stories you can see it. She's the almost perfect embodiment of what the jedi strove to be. You may not recognize it now, and think she's "too perfect," because we've never really seen the jedi at their best. Only glimpses here and there, mostly though Obi Wan and a few others. But she is exactly the kind of person the jedi meant to be.
The issue with her not being tempted is interesting. It's not that she wasn't tempted, it's that Kylo tried to tempt her with the wrong things. He (as a stereotypical idiot) tried to tempt her with only things that related to her. "I can teach you." "I can help you learn about the Force." "I can help YOU." Palpatine knew how to pull people to the Dark side. "Join me, and I can help you save your wife." "What you did when your mother died was ok." He always related to what the person held as important, namely friends and family, rather than just themselves. Except he failed with Luke, probably because he tempted him with personal power and taunted him with the death of his friends. "Your friends on the forest moon are doomed." "Your fleet is doomed." "Take your father's place at my side and we will rule the galaxy." He strayed from the "let me help you help the ones you care about" message to "hey kid, want some power?" And he failed to turn Luke, just as Kylo has failed with Rey.
