Where is Rey? A few times the ‘Star Wars’ hero has been oddly MIA

In what might be the most bonkers move of 2015, the most mind-boggling mess-up of 2016, and the strangest thing we’re going to see for at least, I dunno, ten years, Star Wars heroine Rey was completely left out of the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens Monopoly game. As you can imagine, lots are not thrilled about this. (In fact, the Internet as a whole was so not thrilled about it, that the overwhelming response prompted Hasbro to announce that they’ll be adding Rey to the game — YES.)

The Hasbro game, which was first released back in September for Force Friday, originally featured four playable characters: Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, Finn, and Kylo Ren. They are all fine Star Wars characters… except for the fact that, without a doubt, Rey is the main protagonist of Force Awakens, with Kylo Ren being the main antagonist. The omission of Rey, along with simply the fact all four players are male, was met with lots of frown-y sad faces.

As the wondering hashtag, #WhereIsRey, began to circle the Internet, Hasbro issued a statement saying: “The Star Wars: Monopoly game was released in September, months before the movie’s release, and Rey was not included to avoid revealing a key plot line that she takes on Kylo Ren and joins the Rebel Alliance.” While that’s super thoughtful to keep spoilers at bay, every Star Wars trailer, film poster, and TV spot clearly showed us that Rey was the MAIN CHARACTER. Including her in the Monopoly game with her trusty staff would not have been a spoiler in the least bit, since her fighting skills had already been previewed.

Like Black Widow and Gamora before her, this is, sadly, not the first time Rey will find herself oddly excluded from merchandise and other media spotlight. Here are just a few other times that have caused us to wonder, huh, where is Rey?

She’s not in the Millennium Falcon

The new Millennium Falcon playset comes with Finn, BB-8, and Chewbaca. Even though, you know, Rey becomes the new PILOT of the ship. Not even the co-pilot; that’s still Chewbacca. She’s the pilot.

She’s not in the six-figure toy bundle

But you do get an un-named X-Wing and TIE Fighter pilot!!

She’s not on the Disney Store shelves

Yes, Disney Store does sell a lot of Rey merchandise. Except, when putting the toys up on the shelves in the store, it tends to follow the pattern: Finn, Poe, Kylo, Finn, Poe, Kylo…

She’s not on her own speeder  

HER OWN SPEEDER. The speeder is $9.95 and does not include Rey. She’s sold separately because ???

She’s tiny on the Korean international poster

Rey’s still there. She’s just really really really small and off to the corner so Kylo Ren can take up ALL THE SPACE.

She’s not on the epic lightsaber battle poster

At IMAX AMC theaters, they’ve been doing this cool thing for the last four weeks, where every Sunday they give out a new limited-edition Force Awakens Poster. This last and final poster highlights the amazing lightsaber battle at the very end between Kylo Ren… and Finn. Yes, he picked up the lightsaber for a hot second, but then pretty sure it was Rey who (SPOILER) totally kicked Ren’s butt.

(Images via Lucasfilm, DisneyStore.com.)