While a mistake in real life, the canon reason that Leia embraces Rey before Chewbacca is due to Leia seeing Rey as a lost soul and surrogate daughter, establishing a strong relationship that will grow through the
As the theory explains, Wookiee culture dictates that when Wookiees lose a loved one, they are not supposed to touch anyone until they have had time to grieve in private. This explains Chewbacca's actions.
While on the planet, when someone asked her who she was, Rey responded by saying that she was "Rey Skywalker." Although she wasn't related to them, both Luke and Leia had been mentors to Rey throughout the sequel trilogy.
Since, the late actor has played Chewbacca in every live-action appearance up to 2015's The Force Awakens, when he gained a new protege. As he aged, scenes were handed down to Finnish star Joonas Suotamo, who was a basketball player prior to him coming onto Star Wars for the sequel series.
Luke's words confirm that Leia discovered Rey was a Palpatine during her lifetime, either before or during the time jump between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker. If Luke found out through his Sith investigations, or while training Rey on Ahch-To, he undoubtedly would've passed on this knowledge to his sister.
While a mistake in real life, the canon reason that Leia embraces Rey before Chewbacca is due to Leia seeing Rey as a lost soul and surrogate daughter, establishing a strong relationship that will grow through the sequel trilogy.
But that itself ended up not being the final revelation, as Rey was firmly connected as Emperor Palpatine's granddaughter (yes, the Emperor Palpatine) in The Rise of Skywalker.
That's right, Chewbacca and Obi-Wan have a history together, as they fought side by side in this conflict. In fact, with Obi-Wan's help, Chewbacca successfully colonized Alaris Prime and turned it into an economically prosperous stronghold for the Wookiees beyond their home planet of Kashyyyk.
The unique shape of the Wookiee throat made Shyriiwook a very difficult, even impossible language to speak for most non-Wookiees; presumably the word Shyriiwook itself, as well as other Wookiee words or names, were transliterations of the original Wookiee sounds into a form more easily pronounced by others.
In-Universe Answer: Rey has probably learned Chewie's language or a similar one earlier in her life. Real World Answer: All Star Wars characters are written to be able to understand Chewie to facilitate the story telling. It's one of those things you aren't meant to ponder; just go with it.
Rey was born on Hyperkarn in 15 ABY during the rise of the New Republic. Her father, Dathan, was a bioengineered Strand-Cast cloned from the genetic template of Darth Sidious, the Sith Lord who ruled the Galactic Empire as Emperor Palpatine.
Rey's parents are none other than Dathan and Miramir. No, that's not a typo. Her dad's name is Dathan, which is at least slightly better than Sheev Palpatine. But only slightly.
She does not have a baby bump, her hand never goes to her stomach to indicate she's carrying a child, and there wasn't exactly any time for her to have conceived a child with anyone in the course of the film, including Kylo Ren/Ben Solo.
Following the Wampa attack during the movie's opening scenes on Hoth; Leia, Han, and Chewie visit Luke in the infirmary. Leia is annoyed with Han, who insists she has feelings for him, so she kisses Luke to prove she doesn't. Presumably, the scene was simply meant to make Han jealous.
Theory 1: Leia Doesn't Remember Ben Is Obi-Wan
Throughout her encounters with Kenobi in the series, he refers to himself as Ben. The most straightforward explanation would be that Leia knows the person who rescued her is Ben, and never connected the dots that Ben is actually Obi-Wan.
However, Leia's strong-mindedness during Vader's probe denied him the opportunity to discover she was his daughter. That serves to justify Vader's lack of awareness of his connection to Leia, although, perhaps, not as satisfyingly as if Lucas had planned for the relationship from the beginning.
The Force Awakens (2015)
Maz, who has a crush on Han's copilot, the Wookiee Chewbacca, is intrigued by Han's companions, the renegade stormtrooper Finn (FN-2187) and the scavenger Rey. First Order stormtroopers, led by Kylo Ren, attack Maz's castle in search of BB-8, who has been entrusted with an important map.
Affiliation(s) Mallatobuck, also known as Malla, was the wife of Chewbacca, the Wookiee co-pilot of the Corellian smuggler Han Solo. During the Imperial Era, Malla and her family were enslaved by the Galactic Empire. She was separated from her husband Chewbacca and her son Lumpawaroo.
Obi-Wan greets R2-D2 and later recalls “not owning a droid.” Obi-Wan purposely withheld information from Luke in order to keep Luke from straying away. This could offer an explanation as to why he appears to not know who R2-D2 is. Further in Empire Strikes Back, neither Yoda nor Darth Vader recognizes either droid.
R2-D2 was present when Padmé gave birth to Leia and Luke, so he knew Luke was Anakin's son – but what he didn't know was that Anakin became Darth Vader. In addition to that, Anakin's fall was surely a painful event in R2-D2's life, one that he definitely wouldn't like to remember or even talk about.
Such cycles of fate no longer surprised the nine-hundred-year-old Jedi. So there you have it. Yoda and R2D2 knew each other and the galaxy is even a smaller world than we think.
In addition to rejecting Sidious, Dathan married a woman named Miramir, whom he fell in love with. Together, they conceived a child, their daughter Rey, who was born in 15 ABY. Although he renounced the Sith Eternal and his donor, the Palpatine bloodline would prosper through him, just as Sidious predicted.
A crystal embodies the Jedi as the heart of the lightsaber, and pure kyber has no color until it's bonded to the Force user. This process likely resulted in Rey Skywalker's lightsaber being yellow.
As Kylo Ren himself says in The Rise of Skywalker, he and Rey are bonded not just by their familial legacies (Ren as the grandson of Darth Vader and Rey as the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine) but by their unique connection in the Force.