“Blind we are if creation of this clone army we could not see. I think it is time to inform the senate that our ability to use the force has diminished.” – Episode 2
“There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?” – Episode 7
When people talk about Star Wars they talk about Yoda, Luke, Leia, Rey and many other characters. They don’t tend to talk about the most important character though, an inanimate one. The character driving the entire series forward, The Force. Sure people talk about The Force as a construct but not a character and the force is a character, it is the sole character driving the events of the Skywalker Saga forward.
Without knowing the events of Rise of Skywalker it seems to me that the Skywalker Saga is the story of The Force. The whole story of the Skywalker Saga is the story of The Force restoring balance to itself. Even Luke says:
“The Force is not a power you have. It’s not about lifting rocks. It’s the energy between all things, a tension, a balance, that binds the universe together.” – Episode 8
The events of Star Wars in the first 6 movies have been about people attempting to control tThe Force. 
The Sith used The Force for power. Sidious sought out The Force to manipulate, control and form the Galactic Empire. Even the Jedi were corrupted to the true nature of The Force by Episode 1. They could not sense Sidious or the Clone Army. Yoda, the great Jedi Master, was even more concerned what their enemies would think if they knew the Jedi were losing their connection to The Force more than losing the connection itself. The Jedi had cut themselves off from The Force in a way, they allowed themselves to use The Force but to be tools of others who wished to use The Force for its own means like the Senate. This and so many more events that take place in the prequels happened because people were attempting to control The Force but The Force had a different set of goals in mind.
By the events of Episode 1, The Force was out of balance. The Jedi had lost their way, the Sith were rising in the background, gaining more power than they should have through the rule of 2. The Force, being an entity with intelligence put a plan into place, a plan that would bring balance back to the force, an equality between the light and the dark, between life and death. The Force gave birth to Anakin, who would restore balance. The Force cut the Jedi off from the true ability to use The Force. It allowed the Clone Army to exist, it allowed Sidious to rise to power, it allowed Alderaan to be destroyed. All of these events were events The Force itself outlined to restore itself. To the living much of it were acts of evil, but The Force does not have a moral compass, it just is. By the end of Episode 6 The Force’s tool, Anakin being the Light Side and Darth Vader being the dark, destroyed Sidious restoring balance to The Force by destroying both the Jedi and Sith as they were known.
Vader’s son Luke, set out to restore the Jedi order, something The Force did not want based on the events that transpired with Kylo Ren when he destroyed the new order. 
This allowed The Force to finally awaken again to its full potential. We are introduced to Rey, potentially another Force Child based on the vision the force cave showed her, who quickly harnesses The Force and has access to abilities even the best Jedi didn’t have in the past 6 movies. (Key point here, I am really only looking at the movies as the expanded cannon brings a whole interesting part to the force, like the Father, the Son and the Daughter from the amazing Clone War episodes Overlords, Altar of Mortis and Ghost of Mortis). Rey unlike Force users before her, was more then willing to tap into both the light and the dark. She found balance, and did not fear the dark like Jedi before her, nor did she hate the light like Sith before her. Rey has become the new tool of The Force itself, a pawn in a game that will see its ending in the Rise of Skywalker.
Luke makes the point multiple times in The Last Jedi that The Force is something living, something that people have attempted to control for their own goals, that that was foolish to do. Luke says:
“And this is the lesson. That Force does not belong to the Jedi. To say that if the Jedi die, the light dies, is vanity.”
And
“At the height of their powers, they allowed Darth Sidious to rise, create the Empire, and wipe them out. It was a Jedi Master who was responsible for the training and creation of Darth Vader.”
By the end, Luke was seeing the truth, understanding what The Force truly was, and how the Jedi had lost their ways. What Luke did not know, possibly because he cut himself off from The Force, was that all the events of his life and his fathers before him were predestined by The Force as a larger plan. Though in the end he himself gives back into The Force, joining the living Force at the end of his life, one he gave into himself when his mortal journey was over.
I know JJ is bringing back Sidious to be the big bad. I have yet to understand what role his return plays in the plan of The Force. He may be the final restriction to The Force fully returning as he is the representation of the corruption of the dark side of the force. From a purely mythological sense the Skywalker Saga is the story of The Force, and its key tool, the Skywalker bloodline. This is not uncommon in myth and in storytelling as a whole, pawns of something greater, like gods or fate, are used by that greater something to play games. The themes of The Force are themes seen in many places. The Chosen One with a Godly Parent is seen across myth from Hercules to Gilgamesh to Wonder Woman. The damaged entity taken advantage of by the life around it which ends up seeking revenge is seen again and again in our apocalypse stories and even in Final Fantasy VII. The Force has been playing games with everyone in the Star Wars universe, to me, The Force is the character this is all about. This is The Force’s story to tell. I hope it gets a good ending.
“I used to wonder about that myself. Thought it was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo. A magical power holding together good and evil, the dark side and the light? Crazy thing is, it’s true. The Force, the Jedi — all of it. It’s all true.” – Episode 7
