Funny thing is, if you look at the story from a purely plot POV then Rey is an utter screw-up. As I said at the start my idea would have it revealed that Rey was used as a pawn to destroy the Skywalker-Solo Bloodline as everyone in that family died helping her or trying to save her. Han died in an attempt to save Rey when she was captured, Luke died to buy Rey the time she needed to save the Resistance, Leia died to distract Kylo from killing Rey and Ben died to bring Rey back to life. In the end Rey is a massive failure who killed her own heroes and only really succeeded at killing Palpatine.McAvoy wrote: ↑Thu Jul 29, 2021 4:55 am Any trilogy that follows the Sequel Trilogy that involves Rey, has to bring her down at least a notch. One of the biggest general consensus of Rey is that she is too much of a Mary Sue.
Which means she has to have limitations, she has to lose at least once and conclusively. She can't be the best at everything. And perhaps she can't be the one to save the day.
Think about that last one. Luke only became the 'hero' of the movie in ANH. He lost to Vader and his rematch on the Death Star ultimately didn't really matter in the grand scheme of things in that movie.
Anakin was the hero in the first movie. Lost to Dooku and then lost to Obi Wan to become the black iron lung dude named Vader.
Rey's fight with Ren didn't matter in TFA. That's fine. But she did show up with the Falcon and then lifted those bolders freeing the remnants of the Resistance. Her direct confrontation with Palpatine allowed the copy and paste fleet above to attack the Death Star Destroyers without getting hit by the Uber Super Force Lightning of Dark Side Justice.
One of the more overlooked issues of a Mary Sue is that they do cause problems but the story brushes those aside because the MS must remain unaffected by their actions. Rey does all this and yet she's loved by everyone and the universe bends over backwards so she can be seen as the best at everything she does.
What's funny is that each film Rey appears in does try to tone her down while also trying to one up her perfection. Rey defeats Kylo in her first real fight with him but then has trouble dealing with one guard but she still defeats said red shirt with no real issue and ROS she and Kylo are now on even footing and he comes close to defeating her in combat but either retreats or is defeated anyways.
Rey has issues with a few bits of training only to suddenly get over this just in time for the finale with no explanation.
And the worst part about all of this, there's so much that can be done with Rey, even now, if they would just allow her to develop beyond what she is. Rey is meant to be an audience surrogate and any attempt to bring her out of that role is rejected.
One of my all time favorite characters is Samantha Nishimura from Tomb Raider. While she may not seem like much in the first game Sam is fleshed out and fully develops into her own character who is, IMO, even more engaging then Lara Croft herself (at least in the games) because the writers took what happened to her in the first game and used that as a foundation to develop her character further. The writers of the comics (which includes Gail Simone) have all openly stated that they love Sam, love her relationship with Lara and not only keep working to further flesh out her character but to also make her and Lara an official couple.
Sam is flawed, a suffers a great deal during her time throughout the series but she grows stronger to teh point that she goes up against a Demigod in a Battle of Wills and WINS!!! That is awesome because at the start Sam was terrified of said Demigod but her development strengthened her character and in the end the Demigod was terrified of her and with good reason.
No one talks about Rey in the same way. No one who's worked on her character have talked about how much they enjoyed writing her they just talk about how fun Daisy Ridley was to work with. Even people who love TLJ, who dissect the film bit by bit to show why they love it have virtually nothing to say about Rey.
Even Linkara, whom I greatly respect and admire, has had NOTHING to say about Rey even though he's reviewed both TFA and TLJ. He talked about Luke and Kylo and how much he enjoyed the themes but Rey? He describes what she does and says what her role is in TLJ as a audience Surrogate but doesn't talk about her. And keep in mind Linkara has gone into detail on the characters of Power Rangers and he had more to say about DAX then he did about Rey.
Linkara if you're reading this I mean no disrespect I'm just pointing out how no one seems has anything to actually say about Rey as a character. Feel free to disagree with me on the subject I won't blame you. Sincerely.
But back on the subject, there's a LOT you can say about Luke, Han, Leia, Harry Potter, Frodo, Sam Nishimura, Lara Croft, Nathan Drake, the Prince of Persia and even Neelix. Even former blank slates like Ethan Winters have ended up as fleshed out and engaging characters but right now, as a character with depth and development I've got pretty much nothing to say about Rey. I feel she's wasted as a character, I feel there was and still is potential for her to be a great character and I feel she's a classic example of a Mary Sue but Rey herself, she really is a nobody with no depth or development IMO.
