Why Rey Never Losing Ended up Hurting her Character

[Winter]

Unless you're making a comedy of some sort or a supporting character who's meant to be some sort of mentor for the actual leads or are creating a decontruction of this character type a character must have weaknesses and through those weaknesses suffer defeats. Given my repeated mention of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power let me go through a quick list of everyone episode where Adora, the titular She-Ra aka the most powerful character in the show, suffers a defeat.

Flowers For She Ra
System Failure
Princess Prom
Promise
White Out
Huntara
Once Upon A Time In The Waste
Moment Of Truth
Remember
The Portal
Pulse
Mer-Mysteries
Beast Island
Destiny Part 1
Destiny Part 2
Horde Prime
Return To The Fright Zone
And Heart Part 1

Also, for most of Heat Part 2, aka the finally of the series, Adora spends most the episode barely able to stand and needs to be protected/rescued by Catra and Shadow Weaver.

Now, while at least half of these episodes do have Adora still win in the end (Flowers For She Ra, Huntara, Pulse, Beast Island, both parts of Destiny, Horde Prime and Heart Part 2) those were a result of her learning from her mistakes and or trusting her friends to help her out.

And while Catra may never have beaten Adora in a straight up fight in Princess Prom, Promise, White Out, Once Upon A Time In The Waste, Moment Of Truth Pulse and Mer-Mysteries all have Catra beating Adora in terms of either through strategy (Princess Prom, White Out and Mer-Mysteries) or just taking advantage of the situation (Promise, White Out, Once Upon A Time In The Waste and Moment Of Truth Pulse). Even the Episode Flutterina had Catra outsmarting Adora and the Rebellion so she could gain an advantage over them later.

Rey, by contrast, only loses 3 times throughout the Trilogy and the first two are so minor even her defenders don't bring these moments up (her first encounter with Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens and the start of the duel at the end of TFA right before Finn and Kylo fight. Also the tug of war where Kylo pushes Rey until she uses Force Lightning to make her think she killed Chewie can also count as a win). These are so minor that, again, even Rey's defenders barely mention them in her defense and the reason for that, I think, is because they are, at best, minor inconvenience with little to no baring on the plot and even less so in regards to her character.

To further contrast this take a look at Adora in the second half of season 2 aka Season 3 (Netflix split season 2 into two seasons so season 2 and 3 are actually one season, the more you know) That part of the series can be pretty much summed up, to paraphrase Linkara "The day the universe decided Adora needed to be screwed over."

That part of the series contains the episodes Huntara, Once Upon A Time In The Waste, Moment Of Truth, Remember and The Portal with only ONE of those episodes having a genuine victory for Adora was Huntara were Adora managed to defeat Huntara in combat and got her to take her and her friends to Mara's ship. In The Portal the day is only saved by Glimmer's mom sacrificing herself while all Adora did was punch out Catra (which was actually completing her arc for the season which was her realizing that Catra's actions were not her fault so it's still an awesome moment) so it's not really a victory for Adora in anyway.

This is one of the reasons I keep pointing to She-Ra as the Disney Sequel Trilogy done right, that show knew that in order for Adora to be seen as awesome she Had to lose and she Had to Train. In universe, much like the Original Trilogy of Star Wars, four or five years pass so Adora's growing skills don't come out of nowhere and we SEE her training to get handle of her powers, which she never really does until season 5 and even then she still has issues with said powers.

Rey, manages to become as good as Luke was over the course of 1 week, at most, and actually training seems to make her less effective as Kylo is only a threat to her once she actually starts learning how to use the Force. Making it so a character is good at everything they do, unless it's one of the three points I mentioned at the start, has only one outcome for most viewers, boredom. Rey, isn't that interesting a character because she's not allowed to lose in any meaningful way.

The biggest part of this problem is how Rey acquires her abilities at the series goes on. She doesn't get new powers because she trains she gets new powers as the plot demands. Mind Trick, gets it after JUST learning she has the Force. Force Pull, an ability Luke didn't have until Empire Strikes Back, 3 or 4 years in universe, she gets it after a little over 10 minutes after learning she can use the Force. Being able to lift a bunch of rocks to clear out a cave entrance that's the size of a house, which Luke was NEVER able to do in TOT and in fact had trouble lifting his X-Wing out of a swamp despite having trained for YEARS at that point and Rey does it because she can now.

Adora needed a few years just to learn how to properly transform her sword into other objects and how to heal people and how to transform without her sword. This is important, you can't just have a character they have powers and then have them be instant experts with said powers. Even Superheroes need time to learn how to use their gear and abilities... and then the villains are able to be better then them in a matter of minutes which is ALWAYS annoying (yeah I know narrative convenience and we need a villain who's an actual threat to the heroes but it's still annoying for the reasons I've already stated).

My point is this, if Rey was allowed to struggle, if she was allowed to be defeated in a meaningful way that wasn't undone after 5 minutes and that was allowed to influence her character then it would have helped her character by a lot. But Rey isn't allowed to win and Adora she is a great character and Rey isn't.

[Rocketboy1313]

I don't know what you are talking about.
Rey loses in both Force Awakens and Last Jedi.
She is captured by Kylo Ren in the first movie and escapes only by discovering how to use her abilities.
She allows herself to be captured by Snoke and only avoids being killed because Kylo Ren deciding not to kill her.

This is to say nothing of having a personal hangup about wanting to stay on Jakku waiting for her parents and wanting Luke Skywalker to be the hero she dreamed he was. Two massive personal failings rooted in her desire to live a happy life rather than accepting the fallibility of people she idolizes.

Her being the Emperor's granddaughter is rivaled only by Luke and Leia being siblings as least needed plot twist in the franchise. She has flaws, she has a character arch. Stop dwelling on this character. It is weird.

[Winter]

I don't know what you are talking about.
Rey loses in both Force Awakens and Last Jedi.
She is captured by Kylo Ren in the first movie and escapes only by discovering how to use her abilities.
She allows herself to be captured by Snoke and only avoids being killed because Kylo Ren deciding not to kill her.

This is to say nothing of having a personal hangup about wanting to stay on Jakku waiting for her parents and wanting Luke Skywalker to be the hero she dreamed he was. Two massive personal failings rooted in her desire to live a happy life rather than accepting the fallibility of people she idolizes.

Her being the Emperor's granddaughter is rivaled only by Luke and Leia being siblings as least needed plot twist in the franchise. She has flaws, she has a character arch. Stop dwelling on this character. It is weird.

The following response in an opinion and therefore should not be taken as fact because that's what an opinion is and we can always agree to disagree. As I said at the start that first defeat by Kylo means pretty much nothing for her character. She gets captured by Kylo and learns she has the Force. And? Rey does not change as a result of these events and said defeat is not something that helps her grow as a character.

Take Adora's arc in seasons 2 and 3. That part of the series is her coming to terms with the fact that she is not to blame for the mistakes of others and this is represented due to her refusal to strike Catra (note that the first two times when given the opening she doesn't follow through but the third time she's able to final strike back at her abuser). Yet, this doesn't mean she no longer has issues as shown throughout the rest of the series the abuse she suffered under Shadow Weaver causes her no end of problems.

To go back to an older argument I made back when I compared TDST with TTT one of my issues in TLJ was that most of Rey's dialogue, like 99% of it, was talking about Luke and Kylo Ren. Not her relationship with them but her talking about them or talking about their relationship with each other. Only 2 scenes in that movie are about Rey and HER character. The Cave scene and You Come from Nothing scene and the come from nothing scene means nothing as the next time we see Rey she's all smiles and cheers.

When Adora destroyed the Sword of Protection at the end of Season 4 it shattered her own sense of identity and spends the first two episodes of Season 5 trying to figure out who she is without She-Ra which is resolved by her excepting who she is and that's more then She-Ra. The rest of the season and her arc throughout the series is her coming to have a sense of self-worth as she believes she needs to sacrifice her life for the good of the world only to be told by others that she deserves love and to live her life.

Look at how both She-Ra and TDST end. Adora starts the series completely alone and seeing nothing in her future but a life of combat ahead, never thinking of herself or what she wants. She-Ra ends with her friends and girlfriend and being asked what she wants to do next. Rey, starts TDST as a loner in the desert who's more interested in the past then the future and ENDS TDST as a loner in the desert who's more interested in the past then the future.

And no, I'm counting the supplementary material as I shouldn't have to do homework to understand something that SHOULD have been in the movie itself. The film gives the impression that she doesn't think that anyone really understands her, besides Kylo, spends most of her time arguing with Finn and Poe and at the end, seemingly leaves them to go to Luke's old home to live there because NOTHING in the film suggests otherwise.

But back to the sense of defeat. When Luke learned that Vader was his father it changed him as it struck at his very sense of identity. He wanted to be a Jedi like his father before him only to learn that said father was the Lord of the Sith second only to the Emperor himself. Rey learns her parents aren't coming back for her, learns her parents are nobodies, learns she's a Palpatine and NONE OF THIS MATTTERS!!!

Even Ben's death barely seems to fade her as she seems more confused then saddened and please note Ben was stated to pretty much be her soulmate via Force Dyed so her treating his death as barely worth mentioning fits my theory that originally Ben wasn't even there and was just added on for the sake of a kiss... With the guy who killed her childhood heroes, tortured her and put her best friend in a coma, (why did she fall in love with him again?).

Her personal hangups aren't resolved they just stop being an issue. In She-Ra when Adora learns that there is still good in Catra and she can be with her it takes her a whole episode to come to terms with this, another episode to save her and yet another episode to get through to Catra that she NEVER hated her.

Rey, one scene learns her parents sold her for drinking money, next scene, is shooting Tie-Fighters with the biggest grin on her face. And by the way that whole bit with Adora, that was among the first 5 episodes of season 5 which together run in at about 1 hour and 55 minutes. In the 2 hours 32 minutes of TLJ, which includes an entire fourth act the film couldn't find time to include Rey's character growing and, in fact, Cut Out one of the most important scenes in her arc to focus on her sudden and out of nowhere relationship with Kylo.

There is no reason for her to be in love with him other then the plot demands it. Adora was in love with Catra because the two had known each other since they were kids and were the only friends they had growing up. Rey only just met Kylo and, as the actors themselves have pointed out, spent most of their time trying to kill each other. This is in TLJ and ROS makes it worse because Kylo spends the whole film stalking her and trying to kill her, tricks her into thinking she killed Chewie AND TRIES TO STRAIGHT UP MURDER HER FOR REFUSING TO JOIN HIM!!!

And all this steams from the writers refusing to let Rey grow. Learns something terrible that should shatter her sense of self, action scene. Has a new power, masters it after a few hours when it takes other years to learn.

That's the key difference for me, Adora learns from her mistakes and grows but Rey is trapped in a ditch that she isn't allowed to escape. The Lego Star Wars Holiday Special needed to GIVE her flaws and have her cause mistakes AND needed help to save the day because she had spent so much time never learning that the writers needed to tone it down because Rey was to over-powered for the story to work IN A PARODY!!!

When the Parody has to tone a characters skills down because it's to over the top that's a BAD SIGN. Adora is powerful but not invincible and Kylo needed HER to survive his encounter with the Red Guards whom neither of them should have had any problem with if they only remembered they had Powers.

[Captain Crimson]

It honestly would have helped her character a lot better if she had actually done something like Luke's subterfuge from the DET. You guys are already pillaging that for ideas, so why not. It's one of the areas the DSWC loves to act like it's so new and original and better than what came before, because no way would their pretty little princess Rey ever be tempted by the dark side. In the actual comic, Luke had strayed too close, and it left an impact on him that he felt for years to come.

Or heck, take the JAT. Kyp Durron. The young slave boy from the spice mines of Kessel with a troubled past and Force potential, whom Han and Chewie rescue and take under their wing. He falls under the sway of an ancient Sith Lord, Exar Kun, and is enthralled to his influence. During this process, he winds up seizing possession of the Sun Crusher and rampaging across the galaxy, even blowing up a solar system that murdered millions of Imperial citizens. Once he's free of Exar Kun's dark-side influence, the NR council refuse to judge him, feeling unfit to do so for a Jedi, and leave it up to Luke, who allows him to return to his academy. Kyp Durron would always be haunted by the memory of what he'd done and the effect it had on the larger galaxy. Do we see any kind of similar development for Rey? We don't need her to be anguished and weighed down by her actions, but we don't even get a lot of the classic SW tropes with her, temptation to the dark side for example.

I know Mr. Anderson has a bit of a mixed reputation among the fandom, and I could sympathize, I'm mixed on the JAT myself, but I also think it lines up more true to Mr. Lucas's vision than what we got in the DSWST. All they can do now is double down on pretending to act like they're following Mr. Lucas's mandate when they really aren't, they threw out his story treatments for the OG ST that, well, I'm rather skeptical of the ones we've seen so far, it strikes me as if it did come from Mr. Lucas, it's with a "shrug-sure" stamp of approval, not something he was enthusiastic about.

I mean, we knew going into TROS that Rey was never going to fall to the dark side, be tempted even once, that Kylo Ren was either going to die, or be redeemed and die, nothing in between, so can't you give her character a bit of struggle just once? What made Jaina Solo so great is the challenges she had endured, especially in the LOTF storyline the DSWST was heavily cribbing from, and honestly, the EU did it better. Darth Caedus was a far more compelling villain in his scope, impact, and motivations, and in some ways was a more convincing fall than Anakin if you went with only the G Canon (the novels did far better with this).

Reading this all, it just... just makes me miss the creativity and the continuity of the EU all the more. DSWC is like ice cream. It's fun in short doses, but too much all at once is bad.