The term "Mary Sue" needs to die.

[MithrandirOlorin]

It was always Sexist.

http://seanan-mcguire.livejournal.com/396047.html

This article was only arguing it should never be used of someone who is the Main Character. And my response to that is to a say a Mary Sue is the main character of a Mary Sue fanfic.

[GandALF]

Nah, the word is good and has a specific definition. If you want to criticize whether it's being used accurately or not, knock yourselves out. As far as I can tell, this push to get rid of it comes largely from butthurt because of it being used to describe Rey from Star Wars, which is actually a description I agree with. Because if you think about it, she never really has any kind of difficulty in dealing with anything. I almost wonder if the writers weren't overcompensating to avoid accusations of sexism if anyone else (especially if they were male) had to save her.

Well to be fair, I think they realised this and that was the thinking behind the bowcaster blast. But either way the trained from birth grandchild of the Jedi messiah being beaten by someone who found out they were Force-sensitive around lunchtime is a bit dumb. If anything HE should be more Sue-ish

[LittleRaven]

If we 'deleted' every word that was commonly misused, we'd be playing charades 24/7 in about 2 months.

I agree with Admiral X that most of this probably stems from Rey...I also agree that it's not entirely undeserved in her case. And I don't dislike Rey...quite the opposite, actually. Daisy Ridley is amazing, and the character is perfect for Star Wars, but I really want her to have a hero's journey. And it's really hard to have one of those when you seem to be an expert at everything from birth. I mean, when we meet her, she's tough as nails, an expert fighter, and has a cool droid. Ok, that's pretty damn good for an orphan barely feeding herself, but whatever. This IS Star Wars, after all. Then it turns out she's an expert pilot? I mean, not just 'yeah, I can fly' pilot but, like, holds her own with Han level pilot. Alright, I mean, Luke certainly hopped into a X-Wing quick enough. Granted, he wasn't an expert in much besides flying and mostly got his ass kicked in the first movie, but ok. We're still good.

But then she suddenly starts just manifesting force powers that took Luke a good 3 movies to master. Mind control? Got it. Expert lightsaber skills? Know em. Telekinesis? Please....I mastered that like 5 minutes ago. The last time we saw a character like this in the franchise was when a young Anakin Skywalker goes about winning chariot races and blasting down enemy fleets as a 6 year old, and that character was (not coincidentally) ALSO subjected to a fair amount of Mary Sue criticism. It's just bad storytelling.

Or at least, in Anakin's case it was. That character never ended up being much fun, and almost everyone was happy when he finally became Darth Vader - which is exactly the opposite of what any writer should be aiming for in that story. It's supposed to be a tragedy, but virtually everyone I knew was cheering by the time he took his lava bath. To be fair to Rey, we aren't finished with her story yet, and I very much hope the writers have some plan to rescue her from the same fate.

I dunno that the whole 'Star Wars writers needed to make Rey overpowered so nobody thinks they're sexist' theory holds up in light of Rogue One, though. I mean, nobody is going to accuse Jyn Erso of being anything but awesome. She's incredibly driven, superbly skilled at the things she's good at, and moves everyone around her as necessary to accomplish her goals. But at the same time, she's hardly a super-hero. Rook does the flying. K2 does the hacking. Imwe handles the force stuff. None of this detracts from Jyn's awesomeness....just the opposite. Because she has weaknesses and grows throughout the story, we get to share more deeply in her character and immerse ourselves more completely in her world. So clearly the Star Wars folks CAN write a female protagonist just fine.

[Admiral X]

Not to mention that characters like Wesley Crusher, Batman, Superman, etc. are there to dispel the whole idea that this is somehow a sexist idea. The only gendered aspect to the term is that there is a separate term for the character type based on whether they happen to be male or female. :shrug:

I didn't really dislike Rey or the movie, either, but I acknowledge the weaknesses that the movie and its characters have.

[MithrandirOlorin]

Ya know all these Rey whiners miss, That Mind Trick scene was the FIRST TIME EVER we saw it not work on the first try, unless it was someone not susceptible at all like Watto. Frankly it was never before presented as that difficult a thing to do.

So I'm sick of this "Rey is a Mary Sue" nonsense.

[Antiboyscout]

^ someone didn't watch the clone wars tv show

[Arkle]

Ya know all these Rey whiners miss, That Mind Trick scene was the FIRST TIME EVER we saw it not work on the first try, unless it was someone not susceptible at all like Watto. Frankly it was never before presented as that difficult a thing to do.

So I'm sick of this "Rey is a Mary Sue" nonsense.

Good point. I was going to bring that up myself. Also, did the people who decry Rey's alleged Mary Sueness forget/not notice that she clearly had a WAY rougher childhood than Luke did? They make it sound like she went from a life of privelege to "suddenly" having survival skills, when it's pretty clear to me that if she didn't have any of those before took place she'd have been dead a long time ago.

[Antiboyscout]

Good point. I was going to bring that up myself. Also, did the people who decry Rey's alleged Mary Sueness forget/mnot notice that she clearly had a WAY rougher childhood than Luke did? They make it sound like she went from a life of privelege to "suddenly" having survival skills, when it's pretty clear to me that if she didn't have any of those before took place she'd have been dead a long time ago.

Despite having no force training, she managed to read the mind of Kylo Ren and learn how to control minds in less than 5 minutes.

Being a farm boy didn't stop Luke from losing his first lightsaber fight... and his hand.

I'm partial to the theory of Rey being the reincarnation of Anakin Skywalker, thus explaining her over whelming power and unusual level of competency of both force use and piloting skill. Mostly because Anakin was a Gary Stu and it would be consistent.

[The Romulan Republic]

The thing about Rey:

Rey seems pretty nearly perfect in the first film. I don't mind that. The first film needs to establish her basic personality and skill, make the audience like her, create a foundation. For the most part, it did that. Nor do I find her skills that hard to believe.

Fighting, piloting, mechanical skills, etc. are all things she could plausibly have picked up on Jakku, where as an orphan mostly having to fend for herself, she would have had to learn fast or die. As for her Force skills...

The whole Force vision thing at Maz's castle was a clumsy plot contrivance, but the way I see it, its not something Rey did herself (which would be making her too overpowered for the first film). More like the universe giving her that knowledge. Its no more absurd, viewed in that light, than Neo's martial arts training in the Matrix, or Trinity downloading how to fly a helicopter in about a second. Or, to put it in more fantastical/mythological terms, its basically a vision from God.

I also have no problem with her beating Kylo Ren in a mental contest, because the way I see it, that wasn't about skill, it was a contest of will. He wanted into her mind, she wanted him out. She won. And Kylo Ren is practically defined by the fact that he's an insecure, unstable, emotionally weak person. Plus, given the rape subtext of Ren's interrogation of her... well, I'm going to be rooting for the woman who's trying not to get raped, metaphorically or literally.

Actually, the state of mind thing goes for Force use in general. I've argued before, and I'll say it again, that I don't think the Force as depicted in the film is primarily about power levels or learning specific techniques. And as we see repeatedly throughout canon (Anakin, Luke, Revan), it doesn't take years or decades of training to pick up some Force techniques, at least if you are very strong in the Force. Its about a state of mind. Remember Luke and Yoda's exchange on Dagobah?

Luke: "I don't believe it."

Yoda: "That is why you fail."

And that's why Kylo Ren fails, and Rey succeeds. Because, once she realizes that yes, the Force is real and she can use it, and accepts that... she's a stronger person, mentally and emotionally, than he is. Self-doubt is a horrible mental state for a Force user. Rey overcame her's. Kylo Ren didn't overcome his. That's how I'm inclined to see it, anyway, weather or not that's how the film makers intended it.

Again, a Matrix comparison is apt. "There is no spoon."

Now, I agreed that a character without major flaws is problematic. Rey only really had the one flaw (if you can call it that): her reluctance to leave Jaku out of false hope that her family would return. And that's gone. So here's an idea I had for how to develop Rey going forward:

Rey's strong. She's a natural at using the Force. But what she hasn't been taught is when and why to use it. That's what the Jedi needed twenty years of training for- instilling the right mindset in their students, so they wouldn't fall.

Rey's a nice person. She's not going to be as apt to falling to the Dark Side as some. But Darth Vader was a nice little boy once. And she does have her insecurities (see her reluctance to leave Jaku, connected to her lack of a family/abandonment). And now, she's been handed perhaps as much power as any individual in the universe, without being taught how to use it responsibly.

So, she goes to Luke for training. But Luke is in bitter old man/the Jedi need to die mode. Yeah, I'm sure he'll be a lot of help. Especially if it turns out he's Rey's father, which might stir up old resentments and insecurities over being left on Jaku.

Then, Rey gets a vision, or some other form of message. Finn (who is presumably off fighting for the Resistance) is in danger. She goes to help him. She ends up facing Kylo Ren again. Just like Luke in ESB, right?

Except, here comes the twist. Rey makes the choice Luke didn't. Maybe she calls on the Dark Side to win, and kills Kylo Ren. Maybe she does it to avenge a loved one. Maybe she sees that Kylo Ren is also her family, and unlike Luke, he never abandoned her (yes, he held her captive and threatened her and tried to invade her mind, but the Dark Side plays on our darkest emotions, not our logic). Though I'd be very reluctant to go the last route for fear of the implications of taking a strong female character and giving her Stockholm Syndrome, especially towards a man who, as I said, made thinly-veiled rape threats towards her.

But the point is that we get to see Rey's flaws. We get to see her be tempted, and fall.

The third film, then, is about Rey finding redemption, breaking free of the Dark Side.

Which all fits very well if she is a reincarnation of Anakin, either metaphorically or literally.

Of course, you could take it another way, and perhaps a more original one. She's tempted, but ultimate does not fall. She is Anakin Mk. II, but because of different circumstances in her life, she makes the right choice where Anakin made the wrong one.

But that should be Rey's flaw. The flaw of all the Jedi. The temptation of the Dark Side, which her combination of great power, a hard life, and lack of training should leave her particularly vulnerable to.

[TGLS]

Also, did the people who decry Rey's alleged Mary Sueness forget/not notice that she clearly had a WAY rougher childhood than Luke did?

That doesn't exactly help:

Tragic and/or traumatic backstories can be vital for a character. When used right, they set foundations for who a character is. For example, Tony Stark's experience with the Ten Rings in the Iron Man film was what prompted him to make the transition from a selfish and spoiled brat to a man who, while still childish in many ways, started putting the needs and lives of others before himself. A Mary Sue will have a tragic backstory mainly as a cheap grab for attention through pity and/or admiration.