Adora vs. Rey: Why Characters SHOULDN'T be Instant Experts (Spoilers)

[Winter]

Unless you're making a parody (Ace Rimmer in Red Dwarf) or have a Mary Sue as a supporting character (Mary Poppins and Baron Humbert von Gikkingen), never write a story where a character is instantly good at everything they do. While there are always going to a few things that they can do with relative ease, (say is a skilled pilot or is a dedicated Historian) for the most part, you want a character to struggle throughout the story.

And the reason I'm bringing Adora from She-Ra into this whole thing again, besides the fact that she's honestly a great character, is the fact that she's does actually struggle to achieve her goals throughout the series while Rey never really has any problem getting what she wants. Let's first look at both women's powers.

Throughout all of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Adora never really gets a handle of her powers. Even towards the end of the series when she's mostly got a handle of them and can now transform into She-Ra without the Sword of Protection she still has trouble learning how to control her powers. It's actually a major plot point in the series that Adora doesn't really know how to use most of her powers. Season 4 was the only time she seemed to have fully gotten control over her powers and even then and that was the season where she was forced to destroy the Sword in order to save the world and that plays a major role in her character arc in Season 5.

Contrast this with Rey, who manages to learn a number of powers that took other characters years, both in and out of universe, to even get the hang of. In The Force Awakens Rey pulls off a Jedi Mind Trick, a Force Pull and is able to overpower Kylo Ren in a Lightsaber fight and all this takes place in about half and hour. These are things that took Luke, someone who actually HAD people teaching him how to use the Force, to master. No one teaches Rey how to use the Force in both TFA or The Last Jedi. Luke didn't teach or tell her anything that Maz didn't already cover back in TFA and the only person to teach Rey how to use the Force was Leia, who never even finished her own Jedi Training.

Despite her turning out to be a major villain, of sorts, Light Hope actually DID Train Adora how to use her powers as She-Ra. Helped her get the hang of them and even tried to be encouraging and help her build confidence. Again, she's kind of a villain but at least she did train Adora in how her powers worked so Adora didn't learn everything on her own.

But Rey is self taught and within days, in Universe, is able to master her powers that took others year to learn. By the end of TLJ Rey is able to Force Left several Dozen Boulders with ease and manage to do so with ZERO Training. It took Luke 3 or 4 years just to Master the Force Pull and another whole year just to levitate C-3P0 over a room.

To the films credit, they do Try to make it seem like Rey isn't invisible by having her have trouble dealing with a couple of Red Shirts and Later with Kylo Ren in Rise of Skywalker but this is hampered by teh films Refusing to let her lose a fight. With the Red Guards Rey manages to defeat the two she was fighting with without any help from Kylo and Rey, in fact, saves Kylo because the Last Red Guard has him in a choke hold. And in her fights with Kylo in ROS, the first fight is stopped when Kylo figures out where Rey is and the second one Rey wins after Kylo gets distracted by Leia distracting him.

Despite the rather massive power gap between the two of them Catra did manage to win a number of fights against Adora or, at the very least, fought her to a standstill. Kylo never even managed to fight Rey to a standstill. It also helps that Catra manages to win a number of fights against other opponents that are much more powerful then her, such as Shadow Weaver, Hordak and the First One Defense System Creature that was designed to take down She-Ra. Thus Catra feels like a real threat which makes Adora's victories against her feel all the more earned. Rey on the other hand has little to no effort dealing with Kylo and throughout her Trilogy he never lands a single hit on her the moment she picks up a lightsaber and in fact it takes a full year in Universe, and 5 years out of universe, to even be a seriously threat to her.

The problem with The Disney Sequel Trilogy is that it doesn't allow Rey to be anything utter then praticcally perfect in every way while one of She-Ra's major strengths is that Adora is allowed to be utterly useless at a number of things and through those flaws is allowed to be a flawed character who can grow and get better.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

She was able to beat Ren in a lightsaber fight while he was holding his kidneys in with one hand and trying not to kill her. Context is king.

[Winter]

She was able to beat Ren in a lightsaber fight while he was holding his kidneys in with one hand and trying not to kill her. Context is king.

And after he was shot in the gut but before he had his fight with Rey he Force pushed her into a tree so hard that she was knocked out for a few minutes and then had a fight with Finn in which he managed to take him out. He was also Punching his injury which I somehow doubt was helping him feel better. So, based on all of that, Kylo shouldn't have had any real issue dealing with Rey as she had never even Seen a lightsaber before this fight so why was Kylo having so much trouble with her.

Also, keep in mind that Kylo has the power to freeze people in place so why didn't he use that power in this fight? If the injury was shown to have caused him any problems before his fight with Rey I would give him the benefit of the doubt but unfortunately the injury caused him no issue before that fight and during the fight the injury doesn't seem to be bothering him all that much.

And please note, Kylo NEVER wins a fight with Rey throughout this Trilogy. Again, he needed a whole year of training to stand a chance against someone who managed to defeat him after she just found out she had the Force.

[MrL1992]

i wouldn't agree on Rey honestly. She seeks a parental figure in Han, he's killed. She seeks something similar in Luke but he isn't quite what she expects.

Granted, it would've been all the better if they'd followed through on their original arc for Kylo. She desperately wants to win him over to the light, it looks like her attempts were all for naught but then, Episode IX happened and suddenly her wishes are fulfilled when Kylo turns at the drop of a hat.

[Winter]

i wouldn't agree on Rey honestly. She seeks a parental figure in Han, he's killed. She seeks something similar in Luke but he isn't quite what she expects.

Granted, it would've been all the better if they'd followed through on their original arc for Kylo. She desperately wants to win him over to the light, it looks like her attempts were all for naught but then, Episode IX happened and suddenly her wishes are fulfilled when Kylo turns at the drop of a hat.

Those aren't the same thing as character flaws. Yes, she sees Han as a father figure but after his death she barely mentions Han and, in fact, basically starts falling in love with his murderer. And in regards to Luke, I feel that Luke in TLS is Luke in name only and that's all I will say about that.

But here's something that's been bugging me, Why does Rey want to redeem Kylo in the first place? It made sense in She-Ra, Catra and Adora have known each other since they were kids and are obviously in love and Adora always held out hope that she could be redeemed. Rey has only known Kylo for a few days between TFA and TLJ at most and in that time, he kidnapped her, attempted to torture her, killed her surrogate father, put her best friend in a coma and tried to beat her into submission.

Then, he gaslighted her all throughout TLJ, and then tried to kill the resistance just because, indirectly killed her childhood hero and tried to kill her only friend, AGAIN!!! Then We have ROS where he spends most of his time stalking and harassing her, manipulate her into thinking she killed one of her friends and tries to straight up kill her when it's made clear that she won't join him.

The only explanation we get for why she wants to redeem him is because she's a fan of the Original Trilogy so she wants to do what Luke did and because Kylo was being nice to her. Again, he killed Han right in front of her less then a few days ago and she's pretty much forgiven him for that.

While Adora never gave up on Catra she DID stop trying to redeem her when it was clear that Catra didn't want to be redeemed after Catra indirectly got Angella killed. It takes Catra saving Etheria, rescuing Glimmer from Horde Prime and sacrificing herself to Horde Prime for Adora to even consider forgiving her and even then she needs a whole episode to really process her feelings before deciding to go and save her.

All it took for Rey to consider forgiving Kylo was a few Force Chats with him to decided that he was completely worth redeeming. And before anyone brings up their Force Bond NOTHING in the films themselves suggest that their Bond is anything but a means of communication/transportation. There isn't a single scene that suggest that Rey is being influenced by Kylo's emotions or visa versa. All we See in the films is that it allows them to interact more directly instead of the usual Force Sense that we see throughout the rest of the series.

I'm sorry if I seem rude but this is something that really bugs me, especially when it comes to Kylo's redemption vs. Catra's. Like Zuko Catra spends all of Season 5 owning up to her mistakes and trying to improve herself in order for her to be able to find the love and happiness she's always sought. TLJ, Kylo spews some BS about his the real victim in all this and Rey just forgets all the terrible things he's done to her and her friends and in ROS she just decides to give him another chance after he decides that he's good now.

Catra had to lose everything she fought for, needed Double Trouble to confront her about her toxic personality AND then be given a choice between saving Adora or herself before she decided to do one good thing in her life. Hell, it took Glimmer also calling her out on her terrible choices to get Catra to see what a horrible mistake she was making to get Catra to start on her path to redemption.

Kylo, needed Rey to save him and one talk with his dead father to change him from good to evil. Even Vader had more of a reason to turn from the Dark side to Light thanks in no small part to the Prequels which gave full context for his Heel-Face Turn which made his redemption all the more cathartic and we were told and Shown throughout the first two Trilogies that he was a good person. No one in TDST has ANYTHING nice to say about Ben Solo. ARGH!!!

(sigh) Sorry, that went on a little longer then I intended but She-Ra, for me, really does highlight all my issues with TDST in a way even The Thrawn Trilogy never did.

[Link8909]

I see your point, while I have not seen She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (I have seen clips on YouTube and it looks awesome, I'd like to start watching but I share Netflix with my family) it is important to see any character from any media grow and evolve over time, and to see them not just go from novice to expert off screen, however I feel that this is apart of the problem/charm of the Star Wars franchise as a whole (not just the Sequel Trilogy), that Star Wars wants to be big blockbuster movies, but also a television show, so we end up with a hybrid where big events are covered, but no “filler” material to cover in-between.

Normally, a television show has the time and episodes to cover a lot of ground no matter how big of small the events might be, for example if the Sequel Trilogy was a television show, there would have been episodes between The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker showing the resistance rebuilding their forces, doing recruitment, and Rey would have been shown learning more about the Force from Leia, and uncovering secrets about the Force from the Jedi Text she has.

However Star Wars has always skipped these kinds of things, Attack of the Clones skips Anakin Skywalker’s 10 years of training and goes from wide eye optimistic kid to broody teenager, the movie ends with the Clone War beginning and The Revenge of the Sith opens with the war nearing its end, General Grievous is introduced as the most important character now and has kidnaped Palpatine, they made an entire film on the opening crawl of A New Hope (Rouge One), A New Hope ends with the Rebels victory over the Empire and The Empire Strikes Back opens with those same Rebels trading in their nice temple hideout for the worst place to live that is Hoth, in-between The Empire Strikes back and Return of the Jedi, Luke went from just staring to learn more of the Force and loosing his hand and Lightsaber to figuring out how a Lightsaber is build, getting the materials and building a new Lightsaber, learning more Force abilities like the mind trick and choking, and becoming a Jedi Knight, also the Empire made a new Death Star, and in-between Return of The Jedi and The Force Awakens a new Empire is born because of some new guy named Snoke (which I’m personally happy was just a puppet for the Emperor, I’d rather have the original personification of evil than some nock off wannabe), Leia and Han had a kid who turned to the Dark Side, and Luke went into exile because of his failure.

All of this could have (and in the case of Rouge One was) been made into their own films, instead its either explained in the opening crawl of each film, or is not explained and left for the audience to assume it happened off screen, which would be fine, but the Star Wars films also never time skip in the actual films themselves, its why Anakin Skywalker’s turn to the Dark Side feels rushed, had The Revenge of the Sith taken place over the course of several months it would have been different, instead the film takes place over at most a week, and Anakin goes from “never leave a clone behind” to "I’m going to murder these kids” in that time, and is why a lot of people (like myself) like The Clone Wars because it expands on the characters and we can see how Anakin would turn.

And on top of all this, every Star Wars film has always made it up as they went along, this is not Lord of the Rings where its one story that had to be split into three films to not compromise the story, Star Wars is multiple different stories that build and flow into each other, but always seem to skip the important details that would have given some much needed context.

I personally think future Star Wars films need to be able to breath more, Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter are a good example of this, they need time to build the world around them and not leave it to the supplementary material, let use see the new characters grow and evolve slowly, and if there needs to be a time skip in the film, please time skip or give use a montage, if the new films are going to follow a single narrative, they shouldn’t be afraid to take their time with it.

[McAvoy]

I always felt that Rey beating Kylo in TFA should have played differently. Especially if there is an implied part of it that he is seriously wounded. In the movie outside pounding his gut, if you watch the fight scenes, he doesn't really show he is being hampered by it. Maybe his sweating.

But what if, they played it differently. Kylo has to fight Finn and Rey at the same time. Maybe Finn picks up that laser pike thing he lost to early in the film. He is being played as injured and Finn exploits that. Kind of like a boxer being injured on one side sort of thing. Maybe the two of them start to overwhelm Kylo until he slashes Finn down and then Rey starts to figure out the Force but that point Kylo can barely hold up his lightsaber. So she actually wins but through teamwork and only because it is very evident Kylo is injured.

Luke would be different in the Last Jedi obviously. She would struggle against him in combat. Kinda like how Vader toyed and tested Luke in Empire. If Snoke had to die in that movie, make it Luke do it with maybe as a self sacrifice for Rey but also as a way of doing for Kylo. Have Rey and Kylo battle outside the throne room against the Red Gaurds while Luke battles Snoke.

I mean just build up Rey to learn over the course of the trilogy. Everything is given to Rey and she is better at it then everyone before it or at least in that period of her training.

Sure tie in Leia having a vision of a powerful female Jedi being born or something. But make her a nobody. It woukd have been far better for her to be not tied into some famous blood line.

Then again, they could have had Kylo being played differently altogether. A powerful Dark side user that is actually dangerous.

But that is me.

[MrL1992]

But here's something that's been bugging me, Why does Rey want to redeem Kylo in the first place? It made sense in She-Ra, Catra and Adora have known each other since they were kids and are obviously in love and Adora always held out hope that she could be redeemed. Rey has only known Kylo for a few days between TFA and TLJ at most and in that time, he kidnapped her, attempted to torture her, killed her surrogate father, put her best friend in a coma and tried to beat her into submission.

Then, he gaslighted her all throughout TLJ, and then tried to kill the resistance just because, indirectly killed her childhood hero and tried to kill her only friend, AGAIN!!! Then We have ROS where he spends most of his time stalking and harassing her, manipulate her into thinking she killed one of her friends and tries to straight up kill her when it's made clear that she won't join him.

The only explanation we get for why she wants to redeem him is because she's a fan of the Original Trilogy so she wants to do what Luke did and because Kylo was being nice to her. Again, he killed Han right in front of her less then a few days ago and she's pretty much forgiven him for that.

She actually angry the first time she saw him again during their Force Connection. Only after sensing experiencing that connectioj did she sense the conflict within him. Not all dissimilar to Luke and Vader as there, we only really had Luke's word that their was any potential for Vader to be redeemed.

[McAvoy]

Kylo and his motivations throughout the Sequel Trilogy has always been vague and pretty much incomplete. That alone needs its own analysis.

Then again, all of the characters well never really fleshed out. Finn had his moments in the first two movies and that's about it. They seem to be just there.