Is Rey a Mary Sue?

[LittleRaven]

I can forgive Mary Poppins -- if "forgive" is the right term, which it probably isn't -- because she doesn't really have much of a character journey. She's almost more of a story vehicle than a character; she gets other characters from set piece to set piece, and those characters develop.

That is exactly what Mary Poppins is. Mary Poppins is IN the movies that bear her name, but the movies are not ABOUT her. They are about the Grant children and their father. Those are the characters that grow and evolve. Mary Poppins has no character arc because Mary Poppins arrives on the scene fully formed and Practically Perfect in Every Way.

Mary Poppins is not a bad character. She is, in fact, a magnificent character - which is why audiences adore her. But she would be a very bad protagonist, which is why she is never used that way. A good protagonist needs challenges that they have to overcome, weaknesses that they must turn into strengths, mistakes to make and room to grow. Mary Poppins has none of that, and neither does Rey. The difference is that Mary Poppins doesn't need any of those things, while Rey very much does.

The problem with asking whether or not Rey is a Mary Sue is that the argument is almost certainly going to devolve into "What is a Mary Sue?" and that question has no definitive answer. Even TV Tropes throws up it hands at THAT issue. Personally, I haven't found Rey to be a very compelling character, which is a real shame, because like Chiggy, I like a lot about her. Ridley was fantastically cast and is doing a bang up job with everything she's been given - but she hasn't been given very much.

I really like the idea that Star Wars is the Dark Crystal now, and that Rey doesn't really HAVE any agency because the Force has basically been piloting her this whole time. That COULD make for some very interesting story telling (Does she realize this at some point? Does she rebel? CAN she rebel? What does THAT look like?) - but I kinda suspect that's more....cerebral....than Disney really wants this franchise to get.

[Yukaphile]

@AlucardNoir I think you need to understand that I am always fluid. Always thinking, always willing to change my views past a few core components to my identity, and open to change, even wondering at how if values I care about are wrong. That's essential to growth.

I think it's clear that spira (ha!) is an anti-SJW, and leans probably right of center? At least compared to here. I understand a lot of his views, but I disagree on some of them. I do like the challenging debates, though. The thing is, most of Hollywood leans left. The actors, most of them, are leftists. And in that environment, you gotta keep your actors happy. In the absence of a good story, the flaws become more noticeable, and so fans find what reasons they can to complain. Yes, Rey is not immune to criticism, nor is the whole sequel trilogy or hell, even the original trilogy. Chuck proved that. But on the original basis of the Mary Sue, she is not one. In the new bastardized version? Well, that's been abused by online people, so... I admit to my own biases here, in how I wanna defend women who get hit with the Mary Sue label because others are right in saying that it disproportionately affects them over males. I cherish women (provided they are not jerks) and my heart bleeds for all their suffering in the world, past and present. So there is a het bias there. So to claim Rey is competent without buildup is valid. It's similar to how Janeway was presented. Picard cried once. So did Sisko. Not saying Janeway ever had to, but... she was never allowed to show weakness. It is a strawman of Feminist women and strong women, period. A caricature. Is Rey that, though? Even not having seen the movies, my feeling is that it's nowhere near as extreme as Janeway. Is it being applied fairly or unfairly here? Again, I think that she has no buildup to her powers is valid, but then, you could also be open to interpretation too... namely, that maybe she's just that good. Especially in light of the prequels era Jedi who were mostly special effects when it came to fighting, lol. People who complain about Leia Poppins? I mean, Darth Bane dived between the atmospheres of Dxun and Onderon right through space, and KOTOR 2 makes it clear Jedi can hold their breath, some for days, even. Again, the big problem to most of the criticism in the new canon seems to have one big element tying it all together. "No buildup." Luke's character 180, Rey, and Leia pulling a Darth Bane. Maybe you should focus your complaints around that?

[clearspira]

[quote=Kendrakirai post_id=68277 time=1573144274 user_id=2889
Her Force powers; All she’s doing is exactly what Kylo did, and inexpertly at that.
[/quote]

Yes. Exactly. She was doing what a Not!Sith who had been personally trained for years by Luke Skywalker was doing without any training at all after a week. And what's this ''inexpertly'' about? That phase lasted at best a couple of hours before she was lifting a hundred rocks with her mind. Luke could barely lift an X-Wing to begin with.

Lightsaber; she wields it like she does the staff she’s been using for years, and she’s fighting a badly wounded Kylo Ren who’s literally beating himself to keep his adrenaline up, and she’s still barely holding her own.

I've heard this defence before and its bullshit. A quarterstaff and a lightsaber are two completely different weapons. The weight is different, the grip is different, the range is different, the technique is different, the point of impact is different, the form is different.

Saying that you can pick up a sword for the first time and defeat a trained swordfighter using your quarterstaff experience is hilarious.

If anything, Rey has *more* reason to be able to do all the crap she does in Force Awakens than Anakin or Luke do in *their* first movies.

In their respective FIRST movies sure. But by their respective second movies? Not a chance.

Time Ep 1 and Ep 2? A decade.
Time Ep 4 between Ep 5? Four years.
Time between Ep 7 and EP 8? A second.

This timescale is the centre of my argument for a reason.

[Yukaphile]

Let's also be fair. If Lucas could have amped up the strength level of the Jedi via special effects back in the 1970s, he would have.

[clearspira]

@AlucardNoir I think you need to understand that I am always fluid. Always thinking, always willing to change my views past a few core components to my identity, and open to change, even wondering at how if values I care about are wrong. That's essential to growth.

I think it's clear that spira (ha!) is an anti-SJW, and leans probably right of center? At least compared to here. I understand a lot of his views, but I disagree on some of them. I do like the challenging debates, though.

I think that is a fair assessment my friend. Although I would clarify that I consider myself right of British centre which is a completely different beast to being right of American centre. Generally we are still pro-abortion, pro-socialised healthcare, pro-LGBT, anti-gun. You have to reach our far right to reach your centre-right from what I have seen.

[clearspira]

Let's also be fair. If Lucas could have amped up the strength level of the Jedi via special effects back in the 1970s, he would have.

Also, as RLM points out, George Lucas did not have full creative control back then. He had a team of people that ironed him out. We saw with the Prequels what ''Full Lucas'' is.

[Yukaphile]

Well, I have my own issues. Mainly with European directors, that I think Chuck's documentary series put a full magnifying glass on. I think directors should tell their actors "how to feel," not "what to do." I wonder where I'd be on your political spectrum? I am pretty much all that stuff, perhaps a bit more liberal in either direction. Ignoring my own biases, of course.

Oh he had full creative control. But the technology did not exist. That said, I really do object that it is a "deliberate agenda" past incompetence and a byproduct of most of Hollywood being further left than you or I. Same way SF Debris said that the sexism against Megan Fox was not deliberate, but they were so dumb. I think the same. It's just a natural byproduct of Bay's sexism and racism, that women are eye-candy objects, and minorities are the "scary other."

[AlucardNoir]

@Yukaphile So your response is that yes, you were indeed strawmaning because you don't like the larger implications and connotations of Rey being accused of being a Mary Sue?

And worse yet you double down on your strawman by comparing Rey who just found out about the force to Bade and Raven at points of their life where they had been force users for literal years. Is Rey that good? when Anakin, the literal "chose one" still needed years of Jedi training to reach the point were Rey is now and you still refuse to see Rey as a Mary Sue because she doesn't fit the author self-insert criteria that made Mary Sue infamous? Oh, but I forget, maybe Rey is just that good, ie. better then literally every single Jedi, Sith and other force users ever seen on film or TV. People have been laughing at Anakin for the past two decades for his "it's just like Pod Racing" line but calling Rey out as a Mary Sue is sexist because she's a woman? Fuck that. Rey without any training or experience competes in feats and bests people that have had years of training and real life experience with the force. But maybe she's just that good!? That's the most common definition of a Mary Sue, someone that without training or experience is better at a given task than people that have had said training and experience.

Rey was a Mary Sue in the origina movie and Ryan 'subvert their expectations' Johnson Rey comes from nobodies made sure she stayed one. Rey is as close to perfect as you can get. She was abandoned as a child in the middle of a desert and survived to adulthood. She was kidnapped by a force users and after just witnessing the force once achieved the kind of mastery it takes literally everybody we've ever seen use the force years if not decades. She saw somebody use a highly dangerous weapon that takes years to master and defeated them with said weapon. I'm sorry, but if Anakin was the chose one then Rey is probably The Father's long lost second daughter.

I'm really sorry Yukaphile but your only argument against Rey being a Mary Sue is literary just your pro women bias. Your refusal to acknowledge the definition of the term Mary Sue has shifted and that author self insert is no longer the defining trait it originally was stems from your inability to acknowledge that since the original term refereed to a woman the term has been gendered historically. While things have changed and the terms Marty Stu and Garry Stu have appeared to refer to similar characters but of the opposite sex, the fact remains that Mary Sue is still MOSTLY gendered criticism. You refuse to acknowledge it as valid criticism though because it's gendered and you seem to have an ideological problem with that. You are more incensed at the idea that the criticism might be gendered then at the criticism itself.

You are running circles around your own tail desperately trying to distance Rey from this criticism because she's a woman and god forbid she fit the mold of gendered critique levied against female characters. In your own words you are defending her because she's a woman. That is wrong and a literal example of why people like Admiral X think the only kinds of female characters SJWs like are Mary Sues. You refuse to accept criticism when it's levied against a woman. You refuse to accept hardship or trials when a woman has to go though them - see the X-Men Apocalypse billboard controversy from a few years ago. You refuse to allow a female character to be a characters, she has to be the representation of everything a woman can be. She can't be mean, she can't be evil - oh Maleficent, what have they done to you - she can't go though any hardship, let alone one any woman might go - less it be seen as explicit endorsement of that kind of behavior.

You are the literal problem you have been desperately trying to unload on Hollywood in this thread. Worse yet, with your "Even not having seen the movies,[...]" you have all but cemented yourself as one of those people that complains about something that doesn't effect them, have it changed and then wonder why the people that used to like it no longer do - if that's all you do and not outright call them sexists for not liking it any longer since it now no longer caters to them but to what you think it should be; and of course you don't actually consume any such media in the first place so the product is left to slowly die.

[hammerofglass]

You know who is a Mary Sue? Kylo Ren.

The character hated by everyone, including on his own side, and who constantly fails at everything he does?

Eh, Wesley was hated by his own crew too. It's not disqualifying.

[Admiral X]

Not really. The Traveler points out how special he is and he becomes a very special boy to the whole rest of the crew after that. Wesley also lacks Kylo's failure rate.