Star Wars : Into Spoilers - The Spoiler awakens.

[Fabricated]

Seems relevant ...

http://io9.gizmodo.com/please-stop-spreading-this-nonsense-that-rey-from-star-1749134275?utm_campaign=socialflow_jezebel_facebook&utm_source=jezebel_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

I look forward to all of the "THE TERM MARY SUE IS DEAD" articles from insanely shitty clickbait websites like this one.

She's a fucking Sue. She fits this fucking chart that they've probably posted before.

http://www.overthinkingit.com/2010/10/11/female-character-flowchart/

[DraconianOne]

Like Finn (has anybody else commented on how his name is a THX1138 reference?),

Nope, not that. FN-2187 is a reference to Cell 2187 on block AA-23. Princess Leia's cell on the first Death Star.

Also, the whole "Rey picked up how to use the Force pretty damn quick" is entirely keeping with Star Wars history. Hell, Kyle Katarn found a lightsaber in a garage and that made him a Jedi, so why not someone who had a Granny Weatherwax moment with a wannabe Sith?

 

[MediumHigh]

Luke not getting shot down by Vader was dumb. Star wars was always dumb like that. However him actually using the force to do anything besides fail at dodging training droids and barely retrieve his light saber after being knocked out by a yeti is another. And the fact that a week with yoda wasnt enough to make Luke even a padwan is the point.

As it stands now all Rey needs is a week worth of "trust your instincts" and she'll be lopping snouks head off. The fact that they have no desire to make Ren threatening is beyond bothersome turning the movie into a platform to tell meta star wars jokes which is kinda all I remember this movie being. Funny.

[Cyrrex]

We were first introduced to Rey as a pretty amazingly capable human being.  She was crawling around and rappelling through a massive shell of a star destroyer in a decidedly impressive fashion.  She warned off another scavenger, one who must have know she could wipe the floor with him.  Right before meeting Finn, she kicks the shit out of three dudes looking to steal the droid.  She then outruns and out maneuvers Finn and knocks him on his ass.  She is clearly not your average moisture farmer.  She is a scavenger in a nasty place and has presumably lived there for many years on her own.  As a female, no less.

She was a badass from square one.  She would have beat the stuffing out of Luke at the same stage of their stories.

[MediumHigh]

So she's better than Luke   

[Shannow]

I actually want to know where she learnt to pilot on Jakku

[Lucas]

We were first introduced to Rey as a pretty amazingly capable human being.  She was crawling around and rappelling through a massive shell of a star destroyer in a decidedly impressive fashion.  She warned off another scavenger, one who must have know she could wipe the floor with him.  Right before meeting Finn, she kicks the shit out of three dudes looking to steal the droid.  She then outruns and out maneuvers Finn and knocks him on his ass.  She is clearly not your average moisture farmer.  She is a scavenger in a nasty place and has presumably lived there for many years on her own.  As a female, no less.

She was a badass from square one.  She would have beat the stuffing out of Luke at the same stage of their stories.

Yeah, I'm starting to think she actually got intensive training as a child/young teenager (together with showing incredible attunement to the Force); then, maybe, Luke pulled a "Revan" on her 

[Khaldun]

Kyle Katarn is a good example. Or Starkiller. The only modestly popular Jedi character who seems to have come by his powers through hard work and training is Obi-Wan. I suppose Yoda too but we don't know much about his earlier days.

Maybe Jedi training wasn't ever about developing your skills in the use of the Force, but about developing the discipline to stay away from the Dark Side. Or maybe it was just about hierarchy, really. Or maybe it was meant for otherwise marginally Force-sensitive sentients that needed the training to develop their connection into something grander.

I mean, if we're going to complain about all this, how about Luke Skywalker being able to pilot an X-Wing *and* knowing the formations and so on of the X-Wing pilots for the Rebellion? Oh, really, being able to fly a T-16, whatever that is, lets you fly a military vehicle as if you were highly-trained? If it's that easy, they should have three or four hundred of the things in the sky, because surely they're cheaper to build than a big capital ship. It's like a character saying, "Well, I can fly a Piper Cub, how hard can a F-16 be?"

I didn't mind it in any event. I'm not sure I even care if she's a Sue. She's a fine character and she was well-acted.

[Velorath]

I don't think Rey being so good at the Force so quickly is a Mary Sue thing, it's a "hey, Jedi have been made a lot cooler and more powerful since the OT thing". It's power creep. It's the same reason Kylo can freeze blaster fire and the person shooting, whereas Vader had to block blaster fire with his hand and then force pull the blaster away from Han. Between the prequels, the video games, the EU, etc..., how the force could be used went far beyond the handful of tricks shown in the OT. On a continuity level, I mentioned that even I found it jarring that she got so good at using the force without any training. From a story-telling perspective though, nobody wants to wait until Episode VIII just to get to point where Rey can do a Force jump or slowly levitate a large object. Star Wars and special effects have changed since ROTJ. Back then, the pinnacle of Luke's abilities as a Jedi was to swing a lightsaber around somewhat competently.

They could have come up with an explanation of how Rey learns so much, so fast. Maybe they still will at some point. In the meantime though, some shit you just have to let slide a bit because a lot of things have changed in the last 30+ years.

[Draegan]

We were first introduced to Rey as a pretty amazingly capable human being.  She was crawling around and rappelling through a massive shell of a star destroyer in a decidedly impressive fashion.  She warned off another scavenger, one who must have know she could wipe the floor with him.  Right before meeting Finn, she kicks the shit out of three dudes looking to steal the droid.  She then outruns and out maneuvers Finn and knocks him on his ass.  She is clearly not your average moisture farmer.  She is a scavenger in a nasty place and has presumably lived there for many years on her own.  As a female, no less.

She was a badass from square one.  She would have beat the stuffing out of Luke at the same stage of their stories.

Yeah, I'm starting to think she actually got intensive training as a child/young teenager (together with showing incredible attunement to the Force); then, maybe, Luke pulled a "Revan" on her  

This is what I'm thinking too.

I also think she was conditioned to always go home no matter what.

[Fabricated]

Kyle/Starkiller kinda don't matter since they're EU and have thus been jettisoned from the canon.

[Lakov_Sanite]

From day one they've said they are keeping the EU they like. Everything about ep7 screams KOTOR.

[Fabricated]

If that's the case they shouldn't like Kyle or Starkiller or Mara Jade since they suck.

[Khaldun]

But I think that is the point. I don't remember hearing about people saying, "Oh, my, I won't play those games because my character becomes improbably skilled and powerful in too short a time. I would only enjoy playing them if I spent the first sixty hours of play killing womprats and working with a training droid". Ren isn't a Mary Sue, but she is getting a certain amount of narrative compression. (From a director who is perhaps overly fond of narrative compression for getting his stories to the genre-expected place, sure.)

[Lakov_Sanite]

I forgot this was Bastilia's main thing...

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_meditation

[Fabricated]

But I think that is the point. I don't remember hearing about people saying, "Oh, my, I won't play those games because my character becomes improbably skilled and powerful in too short a time. I would only enjoy playing them if I spent the first sixty hours of play killing womprats and working with a training droid". Ren isn't a Mary Sue, but she is getting a certain amount of narrative compression. (From a director who is perhaps overly fond of narrative compression for getting his stories to the genre-expected place, sure.)

Respectively those things were videogames AND insanely bad EU shit. Kyle and Starkiller were shitty characters and they sucked- they just provided a character for me to self-insert on to own people with lightsabers because they're designed to be user power fantasies. Mara Jade is just really insanely terrible EU shit in general.

Rey is by every means and definition a Sue. That doesn't make her TERRIBLE; I thought her actor did a pretty decent job, and she was really fun in some parts of the movie. I just think she was flat out the weakest PART of the movie overall, especially at the end.

[Cyrrex]

So she's better than Luke   

At the same stage of each respective story?  Self-evidently.  That doesn't mean a lick about whether she is actually stronger in the Force, only that her life situation has made her to be stronger at this point.  It isn't really hard to figure out.  They even fucking showed it on the screen.

[MediumHigh]

So she's better than Luke  

At the same stage of each respective story?  Self-evidently.  That doesn't mean a lick about whether she is actually stronger in the Force, only that her life situation has made her to be stronger at this point.  It isn't really hard to figure out.  They even fucking showed it on the screen.

While yes her current showings don't necessarily say she'll be better than luke by the end of the series... there is a stronger argument she will be by miles. And that the kinda thing that took me out of the EU. Everyone is the next anakin and luke, and not enough guys like Obi Won or Qui Gon. Middle of the road guys who got to where they are through perseverance and simple stepping up to the challenge, and not just simple being born into greatness. While yes that is the premise of the original trilogy and the prequels; some kid born so awesome that his destiny is to save the galaxy!

But when every new character with the last name luke or solo is basically the second coming jesus, the story becomes exhausted as they easily dispatch darth lame and darth incompetent. And the EU did run into this problem, basically the heroes ran through all opposition so easily due to everyone having force powers from the moment the egg was fertilized (not joking that's an actual EU character), that the plot had to become convoluted and the sith/dark side couldn't be written interesting and new weapons of mass destruction had to be made bigger badder and ultimately lamer ever story arc. Right now the EU jedi are so over powered that they basically destroyed the dark and side and fighting taxes or something. Who knows and the greater part is who cares, note no one mourned the EU not being considered cannon....

[MediumHigh]

But I think that is the point. I don't remember hearing about people saying, "Oh, my, I won't play those games because my character becomes improbably skilled and powerful in too short a time. I would only enjoy playing them if I spent the first sixty hours of play killing womprats and working with a training droid". Ren isn't a Mary Sue, but she is getting a certain amount of narrative compression. (From a director who is perhaps overly fond of narrative compression for getting his stories to the genre-expected place, sure.)

Respectively those things were videogames AND insanely bad EU shit. Kyle and Starkiller were shitty characters and they sucked- they just provided a character for me to self-insert on to own people with lightsabers because they're designed to be user power fantasies. Mara Jade is just really insanely terrible EU shit in general.

Rey is by every means and definition a Sue. That doesn't make her TERRIBLE; I thought her actor did a pretty decent job, and she was really fun in some parts of the movie. I just think she was flat out the weakest PART of the movie overall, especially at the end.

I think the plot is terrible because she is a mary sue. However she is a great character, showing actual emotions, not following deeply into the modern action girl stereotypes and displaying a warmth and energy on screen despite her life being shit for the most part of probably 10-13 years They could have waited or had her first confrontation with Ren be tragic but inspiring her to greatness, instead of just proving she's neo. Cause fuck the plot is bad.

[Lakov_Sanite]

There needs to be a sticky post explaining that beating Kylo Ren at that point in the movie wasn't such a great feat.

1. He is not as strong as Vader, they say this explicitly
2. He was incredibly fucked up physically in the last battle.
3. He was incredibly fucked up mentally in the last battle.
4. His training as a sith had not even begun. Snoke says "Find Kylo Ren so we may begin his training"

She didn't see the coding in the matrix, she used some force power to beat a half dead wannabe.  She's strong but this wasn't some asspull mary sue victory guys.

[Riggswolfe]

There needs to be a sticky post explaining that beating Kylo Ren at that point in the movie wasn't such a great feat.

1. He is not as strong as Vader, they say this explicitly
2. He was incredibly fucked up physically in the last battle.
3. He was incredibly fucked up mentally in the last battle.
4. His training as a sith had not even begun. Snoke says "Find Kylo Ren so we may begin his training"

She didn't see the coding in the matrix, she used some force power to beat a half dead wannabe.  She's strong but this wasn't some asspull mary sue victory guys.

This is a good point and to that I need to add that the people in this thread calling her a Mary Sue literally do not understand what a Mary Sue is. By definition, she literally is not a Mary Sue. Also, she's not much more competent than Luke was at a similar stage of his development. Calling her a Mary Sue reveals more about the person making the claim than it does about the character.

[Venkman]

Yea yours' plus Rigg's list is where I'm at.

Personally, anyone who thinks Rey is a Sue is looking for her to be a Sue. She's not some refined fighter like Maul or Jinn. She doesn't have training. Finn had more training in both ranged and melee weapons, which is why he could hold his own. Rey by comparison is just a brawler. Pay real close attention to her fight the next time you see it.

She's an unskilled brawler who learned to survive on her own, with a stick who channels anger to make her stronger, against a guy who'd already been beaten down by Chewie and Finn and oh by the way, his already fucked up head being compounded by just offing his own father.

Luke beating Vader in their second battle is more unbelievable than Rey beating Ren in this scenario. Vader had decades of nothing but training since his early teens as both a Jedi and a Sith while Luke gets a few month with Yoda before trundling off to save Han, and then had to teach himself everything from scratch as an adult. Watch that fight scene again too. He's barely able to go toe to toe because Vader is holding back just to ensure Luke loses his shit on his path to succumbing to dark side. Theirs' is also not some choreographed dance like any of the prequels battles. It's a beat down. And that's pure canon, putting aside all the EU-now-Legends stuff.

Oh and compared to Rey, he had a positively normal upbringing with two parents that had a steady income.

I don't want to think anyone's being misogynistic, because we all know better. But put a guy in that role and give it a thought.

Fakeedit: btw I do love this debate

[Fabricated]

This is a good point and to that I need to add that the people in this thread calling her a Mary Sue literally do not understand what a Mary Sue is. By definition, she literally is not a Mary Sue. Also, she's not much more competent than Luke was at a similar stage of his development. Calling her a Mary Sue reveals more about the person making the claim than it does about the character.

I know what a Mary Sue is. She's a Mary Sue. That's not enough to declare her terrible or anything; it just makes her the least interesting part of the story.


She's not really flawed in any significant manner. She's (correctly, due to her awful circumstances) distrustful and abrasive for...all of like 20 seconds. After that she's pretty much non-stop awesome start to finish outside of getting captured once (and everyone in the fucking movie gets caught at least once). I can't think of any actual character flaw she has outside of just being so gosh darn great!

If it was a guy I'd call him a Gary Stu and probably would hate him more since I doubt he'd have as good chemistry with Finn.

[Shannow]

Seems to pass the 5 questions on that flow chart to me. You're trying too hard.

[Fabricated]

Seems to pass the 5 questions on that flow chart to me. You're trying too hard.

She doesn't seem in the least bit flawed. Sorry about your really bad opinion.

[Shannow]

Oh yeah not flawed. Like she doesn't have this wierd longing to stay on the shithole that is Jakku, or is terrified by her visions and goes running off into the forest.

Nope not flawed.

[Lakov_Sanite]

That flowchart is by far the dumbest thing I've seen today. You could literally post the text "Strong female characters don't exist anywhere because reasons." and it would be the same.

also

A Mary Sue or, in case of a male, Gary Stu or Marty Stu is an idealized fictional character, a young or low-rank person who saves the day through extraordinary abilities.

from wikipedia basically describes every fantasy protagonist ever...including Luke Skywalker.

[Surlyboi]

I actually want to know where she learnt to pilot on Jakku

A simulator. There are three short stories for her, Finn and Poe about what they were doing just before the movie starts. She spent the better part of a year rebuilding a crashed ship she found on Jakku and a lot of time before that flying different ones in a simulator she'd rebuilt.

[pxib]

...basically describes every fantasy protagonist ever...including Luke Skywalker.

Yes, except Luke spends a lot more time failing and screwing up onscreen than Rey does.

I'm not upset because her learning of the Force is "unrealistic". The Force itself is unrealistic so writers can make up whatever they want about it. I'm upset because those writers need to show their work. Back to E4 again:

Luke gets some wisdom and guidance from Obi-wan, but the important scene is the one with the laser remote: He's ineffective and getting zapped, so Obi-wan blinds him by putting on an opaque helmet. Luke complains that he can't see, and Obi-wan tells him to reach out with his feelings and Luke does and blocks laser shots with his saber and Han says "Pfft, he got lucky." and Obi-wan says "No such thing as luck."

In a screenplay sense this is the direct mirror to the scene in the trench at the end of the film.

Luke is failing to target properly, so the ghost of Obi-wan says EXACTLY THE SAME THINGS about using the Force and his feelings, and then Luke turns off his targeting computer. Also, making his own luck, Han returns at the last minute to blow Vader off Luke's tail. Together Luke, Han, and Obi-wan blow up the Death Star. In the tiny world of the movie it's all part of the same conversation.

Rey runs off into the woods because she has strange and horrible visions. There she meets Darth Disappointment and he immobilizes her, reads her mind, and knocks her unconscious using Force powers. Then he fails to get the map from her mind because she out-Forces him, then she invents the mind trick in order to escape. Later she is better than him in every way.

Where, in storytelling terms, does this come from?

I don't care about what happened behind the scenes, I want the movie itself to give me a little reason to suspend my disbelief. The difference between a good Chosen One and a bad one is the way that events for the former follow a careful, methodical logic and events for the latter just kind of work out.

[MediumHigh]

Luke Skywalker is a mary sue.

He's a perfect shot despite never used a gun
He can out dog fight a veteran of the clone wars despite never flown a fighter before
He has uncanny aim with the falcons turrets
He can actually a hit darth vadar after a week of walking around with a green frog
He is the third most powerful jedi after a months of training
He beats darth vadar by over powering him. He beats a man with super human mechanical limbs and force augmentation with brute force....

Fuck that guy. Sometimes. The only thing that prevents Luke from going fully down that uncanny valley is that he actually loses to Vader the first time they met. And the number of casual failures he suffers as he attempts things the first time. And the amount of guidance and assistance he gets from his friends and mentors, ultimately over coming the odds with a combination of his intangible strengths AND the help of people who care. However In the EU Luke Skywalker is basically the son of force god, able to do every force power ever shown including the ones associated with the darkside.

Fantasy and Scifi is full of "the one". Which is why only handful of works in the genre doesn't sound like uninspired drivel. Some blond hair prince being denied his rightful place in some kingdom he shouldn't' care about wades his way through his enemies with improbably level of swordsmanship and probably good at magic and shoe making too. Yawn. Sometimes it work, most of the nostalgia factor stuff generally about OP characters. But this is 2015. Only very few movies can get away with generic tough guys swan diving into a machine gun nest and only needing to brush there teeth afterwards.

Rey is a good character. But I like her wins to be actual wins, instead of "well I guess she's a swordsman now! THE FORCE!!". I mean shit. That's not hard, its been done. Vulnerability and heroics, wins and loses.  As the movie itself said "The FORCE DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY" only for the force to work exactly that way 10 minutes later.

[HaemishM]

I like the "Force Osmosis" theory put forward in the article. Seems in tune with the duality of The Force and the strike me down bit in a way Abans would twist them. I've just figured she had training prior to being dropped off and had been told post that it was all kids games and shed forgotten the same way we forget how our toys used to "talk" to us as we grew up.

This. I really think that they were trying to say that Rey is just a very instinctual survivalist who can absorb skills like a sponge when needed. Look at her on Jakku when she was dropped off (less than 10 years old I'd say) and what, 15-20 years later, she's survived on space junk? This is a kid who's just supernaturally adaptive and I'm going to guess that her strong connection to the Force is the reason. The Force isn't meant to be a purely conscious thing - a lot of it is an instinctual connection to the eddies of the universe. And I think they are clearly trying to show WITHOUT TELLING that she may be one of the strongest Force users out there from birth.

[Fabricated]

Oh yeah not flawed. Like she doesn't have this wierd longing to stay on the shithole that is Jakku, or is terrified by her visions and goes running off into the forest.

Nope not flawed.

Neither of those are what I would consider personal character flaws and both are essentially resolved in a matter of seconds. After running out of the bar, she encounters Kylo Ren and is captured, and by resisting his mind probe she is now a semi-master Jedi and knows the mind trick which by all appearances in the original trilogy was supposed to be a pretty high-level trick. That's pretty much the end of her giving a shit about the visions. She's wistful about not leaving Jakku for like 20 seconds total in the movie.

Finn isn't perfect either; his heel-face turn is so complete it beggars belief- particularly when he's brutally impaling a dude on a lightsaber like an hour in after having his PTSD experience on Jakku maybe a day or so earlier- being traumatized watching a fellow trooper die in his arms while smearing his blood all over his helmet, and having to watch a bunch of unarmed people get gunned down in cold blood.

That flowchart is by far the dumbest thing I've seen today. You could literally post the text "Strong female characters don't exist anywhere because reasons." and it would be the same.

also

A Mary Sue or, in case of a male, Gary Stu or Marty Stu is an idealized fictional character, a young or low-rank person who saves the day through extraordinary abilities.

from wikipedia basically describes every fantasy protagonist ever...including Luke Skywalker.

I'm just judging her by the standards of people who are twisting themselves into knots trying not to apply those standards to Rey because they're invested in being able to call her a "strong female character".

edit: and again, I'm not even saying being a Mary Sue makes her terrible!

[pxib]

He's a perfect shot despite never used a gun
He can out dog fight a veteran of the clone wars despite never flown a fighter before
He has uncanny aim with the falcons turrets
He can actually a hit darth vadar after a week of walking around with a green frog
He is the third most powerful jedi after a months of training
He beats darth vadar by over powering him. He beats a man with super human mechanical limbs and force augmentation with brute force....

I hate to do this because I basically agree with you, but again: screenwriting.

Perfect shot and turret aim: He used to bullseye womp rats in his T-16. Like I say, I got no problem with Rey's piloting and technical expertise. When we see her flying the Falcon she's crashing into stuff left and right and making crazy moves because she's overwhelmed and unfamiliar. It works better than Luke's ability to shoot.

Dog-fighting: Luke isn't dog-fighting. His X-wing is one of the bombers in their formation. The other Red fighters are supposed to defend him while he focuses making the impossible shot into the exhaust port. He gets that job because of the excellent aim he's displayed in the movie up to that point

Darth Vader: Here's their fight from E5. Vader toys with him and casually wipes the floor with him... then offers to train him because that's what he wanted all along. Then in that final fight Luke wins because Vader doesn't want to kill him. Which is pretty much the entire point of both Luke and Vader's arcs in E6.

...and by the time he's the third most powerful Jedi, Yoda is dead. So he's the third out of three.

This is a kid who's just supernaturally adaptive and I'm going to guess that her strong connection to the Force is the reason. The Force isn't meant to be a purely conscious thing - a lot of it is an instinctual connection to the eddies of the universe. And I think they are clearly trying to show WITHOUT TELLING that she may be one of the strongest Force users out there from birth.

Yes, and this is what Lucas was trying to show with making Anakin great at everything he did from pod racing, to building robots, to sitting in the cockpits of fighters. Abrams and Kasden are better at it. It's still bad Chosen One bullshit unless you explain it in the movie.

[Fabricated]

Luke is the third most powerful  jedi by virtue of being a fucking jedi in a world with two other jedi. Holy shit.

[jgsugden]

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/neil-degrasse-tyson-fun-star-wars-article-1.2473686

Fight over this instead.