anyone else bored/frustrated by all the "Mary Sue" debates?

That shit was finished.

 

Nope.

 

Did you somehow miss the pwnage?

 

The dude had already been shot in the side. I'm skeptical that his minor lightsaber wounds would have ended Kylo's irrational rage filled attacking.

 

They both walked away from it.

 

If you think Kylo injured / ground separating is why she won that fight, they had a 2nd chance to portray any sort of power unbalance when they faced off in the last Jedi but instead she splits the lightsaber implying they are at equal power. That's after kicking Luke's ass as well. Almost like they are trying to make the appeal of the character based on having her be amazing at everything and never looking bad

Star wars has potential for more interesting stuff than such a perfect character I mean we could have had flipping to the dark side, losing limbs and becoming powerful over time… and they just do nothing other than having her be better right out of the gate is weird. Still hoping for something substantial in the third movie

 

Yup, never. She never went into the Dark Side hole after being told not to, convinced that Kylo can be saved (no matter what people say), nearly crashed the Millenium Falcon just taking off, or anything like that.

Sorry, this criticism ignores context, especially with Luke, so I find this hard to take seriously. But, I'm biased and actually think Rey is an interesting character so what do I know?

 

For me if she had actually crashed the falcon I'd agree, if she had seemed tempted towards the dark side I'd agree, or if failing to save Kylo actually resulted in something bad like losing a fight. Take any of those things a bit further and it would have been a better story to me

Obi Wan is another perfect boring hero type but atleast with him the whole time during the PT we know he fails with Anakin and eventually it cost him his life in the OT

 

Except it didn't cost Obi-Wan his life, unless you think that Luke was just hearing imaginary voices and seeing imaginary ghosts in the snow and in the swamps. Hypothermia and swamp gasses, that's it. And life support malfunctioning in his fighter cockpit. There wasn't even a body to found within the robes that Vader's saber sliced through. Obi-Wan's death was less his past catching up to him and more the culmination of his life's work. Obi-Wan was quite perfect in death, being the focus of Vader's attention and yet still living on.

 

No, I've stated that I've never seen Michael being accused of being a "Mary Sue" character. So, let me be clear: I've never seen MICHAEL being accused of being a "Mary Sue", but I've seen MICHAEL being accused of being an awful character. Is that clear enough for you? I don't want my position to be misrepresented, you know...

No, the "epithet" may have been around, but it didn't get used in full force until TFA. The response to that have been the accusation of sexism, on the part of Rey supporters. And, personally, when you accuse someone of being sexist in this instance, you are ignoring the reasons why the charge of Rey being a "Mary Sue" was made in the first place.

The funny thing is that we're having this discussion over FICTIONAL characters who, at the end of the day, will mean nothing in the larger scheme of things. And, in fact, will be at the mercy of whatever writers the production studios have hired. Why? Simple: to make money off of us, the audience. Thus, with this realization, like Kang and Kirk from the TOS episode, "Day of the Doves", I throw down my sword. Continue this discussion if you want, but I've stated my piece on this subject long enough to attempt to make a point.

Live long and prosper, my friend. Peace.

 

Yeah, I think the main point of the idea is that the writers make way too forceful an attempt to get/force you to like the character but they still don't succeed in doing so. Edit: Probably because they tried too hard and insistently.

Well those two do seem pretty good examples and I think show the term does have a lot of pretty-widely-agreed upon meaning.

True the term can be overused or misused but it is still pretty widely applied to male characters, especially Wesley, as well so a non-gendered meaning seems predominant.

 

Oddly enough, that development was written by Ronald Moore who probably didn't actually like Wesley much or, at least, early TNG/late Roddenberry generally, thought they had become overly idealized. Wesley having that transcendence but leaving Starfleet, from the episode itself it's not really clear how Moore felt about him.

I think it would be a good idea to distinguish coolness from competency, competency can contribute to coolness but not necessarily. One reason why characters can be particularly annoying and get the Mary Sue term/accusation is if they succeed and are made to seem cool despite being not that competent, even incompetent, the success seems mostly like luck but is treated like they earned it-I think Kirk in 09 seems a good example of that.

It's also fair, though of course even more subjective, to distinguish between author-insertion or wish fulfillment and badly-done insertion or wish fulfillment, a big aspect of the latter is probably overdoing it. I haven't seen the Disney SW but OT Luke obviously is related to Lucas and is the main hero & savior and yet he isn't the only hero or competent character, the other characters do like him but don't only or especially love him and he also has some Dark Side elements and is tempted to go bad.

 

where? Unless I'm misremembering this - we get a 30 second segment in ROTJ and that is pretty much it - it's not presented as a serious concern - nobody watching any of the Star Wars films is every concerned that Luke will go evil.

 

Didn't Luke force choke a guard in Jabba's place?
That was a little bit dark.

 

This where personal interpretation can come in to play. I truly do not believe that Rey lucked into her skill, nor Kirk. Rey has demonstrated skills that are applicable to her survival, and Kirk is described as being "genius level" with strong, but untapped, potential. He spent 3 years training as an officer so that is not for nothing, I would think.

I think part of this misinterpretation of these characters is a lack of attribution of their skills, either explicit or implicit. Now, I will put this at the feet of the writers, in part, because it may not be demonstrated in a meaningful way in the narrative, but since I see these discussions go back and forth like this I can't completely fault the writers.

Well, Luke is cautioned by both Obi-Wan and Yoda regarding his failure in the cave and "giving in to hate." So it clearly was a concern.

 

From the beginning of Yoda reluctantly agreeing to train him he thinks he lacks patience and has much anger and later, just before Luke goes to fight Vader, outright warns him that if he does so before completing training he probably will "become an agent of evil."

 

For the record, I enjoyed the Ghostbusters reboot and not for ideological reasons. Kate McKinnon was a hoot and pretty much stole the movie, although Chris Hemsworth gave her a run for her money. By way of criticism, I'll concede the final battle went on too long, with too many false climaxes and reverses, but that's often the case with modern blockbusters. I saw the movie on a Saturday night at a crowded multiplex full of ordinary moviegoers (as opposed to reactionary fanboys) and can testify that the crowd was laughing and enjoying themselves just because they were having a good time at a goofy comedy, not to "wave a flag" or anything like that.

By contrast, a few hours later, I ran into a guy at a convention who, by his own admission, was saddened that I had liked the movie because, sight unseen, he wanted it to fail . . . as a matter of principle, I guess.

So let's not be so quick to assert that such films can't possibly have any inherent merits or whatever, or that people are only pretending to enjoy them. Better perhaps to take people at their word when they say they like something, especially if they're the ones who have actually seen it.

 

I don't usually comment on the Mary Sue stuff because I find it silly. But reading that it originated on Trek fan fiction is interesting.

We know that Seth Macfarlane is a big Trek fan and has even appeared in Trek fan films when he was younger. And considering that Mary Sue is supposed to be a wish fulfillment character based on the Author, it means Ed Mercer is Mary Sue

 

Yeah, no. You see there are people who do not think like you. Watching movies and all media is entirely subjective and just because you personally don't like something, that has no bearing on the movie itself in terms of quality. I enjoyed both and I find it highly insulting to read that I'm lying about that to push some ideology because if that's where your mind goes then it stands to reason that it's only because that's why YOU didn't enjoy it. So remember your opinion is just that, your opinion and everyone can either agree or disagree. Pretending that it is anything but your opinion is delusional thinking at its highest, especially when you have to create conspiracy theories to justify them.

For what it's worth the moment I quit taking any genre discussion that brings up Mary Sues as a legitimate argument is the moment I know to just ignore the person who says it because I'll never be able to take anything they say seriously.

 

See also-- "SJW", "Virtue Signaling" , "Beta Male", "White Knighting", ect;