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Poll Is Rey a Mary Sue?

Is Rey a Mary Sue

  • Yes, she absolutely is-make arguments below

    Votes: 24 25.3%
  • No, she is not-make arguments below

    Votes: 34 35.8%
  • Mary Sue is a meaningless term

    Votes: 27 28.4%
  • Don't know, don't care

    Votes: 12 12.6%
  • Doesn't impact me one way or the other

    Votes: 11 11.6%

  • Total voters
    95
this is an absurd argument. Just because someone has the money to buy the rights to a property, doesn't change the fact that the content they add to it doesn't feel like it belongs. UGH

You seem to miss the fact that Disney has the right to do what they want because they've purchased Star Wars. They owe nothing to you. They owe nothing to me. They can choose to make the Benioff & Weiss trilogy completely CGI starring only purple elephants as Jedi. I for one don't care to see only purple elephants as Jedi. But its their right to do so if they so choose.

You don't like what Disney has done with Star Wars. Others don't either. However, the sequel trilogy has been EXTREMELY profitable. And that financial success suggests that they will continue down the road they're on. That The Rise of Skywalker has done extremely well in presales already is a good early indication that they are doing maybe what mass audiences want to see. The point being: The majority of people who go see a Star Wars films do not post on the internet. They do not watch YouTube videos. They watch the movies. They enjoy them or they don't. And hopefully they go see the next one. End of story.

As I have tried to suggest many times: Disney is a business. A business is there to be profitable. Even moreso, they have a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders. They make the decisions based on data that neither you nor I do not have at our fingertips. I do not agree with every decision Disney has made with Star Wars but at the end of the day, I'm still entertained. And many others are as well.
 
I've never seen the term fan fiction used that way. I've seen people say that something feels like fan fiction, but that doesn't mean that it is.
She is a composite character combining Luke Skywalker with the strong female action hero cliche and the Jesus savior type ala Superman,John Connor etc. If SW has any Mary Sue it would be Admiral Holdo. Shows up out of nowhere and is put in charge with the blessing of a Iconic character. Used to make one of leads look bad. Serves no long term function for franchise then dies a hero death. Not sure if it counts since isn't a lead. She might just be a poorly executed antagist since the entire mutiny feels like filler. Something to cuttaway to from the main Luke/Rey stuff. Jason
OK, I could actually see that argument almost working with Holdo. I still don't think she qualifies, but she's at least closer to one than Rey is.
She is a close friend of a main character, who shows up out of nowhere with a big reputation, and then goes out in a blaze of glory, saving the whole Resistance.
 
I'm not denying that legally you are right.. but when people say fan fiction.. they mean in terms of how the story works
Yes, but like the Mary Sue term, the term fan fiction also has weight in its meaning. So, if you are going to use the term let's make sure we are all in agreement of its use.

Otherwise, this discussion is rather pointless since we might be talking past each other.
 
I'd like to note that usually when people try to defend a position by pointing out the exact definitions of words, they get dismissed with "language evolves". But apparently "Mary Sue" is somehow set in stone with the most strict interpretation, and anything that falls short doesn't count.

On the contrary, there must be few terms with more widespread definitions, that can take into account nearly any character in fiction. Everyone defines it to suit the character they want to fit it to, and so in the end, "they're a Mary Sue!" becomes almost a meaningless statement. For years, I was under the impression that the archetypal Mary Sue character was Wesley Crusher. The teenager who ends up in the bridge crew, doing everyone's job better than the experienced professionals do and wonderful at everything, but with one flaw-that's-not-a-flaw, he's just too clever to make friends. He's even got the name of his creator. But then I was told that Wesley definitely wasn't a Mary Sue the last time we discussed this. So I'm completely lost as to what one is and am suspicious that it is merely anyone we don't like.
 
You seem to miss the fact that Disney has the right to do what they want because they've purchased Star Wars. They owe nothing to you. They owe nothing to me. They can choose to make the Benioff & Weiss trilogy completely CGI starring only purple elephants as Jedi. I for one don't care to see only purple elephants as Jedi. But its their right to do so if they so choose.

You don't like what Disney has done with Star Wars. Others don't either. However, the sequel trilogy has been EXTREMELY profitable. And that financial success suggests that they will continue down the road they're on. That The Rise of Skywalker has done extremely well in presales already is a good early indication that they are doing maybe what mass audiences want to see. The point being: The majority of people who go see a Star Wars films do not post on the internet. They do not watch YouTube videos. They watch the movies. They enjoy them or they don't. And hopefully they go see the next one. End of story.

As I have tried to suggest many times: Disney is a business. A business is there to be profitable. Even moreso, they have a fiduciary responsibility to its shareholders. They make the decisions based on data that neither you nor I do not have at our fingertips. I do not agree with every decision Disney has made with Star Wars but at the end of the day, I'm still entertained. And many others are as well.

This.

The vast majority of profits stemming from Star Wars movies aren't coming from "the fans". We're a big group as fanbases go, but peanuts compared to the numbers involved in making a movie sell. Most of the people buying tickets and possibly the odd bit of merchandise are people who have decided to go to the pictures then looked what's on and picked between SW, Fast and Furious, Terminator or the latest Tom Cruise offering. They're just movie goers for whom Star Wars is another large franchise which appears every now and then.

The idea tat Disney, as a private profit making concern who own that franchise, owe us anything or are beholden to any aspect of the subculture we have formed is nonsense and completely contrary to good business. They will make what they believes will turn a profit and if that happens to be what some of us like jolly good. If it isn't then we have no real grounds to complain, merely abstain from spending money in future.

As for Rey being a Mary Sue, I'm not sure we can definitively answer that as we don't have a definitive definition or criteria. We know where the term comes from, some of us even own copies of the famous short story, we know it loosely and variously means "excessively talented", "flawless" or "author insertion", but even that is way too abstract and lacking in substance to make the question truly meaningful.
 
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No more so than Luke is a Marty Stu

he real difference between Luke and Rey is the same as the difference between active and passive .. Luke, and characters like him, have clear goals (learn the force and save the princess, or fighting crime or avenging their puppy) , characters like Rey don't.. their goals are mired in "the right thing" in the vaguest way, and by definition she doesn't ASK for anything (even Daisy Ridley when talking about Rey, admits she never asked for anything) .. and while characters like Luke might be special because they are powerful, characters like Rey are powerful because they are special. That means that characters like Luke must continually prove themselves.. they gotta keep doing the awesome shit, and sometimes they will fail, sometimes they won't .. but in the process he is constantly creating who is he is.. the mary sue, by contrast, just is.. she is just awesome by virtue of existing .. and who she is often more important than what she does .. and even if a character like Luke has natural ability, we see them working to keep that ability, it is being tested all the time .. where as Rey and the other mary sue is just born amazing, is gifted the powers when she needs them (why was Rey able to perform a mind trick without having seen it performed?) , she is given powers by needs of the plot, or she was given all her powers in her tragic and unseen backstory, nullifying the need for us to question any of it.. or the need to work that hard for any of it on screen. Even the male characters like Harry Potter than lean toward these traits, there is still a sense that they have many conflicts to overcome, goals that are specific that they want to accomplish, a sense of agency in their own story, Rey like characters will often appear weak and vulnerable when.. as far as the story goes, they are invincible. Take Han in Disney Solo movie, within two minutes of the film and after the character is established, he had three clear goals (to leave Corrilia, to get a ship of his own, and to be with the girl) where as Rey.. eh wants to leave, except she wants to stay and wait for her parents, yet she knows they aren';t coming back, and she doesn't really want to help, and she doens't really want to take Solo's job offer, and yet we know she will do the right thing despite the fact there is no reason considering her background for her to do it. Oh and about that Han solo movie, that three year time jump early on.. implies that he had some kind of training ..


yes.. actual training


I'm not saying that Luke is a super deep character.. it is a heros' journey.. a formula that might be as old as the hills, but popular culture really needed a new take on it when it came out. He was peppered with more complexity as the story went on.. peppered.. like sprinkled,, they didn't really radically change the simplistic aspects of his character too much.. unlike TLJ which decided "let's make Luke an asshole and totally different and fool people into thinking he is the same character because thirty years later he COULD be like that, but let's not earn it through real storytelling"..
 
I don't think so. Though does it really matter? I want the movie to be enjoyable for the couple of hours I'm in the theater.
 
Unlike, of course, Luke who destroyed the Death Star by making an impossible torpedo shot whilst piloting a fighter against the Empires' best despite never having even been in space prior to a few days previous?

Luke who after a couple of days' training managed to give Vader a serious fight and then beat him on the rematch?
 
actually the impossible torpedo shot was the point of the movie.. and maybe you missed that.. maybe you missed talking earlier. "don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force." but whatever. You can try to smear a classic movie to defend a crappy modern one with a garbage fire script. Good on you!
 
So Luke did, in fact, make the torpedo shot no one else could, with the computers turned off and under fire from elite enemy pilots despite never having been in space before?

I'm sure I remember that bit quite clearly.
 
So the answer to my question is yes, thank you kindly.

Now, how much training did he have in these skills? Flying through space? Fighting elite pilots? Firing torpedos? Using the force to aim?

Twenty years?
Ten?
One?
Maybe a week?
Not so much?
 
you are an idiot. He had a little training,. but putting the faith in the shot WAS the beginning of him embracing the Force and in some ways the beginning of his journey to discover the Force. it's classic storytelling, not agenda driven garbage sewage
 
Either they’re both (Rey, Luke) “Mary Sue’s”, or neither are. They both pull off amazing feats with little to no training.

he real difference between Luke and Rey is the same as the difference between active and passive .. Luke, and characters like him, have clear goals (learn the force and save the princess, or fighting crime or avenging their puppy) , characters like Rey don't.. their goals are mired in "the right thing" in the vaguest way, and by definition she doesn't ASK for anything (even Daisy Ridley when talking about Rey, admits she never asked for anything) .. and while characters like Luke might be special because they are powerful, characters like Rey are powerful because they are special. That means that characters like Luke must continually prove themselves.. they gotta keep doing the awesome shit, and sometimes they will fail, sometimes they won't .. but in the process he is constantly creating who is he is.. the mary sue, by contrast, just is.. she is just awesome by virtue of existing .. and who she is often more important than what she does .. and even if a character like Luke has natural ability, we see them working to keep that ability, it is being tested all the time .. where as Rey and the other mary sue is just born amazing, is gifted the powers when she needs them (why was Rey able to perform a mind trick without having seen it performed?) , she is given powers by needs of the plot, or she was given all her powers in her tragic and unseen backstory, nullifying the need for us to question any of it.. or the need to work that hard for any of it on screen. Even the male characters like Harry Potter than lean toward these traits, there is still a sense that they have many conflicts to overcome, goals that are specific that they want to accomplish, a sense of agency in their own story, Rey like characters will often appear weak and vulnerable when.. as far as the story goes, they are invincible. Take Han in Disney Solo movie, within two minutes of the film and after the character is established, he had three clear goals (to leave Corrilia, to get a ship of his own, and to be with the girl) where as Rey.. eh wants to leave, except she wants to stay and wait for her parents, yet she knows they aren';t coming back, and she doesn't really want to help, and she doens't really want to take Solo's job offer, and yet we know she will do the right thing despite the fact there is no reason considering her background for her to do it. Oh and about that Han solo movie, that three year time jump early on.. implies that he had some kind of training ..


yes.. actual training


I'm not saying that Luke is a super deep character.. it is a heros' journey.. a formula that might be as old as the hills, but popular culture really needed a new take on it when it came out. He was peppered with more complexity as the story went on.. peppered.. like sprinkled,, they didn't really radically change the simplistic aspects of his character too much.. unlike TLJ which decided "let's make Luke an asshole and totally different and fool people into thinking he is the same character because thirty years later he COULD be like that, but let's not earn it through real storytelling"..
 
he real difference between Luke and Rey is the same as the difference between active and passive .. Luke, and characters like him, have clear goals (learn the force and save the princess, or fighting crime or avenging their puppy) , characters like Rey don't..

You’re still trying to tap dance around both doing incredible feats with little to no training.
 
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