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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
Indeed, given her background and the fact she's still alive it hardly seems unreasonable to postulate she's been unknowingly using the force for some time. Need to re watch the Maz Kanata scene in particular as I've a distinct feeling the dialogue suggests she has had similar experiences before.
Maz does state that she is no Jedi but knows the Force. Which indicates that Force knowledge is not exclusively the realm of the Jedi, and that one can be aware of it without Jedi training.
 
a) No one liked TPM
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I liked TPM, so your point is invalid. Also, using the c-word to describe a nine-year-old? Not cool.

Dooku.

Who was an actual trained Sith, rather than Kylo who is essentially a teenager cosplaying and has no special light saber skills.

Dooku was also meant to be one of the greatest swordmasters the Jedi Order had ever seen. Of course he's going to be just about anyone in a straight duel.
 
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I liked TPM, so your point is invalid. Also, using the c-word to describe a nine-year-old? Not cool.



Dooku was also meant to be one of the greatest swordmasters the Jedi Order had ever seen. Of course he's going to be just about anyone in a straight duel.

Whereas Kylo Ren is anything but a great swordsman, Finn gives him a fight despite not being a force user in the slightest.

People drawing a parallel between Rey/Ren and Anakin/Dooku to portray Rey as overpowered are failing to grasp the disparity between the two pairings.
 
Maz does state that she is no Jedi but knows the Force. Which indicates that Force knowledge is not exclusively the realm of the Jedi, and that one can be aware of it without Jedi training.

Indeed, this is a theme throughout SW, that the force is in no sense exclusively the domain of the Jedi/Sith.

They have particular philosophies and training methods to achieve particular goals but the force underlies all life and is accessible to anyone with the patience and sensitivity. TLJ expands on this at great length with Luke decrying the arrogance of the Jedi claiming dominion or even prominence within nature as the absolute masters of the force.

I did, however, mean Rey had had similar experiences.
 
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I liked TPM, so your point is invalid. Also, using the c-word to describe a nine-year-old? Not cool.



Dooku was also meant to be one of the greatest swordmasters the Jedi Order had ever seen. Of course he's going to be just about anyone in a straight duel.

The "c-word" haha.
 
It's still precedent. Liked or not, Anakin demonstrated Force abilities without "meeting a Jedi." The Force exists within all life and it clearly can develop in people without knowing the Jedi.

Established how? Via spoken dialog? Same thing that Rey does.

She does what Luke does:
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She uses the Force in a similar manner established by ANH-she acts on instinct, something that has been living her life on since being a child:
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You can not like her as a character, you can find her bland and boring. That doesn't make her a Mary Sue.

Rey spent 15 years just trying to survive, learning to rely upon her instincts to keep herself going. She was probably the most uniquely suited person to respond to the Force's promoting as described by Obi-Wan

Anakin didn't show any force usage in TPM. It was the same as Luke, but dialed up a hundred times, it was to show a latent ability to use the force, Luke only showed glimpses. TPM is a bad bad bad bad movie as well.

Rey, without any knowledge, is using force tricks, using a lightsaber effectively (something Luke never did til the third movie).

The picture you posted was fucking stupid as well. Luke was established as an excellent pilot that has been flying since he was a boy, but he still needed a ton of help - Empire? He fucking gets shot down and his co-pilot dies. Anakin has been a trained Jedi for at least two decades by that point of the movie. Rey? Its the first time she has flown the Falcon and flies it better than Han ever did, defeating TIE Fighters and pulling off death defying tricks like she has been flying it for decades.

Rey was using MIND TRICKS. Luke was using reflexes under the tutelage of a Jedi Master, while being the son of the most powerful force user in history.

Rey is a bad character and Mary Sue. She is Mary Sue 101. I don't think she is a self insert, but she is definitely a cynical attempt to cash in on the current neoliberal trends to make money off feminism and copy Hunger Games.
 
Anakin didn't show any force usage in TPM.
Incorrect.
using a lightsaber effectively
She already had combat skills with a melee weapon. As noted by others in this thread she wields the lightsaber in a similar manner to her staff. Luke had limited demonstration of combat abilities.
The picture you posted was fucking stupid as well. Luke was established as an excellent pilot that has been flying since he was a boy,
Established by what? The only dialog is he is a fair pilot, both from Luke and Obi-Wan. Yet, he is demonstrated to be able to fly a combat vessel with no training.

Rey was using MIND TRICKS. Luke was using reflexes under the tutelage of a Jedi Master, while being the son of the most powerful force user in history.
He had one session.
Rey is a bad character and Mary Sue. She is Mary Sue 101. I don't think she is a self insert, but she is definitely a cynical attempt to cash in on the current neoliberal trends to make money off feminism and copy Hunger Games.
And now the arguments are becoming nonsensical. Lucas came up with a female protagonist first. Disney has used female protagonists for years. The idea of a "cynical cash grab" is absurdist, at best.

She might be a bad character-I disagree on that point, but I certainly can appreciate that POV. She is not a Mary Sue.
 
She already had combat skills with a melee weapon. As noted by others in this thread she wields the lightsaber in a similar manner to her staff. Luke had limited demonstration of combat abilities.

Lightsaber =/= Staff. Beating up random junkers =/= trained force user.

Established by what? The only dialog is he is a fair pilot, both from Luke and Obi-Wan. Yet, he is demonstrated to be able to fly a combat vessel with no training.

Biggs talks about him being the best bush pilot he has ever seen, Luke says he is a great pilot, bullseye womprats in his T-16 back home and they aren't much more than 2 meters etc. The movie sets up Luke as being a competent pilot, turns out Luke is an above average pilot, but not even the best in the OT from what we see - Wedge seems to pull a lot more off. Luke needed a ton of help to take out the Death Star, Vader was about to blow him out of the sky, Wedge saved his bacon and Obi-Wan had to help him out so he didn't miss like the other dude. Why? Cause he was at the start of his journey, he was still an underdog character. People like the underdog characters. Rey isn't an underdog, she has crushed everything and everyone in her path so far, all within the space of two movies that seemingly take place over 3 or 4 days.

He had one session.

And showed very latent force abilities, more like reflexes than anything. Which sets up later in the movie when he does the same thing. I don't know the time differences between movies, but by the time of Empire, Luke still isn't proficient with a lightsaber or the usage of the force, he has matured and clearly practicing, but we see him struggling to use the force to pull his lightsaber to him a short distance. Even after an unspecified time on Dagobah, which I assume to be a month or two, he gets his shit absolutely pushed in by Vader, falls into his trap and needs his ass saving by Lando.

The first time we see Luke doing anything impressive with a lightsaber is Jedi and the Barge, 4-5 years after he first learns of the force.
 
Lightsaber =/= Staff. Beating up random junkers =/= trained force user.



Biggs talks about him being the best bush pilot he has ever seen, Luke says he is a great pilot, bullseye womprats in his T-16 back home and they aren't much more than 2 meters etc. The movie sets up Luke as being a competent pilot, turns out Luke is an above average pilot, but not even the best in the OT from what we see - Wedge seems to pull a lot more off. Luke needed a ton of help to take out the Death Star, Vader was about to blow him out of the sky, Wedge saved his bacon and Obi-Wan had to help him out so he didn't miss like the other dude. Why? Cause he was at the start of his journey, he was still an underdog character. People like the underdog characters. Rey isn't an underdog, she has crushed everything and everyone in her path so far, all within the space of two movies that seemingly take place over 3 or 4 days.



And showed very latent force abilities, more like reflexes than anything. Which sets up later in the movie when he does the same thing. I don't know the time differences between movies, but by the time of Empire, Luke still isn't proficient with a lightsaber or the usage of the force, he has matured and clearly practicing, but we see him struggling to use the force to pull his lightsaber to him a short distance. Even after an unspecified time on Dagobah, which I assume to be a month or two, he gets his shit absolutely pushed in by Vader, falls into his trap and needs his ass saving by Lando.

The first time we see Luke doing anything impressive with a lightsaber is Jedi and the Barge, 4-5 years after he first learns of the force.
Just give up already.
 
Anakin didn't show any force usage in TPM.
I disagree. Anakin's ability to see into the future was referenced in dialog in TPM.

QUI-GON : He has special powers.
SHMI : Yes...
QUI-GON : He can see things before they happen. That's why he appears to have such quick reflexes. It is a Jedi trait.​

https://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-The-Phantom-Menace.html

By implication, this is what gave Anakin the ability to compete in the pod races. We saw him win a pod race, ergo we saw Anakin use the Force according to his natural abilities.

And while we're on the subject, in TPM, we saw little boy Anakin win a pod race and out-fly veteran starpilots.
 
Lightsaber =/= Staff. Beating up random junkers =/= trained force user.
Wounded trained Force user, who isn't fully trained and who is pulling his punches since he doesn't want to kill her.

Lightsaber is a melee weapon. Generalizing of skills. I've seen it done before when I would spar and play tennis. Yes, it works.
Biggs talks about him being the best bush pilot he has ever seen, Luke says he is a great pilot, bullseye womprats in his T-16 back home and they aren't much more than 2 meters etc. The movie sets up Luke as being a competent pilot, turns out Luke is an above average pilot, but not even the best in the OT from what we see
Luke says he is a pilot and then demonstrates it. Rey says she is a pilot and demonstrates it.
And showed very latent force abilities, more like reflexes than anything.
And so does Rey.

By implication, this is what gave Anakin the ability to compete in the pod races. We saw him win a pod race, ergo we saw Anakin use the Force according to his natural abilities.

And while we're on the subject, in TPM, we saw little boy Anakin win a pod race and out-fly veteran starpilots.
Exactly. People can not like TPM all they want that doesn't change the fact that it establishes ideas about using Force powers without training.
 
Exactly. People can not like TPM all they want that doesn't change the fact that it establishes ideas about using Force powers without training.
Yep. And tossing it out because one thinks it is a bad movie that no one likes* is just cherry-picking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking

TPM is as much Star Wars as any of the other episodes.

* - I like it best of the PT.
 
Luke was an extremely skilled pilot, but we know he had been doing it for years and it was firmly established several times in the script.

Rey blows him out of the water and doesn't appear to have any piloting skills, especially not with the Falcon. She is better than Han. Without ever touching the Falcon.
Rey worked for Unkar Plutt. Unkar Plutt runs a spaceport on Jakku. Rey is familiar with the flight status, capabilities, and characteristics of those spacecraft, including the Falcon. She scavenges parts for the spacecraft, meaning she knows how to repair them. She explicitly identifies herself as a pilot. She's shown flying the Falcon. She knows the parts it needs to work properly. How much more do you need to know, because that's as much development as Luke got. She's likely responsible for ferrying the spacecraft back and forth to different locations and tasks on or in orbit of Jakku.

Luke was an obnoxious kid who was just annoying Han for most of the movie. He bumbled his way through an escape plan, got them into trouble and had to be bailed out by Leia twice.

Rey does everything perfectly, even when she gets captured, she uses a fucking jedi mind trick AND ESCAPES HERSELF. She hasn't even met a Jedi at this point.
She met a former Jedi padawan: Kylo Ren. Kylo taught her how to do the mind trick when he probed her mind and she tried to resist. Then she used what she had learned to try and convince the Daniel Craig stormtrooper to listen to her but failed the first time (so not perfectly).
 
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Do people really think that Anakin was just a super awesome kid and that’s why he was able to do what he did in the first movie? :lol:
 
Anakin flat out says he's the only human that can do pod-racing. It requires enhanced senses and reaction times that normal humans can't handle. That's because of his innate Force powers, which he got without any training or exposure to the Jedi.

He has an innate Force enhanced ability to fix and construct machines like droids and pod-racers. That's why Watto valued him so highly, on top of his pod-racing skills.

Anakin winged his way into surviving a space battle and destroying a droid control ship with the Force without any training.
 
Rey worked for Unkar Plutt. Unkar Plutt runs a spaceport on Jakku. Rey is familiar with the flight status, capabilities, and characteristics of those spacecraft, including the Falcon. She scavenges parts for the spacecraft, meaning she knows how to repair them. She explicitly identifies herself as a pilot. She's shown flying the Falcon. How much more do you need to know, because that's as much development as Luke got.

If I remember right, during the part where she and Finn are congratulating each other on pulling off the escape, she straight up says she's got flight experience. It's an easy line to miss but it gives her piloting abilities exactly as much explanation as they need.
 
Nearly all of this is also true of nearly every lead hero of every story since the beginning of fiction. Some of it's also true of certain figures that the major religions are centred around.
I was just coming here to make that same argument. Every character ever written could be considered a Mary Sue to one degree or another.
 
I disagree. Anakin's ability to see into the future was referenced in dialog in TPM.

QUI-GON : He has special powers.
SHMI : Yes...
QUI-GON : He can see things before they happen. That's why he appears to have such quick reflexes. It is a Jedi trait.​

https://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Star-Wars-The-Phantom-Menace.html

By implication, this is what gave Anakin the ability to compete in the pod races. We saw him win a pod race, ergo we saw Anakin use the Force according to his natural abilities.

And while we're on the subject, in TPM, we saw little boy Anakin win a pod race and out-fly veteran starpilots.

Which is what I said. Reflexes. No active use of powers. Dreams. He was established in the movie as being one of the strongest recorded force users ever as far as latent talents go.

Rey worked for Unkar Plutt. Unkar Plutt runs a spaceport on Jakku. Rey is familiar with the flight status, capabilities, and characteristics of those spacecraft, including the Falcon. She scavenges parts for the spacecraft, meaning she knows how to repair them. She explicitly identifies herself as a pilot. She's shown flying the Falcon. She knows the parts it needs to work properly. How much more do you need to know, because that's as much development as Luke got. She's likely responsible for ferrying the spacecraft back and forth to different locations and tasks on or in orbit of Jakku.

None of this was in the movie. Nor was it ever implied that Rey flew ships, or she may have got off the shit hole planet. The Falcon was a ship with no activity and was just a wreck. She flies it expertly, pulls off some amazing maneuvers and doesn't she later on in the movie show up Han? Mary Sue 101. Luke didn't even know what the fuck was going on in the cockpit of the ship and Han scolded him for it.
 
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