Poll Is Rey a Mary Sue?

[CorporalCaptain]

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.

No.

Anakin's abilities were untamed but not latent. Latent means hidden, unrealized. Your calling them simply reflexes is a direct contradiction of the dialog that I cited. Qui-Gon explicitly stated that what appear to be Anakin's quick reflexes are really manifestations of his special, Jedi powers. Qui-Gon explicitly stated that Anakin was already exhibiting these abilities, so they were not latent.

So, no. What you're saying is neither what I said nor what Qui-Gon said.

 

[Skipper]

Guys, guys, I finally found the necessary (but not sufficient) condition to demonstrate if Rey is a Mary Sue.

Virtually every definition out there share this detail (in similar words):

This character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment.

IMBD lists three screenwriters for The Force Awakens:

• Lawrence Kasdan
• J. J. Abrams
• Michael Arndt

Now, unless you can find one of these three guys affirming in a interview something like "Yes, my desire has always been to be a girl digging through garbage on a sandy planet, and now that I've convinced Disney to spend $ 445M on a movie, I can finally fulfill it!", well, Rei isn't a Mary Sue by definition.

So sorry guys, you haven't even done your homework.

/THREAD.

 

[fireproof78]

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.

Reflexes are not latent, they are not hidden. Anakin explicitly demonstrates raw Force potential in his abilities to fly a podracer, something that "no human can do." Rey is very similar, as acknowledged by Kylo:
KYLO REN:

She's strong with the Force, untrained

but, stronger than she knows."

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.

Rey states she is pilot, like Luke. Luke had never been in the cockpit of an X-Wing before and yet is able to fly with seasoned veteran combat pilots. Rey's first choice of ship was also not the Falcon. She ran for one likely she knew.

As for "showing up Han," all she does it is pull a piece of equipment that hadn't been there when Han had owned the Falcon. I love how people think that's "showing up" when she just does what she has already been shown to know--removing parts from ships.

Guys, guys, I finally found the necessary (but not sufficient) condition to demonstrate if Rey is a Mary Sue.

Virtually every definition out there share this detail (in similar words):

This character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment.

IMBD lists three screenwriters for The Force Awakens:

• Lawrence Kasdan
• J. J. Abrams
• Michael Arndt

Now, unless you can find one of these three guys affirming in a interview something like "Yes, my desire has always been to be a girl digging through garbage on a sandy planet, and now that I've convinced Disney to spend $ 445M on a movie, I can finally fulfill it!", well, Rei isn't a Mary Sue by definition.

So sorry guys, you haven't even done your homework.

/THREAD.

Quite true, though I'll leave this thread open to avoid the stream of Mary Sue accusations that will come in December.

ETA: Read another article on why Rey isn't a Mary Sue. Likely don't convince the unconvinced at this point but I found the quote on the piloting and survival aspect quite applicable.

This awareness of technology lays the groundwork for her piloting skills, complemented by the speeder she uses to traverse the scorching sand. Yet there’s a more poetic inspiration here. She lives inside the downed carcass of an AT-AT walker – a remnant from the climactic battle between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance that waged over Jakku some thirty years beforehand. She’s surrounded herself with technology, picked bare their parts and likely put them back together again. This brings insight and, coupled with the reflexes and aptitude of Force sensitivity, and you’ve got a character one would only expect would possess crack piloting skills. Having grown up in the shadow of the Millennium Falcon only calcifies the fact Rey would know how to get it off the ground. And let’s not forget the inelegance of that take-off.

Surviving Jakku involves more than plucking scrap from the sands and swapping for food. Without a weapon to fend off gangs, thieves and opportunists, reaching adulthood alive would be a minor miracle. Her staff is more than aesthetics, she wields it as if her life depended on it – because it does. The multi-purpose tool allows her to traverse the shifting sands and fight off attackers. She handles it with a finesse and surety only years of use and practice could have accounted for. When moving on to a lightsaber, it’s only understandable that her skills would be applicable to all melee weapons. Though her fighting style is messy and amateurish in her climactic clash with Kylo Ren, by the time we get to The Last Jedi, there is an elegance to her strokes, a testament to years of practice.

Source

Or perhaps from Daisy herself:

“The Mary Sue thing in itself is sexist because it’s the name of a woman. Everyone was saying that Luke had the exact same [capabilities]. I think Rey is incredibly vulnerable, and nothing she’s doing is for the greater good. She’s just doing what she thinks is the right thing. And she doesn’t want to do some of it, but she feels compelled to do it. So for me, I was just confused.”

No...? More's the pity.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

Guys, guys, I finally found the necessary (but not sufficient) condition to demonstrate if Rey is a Mary Sue.

Virtually every definition out there share this detail (in similar words):

This character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment.

IMBD lists three screenwriters for The Force Awakens:

• Lawrence Kasdan
• J. J. Abrams
• Michael Arndt

Now, unless you can find one of these three guys affirming in a interview something like "Yes, my desire has always been to be a girl digging through garbage on a sandy planet, and now that I've convinced Disney to spend $ 445M on a movie, I can finally fulfill it!", well, Rei isn't a Mary Sue by definition.

So sorry guys, you haven't even done your homework.

/THREAD.

were they all not following the directions of KK who is only about having 'strong" female characters?

 

[Ithekro]

KK is not a writer, nor director...nor really the producer...so she can't be, be definition, the Author of a Mary Sue in a Star Wars movie, since she not a person involved with the writing.

The closest you might get to that would be one of the shadow writers....namely Carrie Fisher. And quite honestly, that's not her style.

 

[Set Harth]

Fans will deny this, of course, but until Rey came along, the entire Star Wars universe in film had exactly two female characters

Rey might not be a Mary Sue, but clearly Peter David is an idiot.

 

[fireproof78]

were they all not following the directions of KK who is only about having 'strong" female characters?

Abrams has stated that Kennedy gave a lot of creative freedom.

The concept of a female protagonist was suggested by Lucas.

Is there the same level of animus towards Joss Whedon for wanting to write strong female characters? If not, why not?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Some of Ralph McQuarie's pre-production artwork for the original film has the Luke-figure rendered as a female, by the way.

 

[Jayson1]

Abrams has stated that Kennedy gave a lot of creative freedom.

The concept of a female protagonist was suggested by Lucas.

Is there the same level of animus towards Joss Whedon for wanting to write strong female characters? If not, why not?

To be fair Whedon is a better writer than anyone working on SW. He knows how to combine angst,humor,cleverness and social commentary in the same package. Jason

 

[Skipper]

were they all not following the directions of KK who is only about having 'strong" female characters?

They are the authors. So, if they were "following her directions", they weren't fulfilling their personal wish. And the definition of Mary Sue mentions SPECIFICALLY the authors.

Checkmate.

 

[Skipper]

I was thinking, it is almost impossible to have a "real" Mary Sue outside fanfiction or self-published books. A movie is a collaborative effort and if you are actually paid to write a book, I'm quite sure sure that the publisher would have something to say about the fact that you are using their money for just blatant literary wish fulfillment.

 

[Myko]

It's fairly clear that Rey is not a Mary Sue by definition, should we have another name for characters that are "unrealistically awesome" and argue about whether she is that instead? "Prodigy Character?" "Overpowered Character?"

I'm sure there's a TV Trope page for this already.

 

[Smellmet]

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.

And if they weren't to some degree, we'd have some pretty short films wouldn't we?

 

[Skipper]

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.

We can discusse about the notion of "Author surrogate", but the problem is that "Mary Sue" is clearly intended as a derogatory term. Words are important.

 

[Skipper]

It's fairly clear that Rey is not a Mary Sue by definition, should we have another name for characters that are "unrealistically awesome" and argue about whether she is that instead? "Prodigy Character?" "Overpowered Character?"

I'm sure there's a TV Trope page for this already.

Almost every male action hero? I re-watched recently Commando and the protagonist is an infallible and unstoppable killing machine, but I clearly remember at the time no one complained that Schwarzenegger's character was too much overpowered or unrealistically awesome. He was the personification of every male dream and everybody was ok with that.

But now there are badass female action heroes, and the frail male ego of too much people is exploding.

 

[Shaka Zulu]

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?

Luke who after having flown the equivalent of a Piper Cub (Incom T-16) for years is suddenly able to fly the equivalent of an F-16 (Incom T-65 X-Wing) just like that.

 

[Smellmet]

Almost every male action hero? I re-watched recently Commando and the protagonist is an infallible and unstoppable killing machine, but I clearly remember at the time no one complained that Schwarzenegger's character was too much overpowered or unrealistically awesome. He was the personification of every male dreams and everybody was ok with that.

But now there are badass female action heroes, and the frail male ego of too much people is exploding.

Good example - I mean he literally holds a man by his ankle over the edge of a cliff with one outstretched arm in this movie. Absolutely fucking impossible. I think I'd struggle to do that with my four year old daughter, and I'm a strapping 6ft 7 inch 20 stone man myself.

 

[Skipper]

Good example - I mean he literally holds a man by his ankle over the edge of a cliff with one outstretched arm in this movie. Absolutely fucking impossible. I think I'd struggle to do that with my four year old daughter, and I'm a strapping 6ft 7 inch 20 stone man myself.

And don't get me wrong, I LOVE this movie. Movies are often just form of escapism and there isn't nothing wrong with a super-competent character. I mean, Sean Connery's 007 is the quintessential personification of this concept.

But if the main character is female, then for some nebulous and unfathomable reasons, the concept is wrong. But the frail males known that they can't plainly say "It's WRONG!", so they resort to some form to double speak. "That character is a Mary Sue!!!!" because, you know, being a Mary Sue is the worst thing that a character can be, from the invention of the literature forward.

And it's not really important that the particular character is really a "Mary Sue" (they never are), it's important that they used a derogatory and sexist term, under the pretense of some neutral criticism.

 

[Smellmet]

Sean Connery's 007 is the quintessential personification of this concept.

All the incarnations of 007 fall into this category.

 

[Skipper]

All the incarnations of 007 fall into this category.

I'm not sure about that. Daniel Graig's is a quite fallible one, and George Lazenby depicted a vulnerable James Bond.