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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
Spot261 said:
I really am. Tell me how her actions alter the plot?

Arguably she could have prevented Anakin leaving with Qui Gonn and Obi Wan, but then there wouldn't have been a plot at all.
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Feel free to go on answering your own questions like this.

Spot261 said:
I said she has no agency because she doesn't.
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I'm starting to see a pattern here.

Spot261 said:
Because there's no equivalence between being the central character in a film
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When did this become about "the central character in a film"? First it was "significant"... now a character has to be the central character in order to be counted?

As a character who never gave birth to anyone once said, this deal keeps getting worse all the time!
 
Set Harth said:
Feel free to go on answering your own questions like this.
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So, how does she alter the plot? What is her arc other than saying "ok, off you go" to a major character?

If that is all that's needed the nameless deck crew in Top Gun would qualify as "characters".

Set Harth said:
I'm starting to see a pattern here.
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Indeed, sometimes the only way to point out the sky is blue is by saying "look, it's blue".

Set Harth said:
When did this become about "the central character in a film"? First it was "significant"... now a character has to be the central character in order to be counted?

As a character who never gave birth to anyone once said, this deal keeps getting worse all the time!
Click to expand...

The point was about the disparity, which is what Peter David was illustrating far more eloquently than your attempted deconstruction. If you are considering Shmi to be a character worth mentioning in that context you are implicitly defending tokenism because that's the only criteria by which she would reasonably qualify.

That's not a good look.
 
Set Harth said:
So how did she end up getting noticed by Peter David while Padme ended up being completely ignored? Is he another one of these guys who seem utterly enraged by female biology?
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Maybe he's a fashion freak and Mothma's sweet robes stuck in his memory. :shrug:

"Mentioned in a film is meaningless". I was never talking about characters "mentioned" in the films, I cited only characters who appeared in the films. That was... the whole point.
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You're the one who literally described your characters as having all been 'mentioned' in the films. I did not add that word to the conversation. You did. Again, if it's not what you meant then why did you say it? Or if you didn't mean to say it or you meant to use a different word or whatever, then why not just correct it and move on? Why repeatedly insist that you didn't say what we all can clearly see you said?

Bullshit. Every character I mentioned appeared in the films. ( Keep in mind we're not restricting this category "the films" to only the films you care about, only the films you've seen, only the films you deem "significant", et cetera.
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Well I think now I can sort of see where your argument is going. If I assume, at least, that one of the various Star Wars cartoons I've never seen was actually a cartoon movie rather than a cartoon series as I'd always thought they all were. It's the only thing I can think of that can make your position that characters who've literally never been portrayed in live action have 'appeared' in the films, so I'll assume for the rest of this post that that's what you're trying to get at. Which leads me to two things:

1) This entire conversation would've been a lot less pointlessly confusing if you'd just come out and said that in the first place.

2) This conversation was clearly about Star Wars as a pop culture presence/phenomenon from the very beginning. Like back in the original Peter David post you keep whining about long before you got involved. The vast majority of people don't even know the Star Wars cartoons exist, be they films or series, let alone actually having seen them. So, no, cartoon movies are not in any way relevant. Also not those creepy wookie christmas things or whatever the hell that was (I've only seen clips). Nor anything else that the vast majority of the general audience has never heard of or seen. The only things actually relevant to this conversation are the actual Star Wars films: Episode 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 (and how they compare to 7, 8 and eventually 9).
 
Spot261 said:
How many would contribute to a movie passing the Bechdel test?
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Which one of Rey's movies passes that test?

Grendelsbayne said:
You're the one who literally described your characters as having all been 'mentioned' in the films.
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Nope. Mentioned in a post, not the films.

Grendelsbayne said:
The vast majority of people don't even know the Star Wars cartoons exist, be they films or series, let alone actually having seen them. So, no, cartoon movies are not in any way relevant.
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Bullshit!

Films are still films even if some people didn't see them ( which happens with every film, unless we assume there is some film which everyone on the planet has seen ). You're really getting desperate now.

What about the people who bought tickets and sat in those theaters? Didn't they think they were at a movie? ( I mean, sure, you'd have to subtract the ones who had given birth at some point in their lives, since they're officially nonentities, or who aren't "significant" or "important" enough, or have had their agency nullified by the say-so of a man, but what about the rest of them? )

But at least we've established that when you say "this character never appeared in a film" it really means "this character never appeared in a film that I saw".
 
Last edited:
The Wormhole said:
The "Is Starfleet a military?" threads can go on for double or even triple that length of basically the exact same content.
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Did you know the orginal Star Trek Mary Sue was in charge of the Starfleet military and the only officer good enough to get paid that rare Starfleet money. She earned it though when she brought Tuvix back to life without having to kill Tuvok and Neelix. Jason
 
Set Harth said:
Bullshit!

Films are still films even if some people didn't see them ( which happens with every film, unless we assume there is some film which everyone on the planet has seen ). You're really getting desperate now.

What about the people who bought tickets and sat in those theaters? Didn't they think they were at a movie? ( I mean, sure, you'd have to subtract the ones who had given birth at some point in their lives, since they're officially nonentities, or who aren't "significant" or "important" enough, or have had their agency nullified by the say-so of a man, but what about the rest of them? )

But at least we've established that when you say "this character never appeared in a film" it really means "this character never appeared in a film that I saw".
Click to expand...

You remind me of this guy on a superhero board I visit who keeps insisting that Batman is the highest grossing hero of all time because movies like Suicide Squad, Joker, and Justice League are all 'Batman movies'. Just because something is a film and some people saw it does not make it relevant. In fact, you got me curious enough I'm gonna go do some googling what level of exposure this 'obviously relevant' film of yours apparently has...

Hmmm, well there seems to be only one SW animated film, so that must be the one. Even richer than I thought - it wasn't even made for theatrical release, it was compiled from tv episodes that were originally just going to be aired like the rest of the series. It had negative reception apparently, though a reasonable financial success primarily because of its shoestring budget. It made a grand total of 68 million worldwide (compare that to the much maligned Solo which almost everybody seemed to hate, yet, still made 392 million - the lowest actual Star Wars saga film was RotJ with 475m, and that's in 1980s money) and it also dropped by well over 50% from the first weekend to the second. It even won a razzie. No wonder I never heard of this movie.

You can whine about your standards of film all you want, but you didn't set the scope of this conversation. Peter David did, and his quote is very obviously discussing the Star Wars live action films, not this totally unknown sideshow animation one-off. It is entirely irrelevant.
 
Grendelsbayne said:
You remind me of this guy on a superhero board I visit who keeps insisting that Batman is the highest grossing hero of all time because movies like Suicide Squad, Joker, and Justice League are all 'Batman movies'. Just because something is a film and some people saw it does not make it relevant. In fact, you got me curious enough I'm gonna go do some googling what level of exposure this 'obviously relevant' film of yours apparently has...

Hmmm, well there seems to be only one SW animated film, so that must be the one. Even richer than I thought - it wasn't even made for theatrical release, it was compiled from tv episodes that were originally just going to be aired like the rest of the series. It had negative reception apparently, though a reasonable financial success primarily because of its shoestring budget. It made a grand total of 68 million worldwide (compare that to the much maligned Solo which almost everybody seemed to hate, yet, still made 392 million - the lowest actual Star Wars saga film was RotJ with 475m, and that's in 1980s money) and it also dropped by well over 50% from the first weekend to the second. It even won a razzie. No wonder I never heard of this movie.

You can whine about your standards of film all you want, but you didn't set the scope of this conversation. Peter David did, and his quote is very obviously discussing the Star Wars live action films, not this totally unknown sideshow animation one-off. It is entirely irrelevant.
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He's also very obviously referring to characters of note, not just people who were in the background for a scene or were related to someone.
 
Flying Spaghetti Monster said:
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Cool. I can post videos and links too!
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikka...st-jedi-is-still-not-a-mary-sue/#3c70e97f4500

https://www.inverse.com/article/22906-rey-mary-sue-daisy-ridley-wrong
 
Flying Spaghetti Monster said:
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It's amazing how the meaning of things can become so twisted, it really is.

Mary Sue was a joke about a joke, a running trope immortalised in a story which was an affectionate swipe at conventions in fan fiction. It was a bit of fun within fan circles.

That you (and others) have turned it into something so perverse, so hate filled, so loaded with anger at imagined injustices is really saddening. It's like cosplaying as Pennywise but actually killing people.

Seriously, you really need to take a step back and look at what matters in life and if there are political issues that make you angry don't fixate on pop culture, entertainment, as if it is the cause.
 
Spot261 said:
It's amazing how the meaning of things can become so twisted, it really is.

Mary Sue was a joke about a joke, a running trope immortalised in a story which was an affectionate swipe at conventions in fan fiction. It was a bit of fun within fan circles.

That you (and others) have turned it into something so perverse, so hate filled, so loaded with anger at imagined injustices is really saddening. It's like cosplaying as Pennywise but actually killing people.

Seriously, you really need to take a step back and look at what matters in life and if there are political issues that make you angry don't fixate on pop culture, entertainment, as if it is the cause.
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really, no.. I'm not hate filled..
I just think she is a Mary Sue, a blank slate character that is better than every other character and reminds the other characters that she is better. Luke was not that. Rey is
 
Flying Spaghetti Monster said:
really, no.. I'm not hate filled..
I just think she is a Mary Sue, a blank slate character that is better than every other character and reminds the other characters that she is better. Luke was not that. Rey is
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That is not what makes you hate filled. It is your continued efforts to shove the opinion down the throats of those who enjoy the character and are not persuaded by your arguments. A person not filled with hate would have agreed to disagree and stopped as many of those around here who vehemently dislike Rey/The Last Jedi/JJ Abrams have. You, however, have not. You continue to push your narrative at all costs.
 
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