By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
thismeintiel on 27 December 2017
Edit Thread
Puppyroach said:
thismeintiel said:

The defense of the Mary Sue thing is probably the one of the most bizarre parts of this.  She fits the description to a T.  But, because people feel the need to like the film and/or because the media and Hollywood have taken the stance that if you call her a Mary Sue you are sexist, people are afraid to label her what she is.  They either give weak reasons, claim Luke is one then (probably the worse offense), or just call you sexist, "You just don't like having a girl in the treehouse."  All strawman arguments.  The truth is, Rey would be just as unlikable as a man.  In fact, it's the reason that people hated the young Anakin in TPM.  Fortunately, Lucas had the insight to fix that in the future episodes, where here they just made it worse, which has brought more people over to the side of her being a Mary Sue.

Really, if we weren't in such a heightened political climate, I think even more people would admit that they recognize she is a Mary Sue, which would probably take their enjoyment of this movie down a notch or two.

From Wikipedia:

A Mary Sue is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character. Often, this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment.[1] They can usually perform better at tasks than should be possible given the amount of training or experience. Sometimes, the name is reserved only for women, but more often the name is used for both genders. A male can also be referred to as a Marty Sue or Gary Stu, but Mary Sue is used more commonly.

In what way does this not apply to both Luke and Rey? I completely agree that she is a Mary Sue, but so is Luke. Rey might be quicker to learn many of the abilities that Luke learned but they are both exceptionally fast compared to even Anakin.

My issue with  alot (not all) of the criticism I have heard is that people claim that she is a Mary Sue because the writers/directors want to make the male characters look bad, yet these critics can´t point to a single event or line of dialogue that would point to this in the movies. I agree with you that the political discourse is toxic right now, but I would claim it comes from both feminists and anti-feminists (ofcourse not all of them) where the analysis of different matters is highly irrational and emotional in nature.

You give the definition, and admit she is a Mary Sue, but can't see the difference between her and Luke?  Seriously.  Luke was flawed.  Optimistic but flawed.  His first two fights, he gets his ass handed to him.  Obi-Wan has to step in to save him.  Even when he was trained by Obi-Wan, didn't believe he could do more than small things with the Force, so was limited to those things.  He didn't overcome that until days/weeks of training with Yoda.  His first confrontation with Vader left him without a hand, because he wasn't skilled enough.  Only until the third movie do we see him become a full Jedi.  And even then, he almost succumbs to his anger, cutting off his father's hand and was about to kill him until he snapped out of it.  And there are many spots where he needed his friends or he would be dead.

The best way to sum up MaRey Sue is that she needs no one.  She can do EVERYTHING either on the same level of the experts or sometimes even better.  Doesn't matter what it is.  Flying a ship she's never flown.  Use a weapon she's never used.  Befriend the main characters she just met (another big sign of a Mary Sue.)  For some reason, after spending just a few days with Chewy, she can perfectly understand him.  Use the Force, which she barely knew about until now.  She freaking picks up a large ass pile of boulders with no effort whatsoever, with no training in doing so, and when Luke would have used just about all of his energy to do so.  She is a Mary Sue.  Luke so obviously is not.

I think the video d21lewis posted says it all.  I suggest watching it.

Last edited by thismeintiel - on 27 December 2017