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Forums - Movies & TV - The Fans Have Spoken, Last Jedi Drops A Massive 68%

Soundwave said:

Rey is Harry Potter or Neo of Star Wars. Not so catchy now, huh? Those characters are Gary Stus.

Or more common as a fictional archetype the chosen one, golden child, etc. It's not even a rare character in fantasy tropes.

People acting like this is some kind of "new thing" is laughable. The truth is the only real difference is it's a chick. 

So you're assuming that everyone is a sexist because they don't like Rey? Yeah. That makes perfect sense. 

I wouldn't call Harry Potter, he just survived against the bad guy because of his parents. He was

Luke wasn't a Gary Stu. He lost most of his major fights and he had to rely heavily on his allies just to survive. Sure he falls into the chosen one tropes but he's fairly weak in most of the films. Rey is very much a Mary Sue. She had no training and used advanced force powers/won in light saber fight against a dark force user who was trained by Luke. People are more upset of the breaking of sw canon and characters who don't make any sense in the sw universe. 



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Aeolus451 said:
Soundwave said:

Rey is Harry Potter or Neo of Star Wars. Not so catchy now, huh? Those characters are Gary Stus.

Or more common as a fictional archetype the chosen one, golden child, etc. It's not even a rare character in fantasy tropes.

People acting like this is some kind of "new thing" is laughable. The truth is the only real difference is it's a chick. 

So you're assuming that everyone is a sexist because they don't like Rey? Yeah. That makes perfect sense. 

I wouldn't call Harry Potter, he just survived against the bad guy because of his parents. He was

Luke wasn't a Gary Stu. He lost most of his major fights and he had to rely heavily on his allies just to survive. Sure he falls into the chosen one tropes but he's fairly weak in most of the films. Rey is very much a Mary Sue. She had no training and used advanced force powers/won in light saber fight against a dark force user who was trained by Luke. People are more upset of the breaking of sw canon and characters who don't make any sense in the sw universe. 

Luke was only a cliche, but no problem with that, he is a man after all.



Goodnightmoon said:
Aeolus451 said:

So you're assuming that everyone is a sexist because they don't like Rey? Yeah. That makes perfect sense. 

I wouldn't call Harry Potter, he just survived against the bad guy because of his parents. He was

Luke wasn't a Gary Stu. He lost most of his major fights and he had to rely heavily on his allies just to survive. Sure he falls into the chosen one tropes but he's fairly weak in most of the films. Rey is very much a Mary Sue. She had no training and used advanced force powers/won in light saber fight against a dark force user who was trained by Luke. People are more upset of the breaking of sw canon and characters who don't make any sense in the sw universe. 

Luke was only a cliche, but no problem with that, he is a man after all.

Just keep using that as a crutch. You do realize that assuming that any men who disagree with women are sexists by default is actually the one being sexist, right?



Aeolus451 said:
Soundwave said:

Rey is Harry Potter or Neo of Star Wars. Not so catchy now, huh? Those characters are Gary Stus.

Or more common as a fictional archetype the chosen one, golden child, etc. It's not even a rare character in fantasy tropes.

People acting like this is some kind of "new thing" is laughable. The truth is the only real difference is it's a chick. 

So you're assuming that everyone is a sexist because they don't like Rey? Yeah. That makes perfect sense. 

I wouldn't call Harry Potter, he just survived against the bad guy because of his parents. He was

Luke wasn't a Gary Stu. He lost most of his major fights and he had to rely heavily on his allies just to survive. Sure he falls into the chosen one tropes but he's fairly weak in most of the films. Rey is very much a Mary Sue. She had no training and used advanced force powers/won in light saber fight against a dark force user who was trained by Luke. People are more upset of the breaking of sw canon and characters who don't make any sense in the sw universe. 

I do think there could be aspects of sexism at play here because this to me is just a fairly common character archetype that's used in many other movies. And I'm definitely no feminist but there does seem to be a double standard here.  

Harry "Perfect" Potter beats Draco who's been practicing/playing quiddich for all his life basically the first time he plays, lol. Every movie is "Isn't Harry so wonderful/smart/perfect". Every time Harry being great is questioned or in doubt by the end of the story the lesson is "no Harry actually was perfect/right". lol. His wand even signals that he is perfect. 

Neo is basically perfect too. 

It's also a common archetype for Messiah-religious figures. Take a wild guess at one of them, though he is hardly the only one (again it's a common mythical archetype). 

They're not even breaking Star Wars canon. She's basically a repeat of the Anakin Skywalker character. Snoke says it himself, any time there is darkness in the Force, the Force will basically of its own free will create/chose a person of "light" to bring the Force back into balance. This happened before with the birth of Anakin and it's now happened again in Rey. 

Seems to me like it's canon that the Force just ups and decides to do shit if there's too much Dark Side fuckery going on. Only difference is Anakin turned out to be a douche, but even then he still fulfills the prophecy bestowed upon him in the end. This is canon, it's clearly stated in film and even has precident of happening in a previous trilogy. 

Luke isn't a Gary Stu, but he's pretty darn close. He gets what? 5 minutes of training blocking laser buzzies and out maneuvers Darth Vader at the end of the film blowing up an entire Star Destroyer? This is like beating LeBron James and hitting the game winning jump shot in the NBA Finals after practising basketball for a day. 

The character archetype of Neo/Harry/Rey also has one other thing. "Training" is not really required, all they require is "already within them" basically. Again this is intentional. In fact the struggle of the character is usually controlling this power/being afraid of said power/denying this power. Again, you will see this very clearly in the Matrix and Potter films. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 02 January 2018

mZuzek said:
Soundwave said:

Why is it only now that it's a big deal. The above is INTENTIONAL too. The character concept of the "golden child", "chosen one" is common in fantasy and has been for ages. The trope is a character who is basically chosen by divine choosing to bring some kind of justice/balance into a world that has been corrupted by darkness/war. Said character will exhibit exceptional abilities that go beyond reason or what any "normal" person has. Said person will often have good fortune land in their lap. Said character will often have a character that is initially jealous/resentful of their "chosen one" ablity (Draco to Harry Potter, Cypher to Neo, Kylo to Rey). 

Mostly already addressed. I kinda forgot about Harry in his first movie, he was definitely a Mary Sue there, I'll give you that - it's no wonder I think that's one of the worse HP films. Also maybe take back Neo being a Mary Sue in Reloaded and Revolutions, because just the fact that he undergoes that evolution throughout at least one entire movie means he's earned that "right to be OP", regardless of how bad the movies were.

In fact I'm starting to notice you have a thing for always making comparisons to other badly received movies here, SW prequels and Matrix trilogy galore. I'm not sure what point you're trying to prove with this.

If anything I do think the whole Mary Sue thing is sort of blown out of proportion, I don't think it's that big of an issue, though it certainly has become a bigger one since TFA. The main problem here is that Rey simply isn't much of an interesting character - I think maybe you could say the same about Harry Potter himself, but because he spends the vast majority of his 8 movies with his friends, he eventually becomes interesting if only for the relationships he develops, something Rey doesn't do with anyone in TLJ.

Edit: and Anakin... it's just like HP. He's absolutely 100% a Mary Sue in his first movie, but stops being one after that. As clear as ever to see in Attack of the Clones when he's a creep throughout the movie (intentional or not) and then fucks everything up at the end when facing Dooku. And again, here we go drawing comparisons to badly received movies lol.

Yea, I don't get this obsession with defending the Mary Sue thing. Or labeling characters who aren't Mary Sue's as them, just to... actually, I have idea what that serves. Well, other than to prove that they don't know the definition. 

Neo definitely isn't. There's a reason why he's supposed to be so powerful. And he actually has to go through some shit before he unlocks his power. Including, uh, training.

Really, I wouldn't even include Harry Potter. In some aspects he brushes against that line. But, he's not the most gifted student, that's Hermione. He doesn't just learn magic by way of osmosis, he actually has to, uh, go to school and train. Some spells are difficult for him to pull off. Without his mother's sacrifice, he'd be dead. He didn't pull that shit off himself. And there are plenty of characters that dislike him, including ones that aren't exactly bad guys,  and never really warm to him. He'd also be whisked away from that abusive family of his, to live a good life. But nope, he's got to go back and live with them.

Also, it's ridiculous to call it sexist. Again, yet another strawman. People were equally annoyed by young Anakin. Sure, he wasn't as OP as Rey was, but fans knew where it was going. Fortunately, Lucas took that criticism to heart and stopped the Gary Stu stuff in its tracks. Unfortunately, there other things he got wrong with the character, but still, he was no longer a Gary Stu. So, even if Rey was a man, people would still complain. 



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Aeolus451 said:
Goodnightmoon said:

Luke was only a cliche, but no problem with that, he is a man after all.

Just keep using that as a crutch. You do realize that assuming that any men who disagree with women are sexists by default is actually the one being sexist, right?

Except I didn't said that, there are a lot Marty Stu in cinema yet I never ever ever read a complaint about those, in fact i never ever read the term Marty Stu or synonims anywhere but when it comes to women things are drastically different, is like some man are very easily ofended by that, I rarely use the sexism argument but it just seems too obvious in this case, disliking Rey is not a matter of sexism at all, but all this constant complaints coming from men about how hateable she is for being a "Mary Sue" even when so many Marty Stu are admired by the same people smells a lot like sexism because if she was a man she wouldn't get half of those criticism just as cinema has proven many times.

Last edited by Goodnightmoon - on 02 January 2018

Neo doesn't really train. It's already evident the first time he fights Morpheus that he's already stronger than Morpheus and just afraid to use his full power.

The "problem" for the golden child/chosen one/messianic character archetype is not "learning powers". It's generally that they are afraid of the powers that they possess by divine birthright. In fact the main issue with this character type is they need to be prodded/poked to unleash the awesome power they have.

So we don't have a scene where Harry Potter needs to practice quiddich for 10 minutes because that's a waste of story space. We already know as the audience he's going to win the very first time he plays. 

Their journey is not going to be the same as other character types. This is all Joesph Campbell/Heroes Journey stuff folks. Nothing new here at all. That's the book Lucas "borrowed" from to write the original Star Wars, it's a book every studio's story development department has. 

Last edited by Soundwave - on 02 January 2018

Soundwave said:
Aeolus451 said:

So you're assuming that everyone is a sexist because they don't like Rey? Yeah. That makes perfect sense. 

I wouldn't call Harry Potter, he just survived against the bad guy because of his parents. He was

Luke wasn't a Gary Stu. He lost most of his major fights and he had to rely heavily on his allies just to survive. Sure he falls into the chosen one tropes but he's fairly weak in most of the films. Rey is very much a Mary Sue. She had no training and used advanced force powers/won in light saber fight against a dark force user who was trained by Luke. People are more upset of the breaking of sw canon and characters who don't make any sense in the sw universe. 

I do think there are aspects of sexism at play here because this to me is just a fairly common character archetype that's used in many other movies. 

Harry "Perfect" Potter beats Draco who's been practicing/playing quiddich for all his life basically the first time he plays, lol. Every movie is "Isn't Harry so wonderful/smart/perfect". Every time Harry being great is questioned or in doubt by the end of the story the lesson is "no Harry actually was perfect/right". lol. 

Neo is basically perfect too. 

It's also a common archetype for Messiah-religious figures. Take a wild guess at one of them, though he is hardly the only one (again it's a common mythical archetype). 

They're not even breaking Star Wars canon. She's basically a repeat of the Anakin Skywalker character. Snoke says it himself, any time there is darkness in the Force, the Force will basically of its own free will create/chose a person of "light" to bring the Force back into balance. This happened before with the birth of Anakin and it's now happened again in Rey. 

Seems to me like it's canon that the Force just ups and decides to do shit if there's too much Dark Side fuckery going on. Only difference is Anakin turned out to be a douche, but even then he still fulfills the prophecy bestowed upon him in the end. 

Luke isn't a Gary Stu, but he's pretty darn close. He gets what? 5 minutes of training blocking laser buzzies and out maneuvers Darth Vader at the end of the film blowing up an entire Star Destroyer? This is like beating LeBron James at basketball after practising for a day. 

I think that you missed the main point that's the meat of this. Rey doesn't make sense in the sw universe. Force users have to be trained in the use of the force to the equivalent of a jedi knight or master to be considered overpowered or at Stu/Sue level to make sense in that universe. Anakin had to be trained since he was a kid and he still lost to his teacher who wasn't a chosen one. Do you see what I mean?  She's a Mary Sue without having any logical reason for it within that story. It violates the sw canon and it opens up alot of plot holes. There's plenty of Mary Sues in these genres and people are fine with it. It's nonsensical to assume anyone who doesn't like her don't like her because she's  a woman. 



Goodnightmoon said:
Aeolus451 said:

Just keep using that as a crutch. You do realize that assuming that any men who disagree with women are sexists by default is actually the one being sexist, right?

Except I didn't said that, there are a lot Marty Stu in cinema yet I never ever ever read a complaint about those, in fact i never ever read the term Marty Stu or synonims anywhere but when it comes to women things are drastically different, is like some man are very easily ofended by that, I rarely use the sexism argument but it just seems too obvious in this case, disliking Rey is not a matter of sexism at all, but all this constant complaints coming from men about how hateable she is for being a "Mary Sue" even when so many Marty Stu are admired by the same people smells a lot like sexism because if she was a man she wouldn't get half of those criticism just as cinema has proven many times.

Because Women= Mary Sue, Men = Mary Sue, Marty, Gary, Larry, etc.

And it happens all the time. When Sword Art Online was watched by many people, they all called Kirito (a male) a Mary Sue. (And not the Marty Stu)



Goodnightmoon said:
Aeolus451 said:

Just keep using that as a crutch. You do realize that assuming that any men who disagree with women are sexists by default is actually the one being sexist, right?

Except I didn't said that, there are a lot Marty Stu in cinema yet I never ever ever read a complaint about those, in fact i never ever read the term Marty Stu or synonims anywhere but when it comes to women things are drastically different, is like some man are very easily ofended by that, I rarely use the sexism argument but it just seems too obvious in this case, disliking Rey is not a matter of sexism at all, but all this constant complaints coming from men about how hateable she is for being a "Mary Sue" even when so many Marty Stu are admired by the same people smells a lot like sexism because if she was a man she wouldn't get half of those criticism just as cinema has proven many times.

She doesn't make any sense in SW. She wasn't trained and yet she's overpowering trained force users and using powers way beyond her training. A Mary Sue or Gary Su without any training doesn't make any sense in the sw universe. That's why most people don't like her. Her being a woman has jack shit to do with it.