Originally Posted by Kalyx triaD
That snack turned into some other shit. Anyway, now I talk about Rey. I'm going to approach her from two perspectives - as a Star Wars fan and as a writer. And before any of that I wanna point out that a) I have bias toward Action Girl archetypes so I might be easier on her than I should be, b) I personally think everybody's hatred of Mary Sue/Gary Stu characters are overblown and 'preppy'. Whenever people fuss about Mary Sues it's often because the character doesn't get beat up enough or whatever. They call Superman a Gary Stu, when he totally isn't. Batman, however, is a Gary Stu but nobody really levies that against him as much as Superman. So people kind of misuse the term and even used correctly, I personally don't see the big deal. But in this very case; Rey is the fucking goddess of Mary Sues. Io9 made a whole article saying otherwise but they protests too much (I'll cover that later). So let's get on Rey.
Earlier I mentioned that Finn was my fave character and how he was relatable. He wasn't a hotshot pilot, certainly was in over his head a lot of the times, and pretty much reacted how we would if thrown in a crazy situation like this. Then we meet Rey, who I assumed would be the other audience surrogate. Rough girl who beats off some bandits before Finn even needs to save her. I get it. I liked her. But her relatability pretty much went downhill as the movie went on and she morphed into Star Wars first actual Mary Sue, written as if a fanfic character (which is how you can spot such character types).
By the middle of the movie we see Rey have literally a talent for dealing with every possible situation thrown at her. She's a techy by default, but also a pilot (who schools HAN SOLO on fixing his own craft), a 'hacker' or whatever counts for that in the Star Wars universe, a martial artist by default, a marksman on her literal first try, not only Force sensitive but especially strong with the Force - for reasons we can only speculate over - humbling Kylo and using a Jedi mind persuasion just to experiment. She also gets a handle on telekinesis, enough to best Kylo in a lil tug of war, and naturally applies her combat prowess to the lightsaber to defeat somebody only a few degrees away from Sith Lord. For comparison; both Luke and Anakin lost their first major lightsaber duel. In ways that left them scarred for life, too. Rey scars Kylo.
Not even Luke Skywalker, in any of his three movies, had so many tools and luck at his disposal. Luke Skywalker could be captured. Luke Skywalker could be rescued. Luke Skywalker could be killed. Rey was never in a defeated position for very long. Not once. Correct me if I'm wrong. Never rescued, never defeated, never humbled, absolutely nothing she needed to learn as a character to survive this movie.
When Kylo thru a tantrum after seeing her escape, that was justified. He knew then he was dealing with an OP character.
So she's almost textbook definition Mary Sue, but as I said I don't really mind so much. Every once and a while we have author/director appeal characters, and they're all guilty of it at least once. Also, she's pretty hot. Furthermore, I'm legit intrigued as to what her deal is. Personally I'm leaning toward her being the daughter of Mara Jade, but mostly because I want her in the movies. We need to know why she was chosen, and I kinda agree on the possibility that she could be Kylo's sister. That would be another cheap callback to the older movies but perhaps... cousins? I can live with cousins.
So yeah, I like Rey. She's certainly a Mary Sue, but I like her.
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