Anakin vs Rey: Ending the Great Mary Sue Debate of our age...

now i see this happen or this little argument play out all the time a star wars fan who doesn't like rey who thought she was a terrible character will call her or label her a mary sue which will of course prompt a fan who does like her to defend her and a lot of the time this defense will include pointing at other characters usually anakin and or luke though in this case i'll only be discussing anakin and saying they're actually the mary sue or an even bigger one than rey was and often times when i see or hear these arguments i can't help but wonder if people even know what a mary sue actually is or where the term even comes from because nowadays it tends to just mean a bad or poorly written character usually female that has few or no real flaws and ends up winning all the time with very little struggle and though that's rather close to the original meaning or purpose behind the term or why it came about the reality is the name mary sue actually comes from a very very short story so short i should be able to fit it all on the screen right now if you want to pause and read it anyway it was a short story that was written by a woman paula smith back in 1973 to be a parody or to make fun of fan fiction writers in this case star trek fan fiction writers that would essentially insert themselves into the story and make themselves perfect and beloved by everyone and then mourn by all when they died heroically it was almost i guess you could say these writers way of living vicariously in the star trek universe through the characters they created becoming the hero of their own stories which sure is something i think almost all of us do in our imagination from time to time pretty much all of us imagine ourselves to handle some type of situation heroically and to become beloved by all or something similar to that but usually a story like that doesn't make a good read for someone else so basically despite it being seen or sometimes used today as a derogatory term against female characters the original story was mainly just meant to be a criticism against poor fan fiction authors i highly doubt the woman who first wrote it again paula smith was trying to say anything against female characters in particular and so now looking at this original definition or purpose behind the story or term do either anakin or rey qualify as this type of mary sue do either one of them feel like someone's self-inserted fan fiction character well if you do indeed believe that there was an agenda behind rey spearheaded by kathleen kennedy that her inclusion in the story was more about attracting new female fans to the franchise or making some sort of real world statement about women over just being a character within the context of the story and yes we can certainly debate if any of this is the case or not but if this is true you could almost make the case that kathleen kennedy is inserting herself or her ideals or agenda into the story and it's manifesting in the form of rey and that kennedy wants to see young girls live vicariously through this character or to feel empowered by her which in a way you could certainly say is a good or noble thing it's always great to give people a hero for them to look up to and i don't think anyone's against the idea of women of any age or men as well having a new iconic female character in star wars to admire or maybe she's just doing it because she just wants to see more girls or women become star wars fans and to grow the brand overall or of course it could be a combination of the two or even neither one and look let's be real about all this a great many male characters very much fall into a very similar category there are many near-perfect male characters that are mainly there for boys or men and some women i suppose to again live vicariously through in the history of film there are far more gary stew types the name for male mary sues then there are female mary sues i mean pretty much every main character from an action hero movie in the 80s and 90s and even today fall into this category in most arnold or stallone movies from back in the day it was never about a deep intricate story with complex characters it was all about going along on the adventure with the main character and kicking some ass along the way all the rather recent expendables movies which have all these old actors in it are even essentially parodies of those old action films they poke fun at the gary stew type character and embrace the idea for the sheer fun and enjoyment of it all and neither back then nor today has anyone really had an issue with these character types or called them out for being poorly written or anything like that because well we all kinda know they are quote unquote bad characters with a few exceptions no one takes those male action hero characters from back of the day all too seriously or would claim they were deep and intricate but they were certainly fun characters and served their purpose within the context of those movies and yes there have been female characters though certainly far far fewer of them that more or less fit into this same category that never got called out before or labeled a mary sue some examples would be celine from the underworld series alice from the resident evil movies the bride from the kill bill films and so on and the reason why they never got called out as mary sues is because they work just fine within the context of the stories or worlds those stories take place in the problem for rey however why some will call her a mary sue why she's basically popularized the term is because people especially fans of course have higher standards for star wars they're not looking for action heroes they're looking for well told and meaningful stories populated by deep intricate and relatable characters that they can root for against all odds and sure when it comes to star wars most of us also love the lightsaber fights the space battles cool aliens and planets and awesome soundtrack and all that other stuff but if you don't have the characters all that other stuff becomes meaningless because we expect whether we're consciously aware of it or not a hero's journey when it comes to star wars we expect to have main characters in these stories that we can empathize with more so than having one we can live vicariously through and feel empowered by however when it comes down to the battle between rey and anakin over which is the bigger mary sue if either one of them even is one it tends to just devolve into a debate over which one does more incredible things with less of an explanation or which one seems to be more unrealistically good at stuff or gets more victories with less struggle and the initial problem with this comparison is that first the two characters serve a completely different purpose in the overall story second when watching the prequels we know a lot more about anakin and his destiny or where he'll end up than we do about rey and her story and what will happen to her basically we know anakin will become darth vader by the end of the prequels but with rey we have no idea or had no idea when it started where her story is going what will happen to her or what she'll become for good or evil and this will of course greatly affect how these two characters are written or should be written and for george lucas he had the luxury or challenge you could say of knowing exactly where the character of anakin was going to end up from the very start and then he had to try to make that story interesting it's also worth noting he was the sole writer of that story as well he had complete control over the prequels and though maybe it wasn't executed the best on screen on paper the idea or concept lucas had for anakin's story was pretty good he served and fit into the pre-established story rather well in the phantom menace we'd met this extremely gifted and altruistic child and as the story would go on as the trilogy would progress we'd see how the events of his life and his unwillingness to let go of those he cared about would end up twisting him into a monster of the dark side overall this is a story of how one so pure and good so well intended can fall so far we're also told early on that anakin is the chosen one that if he just follows the right path he will bring balance to the force which in theory further makes his eventual fault of the dark side even worse since he could have brought about so much good basically everything about anakin's story is set up to be a tragedy not only for himself but for everyone else around him and for the whole damn galaxy actually and to sort of paraphrase dooku here the higher the start the greater the fall or the greater the tragedy we'll feel at the end so when he's a child winning pod races and blowing up droid control ships accidentally we're supposed to eventually look back at that and lament what might have been we're supposed to realize just how gifted he was with the force from the very start in part anakin's incredible beginning everything with the chosen one and so on is supposed to help explain why darth vader is as powerful as he is why he should be feared by our heroes in the next trilogy because he has always been extraordinary and again here we can certainly debate how well this was all executed in the actual films and a case can certainly be made that if anakin had started out as nothing if he wasn't anything special at all if there was no chosen one prophecy or anything like that and he instead had a very humble origin story in the first movie but then worked very hard to become one of the greatest jedi ever before his eventual fall that this would've and could've been an even better story i certainly think the audience could have had an easier time connecting with the character that way nevertheless when asking if anakin is a mary sue or not in terms of if he's too powerful or too good at things without proper explanation we have to keep in mind where his story ultimately ends up we have to keep in mind that this character will become darth vader and though vader's a beloved villain in the fandom and beyond in the context of the story becoming vader falling to the dark side and doing all the things he did as him is the greatest error or failure a character in the star wars universe can make this terrible mistake alone should end the conversation about him being a mary sue and then love him or hate him when we factor in the mediclorian count which was even greater than yoda's and the fact that the movie goes out of its way to tell us where anakin tells us that he's been a pilot all his life and that he's never actually won a pod race before and pretty much everything he pulls off in that first movie is given an explanation though maybe it doesn't have the greatest of explanations in the phantom menace i'd say anakin is a borderline mary sue but again we cannot forget where anakin's story is going to end up with rey then despite what jj abrams has claimed it feels like he didn't have a very clear vision or idea for where he wanted rey's story to go or he was purposely writing it in a vague mystery box way to leave it wide open since originally he had no intent to do any more than the first movie in the trilogy and though this approach could have worked and actually did after the first movie everyone wanted to know who rey was or who her parents were after the force awakens the biggest problem for rey is the last jedi wanted to make a point out of her being nobody it wanted to make a point of telling us she had no place in the story and that too i think certainly could have worked if handled differently but of course the next movie scraps that idea and tells us she's actually a palpatine all along or the granddaughter of a clone of palpatine's and though we could then say this is why she's so gifted with the force and talented and all of that since she's got that mighty palpatine blood in her veins and we could then say well she's not a mary sue because her power level is now explained which again has become one definition of the term mary sue the main problem with rey though still remains which is that rarely do her personal goals ever conflict with the greater good and when they do she makes the right choice now what exactly do i mean by that well only once is she ever really put in that tough position of either making a choice that only serves herself or one that will again serve the greater good which is the crux of star wars said so by george lucas himself it's about the choice or choices between being selfless or being selfish and rey never really faces such a choice other than when kylo ren asks her to join him towards the end of episode 8 which of course rey rejects and then goes on to save the day at the end of the film whereas anakin is constantly facing such difficult decisions having to pick between what a jedi would do versus what he personally wants to do there's constant conflict with an anakin and oftentimes he of course makes the wrong or selfish decision even though one could certainly argue it's not wrong to choose to save those you care about over others and so there are interesting moral dilemmas for the character to face including the last one which ultimately leads to his fall to the dark side and the fun part is we can ask ourselves would i save palpatine's life to possibly save my wife or my husband or my child or whoever else it is that i care about more than anyone else in this world and also keep in mind anakin has known palpatine for years he's even been like a father figure to him in many respects sure he's revealed to be a sith lord but after all these years anakin does care about him and he does trust him with rey however the choice to first go and try to save kylo ren is not exactly a difficult one or a moral dilemma because luke is offering her no reason to stay he's not actually trying to train her with his lessons he's trying to convince her the jedi should end and though going to kylo could still be seen as selfish she still thinks she'll find her place with him it also aligns with the greater good since saving kylo ren is the key to victory for the light side and luke is not going to do anything about that and so her greatest self-serving decision is also self-sacrificing in a way and then when it comes to kylo's actual offer there's again not a moral dilemma here for her she's known this guy for a couple days and in that time she's seen him do some pretty horrible things he killed his own father he almost killed finn he captured her and tried to invade her mind and torture her the regime he is a leading member of murdered untold billions of people in the hosnian system and they want to rule the whole damn galaxy so other than hearing his sad story and forced skyping with him a few times she has no reason to like or trust him yes she may actually feel some sort of kinship or pull to him but once he tells her he wants to forget everything and just start over to stand by and let the resistance die she basically learns that this guy she initially thought was a monster is actually just a monster this should not be a hard choice for her to make and yet if she realized all this but still said screw it and took his hand decided to forget everything and be completely selfish and go with him it would have made her a far more interesting character because now she has made a huge mistake to overcome not to mention people would have been far more curious to see what happens to her in episode 9. and so if anything makes rey a mary sue in my book or a near flawless character it's just that she's inherently good and always makes the right or noble decision despite her difficult life or background which should make her selfish to some degree or lacking trust in others at least a little bit her own wants and desires never seem to get in the way of what she should do and even when they do she still makes the right choice in the end or at least one that doesn't cost herself or anyone else pretty much anything she reminds me of an 80s or 90s action hero just doing good for the sake of it and always getting the best of the bad guys in the end with little or no consequences to anyone and so though yes we can say her being a palpatine explains her power and proficiency with the force how we could even say her closing her eyes and letting the force in along with some of the other things she did is her way of somehow inadvertently letting in palpatine and all the sith or something like that anyway though she maybe doesn't qualify as a mary sue in that respect again her power is explained the fact that she's never tempted by all that power could make her one and it again ties into the fact that what she wants and desires not that we really know what that is besides wanting to find her belonging rarely ever conflicts with the greater good and sure she accidentally taps into the dark side i guess in the rise of skywalker when she thinks she blows up the ship chewbacca's on with forced lightning which leads her to contemplate if she's now suddenly evil yet any consequences of what she did are stripped away just a few minutes later when she and we find out that chewbacca is still alive and honestly here i wouldn't have cared about how powerful she is if having that power had been some type of burden to her if she was tempted to use it for her own selfish reasons from time to time which again is something anakin is constantly struggling with in the prequels instead her power just is always sort of a convenience to her except the one time she thought she killed chewbacca i mean even when luke skywalker of all people in the galaxy during episode 8 is trying to convince her the jedi should end and you could even argue he makes some interesting points rey doesn't even begin to question if he's right and other than a sudden desire to save kylo ren and to help the resistance she joined two days ago we have no idea why rey wants to be a jedi why she wants to be something she thought was a myth a few days ago i mean anakin wanted to be a jedi all his life he wanted to help free the slaves to save his mother and protect those he cared about luke wanted to be a jedi because of his father because he thought darth vader had killed his father and because he craved adventure and probably to some degree to get vengeance upon those who killed his aunt and uncle rey wants to be a jedi because i don't know i guess because again it's just the right thing to do and so to wrap this up if i'm going to let anakin's high midi-chlorian count explain his power if i'm not going to question why his descendants luke or kylo ren were so strong with the force or why any other jedi or sith really were so strong with it then i'll also accept rey being the granddaughter of palpatine having his blood as an explanation for her power and we can just leave it at that she's not a mary sue in that respect she's not a mary sue because she has unexplained power however the way she always uses that power for good or always makes the right decisions again makes her feel almost like an action hero from the days of old or just a straight-up superhero fighting for truth and justice just because it's the right thing to do so in that way she almost feels like the type of character or story that the original creator of mary sue was trying to parody or poke fun at like some sort of fan fiction character that we're supposed to live vicariously through well that's all i've got for this time now it's your turn to tell me what you think about all this is either rey and or anakin on mary sue and if so why or why not whatever you think leave a comment below and let's talk some star wars and until next time thanks for watching

Channel: Thor Skywalker

Views: 70,668

Rating: 4.8679957 out of 5

Keywords: Star, wars, Star Wars, Rey, Kylo Ren, Luke, Anakin, Skywalker, Darth Vader, Prquels, Sequels, Disney, Lucasfilm, Kathleen Kennedy, Rian Johnson, JJ Abrams, George Lucas, The Force, Jedi, Sith

Id: GtXNRCifuCo

Length: 18min 49sec (1129 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 07 2020