Why Rey is a Mary Sue and Luke Skywalker is Not

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upper right-hand corner now on to the video I'd like to open this video with a quote from the great Han Solo that's not how the force works what is a MarySue this question has haunted writers for decades sometimes for better and sometimes for worse but it seems that the common definition has become more or less a character who is too powerful or too perfect however that isn't always necessarily the case after all you have characters like dream from Neil Gaiman's Sandman whose powers are considered to be more powerful than the gods of any Pantheon you have Superman who is super strong intelligent handsome and possesses nigh incorruptible morals he's beloved by the people he protects he's selfless kind and generous he personifies what every hero should strive to become and to top it off he has more power than an entire superhero team combined but these qualities alone don't definitively prove that a character is a Mary Sue while right equality may vary over the decades of Superman's existence both the characters of dream and Superman overall are beloved characters and aren't typically considered Mary Sue's why because the dirty truth behind a Mary Sue is that it is ultimately a product of bad writing but what does that mean in a previous video I explored a more Universal definition of what constitutes a character as a Mary Sue and at the risk of lingering on old ground for too long I'll say that the summary of my definition is a character to which the plot and universe bend from laws to people to plain logic and common sense all of these things can and will be bent or broken in the presence of a Mary Sue hold on but that describes have a protagonist a ver some ill-bred ignoramus might call as a cloud of Dorito dust puffs whimsically to the air but that would be incorrect incorrect because while the character might not be immediately classified as a Mary Sue if they defeat a veteran soldier in single combat the character might earn that label of the character in question doesn't have the training skill or combat experience to face down said veteran let alone defeat him these are what we'll call Mary Sue moments for example if a fresh-faced farm boy who's never even seen a sword something picks one up and without any kind of outside divine or supernatural aid defeats a war veteran a 15 years in single combat you likely just witnessed a MarySue moment if a genius terrorist who has been shown to be brilliant enough to outsmart the good guys at every turn with meticulous skill leaving no opening unguarded and then the newbie field agent enters the scene and suddenly the genius terrorist begins to make silly uncharacteristic mistakes or his once hyper competent underlings suddenly become incompetent for no explained reason then youth likely just witnessed a MarySue moment if you're everyman rookie pilot flies off the face down a squadron of elite enemy pilots infamous for their skill and wins easily for no adequately explained reason other than he's just awesome you likely just witnessed a MarySue moment in fact if the only explanation you can find for a character's power is they're just awesome then you're likely looking at a Mary Sue so the reason why characters as powerful as dream wear a supposedly perfect as Superman are well liked and dart usually considered Mary Sue's is because the plot doesn't treat them as such by themselves there's no way of knowing a Mary Sue isn't just a character because a character can be equipped with all manner of skills and powers it all depends on how they are treated by the plot and it's through a pattern of these Mary Sue moments or lack thereof that we will see while Luke Skywalker stands as a good character and why Rey stands as a lifeless blatant Mary Sue thanks to Disney's ever-increasing laziness pushed on to us under the thin veneer of homage the story is of Ray and Luke Skywalker make a fairly easy side-by-side comparison since the respective tales of a new hope and the force awakens share many similarities the presence of a soul in a new hope being one of the only major glaring differences when lined up against the force awakens rancid shambling husk and keep in mind that the heart of the original Star Wars trilogy was the hero's journey formula which at its heart follows the story of a relatively normal person going through his series of trials to emerge a powerful hero by the end and it seems that Disney star wars trilogy was attempting to follow in the original trilogy's steps which means ray and Luke are both expected to begin their journey as relatively normal people discounting legendary father's ancient office et cetera and considering both protagonists eventually develop and change as the journey progresses it can be argued that this is a pretty decent assumption to make so let's begin with character setup Luke enters the story as a farm boy a moisture farmer to be exact ray enters her story as a lone scavenger a circumstance people have pointed out as an early deal-breaker an early MarySue moment and those people have a point but things aren't that simple ray surviving alone on a hostile planet wouldn't necessarily classify as a MarySue moment and it wouldn't necessarily break the narrative either even in a hero's journey formula however here's where the plot takes a wrong turn Luke Skywalker is introduced with a particular set of skills such as general knowledge on droids how to drive and how to use weaponry now how does he know these things believe it or not the movie doesn't need to tell us directly it is a movie after all it can show us things and we as the audience could make logical connections so we can logically assume that Luke was taught these skills by his uncle Owen and why would he do that because Luke is presented to us as an essential worker on Owens farm in fact it becomes a point of conflict for luke's character when he expresses his desire to leave and join an academy and then owen forces him to stay to quote owen harvest is when I need you the most is only one season more this year we'll make enough on the harvest that I'll be able to hire some more hands and then you can go to the Academy next year you must understand I need you here Luke from what the audience is given we can reasonably conclude that the skills Luke has come from growing up on a farm a farm residing on a hostile planet ray doesn't have anything for the audience to connect with instead the movie decides to focus on how alone she is which we could have already gathered when she was introduced as a lone scavenger collecting things to bring back to an old abandoned 8080 in fact you could say that she's almost like a human version of Pixar's wall-e without the humanity this might be a general problem with the film but the focus on how alone and lonely she is seemed to cause quite a few missed opportunities they could have given us more detail about character that is if she had one wall he liked to collect things when the movie takes us back to his particularly humble humble abode we see that it's filled with various odds and ends pieces of junk that Wally had found interesting we see him interact with these items without being told directly we can see his fascination with humanity and we get a strong sense of his character through these interactions through his meticulous organization of his items we can see how much he cares when he puts that lid on his head we get a clearer sense of his desired connection to humanity by mimicking human behavior in contrast Ray's house gives us to sentimental items a wilting flower and doll she doesn't interact with either so we don't get any additional information other than she's lonely which has already been established these items could have served the plot better if they were symbols of Ray's parents this is especially important because now it's more difficult to use thee she was mentored by her parents explanation Luke was taught farming skills by his uncle because his uncle was a farmer the movie spends a decent amount of time establishing this fact while ray can scavenge and survive alone on the desert home planet because she's just awesome while her parents do exist as a possible explanation thanks to Captain mystery box we don't even get a visual clue where we could have seen for example a journal of notes with a name on it that Ray uses as a reference when looking for valuable parts to scavenge hinting to a scavenger parent where at least a scavenger mentor and would therefore give the audience a satisfying conclusion as to how ray got these skills we got nothing and this leaves her defenders to argue that Ray has survived all alone because you guessed it she's just awesome though it's probably been repackaged as some combination of ray being strong independent brave etc but even if you can accept that explanation and are willing to waive off for unexplained skills that's fine because this marry soon moment alone doesn't mark ray as a Mary Sue and it gets worse let's go back to luke skywalker from the moment we meet him we can see he's kind of whiny he'd rather be off with his friends instead of doing farm work what teenager wouldn't to quote Luke but I was going to tosche station to pick up some power converters Owen you could waste time with your friends when your chores are done we later find out is behavior isn't just typical teenage angst but a case of Disney Princess syndrome in other words Luke Skywalker yearns for something more he thirsts for adventure oh wait look it's only one season more Luke yeah that's what you said when Biggs in tank left Beru where are you going Luke looks like I'm going nowhere then we have Beru Luke's not a farmer Owen he has too much of his father in him now once you get past the sheer awesomeness that Luke had a friend named tank we see evidence of Luke's frustration we get the feeling that he's itching to go off on some wild-eyed quest but can't then he sees Princess Leia and becomes immediately motivated by her Luke who is she she's beautiful to clarify we get a good look at Luke's motivations his desire to leave that lonely backwater world behind the only thing we got from Rey was her desire to stay on her backwater planet and wait for her parents to return and at this point one might say she's motivated to help the resistance but we can see that while she has heard of the resistance just like Luke had heard of the rebellion we're never given a reason to think she really cares because unlike Luke Ray isn't determined to leave Luke wanted to follow his friends transmit his application to the Academy in fact during the course of her journey Rey insists that she must return home so when the time comes for her to go charging off into the galaxy it seems forced now that isn't to say she needs to be a wild-eyed adventurer on the contrary even in a hero's journey formula you can have a main character who doesn't want to leave their home Rey instead is presented to us as more of a bilbo baggins type content to stay where she is until something or someone pulls her into an adventure this is what seems to happen but actually she ends up choosing to go on the adventure why because of one defining character trait that wasn't hinted at and instead manifests itself just when the plot demanded it a trait I'll get into in a moment now let's look back at raised more human counterpart Wally the creators of Wally used his interaction with certain items to show us his personality but then they used a mix of his interest in human objects and is now established personality to give us his motivation romance Wally becomes entranced by a romantic musical film and as the audience members can see how deeply the idea of romance affects him then we see this hint play out when we see him become instantly and raptured by Eva so enraptured that he took off on an adventure just to follow her it gives us a plausible organic flow from one point to the next wall-e much like Rey is portrayed as being lonely and the Craters use his romantic loneliness as a motive for him to leave on an adventure but unlike wall-e Rey was given no such setup every instance of her being portrayed as lonely is done to do just that tell us she's alone remember that one defining character trait I mentioned Ray had the driving character element that outs her from her lonely daily life if you recall what sparks her adventure is her encounter with bb-8 when she saved the joy from another scavenger for some reason some might think that this is evidence of Rey's kind heart right after helping bb-8 she does nothing she just leaves the joy where she found it which again feels off Rey not only saves the joy but speaks to it like a human you'd think that mentality would stay consistent but she just leaves I mean Lian from the professional was a lone assassin and still decided to save Matilda's life make her laugh and letting her sleep over before almost killing her slash kicking her out Franck margin from the transporter was considered enough to give a kidnapped girl something to drink before turning her over to her kidnappers even Han Solo the iconic bad boy left the bar keep some money after he shot Greedo Rey could have offered bb-8 some assistance so it wouldn't be taken by the scavengers again but she walks away with the scavenger she just saved it from still in view you'd think someone kind-hearted would be a little kinder so why did she get involved at all who knows maybe she read the script or maybe she's just awesome this too would have been a simple matter to setup even Wally hinted at the main characters kind-hearted nature when we saw him give affection to his pet cockroach again Ray's introduction had focused so much on showing her being a strong independent woman they forgot to add meaning they almost had it to remember this flower had it looked cared for and had we seen Rey care for it like Leon cared for his plant a symbol of life and care admits a harsh desert planet that would have been hint enough but we didn't get that in dead we got nothing which again sets us up for another moment of she's just awesome a MarySue moment also you would think a kind hearted person would have verbally confronted Finn when BBA told ray he was wearing Poe dameron's jacket instead of instantly beating him up like BB eights personal attack dog by all accounts would broke her steadfast dedication to staying and waiting for her parents to return was not a thirst for adventure or even an event that forced her hand like Gandalf did with Bilbo what motivates ray to begin her quest her main identifiable trait is liking bb-8 until now her only established desire was to wait for her parents for some reason maybe they're supposed to bring back a really really good birthday cake maybe she loves them maybe she hates them it's not clearly because again we're given nothing no story about her father being a great warrior or fond recollections of her mother telling her stories about the Jedi nothing and remember she was going to abandon bb-8 until the joy begged to go with her so it's a little jarring when the next minute she's beating up men twice her size and tackling Finn like he ate the last french fry when this character switch happens there's usually an event that endears defendi to defend her like when Matilda proved her strength by shooting a gun out the window after which Lian decided to train her or when Luke proved himself to Han over the course of an adventure after which Hunt flew in to save Luke during the Death Star run we don't get any such thing with ray or bb-8 there's no scene where bb-8 proves its usefulness to Rey the only reason Luke chased down r2d2 is because he didn't want his uncle to know that his hormones drove him to remove r2 his restraining bolt so he could see more Princess Leia which then allowed r2d2 to run away in the first place Rey just decides to adopt bb-8 like a new dog from one scene to the next for no reason other than she suddenly ie without being previously established just that Noble or just that awesome again it could have been an easy setup remember when Rey was polishing those scraps and she spotted the old lady doing the same exact thing she could have offered to help sacrificing her own time for no expected reward but she didn't instead they used that scene to further indulge into telling us how hard Rey's life is and the same can go for his sudden ability to fight off two thugs tortures a woman Lovering on her own of course nor how to fart belches some gargantuan grotesque again there was no setup and again this could have and should have been done during the introduction maybe instead of the several scenes of her eating and making food as if this were a college life documentary we could have gotten a shot of her practicing just a small segment of her going through the motions but instead we have nothing so when we see her suddenly able to beat up some thugs with almost no problem these skills just seemed to manifest and the only explanation were left with is that she's just awesome narrative Lee speaking if the goal is to run Rea through a hero's journey it would be better if she could defend herself but not be able to actually defeat them it would show weakness vulnerability in other words it would show her potential but also leave room to grow if he remember even Luke needed help and let's talk about that in a new hope Luke is noted as an excellent pilot on several occasions Rey only mentions her piloting skills in passing but it is mentioned so it's not really a hindrance but their respective piloting skills alone aren't the main point here Luke's piloting skills are much larger point than one might initially think but first let's go to one of the biggest grievances often referred to by the stall was faithful ray fixing the Millennium Falcon better than Han Solo its former owner the usual defense for this is that Rey is a scavenger and lives alone and can therefore fix things like a trained mechanic but we don't know this for sure because again this skill was never hinted at after all there's a big difference between breaking things and fixing them for example even someone without technical skill likely knows what is and isn't valuable on a car and so any scavenger might know the value of particular ship parts but knowing what parts do and what pieces are worth doesn't mean she knows how to fix the ship she takes them from unless you think someone picking through a dump for something that can trade for cigarette money is also there for a top-notch mechanic and once more the movie had the perfect opportunity for a setup and missed it entirely all they had to do was introduce Rey as a scavenger in the morning and an employee at a local mechanic shop in the evening kind of like how Rocky Balboa was a boxer and part-time mob enforcer instead it became another instance of she's just awesome then we go back to the scene where Finn rushes in to help Rey fight off her attackers only to arrive too late because she had already feeded them even if you dismissed every example until now well remember when I mentioned that logic tended to bend around a Mary Sue to quote general Hux my men are exceptionally trained programmed from birth this includes Finn while it's noted that Finn was different and had been given custodial Duty like the guys from Full Metal Jacket were given custodial duty it doesn't change the fact that Finn had been trained to be a soldier from birth even if Finn had been the worst stormtrooper in the bunch undergoing decades of training should still have an effect so even if Finn was so pathetic that he would lose in a straight fight against another stormtrooper it could be logically concluded that when going against someone presumably self-taught like Ray Finn should still be able to overpower her but he was overpowered immediately I guess he had one hell of a doctor's note now let's go to Han Solo the first time she meets Han he's getting confronted by two gangs she eventually saves them all only for Han to pilot the Millennium Falcon which Rey has already been shown to be quite capable of doing herself the only piece of help Han actually does offer is his connection to Mars which they can use to smuggle bb-8 to the resistance so why did I mention all that allow me to summarize Rey's saves bb-8 saves herself and finn from the first order saves finn during Han Solo's fiasco and saves han Solo from his own idiocy idiocy being a man who has spent decades as an outlaw having suddenly gotten himself tangled up with two gangs it's almost like a bad sitcom Rey shows up and suddenly Han Solo is an idiot not to mention Rey saving Finn during the kylo Ren encounter Rey is already awesome she's the one doing all the saving where's the room for growth in contrast Luke needed plenty of help during his first movie in fact had it not been for his companions he wouldn't have survived in fact had it not been for obi-wan Kenobi Luke probably would have died after the San people attacked afterward it was Han Solo who took charge when trying to escape the Empire the only play Luke made during the whole movie was that he heard that the beautiful Princess Leia was being held aboard the Death Star then his hormones valiantly kicked in and those drove him to convince Han to go along with saving Leia by making him imagine a reward then coming up with a half-baked plan to rescue her the plan of course backfires and it ends in a shootout which probably would have gotten everyone killed if the Empire had not allowed them to escape in the first place and keep in mind that they only managed to muddle through that thanks to OE ones sacrifice and the Fighting's Gill's of han and chewbacca now let's go back to Rey during the Han Solo Fiasco when hot is being confronted by the two gangs Rey's plan is to trap the gangs inside different rooms while they escape she makes a mistake which then accidentally releases a group of very dangerous creatures which then come out to devour both gangs allowing gray and the rest to make an escape without being pursued her mistake ended in a better scenario than her original plan the only person on her side to get caught was of course Finn who I think is personally hated by the writer but Rey of course saves him because she knows exactly how to operate devices and controls on a ship she's never been on before because she's just awesome but what does this all have to do with Luke's piloting skills Rey is introduced with unexplained expert fighting skills technical skills and magical expert level piloting skills despite only dabbling still no sign of a mentor and she uses all these skills to save the day meanwhile Luke's own defining skill during the first movie is his piloting skill and it's referred to several times when Luke once leave the forum for the Academy when obi-wan mentions that he's heard Luke has become a great pilot when he mentions that Luke's father Anakin was one of the best pilots in the galaxy when they meet han and Luke says he wasn't such a bad pilot hinting he could buy and fly the ship rather than pay Han then the mention that he'd like to spend his days flying his t16 and bullseye womp rats letting us know what kind of practice he's had Luke spent the whole first movie mostly being a burden by this time the movie's events had hard Luke changed him he's now more experienced no longer the farm boy from Tatooine this results in Luke finally having his big hero moment where he became the one to destroy the Death Star but even then it wasn't just Luke's piloting skills that allowed him to save the day it was the force Luke trusted his instincts and used the force to help guide his hand letting him know when to fire and he was only able to do so after having the assistance from a mentor keep this moment in mind I'll be coming back to it soon the first time ray encounters the force is when Luke Skywalker's lightsaber happens to be in Mazdas bar for some reason so a legendary sword just so happens to be in a bar where they're disappointed get help smuggling bb-8 to the resistance there was no logical reason for the audience to even suppose that such an item would be there and not only a legendary weapon sitting in some back room of a cantina but it also calls out to Rey making up new force rules in the parlor says but even if inanimate objects could use the force why wouldn't it call out to Han who had a much stronger connection to loot I guess it pays to be the dm's girlfriend Rey then gets captured later on kylo Ren tries to read her mind and she not only rejects him but then reads his mind and remember kylo had been trained by Luke Skywalker and then trained by snow yet Rey who had no established mentor of any kind overpowers him so any argument pertaining to the force being supercharged more or less falls apart there since if that were true kylo should be super charged with the benefit of training and so Rey should have still been no match for kylo so instead the only explanation for her overpowering kylo in this instances you guessed it she's just awesome then if that weren't enough she controls the mine of his stormtrooper to let her go and leave his weapon behind but she grew up with stories about the Jedi so of course it's reasonable some man Bund man baby might whimper firstly this would be like hearing stories about Bruce Lee and sadly being able to perform the one-inch punch and I don't know about you but out matching someone's train thought pro before controlling someone's mind it sounds pretty advanced a far cry from using the force to guide your instincts a bit imagine a dojo that teaches the five-point palm exploding heart technique on day one and second of all Luke had also heard stories about the Jedi he just didn't know his father was one one might say she's siphoned the knowledge from kylo Ren when she read his mind if this were true then there would be no need for Jedi temples and no real need for decades of training a master could just copy and paste his knowledge and drag it over to his Padawan and remember the expanded universe at this point is considered non canon and such a feat never took place in any of the movies so if raised newly-acquired forest powers were gained through either of these scenarios it would again be another rule being created solely for the sake of Rey the plot bending to her needs but movie wise she of course learns these things because she's just awesome now back with Luke remember the moment to use the force to help launch those torpedoes this was Luke's only real practical use of the force during the entire first movie Luke had the assistance of a mentor and the benefit of training so he could blow up the Death Star which by the way required skills that the movie stated Luke already had plenty of practice with piloting and shooting so in the end the force was only supplemental to his victory and not the entire cause ray however was already reading minds and dominating brains both without proper instruction and still no assistance from a mentor how is this possible well because she's just awesome and this sudden mastery stays in play during the entire climactic battle with kylo Ren Finn of course has the honor of battling kylo Ren first and it's really the first time in the entire movie we see him be useful and we get to see the arguments I've been making put into action because fortunately for Finn Rey needs him to protect her while she's unconscious and so the reality warping powers of the MarySue kind of lifts finn is finally allowed to access those decades of training Huck's mentioned he was supposed to have and not only hold his own against kylo but actually wounds him unfortunately for Finn and the rest of the audience Rey eventually regains consciousness her reality-warping powers reactivate Finn's combat skills returned to dormancy and he's quickly overcome now let's take a look at Rey a scavenger without the benefit of Finn's decades of military level training has no sign of a mentor and is completely self-taught how does she fare against kylo Ren who if you recall has been trained by not one but two legendary mentors well she defeats him of course did you forget that she's just awesome does anyone remember luke's duel against darth vader in a new hope no you probably don't because it didn't happen Darth Vader was Luke's rival until the emperor made an appearance he represented the power of the Empire kylo seemed to be playing this role for Rey Darth Vader was responsible for Leia's capture and he forced her hand into sending the Death Star plans to a desert planet Darth Vader also killed Luke's mentor and nearly wiped out the entire rebel assault squad from the very first time we see him Darth Vader is shown to be a powerful obstacle to overcome and so acts as a final test of Luke's heroic progression that only once he has matured into his final heroic form was he able to finally defeat the looming specter that is Darth Vader considering Han as the closest thing ray gets to a mentor even though he teaches her nothing and is actually taught a few things by Rey because well she's just awesome it can be easy to see a parallel between the rule of Darth Vader towards Luke and the role of kylo Ren towards Rey at least it should have been that way now it isn't wrong for the hero and villain to have a battle towards the end of the first encounter even in a trilogy and again the movie was very close to pulling this off correctly all they had to do was have Ray lose the battle but Karla was injured that's why Ray wound an ill-bred ignoramus might blubber but even if you put aside that Kyla was also injured during his fight with a soldier possessing decades of training in Silwan narrative Lee speaking kylo still should have dominated in his belt with Ray as I mentioned before darth vader's powers set the goal for luke and the audience we get to see the end goal in the shape of Vader's ominous figure and this notion is amplified when Luke actually does face Vader in the Empire Strikes Back and after spending a number of days training with the legendary Yoda Vader still easily dominated it showed us that despite Luke's growth he still had a long way to go with Ray and kylo the setup begins perfectly he's wounded from getting shot by Chewbacca's bow caster and his fight with Finn considering Ray's vas inexperienced relative to his own he still should have defeated her if not through battle then by the force alone I mean a deus ex machina has to swoop in and separate them anyway why not have her lose remember this is the first movie in Rey's trilogy her first tinder steps into her own hero's journey her loss would have raised the stakes show us that raid like Luke when he first began still has quite the journey yet to travel before she reaches her full potential because if she was still so easily defeated by kylo while he was in such a diminished state how could she possibly hope to win when next they met it would prompt a personal and relatable drive for her to seek Luke Skywalker other than its what the script told her to do a true motivation to start training other than well it's just something you do in Star Wars and the movie actually supports this idea it's almost as if they had the competent writer do the script and Rian Johnson snuck in his fanfiction when the real writer went off on a coffee break and you can literally see the moment when this happens because kylo does dominate to begin with then the good writer goes off for coffee Rey becomes a MarySue again and defeats kylo pretty easily they try to play this off by having Rey close her eyes while locking sabers with kylo as if she's submitting her strength usually this means a moment of awakening or harmony for the hero where they fully absorbed the wisdom and teachings they've attained so far and then used those teachings to challenge the villain kind of like when Luke heard Obi Wan's voice telling him to use the Force over Aniyah returned to life and first Matrix movie The Awakening is normally sparked by something or someone and that spark helps the hero align their skills and wisdom together and this allows a hero to turn a near defeat into a victory but Ray didn't have a mentor or a love interest no one who knew her intimately enough to spark her awakening rays and remembering the words of a loved one or the wisdom of a teacher she just closes her eyes and is suddenly now able to defeat kylo Ren because she's just awesome a real shamed who had Rey lost then when next they met the meeting would be tense since the audience wouldn't be certain what a fully healed kylo Ren and a newly trained Rey would truly be capable of instead Rey didn't receive training because Luke turned into an edgy thirteen-year-old and because Rey didn't actually need it because she's already so awesome or Luke needed days of intense mental guidance and rigorous physical training just to lift a few rocks Rey was breaking the earth five minutes into her first lesson because she's so awesome though they try to hide it by saying she's strong in the force you know like Luke who as I said needed intense training before he could lift a few rocks or like kylo Ren who had the advantage of training under skilled teachers and who still lost to Ray because kylo might be so powerful he turned Luke into an emo but he's no Mary Sue meanwhile after days and days of rigorous sitting around Rey is suddenly able to move half a mountain because she's so awesome I guess this really is a millennial power fantasy so to summarize Rey isn't a Mary Sue because of any single incident or oddity but a consistent pattern Luke had a mentor to teach him he had a rival to challenge him he had a pest as a farm boy to introduce him he had training to mold him and unlike Rey who of course don't need no man Luke had friends to help him nearly every skill and talent Rey learns or possesses throughout her journey is granted by the plot as it vows to her every command no hint of a mentor to teacher no rival to challenge her no pass to introduce her no training to mold her and she accomplished everything she needed to accomplish almost entirely on her own or in short every skill Rey possesses is there because she's just awesome you seem like an angry man baby who just hates women some feral feminists might hideously gurgle while it's true the term Mary Sue might be misused to justify one's dislike the character or design choice like those angry man babies who get upset because someone is the wrong gender has the wrong skin color or the wrong sexuality but there are times when the term is justified especially if you've defined the term and have evidence to back up your definition but there's one major thing that separates mere complaint from constructive critique and that is advice on how to improve could Ray have been a good character could she have been fixed if those in charge of Star Wars weren't drunk at the wheel yes and just like in every other instance often vigorously defended by the pouty Mafia and the reloj fan club of Innsmouth with their endless what about send office caissons this problem too is easily remedied how just like Luke Skywalker's character was established as a farm boy and later revealed to be the son of a skilled pilot both of which helped the audience logically accept his for above-average piloting skill as a mix of experience and talent Rey's introductory circumstance that only could have done the same but also fixed nearly every problem I've stated it so far so what is it what's the easy fix you can keep ray alone scavenger you can keep her technical skill intact and you can even keep her protagonist level fighting skill but instead of having ray waiting around for her parents we know nothing about have her instead be waiting for the return of her Jedi Master imagine if that instead of nothing Ray's backstory could have involved her being sold into slavery as a child then a powerful Jedi who had been hiding since the Clone Wars days appeared like the lone gunman in a western to clean up the town the Jedi then adopts Rey they live a quiet life on a lonely desert world the Jedi teaches Rey how to survive on her own were to find water how to repair a vehicle how to find food how to scavenge in hunt and more importantly Rey would have not only heard stories about the Jedi but had already started her training in the force maybe Rey would ask where did you learn how to do all these things and the Jedi would answer my master taught me then a few years later when Rey was older maybe 12 or 13 the Jedi had to leave on an urgent quest maybe the Jedi's old master was still alive but had turned to the dark side maybe Rey begged the Jedi to stay because the Jedi was the only one in her life to ever treat her with any kindness or care maybe the Jedi promise to return soon but never did and maybe raise love loyalty and Trust were such that she be Kame dedicated to stay on jakku until she saw the jedi again changing rey from someone with missing parents to the adopted padawan of a jaded veteran jedi would give us all the explanation we needed from an audience point of view it could have been easily explained or presume that Rey's War veteran Jedi mentor taught her how to survive how to fight and helped her take the first steps into the use of the force this of course would change the hero's journey formula but only a bit Rey would start off with some trained skills so she wouldn't be the everyman Luke Skywalker was but they would still be room for growth how do I know because the same variation was done in Avatar The Last Airbender Aang being the reincarnation of the avatar was born a prodigy level bender he had more or less mastered airbending and could learn the other elements relatively quick but over three seasons egg changed and grew the same way Luke Skywalker did just like Luke change from a hormone driven farm boy thirsty for adventure to a mature and focused Jedi and change from the kid who just wanted to play games and run away from his problems to a hero who'd faced down the Great Fire Lord and the same could have been done with Rey he could have gotten a story of love loss and devotion a story that made us question who the truly important people are in our lives that nothing will happen by sitting around and waiting we must take chances and seize the day and maybe that not everyone can be a hero but that anyone can be even a little forgotten orphan girl tossed away by her parents and that may be in this world whereas sadly sardonic gaggle of malicious malcontent laugh at your outrage over space Wizards in one breath and then act like the next Martin Luther King when they cry over the anatomy of cartoon women in the next that it isn't actually the presence of sexism or racism or fascism that has caused said outrage but an absence of meaning you you

Channel: Literature Devil

Views: 1,263,667

Rating: 4.8073545 out of 5

Keywords: Star Wars, Jedi, Disney Star Wars, Rey, Luke Skywalker, Mary Sue, Original trilogy, Darth Vader, Kylo Ren, Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, Rise of Skywalker, A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Finn, She's Just Awesome, Disney trilogy, Rian Johnson, J. J. Abrams, The Empire, The First Order

Id: JN8Qm5o0oSY

Length: 36min 42sec (2202 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 08 2019

Reddit Comments

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[u/[deleted]]

And they could have even fixed it in the TLJ. They could have done it a lot of ways.

One way: the only surviving student from Luke's school who has memory loss from her battle. That would have been cool. Hell, anything would have been cool.

But we got NOTHING.

[u/Technical_Warthog]

I like him and I will always upvote him. He did miss a few points, but thats just the nature of criticizing a bad movie.

[u/Biosyn2800]

Saying Rey isn’t a Mary Sue is like saying grass is yellow

[u/theDarkAngle]

I'm sure it's a decent video but I don't think we even need to watch it. You can't be a mary sue if you get beat up constantly and have to be saved constantly and people barely take you seriously and you the audience experiences absolute agony with you.

Yeah there is a touch of wish fulfillment here and there but that does not a Mary Sue make.

[u/b_khan0131]

https://youtu.be/xwWiBsbZ6qU