Current Events > I don't get the complaint that Rey has no training, is a Mary Sue

(+) Yeah! (+)

Why is it invalid that she has a natural, inherent connection to the Force? Why does she necessarily have to go about it the same way as past Jedi? It's cool and fresh that part of her character is that the Force mysteriously comes to her instead of she to it, and in a strong way. It's like something special happening akin to Anakin's immaculate conception.
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ledbowman posted...

It's like something special happening akin to Anakin's immaculate conception.

While I personally don't mind her being as powerful as she was, this is a bad counter-argument, seeing as a lot of people had a problem with that too.
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didn't Anakin still need to be trained?
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WafflehouseJK posted...

ledbowman posted...

It's like something special happening akin to Anakin's immaculate conception.

While I personally don't mind her being as powerful as she was, this is a bad counter-argument, seeing as a lot of people had a problem with that too.

Sure, but I'm not one of them.
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And mostly what I meant by "special" is that it's rare.
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boxington posted...

didn't Anakin still need to be trained?

Yep. And he was also the "Chosen One" and the strongest Jedi ever known in terms of midichlorians, yet he still got beat by Dooku in their first fight as well as by Obi-Wan a little later. He then goes on to be defeated by Luke as well. Come to think of it, his only real victory in the series was against Dooku round two, and a bunch of jobbers at the Jedi temple.

I haven't seen The Last Jedi yet, but it will be interesting to see how Rey stacks up against the allegedly most powerful Force user.
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boxington posted...

didn't Anakin still need to be trained?

Yes, but what do you mean?
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She can still be strong in the force and untrained.
Why would she know how to fight other force sensitive people without training?

The force isn't magic, it's a trainable inherent ability.
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wdlp posted...

She can still be strong in the force and untrained.
Why would she know how to fight other force sensitive people without training?

The force isn't magic, it's a trainable inherent ability.

Why would she know, indeed. It's enigmatic and new. That she's different in that way is what's cool about it.
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Forget the lightsaber skills. I can sort of suspend disbelief enough because she had to defend herself on that desert planet, even though staff and sword are completely different types of weapons. BUT HOW THE FUCK IS REY ABLE TO OUTFLY TWO MILITARY PILOTS CHASING HER IN THEIR SMALLER, MORE MANEUVERABLE SPACE CRAFTS?!
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If rey was a dude then like 75% of people complaining about this wouldn't care
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Because she's a girl

That's literally it.
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Lorenzo_2003 posted...

Forget the lightsaber skills. I can sort of suspend disbelief enough because she had to defend herself on that desert planet, even though staff and sword are completely different types of weapons. BUT HOW THE FUCK IS REY ABLE TO OUTFLY TWO MILITARY PILOTS CHASING HER IN THEIR SMALLER, MORE MANEUVERABLE SPACE CRAFTS?!

The Force.
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NinjaBreakfast posted...

If rey was a dude then like 75% of people complaining about this wouldn't care

It's sad.
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Callixtus posted...

boxington posted...

didn't Anakin still need to be trained?

Yep. And he was also the "Chosen One" and the strongest Jedi ever known in terms of midichlorians, yet he still got beat by Dooku in their first fight as well as by Obi-Wan a little later. He then goes on to be defeated by Luke as well. Come to think of it, his only real victory in the series was against Dooku round two, and a bunch of jobbers at the Jedi temple.

I haven't seen The Last Jedi yet, but it will be interesting to see how Rey stacks up against the allegedly most powerful Force user.

Uhhh...are you talking about the kids?
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I don't like her because she's not a charismatic or fun character. I don't mind that she's strong. She's basically a female Kirito.
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Lorenzo_2003 posted...

Forget the lightsaber skills. I can sort of suspend disbelief enough because she had to defend herself on that desert planet, even though staff and sword are completely different types of weapons. BUT HOW THE FUCK IS REY ABLE TO OUTFLY TWO MILITARY PILOTS CHASING HER IN THEIR SMALLER, MORE MANEUVERABLE SPACE CRAFTS?!

They said in the movie she practiced on flight sims.

Kinda a BS throwaway explanation, but an explanation nonetheless.
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Lorenzo_2003 posted...

HOW THE FUCK IS REY ABLE TO OUTFLY TWO MILITARY PILOTS CHASING HER IN THEIR SMALLER, MORE MANEUVERABLE SPACE CRAFTS?!

Because she's a Mary Sue.

WafflehouseJK posted...

They said in the movie she practiced on flight sims.

Kinda a BS throwaway explanation, but an explanation nonetheless.

What simulator? She lived in a wrecked AT-AT and traded scrap for bread.
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If the Empire had a Death Star, and the First Order had a Starkiller Base, theyd just win 100% anyways. Its all phoney baloney.
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008Zulu posted...

Lorenzo_2003 posted...

HOW THE FUCK IS REY ABLE TO OUTFLY TWO MILITARY PILOTS CHASING HER IN THEIR SMALLER, MORE MANEUVERABLE SPACE CRAFTS?!

Because she's a Mary Sue.

WafflehouseJK posted...

They said in the movie she practiced on flight sims.

Kinda a BS throwaway explanation, but an explanation nonetheless.

What simulator? She lived in a wrecked AT-AT and traded scrap for bread.

I think she said there was some sim on one of the crashed ships or some shit, don't fully remember, would have to rewatch, I just remember something along those lines being said.
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That in-universe reason wouldn't stop her from being a Mary Sue.
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leverageblargh posted...

Mary Sue Mary Sue squaaaawk I regurgitate braindead terms used by the kind of losers that worship tvtropes squaaaawk Mary Sue Mary Sue Mary Sue

This is a good post
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Callixtus posted...

boxington posted...

didn't Anakin still need to be trained?

Yep. And he was also the "Chosen One" and the strongest Jedi ever known in terms of midichlorians, yet he still got beat by Dooku in their first fight as well as by Obi-Wan a little later. He then goes on to be defeated by Luke as well. Come to think of it, his only real victory in the series was against Dooku round two, and a bunch of jobbers at the Jedi temple.

I haven't seen The Last Jedi yet, but it will be interesting to see how Rey stacks up against the allegedly most powerful Force user.

He wasn't defeated by Luke. Luke lost every fight he was ever in

ledbowman posted...

wdlp posted...

She can still be strong in the force and untrained.
Why would she know how to fight other force sensitive people without training?

The force isn't magic, it's a trainable inherent ability.

Why would she know, indeed. It's enigmatic and new. That she's different in that way is what's cool about it.

It's not enigmatic or cool. It's lazy writing
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A protagonist who's randomly able to solve things "just because" is boring.
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YookaLaylee posted...

It's not enigmatic or cool. It's lazy writing

better term than mary sue, for sure--mary sue is an author insert which rey is not

the issue with rey is that there's almost never any dramatic tension with her

when she steps up to do something she is successful

when she meets someone who isn't evil they immediately like her

we don't get a clear and believable explanation of why. sometimes we're told why, which violates the 'show, dont tell' rule. but it's usually not something that helps advance the story.

she also has a series of anti-damsel trope moments where someone tries to help her only to be hit over the head with the idea that she doesn't need saving because she's not a damsel (even though heroes sometimes need saving, and being saved doesn't make them damsels). this is mostly done for comedy

we've been given some flashbacks to hint at the idea that she's already been trained and everyone knows exactly who she is, but rather than confirming that at the climactic moment, they just had her win her duel 'because' with the explanation left to the next movie

she's not well written, lots of male characters are also not well written, but we criticize them too for being poorly written

but because women have had a shit deal for several millennia, there's a lot of people whose feathers get ruffled at the idea of criticizing a female character in most media
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UnfairRepresent posted...

Because she's a girl

That's literally it.

I agree with this, because before TFA, I had literally never seen the term. Granted, I'm not putting myself in positions to see it, but still.
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I don't disagree that Rey isn't a well written character but I've never thought Star Wars was a particularly well written movie series so it doesn't stand out for me as much as it does for others I guess

like are people actually watching these movies for the nuanced plot and character development? I just think they're filled with cool concepts and really hype moments
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hortanz posted...

I don't disagree that Rey isn't a well written character but I've never thought Star Wars was a particularly well written movie series

i agree with this.
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The Jedi Mind Trick irks me the most. Her reaching something that is just out of reach then it comes to her ok. But the Mind Trick out of nowhere , fuck that shit.
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It's space fantasy, of course there is going to be a "chosen one" or "special one" and in this story that is Rey.

This complaint was really overblown, IMO. The fact that it was so in line with A New Hope was a far worse part of TFA than Rey being another star wars chosen one.

The term Mary Sue was a criticism for self-insert characters (and still is), but the term also refers to characters with no flaws and therefore no conflict as a result of said flaws.

The term's also been around for decades.
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She said right after they blew up the Ties that she's flown before but never above the atmosphere. She intimately knew the surroundings considering she spent her days in that dang Star Destroyer.
Besides, that whole escape as well as the saving Finn from rathtars bit are both explained by Snoke: "There's been an awakening". Both times we see her clearly letting go and trusting her instincts.

I don't really mind Rey being OP. It's Star Wars. And the whole movie is about something we haven't witnessed before in Star Wars: An "awakening".
That she beats Ren bothers me even less. He's shown to be far from masterful; not in control of his emotions, just killed his dad, seriously hurt, etc.
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Remember how when Batman Beyond first aired, it was hard for the first few episodes or so to get used to calling Terry Batman because he didn't fit the archetype we had come to expect from Bruce? He was young, he had a temper and an attitude problem, and he generally chose to fight head to head instead of using Bruce's usual sneakery and trickery. But over time, as we watched the show anyway because it was good, we foubd that even if he was a totally different character, he still had all the makings of a hero and what we saw at first as traits that made him an unsuitable Batman actually gave him a whole new set of advantages that we never saw from Bruce? We were even oj with it eventually when Terry tells Bruce that "Batman" is "my name now."

It was a new series in a new era that followed new rules, and that was ok, even in continuity with the old series.

We can't really downplay that this is a new trilogy, in a new era. Why can't it follow different rules? The title of episode 7 is literally THE FORCE AWAKENS. Maybe it's nothing to do with Rey at all. Maybe the Force itself has awakened--and not from some post-episode-6 slumber--and started a golden age where its presence no longer requires years of training among those who are Force sensitive. Maybe Rey is just the first one to notice.
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hortanz posted...

I don't disagree that Rey isn't a well written character but I've never thought Star Wars was a particularly well written movie series so it doesn't stand out for me as much as it does for others I guess

like are people actually watching these movies for the nuanced plot and character development? I just think they're filled with cool concepts and really hype moments

Kinda this.

I mean, let's be honest, Luke and Anakin weren't very interesting characters either. Luke just whined a lot and so did Anakin besides the bit of heroics he finally displayed in Episode III.

Eh, I just t felt that the Jedi mind trick put her over the top. Everything else could be explained due to her background as a scavenger as well as how it is implied that she was at Luke's temple when she was a kid, possibly being trained.
But we see Obi-Wan do it in ANH, and then we don't see it again until Luke tries in RoTJ, letting the audience know that Luke has become a bad ass over rthe past few years.
Now Rey figures it out after successfully pushing Kylo out of her head. It just seems like she went from bench pressing 200 lbs to 500 lbs after eating a can of spinach.
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The awakening of the Force is just as wild and untamed in her as it was Kylo Ren. The movie makes clear that she's not skilled so much as strong. Kylo Ren is likewise strong, and was apparently the most powerful force user of this generation and was even before Leia sent him away with Luke. He's has some training, but that training is clearly incomplete and he's always had discipline issues. Those issues were what led Leia to send him away in the first place. Recently discovered, Rey may be just as strong (or oeven stronger), and somewhat less effect affected by the emotional instability that impedes Ren's control. Rey has likewise been rocketed into Force awareness, a process that started even before Maz handed her Luke's old lightsaber and she began seeing things.

As I'm reading things, this is kind of a return to an older interpretation of the Living Force, wherein the Force uses sensitives as proxies to enact it's will in the universe. I'm interpreting Finn's sudden freedom from his stormtrooper brainwashing as another example of the Force trying to nudge events in the world towards it's will. The waxing an waning of Ren and Rey's powers is the Force attempting to balance itself between it's two agents, after having slept for decades. As a result, both characters display unparalleled but inconsistent raw talent.
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@ledbowman posted...

Sure, but I'm not one of them.

You're asking why people have a problem with something.

We gave you an answer. And your response is, "But I'm not one of these people"

Fucking clown lol
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When did the force go to sleep and how could anyone get the concept so fucking wrong?

Abrams doesn't know shit about Star Wars and Disney doesn't care. These new movies misunderstand basic concepts from the original six movies so don't expect them to make sense.
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She should try spinning, thats a good trick
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Lorenzo_2003 posted...

Forget the lightsaber skills. I can sort of suspend disbelief enough because she had to defend herself on that desert planet, even though staff and sword are completely different types of weapons. BUT HOW THE FUCK IS REY ABLE TO OUTFLY TWO MILITARY PILOTS CHASING HER IN THEIR SMALLER, MORE MANEUVERABLE SPACE CRAFTS?!

She doesn't outfly them though. They keep up with her with no problem. She only wins because of one good shot by Finn (who probably had element of surprise because they didn't expect that pile of junk to actually shoot) and one miracle shot that would be completely unbelievable except force sensitive people often seem to pull them off.

Han Solo would probably have gotten them to crash just by outmaneuvering them. He wouldn't even have needed Finn as a gunner.
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if the fact that Leia hugged Rei and not Chewy when you know what happened doesn't tell you everything you need to know about how her character was written you're a lost cause
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She may be naturally powerful, but in TFA she still shouldn't have been able to beat Kylo who was 2 to 3 times as powerful as OT Vader.

In Attack of the Clones, look at how Anakin ( who was naturally powerful and had years of training) got stomped by Dooku.
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ledbowman posted...

Lorenzo_2003 posted...

Forget the lightsaber skills. I can sort of suspend disbelief enough because she had to defend herself on that desert planet, even though staff and sword are completely different types of weapons. BUT HOW THE FUCK IS REY ABLE TO OUTFLY TWO MILITARY PILOTS CHASING HER IN THEIR SMALLER, MORE MANEUVERABLE SPACE CRAFTS?!

The Force.

Then what about knowing more about a heavily modified space craft that not even the owner knew much about other than the last owner being a douche.
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Callixtus posted...

boxington posted...

didn't Anakin still need to be trained?

Yep. And he was also the "Chosen One" and the strongest Jedi ever known in terms of midichlorians, yet he still got beat by Dooku in their first fight as well as by Obi-Wan a little later. He then goes on to be defeated by Luke as well. Come to think of it, his only real victory in the series was against Dooku round two, and a bunch of jobbers at the Jedi temple.

I haven't seen The Last Jedi yet, but it will be interesting to see how Rey stacks up against the allegedly most powerful Force user.

Did you just refer to those kids he killed as jobbers?

<_<
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Tropicalwood posted...

ledbowman posted...

Lorenzo_2003 posted...

Forget the lightsaber skills. I can sort of suspend disbelief enough because she had to defend herself on that desert planet, even though staff and sword are completely different types of weapons. BUT HOW THE FUCK IS REY ABLE TO OUTFLY TWO MILITARY PILOTS CHASING HER IN THEIR SMALLER, MORE MANEUVERABLE SPACE CRAFTS?!

The Force.

Then what about knowing more about a heavily modified space craft that not even the owner knew much about other than the last owner being a douche.

1. She was pointing out modifications that the last owner (who she had worked for) had made.
2. Her job was to scavenge ships so knowing how the mechanics work would be essential. How would she know what was valuable otherwise?
3. The movie shows her to be a total geek for spaceships so it makes sense that she would know a lot.
4. Since when is Han good at fixing ships anyway? He's a great pilot but we never see him actually being good at fixing the Falcon. In fact his entire story arc in ESB centers on him failing to fix the Falcon's hyperdrive. It does get fixed, but not by Han!

Also force or no force she doesn't actually outmaneuver the pilots.
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DifferentialEquation posted...

She may be naturally powerful, but in TFA she still shouldn't have been able to beat Kylo who was 2 to 3 times as powerful as OT Vader.

In Attack of the Clones, look at how Anakin ( who was naturally powerful and had years of training) got stomped by Dooku.

Um...no he wasn't....Where are you getting that tidbit?

XXmiznatorXX posted...

DifferentialEquation posted...

She may be naturally powerful, but in TFA she still shouldn't have been able to beat Kylo who was 2 to 3 times as powerful as OT Vader.

In Attack of the Clones, look at how Anakin ( who was naturally powerful and had years of training) got stomped by Dooku.

Um...no he wasn't....Where are you getting that tidbit?

In ESB, Vader was expecting Han and Han still managed to get off a few shots before Vader disarmed him. In TFA, Kylo was ambushed by Poe but still stopped the first blaster shot and held it in place (where as Vader had to block with his hands). The data would suggest that Kylo is much more powerful than Vader.
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DifferentialEquation posted...

XXmiznatorXX posted...

DifferentialEquation posted...

She may be naturally powerful, but in TFA she still shouldn't have been able to beat Kylo who was 2 to 3 times as powerful as OT Vader.

In Attack of the Clones, look at how Anakin ( who was naturally powerful and had years of training) got stomped by Dooku.

Um...no he wasn't....Where are you getting that tidbit?

In ESB, Vader was expecting Han and Han still managed to get off a few shots before Vader disarmed him. In TFA, Kylo was ambushed by Poe but still stopped the first blaster shot and held it in place (where as Vader had to block with his hands). The data would suggest that Kylo is much more powerful than Vader.

lol
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