ST Guardian's "Super Feminist" Rey Article...

MODified: Removed content. Also removed user.

 

This is baffling.

Rey was not an overkill of awesomeness. She was competent, but that was all pretty much explicable given her condition. But nothing came too easily for her. Here is a short list of the stumbles along her road of awesomeness.

1. Rey is mistreated by Unkar Plutt, and accepts her plight. She takes her portions and goes.
2. Rey nearly crashes the Millennium Falcon, and whimpers as she flies through the Star Destroyer.
3. Rey pushes the wrong fuses on the Giant Freighter, and accidentally unleashes the rampaging rathtars which nearly kill Finn and everyone else on board.
4. Rey is frightened almost to paralysis by the lightsaber-induced vision. And then she cries as Maz tells her that her family is not coming back.
5. Rey refuses the call to heroism (precipitated by the lightsaber and Maz) and decides to run away from the fight. She literally runs off to hide in the forest.
6. Rey is easily overpowered by Kylo on Takodana, captured, and taken prisoner.
7. Rey is imprisoned and tortured.
8. Rey is flung high into the trees by Kylo, and knocked unconscious for a while. This failure allows Kylo to nearly kill Finn.
9. Rey is nearly defeated by a wounded Kylo, who then makes it clear that he's not trying to kill her. She ultimately bests him, but only while he is at a serious disadvantage.
10. Rey goes to learn from the wise Luke Skywalker at the end of the film. She doesn't say to heck with that old fart, and set up her own Jedi school.

Luke Skywalker suffered fewer setbacks in ANH, to be honest. Simply put, Rey is not a Mary Sue. She is not an overpowered feminist plot device. She's simply a strong, yet flawed, protagonist.

For the record, though I don't find the article objectionable, I'm not the biggest fan of the Guardian either.

 

You're more than welcome to view the character the way you choose to. My take on the character is simply different than yours. For me Rey started out with an incredibly diverse skill set which I didn't really have a problem with until she was captured. It was at this point that things just went too far for me. When she overpowered Kylo Ren's force probe of her mind I thought it was pretty cool. She was obviously very powerful and had tremendous potential. Then she tried the Jedi Mind Trick and it didn't work. I thought this was awesome. It demonstrated that despite her strength with the force (which was shown to be greater than Ren's) using that power wasn't going to be easy; there was going to be some real work involved. In the next moment I found myself utterly disappointed as Rey repeats her words and finds herself freed from her shackles. Apparently things really are that effortless. The same scenario is played out in the lightsaber fight with Ren. For a moment it looks like Rey has a lot to learn; that despite her tremendous power she still needs to learn to harness it. Then she simply closes her eyes and proceeds to completely stomp Ren and beat him into submission. For me, this really diminished the character.

I still want Rey to become the most powerful Jedi ever (the new hero should always surpass her predecessors) but I wanted to see her earn it. The journey to the top needs to be satisfying and for me it hasn't been. Rey is already uber strong and her success seems effortless while Ren comes across as a scrawny weakling with daddy issues who should never cross swords with Rey who is by all measures his superior. You can dismiss those concerns but I'm not the only person who feels this way. It has nothing to do with Rey's gender and everything to do with the way the character was written. I don't like overpowered heroes that have everything come to them too easily. Rey is hardly alone when it comes to that.

 

You know, you're right. And Luke didn't earn that moment where he makes an impossible shot and destroys the Death Star.

 

Luke was a whiny kid who fired a lucky shot after hearing the ghost of an old hermit whisper advice to him and only after his scoundrel of a friend knocked Vader off of his tail and saved his life. He was a kid who was no match for Vader even in the second film and was humbled and humiliated time and time again getting beaten by everything from Sand People to a Wampa. Vader completely schooled him in the ESB. It's only by RoTJ that Luke seems semi decent. That being said, I don't care if you don't have an issue with Rey's instant power-ups. Heck, I don't care if you think Rey is the greatest thing ever and Luke is a complete joke. There are aspects of Rey's character I genuinely dislike and nothing is going to change that.[/quote]

 

I like Rey as a character, but I find it hard to believe that people won't at least concede that if she is indeed discovering her powers for the first time, she displayed greater force abilities in a much shorter amount of time than other characters in the universe.

I have no issues with her being able to pilot ships or understand wookies or droids. I did think it was a little strange that, seemingly without any training, she could 1) resist a dark side user's probe into her mind, 2) probe into said dark side user's mind, 3) best said dark side user as a swordsman, 4) successfully use the classic jedi mind trick on her 3rd time and 5) overpower Ren and force-take the saber away from him.

Child Anakin and Luke did not display such force abilities without any training. They did display excellent piloting skills much like Rey, but they were not able to control the force like Rey could without training. Because of this, I really hope it is revealed that Rey had been training rigorously at a young age and it was in her subconscious or something, because if she was truly discovering her powers for the first time, then yes, she was a Mary Sue from a force user perspective.

 

Skimmed the article, was not impressed. I hate check mark feminism so much, and this article oozed the vile substance. I don't need to enjoy something for the 'right reasons' in order to enjoy it. VII was a good movie. Rey however, was not unique in any discernible way from the other popular female fantasy characters in literature and film to crop up in recent years. Off the top of my head, there've been four Hunger game movies, mortal instruments, Beautiful creatures, four twilight films, Lucy, yaddi yaddi yadda. Okay, cool, we've got another brunette discovering she's special and finding out that life is filled with mystery and wonder. Are we reaching critical mass on seemingly ordinary brunette girls discovering their own power and challenging evil? Probably not. It's not like Star Wars was some exclusionary boy's club with a no girls wanted sign posted on front. Fans have loved characters like Leia, Mara Jade, Jaina, Ashoka, Ventress, Padme, Traya and probably a hundred others I skimmed over, for years. Hell, Traya was only in one moderately successful video game made 13 years ago, and people still debate her character to this day.

I like Rey very much, I just don't think she's as significant to the zeitgeist as the authors of that opinion piece have implied.

 

I think she IS more significant than any of those characters you mentioned.

First, she is arguably the main character of the film.
Second, she is in a mainline film, many of those you mentioned are not (I'm not counting the Clone Wars movie as mainline)
Thirdly, she's relatable (and arguably more important to many female fans of the films) precisely because lots of young girls/ girls of any age could see themselves as this character. She is not a princess, queen, senator, alien, sith alien or creepy sithly oracle. She is a comparatively normal girl who embarks on a significant journey - the hero's journey.

 

Leia is the real deal to. Or did you not notice she's an inversion of the princess/damsel trope? The heroes end up going to save her, only to have her save them. She's never second to the other characters and she also feels like a real deal.

 

I don't think you read my post accurately or maybe you misread the tone of it. I was critiquing the article which suggested that leia was an inferior character to rey simply because she isn't a mary sue who can use the force, kill stormtroopers, fight sith, fly spaceships etc.......... In fact, I was saying that leia better encompasses what I think feminism should be. But of course, that's just my interpretation. I could accuse u of telling me what I think (by suggesting that I'm threatened), but that would be rather foolish..............

The obvious pandering to liberals to make star wars more universal to make more money is obvious in Rey. She's not really a multi-faceted character the way leia was, the way humans are. I wasn't describing what a great woman character should be....

I said most feminists. Not all. There is much evidence of this too. I'm not telling you what you think, I'm interpreting what I think feminism is - everything is subjective. Lol, i just can't with this comment.

I said "can". I wasn't being literal... duhhhhhh

 

Well if you're not being literal, then you're being disingenuous by using the potential that you perceive, for no reason, as any type of evidence or argument

Edit; also, Leia's character was written very badly in ROTJ from the point of view of seeing her as a strong female character.

 

huuuuuuuuuuhhhhh ???

 

Leia is a strong woman. In some ways stronger than Rey, but she is not the hero. That is the whole point that many are trying to make. Also, Lucas wrote Leia weakly in the back end of ROTJ. He also gave Padmé the same treatment in ROTS.

 

[/quote]
It should be completely clear that Kylo Ren is no Darth Vader. If that isn't clear to you, I don't know how it could possible be made clearer.

And "lucky shot" on the Death Star? Did you not WATCH that movie! The whole point is that it wasn't a "lucky shot."

 

You said "Rey can conquer the world". That's your own extrapolation, and you're using it as a negative. Essentially, it's a straw man argument.

 

Not the same. Padme had nothing to do besides thinking about their children and worrying about Anakin. Leia at least got into some action, and saved Han/helped turn the tide in a critical moment at the bunker on Endor.

 

It was The Force guiding him, which is somewhat similar to luck. He did not really earn that achievement, The Force did the work.

 

No.

 

It was not his doing, but that of The Force. He let The Force take control for a moment.

 

Luck involves chance. The Force does not.

 

I didn't have a problem with this as, to me, it was pretty obvious that we're being set up to learn she has a past connection to Luke's Jedi Academy. She clearly has something in her past that would give her a head start on a lot of this stuff, which is likely something that will be explored in 8. Her Force connection was re-awakened when she left Jakku, Maz pushed it along with her little talk about closing your eyes and feeling the Force all around you. It's not too much of a stretch, after these establishing scenes, that she would tap into that connection in a moment of vulnerability in her mind battle with Kylo.

As for the duel. It seemed to me she was mostly on the defensive until Kylo prompted her about the ways of the Force, reminding her to tap into it. Kylo was already badly wounded and emotionally unbalanced going into the fight as well. The way she beat him made a lot of sense as well, fatiguing him out then striking when he opened himself up with a big wild swing. She scored a couple of hits on him before she finally managed to disarm him and give him that nice scar.

 

I'd argue that whenever something appears as luck in the Star Wars universe, it is really the will of The Force. But my main point is that he did not earn the achievement, which makes it somewhat similar to "luck" (in our reality), where he also wouldn't have earned the achiement.

 

Err... That's what Jedi do. They use the Force to do things that would be otherwise impossible. And Force use can be unconscious, like Anakin pod-racing, or Luke being a great pilot. Or Rey being pretty darn good at combat and having excellent reflexes when piloting the Falcon.

 

We live in a time when superheroes are not needed anymore. They have evolved.

We now have social justice (?) warriors.

 

2016. the year people will continue to be instantly outraged about anything. when i was growing up if someone said something offensive, people were just offended by it. sometimes it's ok to just be offended by something and not crucify everyone.

people act like they're trying to make the world better by being outraged but that doesn't work. people that are really terrible, racist, sexist, etc are going to continue being terrible anyway. it's nice, normal people in the middle that have to be deluged in the hateful "back and forth" that follows.

if people spent less time looking for stuff to be pissed off about the world would be a much better and more productive place. outraged at what you feel is an insensitive comment? donate $5 to a charity instead of bitching on the internet! can you imagine if people would actually do that?