ST Rey's Various Abilities Discussion Thread

A resonance with other forms of personal violation is entirely relevant. I believe that the writers were aware of this and I think it's excessive to cast the entire thing as distasteful.

Poe went through the same thing, but at least Rey came out of it empowered with a means of escape. There's ambivalence to be appreciated in all this, of course. Like the precedent set by the Resistance destroying an entire planet in order to prevent its own destruction. A means to an end for now of course, but it may have serious consequences for the nature of how both sides prosecute the war.

 

Maybe, but I don't think so. I think you give it more credit and depth than it deserves, imo.

Describing what happens after a rape scene like this

doesn't come off as empowerment to me.

I don't think it was handled well in TFA in itself, regardless of how it is handled going forward.

I don't buy the supposed explanation for the mind trick, even putting the distaste aside. It doesn't come off organically/naturally. I think your explanation for it above beggars belief.

 

I strongly resent words to the effect of claiming empowerment as the result of a rape scene which does not exist, being put in my mouth.


There is NO rape scene. The resonance with the attempted violation of person and/or personal freedom notwithstanding, this is NOT a rape scene and cannot be described as such.

There is no physical contact or anything physically resembling the act of rape. And you don't rape information from people so you cannot even associate this scene with the intent of a rapist.

If the tangible nature of that scene needs to be blown out of all proportion in this manner in order for its distastefulness to be defined then it indicates to me a will to discredit it by any means. If it's necessary to continue with that impression then you might as well cast every use of mind trick as rape since it similarly violates personal freedom and has people acting against their will.

If you don't buy the explanation for the mind trick, fine. If it beggars belief from you then you'll need to explain the precedent in the text which causes you to feel this way.

 

I do not accept that it resembles a rape scene at all. Which rape scene are you referring to so that I can compare them?

Rey is shown physically struggling because she's shackled. Poe was beig "raped" inside the first fifteen minutes of this movie. I've not heard anyone complain about being unable to continue watching after that.

Are you seriously implying that someone accepting the scene and what its conveying is endorsing each action in it? i.e. endorsing [physical and/or mental torture?

And I said no such thing as claim that Rey is empowered by Ren raping her, which has been falsely attributed to me.

If you had watched the scene all the way through you would have seen that Rey is immediately conscious of what Ren is attempting to do and does not allow it. It is Ren who is the one visibly disturbed, as if he is the one who has had something taken from him, and not Rey.

What the scene depicts is that at no point does Rey simply succumb to being a victim. And Ren learns that he actually cannot take whatever he wants, despite his claims. And ultimately Rey escapes because of Ren's failure and her intuition. How does that not count as a positive?

In A New Hope we cut from Leia about to be tortured. In my mind, and I'll bet in the minds of many others, the certain victimization that Lei was enduring once that cell door closed was far more disturbing than what's actually depicted in TFA with Rey.

 

Get mad if you want, but I disagree. I think it is a rape scene, a mind (attempted) rape scene. A lot of people, even many who liked TFA, saw it and immediately thought of it as a rape scene. There wasn't any "will to discredit" in the instant reaction of thousands (or maybe millions) of people. Maybe you just don't have that perspective, idk, and I don't care.

If they didn't want people to think of it in that way...then they shouldn't have done it in that way. They shouldn't have had Kylo say he can take whatever he wants. If you don't want people to think of mind tricks as mind rapes, don't introduce it. It wasn't presented that way in ANH, so it was easy to not take it that way. However, the idea of mind tricks being unethical invasions were introduced to the EU a long time ago. We are a long way from ANH, and anyone making a Star Wars movie today needs to be aware of that and everything that comes with it. I think a lot of what happens in TFA doesn't take the fact that we're a long way from 1979 into account. (even putting the EU aside, we're still a long ways away from "use the Force, Luke")

Instead of getting mad and yelling at me in black and pink text, maybe try to understand the way your comment came off to me, instead. Maybe just acknowledge that opinions and perspectives vary, and just make a note of it, just for the sake of awareness. Otherwise, what's the point of this discussion? To "win"? To yell at me and tell me I didn't see what I saw?

I know there's no physical rape, the fact that you have to say that demonstrates a certain lack of understanding on your part, imo. The same way King Prana asking me if I thought Rey was lying demonstrated a certain lack of understanding, to me.

All you have to do is take your quote and think "mind rape" instead of rape, and the effect is the same. That you didn't understand this is tiresome.

Movies often aren't literal. You don't need a literal rape, an allusion to rape does just as well, and is often the practical equivalent in one's mind.

It's not blowing it out of proportion at all, imo. How would you even know? Have you ever been mind raped? How do you know there's any real difference in severity between mental rape and physical rape? Maybe we should ask Poe.

I don't need to explain precedent, we've all seen Star Wars, we all know that there is no precedent for what Rey did. I've been down this road before and I find it tiresome.

 

CT-867-5309 Yes you do need to provide precedent. Lack of precedent of something happening does not necessitate the begging for belief when it does happen.

But if there's an actual precedent which precludes what happens with Rey being possible, then you can beggar belief.

And I'm not going to accept your claims of hearing that hundreds (and maybe millions) of people defining this as a rape scene as justification for bandying about "rape" so casually and for this particular end.

There's no such things as a mind rape, no matter if all I have to do is think about it. It does no do the legitimate use of the word rape any favors. I appreciate that the internet encourages people to adopt and evolve new forms of hyperbole (and for other people to endorse them, tacitly or otherwise) in order for their contributions to have more impact but it is just wholly inappropriate to exploit rape in order to enhance the stature of an argument.

You're inventing terms and concepts in order to spuriously justify a supposedly spontaneous impression.

If your impression is that the physicality of the scene was not your taste then fine. But this is clearly about finding reasons to disavow and discredit Rey's. Let;s not kid ourselves. This argument has gone from "how does Rey know what a mind trick is?" , to " How come she learns from watching when Luke doesn't?" to "It shouldn't be as part of a rape scene" . For such a widely held impression it only seems to be relevant to argument for Rey not acquiring the knowledge that she can influence the minds of others.

 

I don't need to provide anything. I don't care to even discuss it with you.

You don't make the rules for how I view a movie and respond to it. My suspension of disbelief is broken when it is broken, not when it meets your standards.

Then don't. Go ahead and dismiss it, and run roughshod over all the people who have made the same claim.

lol okay

There's no such thing as the Force, either, but your opinion has been noted (not really, I'm not wasting my energy making a note of it).

Mmm-hmm. It's a conspiracy, a willful effort to discredit Rey. It can't be a natural, reasonable and valid response.

Let's not kid ourselves, there must be something nefarious going on here.


If this is your reaction to people honestly putting forth their views, then I'm not interested in a discussion with you.

 

Then you're in the wrong thread.

 

MODified: Ancient Moderator Proverb: Getting the "Last Word" is never the last word.

 

Force users will just grow and grow in power because they'll always want to top the previous movie. Just like Starkiller was so much more powerful than the Death Star.

 

I think in some ways "monkey see, monkey do" may be the simplest explanation. The mind trick is in some ways a scaled down version of the mind ripping that Kylo tries on her just before. It would have clued her in that the force can be used to manipulate people's minds. A bit of a stretch I admit but what isn't at this point? For pulling the saber, Kylo tries doing it first. She sees him trying and it is pretty obvious what he is doing. She simply tries it too and due to the connection/stronger in the force/stronger willpower/whatever beats Kylo's attempt at pulling the saber.

I do think they could have set up the mind trick part but oh well. I think they were just too focused on the joke factor with that one.

 

Before Kylo attempts to force the information from her, he commands Rey to give up the map. It's easy to conceive that Rey would intuit the technique, such as it is, from this experience. Monkey see, monkey do. As you said,. squallwesker.

Plus there's the aforesaid factor of being guided by the force. Consciously or otherwise.

 

Note: We shouldn't need to remind everyone here, but we've long had a forum rule against using the word "rape" in discussions about the mind probe scenes in TFA.

 

it doesn't fit with the other movies , Lucas made it clear that learning Force abilities took time/ mentor / training / discipline. Lucas once compared it to something like karate , it takes some learning , you don't get all the techniques on day one .

it's a bit more than monkey see monkey do

 

The first Force ability we see Luke consciously use is blindly deflecting blaster bolts. The training he receives is the words "reach out with your feelings"
The second Force ability we see Luke use is improved targeting of a difficult, near impossible shot. Luke's training for this is a ghost (which he may well not have believed in, since he didn't know of the Force until a short while ago) telling him to use the force.

We see Luke use telekenesis on his lightsaber at the start of ESB, without ever having seen force telekenesis in the films. When later in the film he is taught it properly, the reason given for him finding it difficult is lack of self belief, and lack of belief that the force isn't powerful enough to do such things.

In fact, time and time again, what we are shown is that the nature of Force abilities is that when you can tap into the force, the manipulation of it is an act of will and faith - not of arcane technique. There's literally nothing in Lucas's movies that suggests that any force ability involves anything other than getting oneself into a state whereby one feels the force around them, then imposing their will onto it.
There's a fair assumption that different tasks require different levels of concentration, and additionally that being naturally stronger in the force requires less effort to do things.

Almost every bit of force training we see is about how to use it responsibly, how to be a "good" person while in possession of such powers.
That isn't a stretch to justify Rey's powers. It's literally what's there on screen.

I can see what the issues are - if we're to think of Star Wars as a living, breathing, big universe, and if we want the Jedi to be special, then yeah, it makes total sense to want the force, and Jedi abilities to be the results of such devoted study, and years and years of effort, in order to attain them. And if Star Wars were a long running series of novels, or long form tv, or even if the film universe had been set up with that in mind, then that'd make sense.

But ever since the start, there has been a storytelling compromise; the Jedi were written as having died out, and the story was about a kid on the fast track to being a Jedi.
I keep seeing so much about the need to see training, questions about what training people have had, and it just feels like lore box ticking. I work in schools, I'm bored of seeing training. Show development, and yeah, definitely explain strength in the force, and responsibility etc, but come on, let's have some respect for the genre and the tone too. These films aren't about showing all the steps to learning difficult abilities.

For clarity: I think Lucas tried (reasonably) to have it both ways - he had characters talking about how difficult it was to learn Jedi abilities, but showed Jedi abilities coming to people relatively easily.

 

"Control. Control. You must learn control!"

^ That's the hard part.

 

Well said, CEB.

 

I think we will be able to put this all behind us when The Last Jedi starts with a musical training montage where Rey learns everything she needs to know.
Let's get down to business! To defeat...the Rens!