Lit The reccuring accusation of Rey being a Mary Sue vs ''Legends''.

Anyway, I think we all just have to take a page from Palpatine was Right (Volume 3, subsection 8) to view how the Force works now

Anakin, if one is to understand the great mystery, one must study all its aspects, not just the dogmatic narrow view of the Jedi. If you wish to become a complete and wise leader, you must embrace...a larger view of the Force.

 

Am I doing it right?

 

Too late to edit

Spoiler

"Darkness rises and light to meet it" is actually implied by the film to be a consequence of Anakin restoring balance. When Rey senses the dark cave, Luke says, "Balance. Powerful light, powerful dark." This seems to be what Snoke is talking about.

 

Spoiler

The whole idea that balance implies we have a seesaw of true dark and true light to create it is just ... not good or even creative.

I had hoped it was more a balance of idealism with pragmatic consideration. But I guess it is a recipe.
Two parts honey must have two parts vinegar.

When you have that, you possibly get a Rey. If Kylo gains power through training (with Luke and Snoke), then Rey must just power up not through dedication and training, but just to be an equalizer. That's dopey.

Then you have the long term view. So everybody must walk around in a grey stupor, because that good deed might set off some evil. Evil doesn't rise to match strength and virtue. It rises to capitalize on weakness and corruption.

Luke's portrayal in TLJ not only reversed his growth as a character, but severely crippled Rey's ability to grow in a meaningful way. If everybody is going to bury their head in the sand, then I guess the plot forces her to be a Mary Sue.

 

The impression I got regarding Kylo & Rey's changing power levels was:

Spoiler

"As Kylo increases in power, Rey increases in power"

which reminded me a little of Order of the Stick, with Haley and Crystal:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0581.html

 

itt: nobody knows what a Mary Sue is

 

And building off this, the OP seems to think that no one has ever lobbied similar accusations against characters in the old EU, only Rey, when "Fett/Mara/Corran/Thrawn/Xizor/Revan/Ken is a Mary Stu" have been pretty constant takes against those characters by segments of the EU readers pretty much since those characters debuted. It's not like Rey is the first character in Star Wars history to get accused of being a Mary Sue or that EU fans never make similar accusations against EU characters.

 

When I first saw TFA, I held off on the Mary Sue label. This was the first time we got to see Rey so it only made sense that further entries in the trilogy would flesh out her character and explain why she was seemingly good at everything, but...

Spoiler

We get none, we're supposed to accept that she's a strong character without giving her any flaws for her to learn from. Luke barely gives her any real training yet she's able to beat him in less than a minute. Her victory against Kylo Ren in the last movie was understandable since he was still a dark sider in training and was wounded by a blaster shot before, but this is the man who defeated Darth Vader, saved the galaxy, and created a new generation of Jedi, who has now been defeated by a random scavenger from a backwater planet. The way she was able to lift away a landslide trapping the Resistance just didn't click, you'd think they'd have a scene where Luke teaches her to lift that sunken X-Wing on Ahch-To but she naturally lifts away the rocks and we're expected to roll with it. If they couldn't address why Rey is powerful, there's no reason to believe Episode 9 will give us a valid explanation.

 

How is this being a Mary Sue? She was the Emperor's personal operative and survived in a regime where failures ended up food for the Emperor's exotic garden beetles. And largely before canon outright stated there was an army of Emperor's Hands.

 

Rey is no mary sue trust me a real mary sue is Alice from the resident evil movies trust me play the games and then watch the movies

Trust me rey is not a mary sue

 

Believe when I say I want it that way.

 

No. Rey preformed a mind trick successfully on her third attempt. It took Luke and Ezra years to be able to do that. She called a lightsaber to her hand, negating a VERY experienced Force-user's attempt (Kylo Ren) after Luke Skywalker struggled for weeks to move a noodle. Then Rey is able to hold her own in a lightsaber duel against Kylo, with absolutely no combat training aside from using her staff. She is extremely over-powered. She also levitated tons of boulders after barely any training.

She's like the William James Sidis of the Force.

 

Rey is overpowered.

She's not a Mary Sue.

You can be one without being the other. There's a legitimate criticism she's basically Luke's power level with no training but that's not the same as saying she's a Mary Sue perfect wish fulfillment character.

 

Am I the only person in existence who sees training with the Force to be a mental mastery than a physical one? Isn't Luke's issue that he is too disbelieving in his own abilities to master himself? It's not like Yoda is sitting him down on Dagobah to do some damn curls. Y'all talk about power, powerfulness, power levels--as if this were Dragonball. Why does that line of thinking keep seeping into all these different franchises? This isn't an RPG, where you level up.

Tangent aside, Rey's knowledge of the Force is basic. The powers she uses are basic. She makes things float and controls other people--and on a fairly limited level. Luke Skywalker can PROJECT HIMSELF ACROSS THE GALAXY. Snoke flings Rey around like she's a child's play toy. The Emperor and Dooku can do freaky Force alchemy ****. Rey lifts up a bunch of rocks and tells a dumb guy to let her go. Her prowess at combat and her flight skills don't exist because of the Force. She learned all that **** on her own growing up on the dangerous world of Jakku. The force can augment those abilities, sure.

She isn't overpowered, she isn't a Mary Sue, she isn't a pet character. She spends two movies making many, MANY mistakes. So many mistakes. She lets the Rathtars loose. She runs away and ends up getting herself kidnapped. She allows herself to be deceived by Snoke and Kylo and ignores Luke to go on some damn fool idealistic crusade which almost costs her her life. She goes to the dark side cave against Luke's wishes. She has flaws, she has strengths.


Is Rey my favorite character? Far from it. I think on a certain sense she's rather pedestrian. Poe and Finn are the highlights of the new films for me.

 

Rey never really loses, never experiences failure, and never learns-she's perfect with everything given to her on a silver platter.

In terms of legends Mary Sues-I can't think of any major legends characters that don't have at least some flaws or aspects in which they can be criticized.

Mara-Imperial assassin, touch of arrogance.
Kyp-literally killed billions of people, a vigilante.
Luke-has made mistakes.

And most other legends characters have suffered losses, defeats, heartbreak, physical injuries, etc...

 

I don't consider a Mary Sue to simply be a powerful character. A powerful and even invincible character is alright with me, because it could provide for a good storyline, if its done right. What I consider to be a Mary Sue is someone who is powerful -without doing anything- to achieve the level of power that he/she has. He/she is liked by all without any effort on their part to actually work for it. Basically a Mary Sue is just someone who has everyone handed to them on a silver platter by the writers, does not even have to mean a conventionally strong or even invincible character.

However, I too am worried they'll make Kylo an anti-hero ******* all of a sudden and have Rey be all over him so it becomes a generic cringeworthy teen novel. Damnit that's really not what I meant by nuance...

 

Except for the whole fact she fails to get Luke Skywalker to join her (and even then, he ends up dying because he didn't join her--depriving the Rebellion of his expertise) and fails to redeem Kylo Ren.

She's the plucky Luke-esque heroine and so far hasn't had much in the way of comic books or story.

 

But don't mental skills still need to be learned and then mastered?

Just wondering, do we know that those are basic Force skills? And I would not call what she do "on a fairly limited" since she makes somebody that's knows that she's trying to Mental Suggestion him and levitates a large amount of rocks.

Do we know this or is is just a theory? I ask becouse they never mention that in the movies and I never got that impression the two times i saw TFA

How so?

Also do we really know that Snoke was not just talking mumbo-jumbo?

 

Yes, but--

--I'd definitely call what Rey did in the last two movies a fairly limited scale of Force use. I'd also call the two powers she predominantly uses Basic Force Skills, seeing as we see every other Jedi do them and it's like the first thing every Jedi apparently learns. I can imagine it doesn't take much to trick a dumb person into doing something against their will. I see it happen all the time in real life and it usually ends in a Youtube Fail compilation. I'd also say that it doesn't take much effort to lift an object or call something to you with the Force (which I'd consider basically the same thing. You're moving something from one place to another with the Force, whether it be a rock from the ground to the sky or a lightsaber stuck in the snow to your hand. And like I said, powers such as those ARE basic next to producing lightning or projection.

 

Rey seems to be a Master of Lightsaber combat as she took down members of the Imperial Royal Guard.

 

Just wondering, where is that stated?

Why do you think that?

 

Yes, since when do force powers work like mutations?

Luke couldn't levitate stuff nor could Anakin.

They didn't have any powers prior to training.

 

And even X-Men need to train to be able to effectivly use their powers.