How the heck is Katniss a Mary Sue?

[wizzy555]

Speaking of weird gender blind spots. Whoever wrote that gun control episode of Bojack Horseman seems to be under the impression that men are bullet-proof. This is news to me.

 

[The Lunatic]

I think there's an overlap with bad writing and Mary Sues.

Rey, obviously a Mary Sue, but if the movies actually spent time on character development, or at least, as much time as the earlier Star Wars, likely wouldn't be anywhere near as bad.

As for the hunger games, the first two are pretty mediocre movies. As such, a lot of the characters just don't make sense, a lot of the plot is kinda dumb, and I guess when you have any character coming over and just running through everything and is so vital to keeping the plot moving, they're going to seem kinda all-powerful.
Then you have that basis going into a third movie, and she's already been built up as capable of taking down helicopters with a bow and can't really dial it back.

 

[Terminal Blue]

That quote appears to be a third person narrator not the internal monologue of the woman.

Just because it isn't written in first person doesn't mean it's not an internal monologue.

If you know the literary style of ASOIAF, you'll know that Martin always writes from the perspective of a particular character whose name is literally at the beginning of the chapter. That chapter is Dany's internal monologue regarding herself.

And okay, in the case of Martin he does have a lot of good qualities when it comes to writing women. Sure, he often sexualizes them in a way which projects his own heterosexual fantasies onto their inner lives (which is weird, because they are literally children) but he is actually quite good at writing characters who are feminine, who are diverse in their femininity and who still manage to be actual characters with their own inner life.

And I think the key word on the last sentence is erotica. ASOIAF is not erotica unless your name is John Norman. It includes some of the least sexy imagery imaginable. People in porn don't behave like real people, and people in erotic fiction don't have inner lives like real people.

 

[wizzy555]

That quote appears to be a third person narrator not the internal monologue of the woman.

Just because it isn't written in first person doesn't mean it's not an internal monologue.

I think there's a difference between internal monologue and over the shoulder third person. The narrator is describing things the reader needs/wants to be aware of (which may be gratuitous at time). I'm aware women are not walking around constantly aware of the every movement of their breasts, but neither do they enter a room and start describing the furniture to themselves.

 

[burnout02urza]

When was it ever said that Stormtroopers were highly trained? As well as this is something that can be waved with the simple explanation of "He's a part of the hero party", certain things you have to accept.

A) Obi Wan: "These blast points; too accurate for Sand People... Only Imperial Stormtroopers are so precise."

B) So let me get this straight: When it is Luke who does the Protagonist stuff it is because he's the hero. When Katniss (or Rey, you calling female protagonists Mary Sues is sort of a recurring theme on these boards) does the protagonist stuff it is because she's verging on Mary Sue? I think this categorization says more about you then it does about Luke or Katniss.

Except Luke spent the entire series getting his shit pushed in. Here, let's go point-by-point.

Luke nearly gets his head stove in by the Sand People, in his first appearance. Obi-Wan saves him. Rey had no trouble defeating angry aliens on Jaaku with her staff. More, she doesn't need rescuing from Finn: She's more competent than him!

At the end of A New Hope, Luke blows up the Death Star with a lot of help from Obi-Wan's spirit. Rey, meanwhile, defeats Kylo Ren in a sword-fight. Even though Ren's a powerful Dark Jedi and Rey has no formal training. That's like beating Darth Vader in his first appearance.

Okay, let's go on to the Empire Strikes Back. Luke nearly gets eaten by a Wampa, and barely manages to rescue himself. Even then, he'd have died if Han didn't turn up to save him. Rey, however, is never put up against an equivalent threat.

Luke fights Darth Vader, and gets his shit pushed in. Vader hacks off his hand, and Luke gets his ass kicked both physically and spiritually when Vader reveals that he's Luke's father. Rey, meanwhile, teams up with Kylo Ren to fight those Elite Guards, and she defeats them handily. She draws even with Ren in their Force-off, and rescues the entire Rebel alliance at the end. (Meanwhile, Luke nearly dies and is RESCUED by the people he'd come to help.)

In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke falls for a really obvious trap, and nearly botches the rescue. Then, his next big scene when he confronts Vader and the Emperor? The Emperor fries his ass, and he's reduced to begging Vader for help. Vader saves the day by flinging the Emperor to his death.

So Luke's not a really good fighter. I don't think he flat-out wins any fight in the original trilogy. Meanwhile, Rey has NEVER lost! She doesn't even suffer embarrassing or disfiguring setbacks!

 

[Thaluikhain]

Everyone only remembers that Goliath was a giant and David was young and small, but the thing they're forgetting is that Goliath had feats to his name and had shown how terrifying he was before David came into the picture. Allegorically, David didn't win because he was the hero, he won because he stood up against the Philistines and their false gods when nobody else would.

Getting a bit off-topic, but an overlooked part of the story is that David was experienced with using the sling, and he defended himself against at least one bear and one lion in the past. At least he told Saul he did.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

Except Luke spent the entire series getting his shit pushed in. Here, let's go point-by-point.

Which means nothing, as Evilthecats link to the original Mary-Sue story proves.

More, she doesn't need rescuing from Finn: She's more competent than him!

I take it you missed the part where she obviously fell for Finn's incredibly poor lying? Or when she was supposed to save Han Solo by closing a pair of doors and instead released the Rathars? I mean, if we are talking flaws.

At the end of A New Hope, Luke blows up the Death Star with a lot of help from Obi-Wan's spirit. Rey, meanwhile, defeats Kylo Ren in a sword-fight. Even though Ren's a powerful Dark Jedi and Rey has no formal training. That's like beating Darth Vader in his first appearance.

Obi-Wan's help is summed up with "Use the force, Luke. Trust your instincts.". That's after Luke takes out a bunch of Tie Fighters, takes command of the last attack run and right before he himself manages an impossible shot unaided. "lot of help" is pushing it.

As for Rey: Kylo was quite notably shot with the Bowcaster that was established to throw Stormtroopers half a dozen meters back when it hit them, prior to fighting Rey. He took that standing and the fight scene goes to great length to show us that he's in pain, up to shots of him bleeding on the snow and hitting his wound to keep his aggression going. That's just on top of Kylo not using all his skill against Rey, since he wants to turn her to the dark side, and Rey only turns the table on him once he reminds her that she can use the force.

Honestly, I've seen this comparison before and it is still shit, because it removes all the nuance of Luke's and Rey's respective circumstances. Rey wins because Kylo is crippled and holding back, Luke wins because he's got space magic.

So Luke's not a really good fighter. I don't think he flat-out wins any fight in the original trilogy. Meanwhile, Rey has NEVER lost! She doesn't even suffer embarrassing or disfiguring setbacks!

I take it you missed the part where he took out half the goons on Jabba's skiff or when he maimed Darth Vader? Or when he won the battle of character against the Emperor and turned Darth Vader back to the light? I also take it you missed the part where Rey in TLJ goes to turn Kylo to the light side, only to botch it so bad that he veers even deeper into the dark side?

Rey fails repeatedly, but her failures are of a more ethereal kind. She accidentally releases Rathars, she fails to see when people are manipulating her and she vastly (much more so then Luke) overestimates her own ability when she goes to "save" Kylo Ren, which leads to him turning permanently to the dark side.

The comparison between Luke and Rey are not as clear cut as people make it out to be, especially when we consider that a Mary-Sue often suffers to heighten the drama to the max.

 

[Ogoid]

Obi-Wan's help is summed up with "Use the force, Luke. Trust your instincts.". That's after Luke takes out a bunch of Tie Fighters, takes command of the last attack run and right before he himself manages an impossible shot unaided. "lot of help" is pushing it.

In fairness, the only reason Luke manages to take that shot at all without being blown to smithereens by Vader, like every pilot (all of whom presumably outranked him) that attempted it before him, is Han's timely intervention.

 

[CaitSeith]

snip

What I liked about the second book, is that it narrates how Haymitch won the Hunger Games as a kid. It's a crime they didn't even tried to put it in the movie, because it was an interesting story.

 

[Terminal Blue]

I think there's a difference between internal monologue and over the shoulder third person. The narrator is describing things the reader needs/wants to be aware of (which may be gratuitous at time). I'm aware women are not walking around constantly aware of the every movement of their breasts, but neither do they enter a room and start describing the furniture to themselves.

Okay, so I think the best way to illustrate the problem of this is, again, to gender flip it.

"When he went to the stables, he wore a painted Dothraki vest and woven grass sandals. His small penis moved freely beneath faded sandsilk pants..."

So, the point of this sentence isn't really to talk about Dany at all, it's to talk about her clothes. It's describing the fact she is wearing clothes of a style she has not worn before and this feels different to her against her body. On paper, it all makes pretty coherent sense.

But so does the above. After all, male bodies can also experience varying levels of constraint or movement depending on what clothes you wear.

But it's still really weird.

It's weird because we could have just said "his/her clothes were loose fitting, which was a strange feeling because he/she wasn't used to it" but instead we have shifted the whole sentence to focus intently on the body which wears those clothes, and not just on the body but on a single, highly sexualized part of the body. That isn't something we will have done by accident because, as I hope the example above illustrates, it's thoroughly, thoroughly weird. Even if we assume that a third person narrator is explaining this, it still leaves us the question of why they are describing the situation in this way? Are they some kind of disembodied shoulder-pervert who constantly pictures everyone naked? Do they want to bang the character of whom they are theoretically a kind of narrative extension? Again, however you wing or try and explain it, it is still weird, and it is only because describing women in terms of their body parts is so ubiquitous that it maybe doesn't sound as weird in the original as in my example above.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

In fairness, the only reason Luke manages to take that shot at all without being blown to smithereens by Vader, like every pilot (all of whom presumably outranked him) that attempted it before him, is Han's timely intervention.

Yup, I didn't bring it up because it'd be a strike against him on the Mary Sue chart. Other characters bending their personalities or motivations to help the Mary Sue is namely one of them, and Han Solo coming back to save Luke could easily be interpreted in that fashion.

Let me be clear: I don't think Luke is all that Sue-ish, but neither is Ray. My post to burnout is mostly meant to show that the circumstances in both scenes are not what describes, Luke's being far more Sue-ish and Rey's being much less so then how he portrays them.

 

[wizzy555]

I think there's a difference between internal monologue and over the shoulder third person. The narrator is describing things the reader needs/wants to be aware of (which may be gratuitous at time). I'm aware women are not walking around constantly aware of the every movement of their breasts, but neither do they enter a room and start describing the furniture to themselves.

Okay, so I think the best way to illustrate the problem of this is, again, to gender flip it.

"When he went to the stables, he wore a painted Dothraki vest and woven grass sandals. His small penis moved freely beneath faded sandsilk pants..."

So, the point of this sentence isn't really to talk about Dany at all, it's to talk about her clothes. It's describing the fact she is wearing clothes of a style she has not worn before and this feels different to her against her body. On paper, it all makes pretty coherent sense.

But so does the above. After all, male bodies can also experience varying levels of constraint or movement depending on what clothes you wear.

But it's still really weird.

It's weird because we could have just said "his/her clothes were loose fitting, which was a strange feeling because he/she wasn't used to it" but instead we have shifted the whole sentence to focus intently on the body which wears those clothes, and not just on the body but on a single, highly sexualized part of the body. That isn't something we will have done by accident because, as I hope the example above illustrates, it's thoroughly, thoroughly weird. Even if we assume that a third person narrator is explaining this, it still leaves us the question of why they are describing the situation in this way? Are they some kind of disembodied shoulder-pervert who constantly pictures everyone naked? Do they want to bang the character of whom they are theoretically a kind of narrative extension? Again, however you wing or try and explain it, it is still weird, and it is only because describing women in terms of their body parts is so ubiquitous that it maybe doesn't sound as weird in the original as in my example above.

I really wouldn't care if it was gender flipped (maybe others would). I could imagine something like this very easily:

"The low quality Dothraki woolen pants, chafed his crotch"

 

[CaitSeith]

snip

Okay, so I think the best way to illustrate the problem of this is, again, to gender flip it.

"When he went to the stables, he wore a painted Dothraki vest and woven grass sandals. His small penis moved freely beneath faded sandsilk pants..."

I got a better one:

"When he went to the stables, he wore a painted Dothraki vest and woven grass sandals. His chest muscles craftily accentuated by the dark paint..."

 

[wizzy555]

I got a better one:

"When he went to the stables, he wore a painted Dothraki vest and woven grass sandals. His chest muscles craftily accentuated by the dark paint..."

By all means please go on....

 

[Baffle]

Is the thing about male Mary Sues getting the shit kicked out of them not irrelevant? Because the ability to get the shit kicked out of oneself and still come out on top is surely a top heroic thing to do, much more heroic than winning with ease. Or is being inexplicably proud of your ability to suffer for no real gain just a British thing?

 

[Redryhno]

Except Luke spent the entire series getting his shit pushed in. Here, let's go point-by-point.

Which means nothing, as Evilthecats link to the original Mary-Sue story proves.

And originally the Emperor was never going to appear in the original trilogy outside of the monkey mask hologram. Originally Superman couldn't fly. Originally slave meant specifically a Slav.

It does not matter what the original meaning, words, phrases, and terms evolve as time goes on, it ain't 1974 however much the fashion may resemble it from time to time. And the term originated because of an observed trend in writing, the name of it was just chosen to be Mary Sue because it was considered one of the more egregious.

Spoiler: Shame on a mod derailing with deciding they have to keep talking about Rey

I take it you missed the part where she obviously fell for Finn's incredibly poor lying? Or when she was supposed to save Han Solo by closing a pair of doors and instead released the Rathars? I mean, if we are talking flaws.

Sorta stops being as much of a flaw when he's destined to then die like 15 minutes later...And Finn being a part of the hero party sorta absolves him of something that small. Which in turn absolves Rey of "failure" in that instance because she was still in the "gather your party" phase.

Obi-Wan's help is summed up with "Use the force, Luke. Trust your instincts.". That's after Luke takes out a bunch of Tie Fighters, takes command of the last attack run and right before he himself manages an impossible shot unaided. "lot of help" is pushing it.

As for Rey: Kylo was quite notably shot with the Bowcaster that was established to throw Stormtroopers half a dozen meters back when it hit them, prior to fighting Rey. He took that standing and the fight scene goes to great length to show us that he's in pain, up to shots of him bleeding on the snow and hitting his wound to keep his aggression going. That's just on top of Kylo not using all his skill against Rey, since he wants to turn her to the dark side, and Rey only turns the table on him once he reminds her that she can use the force.

Honestly, I've seen this comparison before and it is still shit, because it removes all the nuance of Luke's and Rey's respective circumstances. Rey wins because Kylo is crippled and holding back, Luke wins because he's got space magic.

Except it wasn't an impossible shot, the first guy using the computer honestly almost got it...

And of course the Bowcaster excuse. He did not show a single amount of stress or injury before Rey pulled her shit. Let's be clear here, Luke was considered a prodigy. An adult before beginning his training, he was one of the fastest learners that had been seen. Yet it still took him literal months on Dagobah before he was even able to float rocks on top of one another. And longer still to get his fighter out of the swamp.

Meanwhile Rey masters something that is(or at least was) considered a Master Jedi level ability within minutes of having it performed on her. As in, you're not supposed to be able to reliably do it until you've been practicing for like twenty years. And then, the untrained Rey also pulls a lightsaber out of Ren's trained Dark Side ways, after being slapped by Finn with it, thereby fueling his rage and every other instance in the series showing that wounding and pissing him off and giving in to the corruption of the Dark Side, at least temporarily, makes the individual stronger. This is even shown in the original Trilogy with the final fight between Luke and Vader where he finally beat the shit out of his dad when he gives in to anger.

And then the fight happens. When after all the stuff you've talked about, as well as the Finn non-fight, he suddenly succumbs to the wound and Rey, with a weapon she's never used before, beats the shit out of Ren, who has been training with it since he was a child. I don't care how much you think combat experience puts them on even footing, she's using an unfamiliar weapon at an unfamiliar range against a trained opponent, she should not have been able to beat him as handily as she did. The scene did nothing to set Ren up as a villain, only to set up Rey as a winner. And because heroes are defined by their villains, Rey has already been set up for failure.

I take it you missed the part where he took out half the goons on Jabba's skiff or when he maimed Darth Vader? Or when he won the battle of character against the Emperor and turned Darth Vader back to the light? I also take it you missed the part where Rey in TLJ goes to turn Kylo to the light side, only to botch it so bad that he veers even deeper into the dark side?

Rey fails repeatedly, but her failures are of a more ethereal kind. She accidentally releases Rathars, she fails to see when people are manipulating her and she vastly (much more so then Luke) overestimates her own ability when she goes to "save" Kylo Ren, which leads to him turning permanently to the dark side.

The comparison between Luke and Rey are not as clear cut as people make it out to be, especially when we consider that a Mary-Sue often suffers to heighten the drama to the max.

You mean when he had trained to be able to do it?(since there's canonically six months between New Hope and Empire, and 2 years between Empire and Jedi?) And when he maimed Vader after having given into the Dark Side? Immediately after he is punished both by his inner conscious and the Emperor?

And by the time she tries that, hadn't he...ya know...already followed the "Way of Two" to its conclusion by that point? Pretty sure he was already newly minted Dark Side by the time she attempts that. Honestly if they'd wanted to actually try their hand at writing and character failures that follows the mythology in the universe, they would've switched in TLJ, with both of them coming to the realization that the other was actually "right". Which would've been an interesting setup for the third movie. Especially since there's been all this talk of "Knights of Ren", but outside of like a 5 second brush in TFA, they may as well not exist.

And when you have to say that a person's failures are ethereal, you've already botched their failures for the audience. Again, this is Future Fantasy, not an ensemble character study asking questions about what it means to lose. You have to show meatspace consequences for actions or the lack of them. Luke getting Wampa'd and his hand cut off, Han shooting at Vader after being betrayed by Lando and his carbonite'ing, Leia standing up to Admiral...I forget his name at the moment before him showing her what the Death Star does, etc.

It's weird because we could have just said "his/her clothes were loose fitting, which was a strange feeling because he/she wasn't used to it" but instead we have shifted the whole sentence to focus intently on the body which wears those clothes, and not just on the body but on a single, highly sexualized part of the body.

Isn't that the part in the book where she's still basically just a piece of property? You think it might be written that way to emphasize it without strictly telling you? Paint a picture in your head as I've heard these beings called writers do from time to time? Seems a bit of a stretch to say it's because a dude's writing her and can only think about boobs. And I have to say that your version of writing it sucks ass. All fact, no flavor.

Not to mention you're citing an interview from like 5 years ago and then quoting a book of his from like 20 years ago as proof.

Never heard of it. Never heard anyone mention it. Can't find any information by google searching it except that it seems to be a K-drama with really low production values and that there's a similarly named anime. I consider my point vindicated.

"I don't know about it off the top of my head, therefore it doesn't count."

What a cunning conversationalist you are.

I think what's really interesting about this is:

a) You have to go to a completely different cultural context to find anything.
b) You assumed I was talking about the vague premise being gender flipped, rather than the actual relationship between the characters (which is literally the most important thing in the narrative because it's a romance story).

And here we come to the goalposts moving. You originally talked about female characters, then female character written by men, now western women written by men. Continue if you must, but you've lost my interest and have still yet to do anything other than bash the examples put forth by others.

Well, teenage boys don't really read as much, so book series targetting teenage boys don't tend to get a lot of attention, but..

The entire Michael Bay transformers franchise (grossed over $1 billion)
The Fast and the Furious franchise (grossed nearly $4 billion)
Virtually every action or horror movie ever made.

Practically anything aimed at teenage boys and young men will have shit character development, crude or exploitative depictions of women and relationships and a heavy reliance on tropes. This is accepted as normal and in general noone goes for this kind of media, even people who don't like it or think it's silly, in the way people went for Twilight.

But before I'm done, I feel I really need to address this amount of gross misinformation you're trying to peddle:

Transformers? Seriously? The series that people go to watch solely because they want to see robots beating the shit out of each other and has only one entry that is believed to have some manner of coherency? It's constantly bashed ya silly goose.

Fast and Furious, the series that basically has a 50/50 split between men and women audience? With most watchers now in their late 20's? That's aimed at teenage boys in your view? I've only ever seen the first one and just never got around to the rest, but my wife and her best friend will literally travel to each other for the opening month, they've been doing it since we were in middle school and the second or third one came out. Anecdotal, I know, but seriously, just go do a search for their audience breakdown if you're gonna pull this shit.

And action and horror in general? You mean the vast majority of movies that everyone ends up going to? And HORROR!? Again the only movie genre that has a pretty even split of audience demographics? And not only that, but also has one of the more even splits of men and women working both in front of and behind the camera?

I swear it's like you're starting from your conclusions and demand everyone else come to them through your half-baked search-fu.

 

[Natemans]

If we're bringing up Gary Stus, I'm surprised nobody has brought up Kirito from Sword Art Online yet.

 

[Terminal Blue]

"The low quality Dothraki woolen pants, chafed his crotch"

"When he went to the stables, he wore a painted Dothraki vest and woven grass sandals. His chest muscles craftily accentuated by the dark paint..."

These examples are not equivalent.

You're changing the meaning. You're changing the emphasis. You're changing the whole structure of the sentence, and I can only assume that you are doing so because you know it sounds weird if you don't.

Isn't that the part in the book where she's still basically just a piece of property?

Except to the extent that all married women in this setting are pieces of property, no.

It is literally a passage about how Dany wears Dothraki clothing while living among the Dothraki, among whom she is the cultural equivalent of a queen. I realise the TV show had that whole obnoxious "if you want your man to respect you, you must learn how to do the sex gud" section, but in the books Dany's sense of objectification stems from the way she was treated in Pentos and the circumstances surrounding her wedding, not the way she was treated by Drogo himself or by the Dothraki.

And I have to say that your version of writing it sucks ass. All fact, no flavor.

It's literally an almost identical sentence, both in meaning and emphasis. Again, if anything the fact you can see the problems with it illustrates my point that the way it is written is jarring, or would be jarring if writing about female characters in this way were not ubiquitous.

"I don't know about it off the top of my head, therefore it doesn't count."

Okay, so here's the thing. I'm not culturally illiterate, if something is a big deal, like Twilight or 50 Shades, I've probably heard of it even if I haven't actually read it, and if I haven't I should be able to google it. The fact that I can't do that doesn't exactly suggest that something is being hugely widely consumed.

I mean, there's a lot of femdom erotica out there which in some ways mirrors 50 shades (although not really, since almost all of it is written for women). None of it has the pop culture success of 50 shades. Heck, the most famous and well regarded book about a femdom relationship is nearly 150 years old, and even then I doubt many people outside of the kink subculture know about it. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Secondly, I don't know how you expect me to comment on something which I can find virtually no information on. That seems rather disingenous.

And here we come to the goalposts moving. You originally talked about female characters, then female character written by men, now western women written by men. Continue if you must, but you've lost my interest and have still yet to do anything other than bash the examples put forth by others.

I feel like this shows nothing, except that you have straw-manned my argument repeatedly to try and pretend I'm saying more than I actually have, and I'm starting to wonder if you're engaging in this argument in good faith.

Transformers? Seriously? The series that people go to watch solely because they want to see robots beating the shit out of each other and has only one entry that is believed to have some manner of coherency? It's constantly bashed ya silly goose.

Everything is constantly bashed, even well regarded literary and cinematic classics are routinely bashed by someone. That was never the point. Bashing twilight was a huge pop culture phenomenon engaged in by practically everyone who wasn't a fan. Entire, hugely popular memes are dedicated to it. Heck, I've bashed Twilight for years. In all that time, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've ever thought about the Transformers films.

Fast and Furious, the series that basically has a 50/50 split between men and women audience? With most watchers now in their late 20's? That's aimed at teenage boys in your view?

You know what a target audience is, right?

That said, you're kind of right. That was a pretty cheap shot because I haven't actually seen a lot of the recent movies but they do seem a lot less.. adolescent than the first few, which are really what I was referring to. I think you're correct in that it's been a long time and both the audience and the marketing of the series has changed from its original incarnation.

And not only that, but also has one of the more even splits of men and women working both in front of and behind the camera?

You're right, that was lazy of me and I should have specified.

Spoiler: That said, do you genuinely think that horror as a genre does not and has never employed highly gendered genre tropes which some might argue do not exactly reflect or promote a particularly healthy view of women..

And for the record, I like this film. But come on, we can see what's going on here, and it's not a better love story than Twilight.

I swear it's like you're starting from your conclusions and demand everyone else come to them through your half-baked search-fu.

God, wouldn't that be terrible.

So, why do you think 50 Shades and Twilight are being pushed as examples of "strong female characters?" For that matter, why did you even bring them up at all?

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

That said, you're kind of right. That was a pretty cheap shot because I haven't actually seen a lot of the recent movies but they do seem a lot less.. adolescent than the first few, which are really what I was referring to. I think you're correct in that it's been a long time and both the audience and the marketing of the series has changed from its original incarnation.

They do? If anything, Fast & Furious has stuck to the same exact group through the years, which means that it began marketed to teenage guys and through the years it has followed that demographic as it aged, which means it now aims at late-20's guys. But the movies, let me assure you, is the exact same kind of fantasy, just adjusted for the age of its demographic and its' actors. It started out with Diesel's character being all about making a living on the mean streets and watching his crew and that's the constant through all movies. They do cool stuff, drive fast cars, stick together and stick it to evil organised crime, all the while visiting exotic locations and showing off as much skin as its' PG13 rating will allow (both male and female should be noted, a lot of women watch for the sight of Vin Diesel shirtless or in tight tank tops alone).

As someone who watches Fast & Furious as a guilty pleasure, I can assure you that they are the same kind of movies now as they were back when the first one dropped. It deserves credit for sticking with the same fans and delivering what they want consistently, instead of trying to appeal to newer audiences, though.

 

[CaitSeith]

"When he went to the stables, he wore a painted Dothraki vest and woven grass sandals. His chest muscles craftily accentuated by the dark paint..."

"The low quality Dothraki woolen pants, chafed his crotch"

These examples are not equivalent.

You're changing the meaning. You're changing the emphasis. You're changing the whole structure of the sentence, and I can only assume that you are doing so because you know it sounds weird if you don't.

First: Hey! Get the quotes right! Otherwise, wizzy and I may end up in a legal battle for authorship rights in the future...

Second: I'm changing it to match the equivalent author's intentions for a different audience (based on fiction like Twilight). I think is similarly weird that Jacob takes off his shirt way too frequently (that was the point I tried to make).

Spoiler