Ooooookay. Why is the term "Mary Sue" being thrown around like paint?

[Karadalis]

For all those people who claim that Rey knows how to fly the falcon cause shes a scavenger n shit:

Yeah and the engineers at nasa are all astronauts and plane mechanics also are all ace pilots... and those people actually know how to build those vehicles.. they dont simply scavange parts from a scrapyard or half destroyed space ship... they had to study their stuff for years and not a single one of them can actually fly a plane or shuttle as a result of their studies.

You dont simply sit down in a jet and be able to fly it like a US fighter pilot just because you know how to build the frigging thing! Did she even ever flew anything before the milenium falcon? Chances are not because she never left that bloody dustball of a backwater planed cause she waited for her parents.

Then why is she able to pull stunts and outmaneuver trained elite pilots of the first order just like that?

Also how the heck was she able to use telikinesis and mind control? No one has ever tought her that.... is that something all strong force sensitives can use without training? Is she somehow stronger in the force then anakin and luke? Luke sure as hell couldnt do half the things she did at her age.

This debatte is not about a "strong independend womin, who dun need no man!"

This is a debatte about a boring, bland "can do no wrong" character. Said character would be bad no matter if said character had dangly bits between their legs or not.

And if you call her a "competent" person then i wonder if the rest of the galaxy including luke skywalker is just a bunch of bumbling incompetent idiots cause they sure as hell werent so "competent" in their respective movies and had to actually work and progress.

But i guess atleast this time they spared us the cringeworthy unrealistic romantic subplot that leads the protagonists to behave like whiny emo brats and incredibly stilted cringy conversations about who loves whom more... wich makes her rank far above anakin skywalker and padme for me by far.

Cause lets face it.. those two still take the cake for "worst characters in a star wars movie"

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Then why is she able to pull stunts and outmaneuver trained elite pilots of the first order just like that?

Because she's Force Sensitive, and it's established in canon that force sensitives are slightly precognitive, tending to result in them making exceptional pilots/combatants. It's also established, both on-screen, in the script and in the novel that she HAS blown before, both on-planet and in simulation. Much the same as Luke had. Did you have similar issues with Luke being the best pilot in the Death Star trench run? Credited as "The Force is strong with this one?". Yes? No?

No one has ever tought her that.... is that something all strong force sensitives can use without training?

1. Yes, using the force is something all force sensitives can do without training. This is also canonically established, in both ANH and ESB. Luke repeatedly demonstrates abilities he was never trained in, just via connection to the force. The overwhelming majority of his training is A) learning to control his negative emotions and B) for some reason, cardio. Perhaps Yoda thought he looked fat. Or, more likely, Kershner recognized a portion of the audience wouldn't understand the spiritual/emotional balance side of Jedi "training" and threw in a Rocky style montage so they'd have something to hold on to.

2. No one trained her, huh? What an authoritative statement about someone we know little to nothing about, with a deliberately obfuscated past and mysterious parentage. Have you read script treatments for VIII and IX? Can you tell us what happens?

This debatte is not about a "strong independend womin, who dun need no man!"

This is a debatte about a boring, bland "can do no wrong" character. Said character would be bad no matter if said character had dangly bits between their legs or not.

Good to know that getting knocked out (twice), captured, interrogated, watching both your only friend and new father figure get cut down while you stand by helplessly, and needing to be air-lifted at the last second off an exploding planet all constitute "doing no wrong". While having an alien ask for your bar seat, getting hit by a sand person, seeing your new mentor die, and falling down in trash water constitutes "actual work and progress". Notably, it was POE blowing up the Death Star this time. I can only imagine what the reaction would have been if Rey had done it. Most overpowered character of all time, I don't wonder.

So, really, this "debate" seems to primarily be a result of people not paying very close attention during the film and making wildly unsupportable statements after the fact. Notably, this has next to nothing to do with whether or not people "must like Rey". Maybe they hate her outfit, or Ridley's acting, or have grown bored with Star Wars and its fascination with force sensitive "chosen ones". All perfectly legitimate gripes. Why we have to invent fantasies like "she can do no wrong" or fortune-tell with statements like "no one trained her" is beyond me.

As to the question of her being a girl...thanks to the efforts of Return of Kings, we're all perfectly aware that at least a portion of the prospective audience has their jimmies seriously rustled that there's a WOMAN on screen, DOING things. They didn't seem too happy about the black fella either.

 

[happyninja42]

F
Yeah and the engineers at nasa are all astronauts and plane mechanics also are all ace pilots... and those people actually know how to build those vehicles.. they dont simply scavange parts from a scrapyard or half destroyed space ship... they had to study their stuff for years and not a single one of them can actually fly a plane or shuttle as a result of their studies.

Yeah but this is science fantasy, which means everybody's a polymath, technology's modular & user-friendly, and sciences are less specialized and no such thing as purely theoretical knowledge; if you know about something, you can apply it <_<.

Apparently, knowing how to shoot wamprats and drive a sand-cruiser means you know how to pilot an x-wing and make crack shots. Those are the rules in this universe, I guess.

Not to mention the fact that this technology is ubiquitous in this culture. Fiddling with your hyperdrive, and plotting hyperspace coordinates, are at the common level of understanding, similar to using a smartphone to plug in GPS coordinates, or tinkering with your car. And while not everyone can tinker with their car and keep it running, a ton of people can. The equipment is commonplace, so of course it would be easy to use. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to use it, because it was designed to be used by anyone.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

It doesn't matter that my favourite character is bland, unbelievably hypercompetent, & inexplicably loved by every other in-universe character despite having no charisma whatsoever - she's a Strong Female Character and therefore anyone who criticises her must be a misogynist!

To be fair, Rey wasn't half as bad as most fan-fic Sues. For a pulpy sci-fi action film, you could do a lot worse. That doesn't mean the people calling her a Sue are necessarily wrong, I think you could quite easily argue that she fits most of the criteria.

I thought that myself, that Mary Sue gets applied because she didn't have enough personality to hide it. I think this entire thing is a problem people have with handling criticism aimed at females.

If they just came out and said she was a wish fulfillment character (which she was, many of these characters are from Harry Potter to Hunger Games) then they would have owned the criticism.

Except Harry Potter had flaws. Real ones. Flaws that led him to make some MASSIVE freaking mistakes, and in the case of the penultimate book, ensure that people not take what he's saying as seriously as they should.

With Rey though, even when she makes mistakes (The squid things Han was hauling out) it ended up working out.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Except Harry Potter had flaws. Real ones. Flaws that led him to make some MASSIVE freaking mistakes, and in the case of the penultimate book, not take what he's saying as seriously as they should.

With Rey though, even when she makes mistakes (The squid things Han was hauling out) it ended up working out.

There are precious few (if any) examples of escapist fantasy where things don't eventually "work out" for the protagonists. This isn't Game of Thrones. This is Star Wars.

If it helps, I don't think Harry Potter is a "Mary Sue" either, but as previously stated in this thread, I can't definitively say he isn't, because the term is uselessly ambiguous.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Except Harry Potter had flaws. Real ones. Flaws that led him to make some MASSIVE freaking mistakes, and in the case of the penultimate book, not take what he's saying as seriously as they should.

With Rey though, even when she makes mistakes (The squid things Han was hauling out) it ended up working out.

There are precious few (if any) examples of escapist fantasy where things don't eventually "work out" for the protagonists. This isn't Game of Thrones. This is Star Wars.

If it helps, I don't think Harry Potter is a "Mary Sue" either, but as previously stated in this thread, I can't definitively say he isn't, because the term is uselessly ambiguous.

Yeah things work out for the heroes eventually, but again when Harry screwed up it cost him big. The singular time when Rey screwed up it ended up saving the day.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Yeah things work out for the heroes eventually, but again when Harry screwed up it cost him big. The singular time when Rey screwed up it ended up saving the day.

1. The quality of fiction is not determined by a contest between two protagonists and how many times each "screwed up".
2. Harry Potter is a complete work of fiction spanning seven door-stopper novels. The Force Awakens is a single film. Shall I compare the travails of Harry Potter after book one to, say, Jon Snow after book five? Would that be a fair comparison?
3. Rey is knocked unconscious twice, the first time after running off into the woods in a fit of childish fear and emotion, leading to her capture and interrogation and a mission to rescue her that inadvertently results in the maiming of her only friend and death of her newly found father figure. Do please tell me about how "the only time Rey screws up" is her pulling the wrong fuse.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

Yeah things work out for the heroes eventually, but again when Harry screwed up it cost him big. The singular time when Rey screwed up it ended up saving the day.

1. The quality of fiction is not determined by a contest between two protagonists and how many times each "screwed up".
2. Harry Potter is a complete work of fiction spanning seven door-stopper novels. The Force Awakens is a single film. Shall I compare the travails of Harry Potter after book one to, say, Jon Snow after book five? Would that be a fair comparison?
3. Rey is knocked unconscious twice, the first time after running off into the woods in a fit of childish fear and emotion, leading to her capture and interrogation and a mission to rescue her that inadvertently results in the maiming of her only friend and death of her newly found father figure. Do please tell me about how "the only time Rey screws up" is her pulling the wrong fuse.

Alright. How about Leia? She screws up in episode 4 with her escape with Luke Han and Chewie and gets the lot of them trapped, Luke nearly eaten, and all of them nearly squished in a trash compactor and required R2 to save them all. (And considering The Empire WANTED them to escape it was also a completely pointless move though she couldn't have been expected to know that.)

Also, your 3rd example doesn't work nearly as well as you think in helping your point. The Resistance weren't able to get at the core of the Starkiller until Rey, Finn, and Han blew it open. it may have gotten Han killed, and Finn maimed, but her screw up STILL ended up saving the day in the end. Whereas with Harry, all his screwup did was get Sirius killed, and make Voldemort move his plans up a bit (And that's not getting into the fact his constant suspicions of Draco ended up putting him in a "Boy Who Cried Wolf" scenario).

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Alright. How about Leia? She screws up in episode 4 with her escape with Luke Han and Chewie and gets the lot of them trapped, Luke nearly eaten, and all of them nearly squished in a trash compactor and required R2 to save them all. (And considering The Empire WANTED them to escape it was also a completely pointless move though she couldn't have been expected to know that.)

What about it? Did you see me calling Leia a "Mary Sue" or suggesting she was a lousy character who never faced any adversity?

Also, your 3rd example doesn't work nearly as well as you think in helping your point. The Resistance weren't able to get at the core of the Starkiller until Rey, Finn, and Han blew it open. it may have gotten Han killed, and Finn maimed, but her screw up STILL ended up saving the day in the end. Whereas with Harry, all his screwup did was get Sirius killed, and make Voldemort move his plans up a bit (And that's not getting into the fact his constant suspicions of Draco ended up putting him in a "Boy Who Cried Wolf" scenario).

You mean his screw up in book 5? Did we not discuss this already? Your contrasting of a completed seven book run against the first film of a trilogy?

Also, I don't expect any arguments I make to "work" against someone who is married to a narrative in which a character "never fails" despite ample on screen evidence that she does, repeatedly, fail and encounter adversity. You can hand wave it all you like under the auspice of "it all worked out in the end", but as already stated, that can be applied to any protagonist's story. Letting the Falcon go ended up with the Death Star destroyed and the pilot shooting up Vader's ship. I imagine if the same sequence of events occurred in TFA, we'd be hearing about how Leia never faced any adversity and even her missteps turned into happy surprises.

 

[Secondhand Revenant]

Yeah things work out for the heroes eventually, but again when Harry screwed up it cost him big. The singular time when Rey screwed up it ended up saving the day.

1. The quality of fiction is not determined by a contest between two protagonists and how many times each "screwed up".
2. Harry Potter is a complete work of fiction spanning seven door-stopper novels. The Force Awakens is a single film. Shall I compare the travails of Harry Potter after book one to, say, Jon Snow after book five? Would that be a fair comparison?
3. Rey is knocked unconscious twice, the first time after running off into the woods in a fit of childish fear and emotion, leading to her capture and interrogation and a mission to rescue her that inadvertently results in the maiming of her only friend and death of her newly found father figure. Do please tell me about how "the only time Rey screws up" is her pulling the wrong fuse.

Alright. How about Leia? She screws up in episode 4 with her escape with Luke Han and Chewie and gets the lot of them trapped, Luke nearly eaten, and all of them nearly squished in a trash compactor and required R2 to save them all. (And considering The Empire WANTED them to escape it was also a completely pointless move though she couldn't have been expected to know that.)

Also, your 3rd example doesn't work nearly as well as you think in helping your point. The Resistance weren't able to get at the core of the Starkiller until Rey, Finn, and Han blew it open. it may have gotten Han killed, and Finn maimed, but her screw up STILL ended up saving the day in the end. Whereas with Harry, all his screwup did was get Sirius killed, and make Voldemort move his plans up a bit (And that's not getting into the fact his constant suspicions of Draco ended up putting him in a "Boy Who Cried Wolf" scenario).

Soooooo exposing the return of Voldemort, finding out about the link they share, and being vindicated when he was constantly under media attack since the last year doesn't count as anything beneficial. Okay...

Her screw up didn't even save the day, if she hadn't been captured they could have still gone after Starkiller base.

 

[Frankster]

Did you have similar issues with Luke being the best pilot in the Death Star trench run? Credited as "The Force is strong with this one?". Yes? No?

Luke the best pilot over Wedge, Biggs and Garven Dreis? I beg to differ.
The trench run is one of my favorite sequences of all Star Wars and even rewatching it now, I'm just not seeing it xD
Luke seems to be a very decent shot thanks to his force abilities, able to intuitively feel out weak spots, but otherwise gets out flown by a random TIE mook and has to be saved by Wedge, almost crashes (much to Bigg's distress) and later on is only able to make his shot thanks to his two buddies shielding him then being saved by Han.

Luke shows great offensive ability and the willingness to take risks thanks to his Beggar's Canyon experiences but otherwise doesn't seem to be a better pilot then any of the other rogues.
And no, that single line doesn't prove jack in that regard, just Vader sensing that, well the force is strong in the target he is trying to get a lock on, perhaps at very best throwing of his aim a bit if I'm being super generous.
Heck I actually argued your point in threads ages ago only for people to successfully prove to me the force isn't a "always on" power, it has ups and downs depending on mental state and training of the user and so for most of the battle Luke's force rating would have been low to average, only spiking up when hearing Ben's voice and you hear the Force jingle so you know something mystical is going on.

I'm not going to debate you on anything else because I'm not seeking to antagonize you since we had pleasant conversations in the past. You like Rey, good for you. I don't and I'd appreciate if I wasn't tarred with all those generalizations and BS that actually don't apply to me at all, and I don't think I'm a unique special snowflake in that regard.

Edit: Rewatching sequence made me realize how OP Poe is. In one scene he casually takes out 5 ties with a single friggin pass, that's just insane.
But then in another thread I do say he has the potential to be a Gary Stu xD It all depends if he is this OP outside the cockpit, didn't get enough scenes to be sure.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Luke the best pilot over Wedge, Biggs and Garven Dreis? I beg to differ.

Well, he accomplished something the rest of them couldn't. That seems like a pretty hearty recommendation. Surely we can debate the merits of whether he was the best or simply one of the best, but he certainly demonstrated more than Rey did. A character who has been accused of being "Better than everyone at everything" and "A better pilot than Han Solo" because she flew the Falcon successfully against two Tie Fighters. Described here as "mooks".

And no, that single line doesn't prove jack in that regard, just Vader sensing that, well the force is strong in the target he is trying to get a lock on, perhaps at very best throwing of his aim a bit if I'm being super generous.

Given he says it immediately as he's unsuccessfully trying to lock on, the obvious implication is that Luke's strength in the Force is making him harder to shoot down. I think it's a rather blatant reach to suggest otherwise. Lucas doubled down on this in (urg) Phantom Menace when Qui-Gon bloviates about all Jedi being slightly precognitive and this is what makes Anakin such a gifted pod racer. We can certainly debate the merits of the prequels, Lucas's writing, and the impact of statements like this on what we think of the Jedi, but the prequels are still considered canonical.

Heck I actually argued your point in threads ages ago only for people to successfully prove to me the force isn't a "always on" power, it has ups and downs depending on mental state and training of the user.

The only real argument that ever applies to the force is that it works at the whim of the author. It does whatever is required. We'd never seen force telekinesis before ESB. We never saw force jump before Luke used it to spring out of the carbon freezing trap. We never saw force lightning before the Emperor busted it out. There's no rulebook for what the force can and cannot do because the force is imaginary and is entirely subject to authorial fiat. We can establish whether or not there is prior precedent for things, but a lack of prior precedent doesn't mean something isn't possible. Kylo Ren could shoot force rainbows from his fingertips in Episode VIII, and it would be canonical, because the films are canon. And as per canon, force sensitives are "precognitive" whether they're in a shitty mood or not. Mood has been demonstrated to be problematic when it comes to force use, but again...the application of that rule is all over the place.

I'm not going to debate you on anything else because I'm not seeking to antagonize you since we had pleasant conversations in the past. You like Rey, good for you. I don't and I'd appreciate if I wasn't tarred with all those generalizations and BS that actually don't apply to me at all, and I don't think I'm a unique special snowflake in that regard.

I'm not antagonized. I also don't care if people like or dislike Rey. As I said previously in this thread, I don't have an issue with people's preferences in fictional characters, I just get allergic to people inventing nonsense and/or talking a bunch of shit. As for you getting "tarred with generalizations and BS", I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. The post you quoted wasn't a response to you, and to the best of my knowledge I haven't been "tarring" anyone specifically with anything, aside from Return of Kings, who quite happily tarred themselves.

 

[Frankster]

snippy

I trust you're familiar with my weakness at multi quoting more then 2-3 things. So will do it the old fashioned way.

-That's not what you said. You said "best pilot", in a pretty categorical sense.
Luke isn't the best pilot and having force assisted aim to pull the final important shot doesn't retroactively means he is a better pilot then all the other rogues.
Best pilot in original trilogy is Wedge Antilles, this has been more or less accepted fact as far as I know right until this thread came up.

-I agree with what you're saying, though not its conclusion. Again, having the force throw of Vader's aim doesn't make him the best pilot xD Biggs successfully held of Vader for longer without the force.
Garven Dreis and his 2 shields also did the same and at much slower speeds and being easier targets because of it.

- I mostly agree with what you say so no problems there, only to disagree with your conclusion.
The precognitive ability is directly tied to mental state and is why duels between force users tend to be ballet like until 1 fatal mistake is made, even in TFA this still seems to be true. Why else was chewie able to get a shot off on Kylo Ren? Maybe I'm wrong on this but made sense to me that after killing his sire Ren was vulnerable due to his emotions. Afterwards he had to keep pumping himself up and make himself angry to keep on fighting. The dark side is tied to negative feelings afterall whereas the light is usually tied to being at peace and what not.
That the force is subject to author's whims doesn't mean we haven't developed a sense of logic and what to expect in some aspects of the force.

-Good, I'm always wary of disagreeing because of this, that I might end up antagonizing the other.

-No the response wasn't quoted at me, but pretty much a lot of your posts I've read thus far seem to include generalizations about people who don't like Rey. As someone who doesn't like Rey, forgive me for feeling like I'm included in those you're taking shots at. Ok brb, I'm gonna quote something after all to show what I mean.

So, really, this "debate" seems to primarily be a result of people not paying very close attention during the film and making wildly unsupportable statements after the fact. Notably, this has next to nothing to do with whether or not people "must like Rey". Maybe they hate her outfit, or Ridley's acting, or have grown bored with Star Wars and its fascination with force sensitive "chosen ones". All perfectly legitimate gripes. Why we have to invent fantasies like "she can do no wrong" or fortune-tell with statements like "no one trained her" is beyond me.

If this is just the result of catching the end of a conversation and drawing the wrong conclusions then I apologize. But I recall other posts of yours having the same tone. If it's my perception that's faulty, then fair enough.

 

[happyninja42]

Luke the best pilot over Wedge, Biggs and Garven Dreis? I beg to differ.

Well, he accomplished something the rest of them couldn't. That seems like a pretty hearty recommendation. Surely we can debate the merits of whether he was the best or simply one of the best, but he certainly demonstrated more than Rey did. A character who has been accused of being "Better than everyone at everything" and "A better pilot than Han Solo" because she flew the Falcon successfully against two Tie Fighters. Described here as "mooks".

Yeah, I think debating if Luke is better than Wedge is a fruitless debate anyway. Just because one person might be the best pilot, compared to others, doesn't mean the rest of them are bad pilots. That's like saying that everyone who only got silver or bronze medals in a competition of the best athletes in the world, are terrible at their sport. Sure there's someone better than them, they are still leagues better than just about everyone else at what they do. I'd be just as scared of going up against the 2nd most lethal fighter in the world, as the 1st most lethal, because they are both still super dangerous people to mess with.

Or another way to see it is similar to Toph versus Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Toph frequently declared herself "The most powerful Earthbender in the world." And frankly, she's not lying. Yeah Aang can probably do more impressive earthbending on a case by case basis, when he's in the Avatar State, but as far as just regular earthbending goes, Toph is more powerful than him. It's a part of her DNA almost, and is reflected in her every action. Aang, it's just another tool in his toolbox that he's very good with, but I doubt he's just as good as she is if he was limited to only using earthbending, and nothing else. But to say that means that Aang isn't powerful, is just silly.

Kylo Ren could shoot force rainbows from his fingertips in Episode VIII, and it would be canonical, because the films are canon.

...so if he used two hands...we could have Double Force Rainbows?!?! :O WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!?!? And now I'm getting a Care Bear Share, mixed with Double Rainbow Guy image in my head, with Kylo Ren in the middle. Yeah, I almost want to make that meme just to see it.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

"Sexist" has lost it's actual meaning to me because, well, flirting is sexist?

Nobody (well, likely not exactly nobody, but such an infinitesimally small portion that its irrelevant) claims that flirting is sexist. What is considered sexist is continuing to try to flirt with somebody after they are either obviously visibly uncomfortable or tell you that they aren't interested. This is considered sexist because it displays a sense of entitlement to be able to get that other person, and implies that their choice isn't as important as your desire (using the general "you" here, not saying anything about you specifically). Cold propositions for sex with strangers (asking "you wanna fuck?" to a woman passing by on the street) are also largely considered sexist because they treat women as just tools for sex. People take these two positions and straw man them into "flirting is sexist!" and this happens often enough that even otherwise reasonable people actually come to believe that feminism is all about nobody flirting. Seeing as feminists don't want the human race to stop existing, we're actually quite fine (except a few radicals who, again, are so small as to be irrelevant) with people flirting so long as it is in a respectful way. Sorry I took so much time on this point since it isn't the main point of the threat, but this is a straw man I see over and over that is harmful enough to be worth rebutting.

I don't know. Now we have "Mary Sue". I tried looking up the meaning towards this term and I haven't really found a straightforward answer. You can tell me what it means, please do, but I just want to mostly know if it's being used correctly in debates or it's just another buzzword being overused and misused? Yes, Star Wars has sparked this. Let's hope there is no oil near by.

Buzzwords. Because, SJW, feminist, sexist, racist, phobic, liberal, socialist, nazi, communist, cis, something something dark side, dey tok r jerrrrrrrrrrbs, kitten are needed to make some rage happen.

Mary Sue comes from a fan fiction written by a woman whose name I don't remember. The main character was named Mary Sue and parodied idealized self-insertions of the author as the lead character in fan fiction, as well as fiction in general. Over time, the term has gone from meaning "idealized self-insertion by the author" to "woman who is too good at stuff". A lot of people claim that Rey is this second definition, which may be true. If it never explains why she is so immediately powerful with the force then she would fit that definition, but I'm fairly sure they're not going to leave the most obvious mystery of the series so far unexplained.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

That the force is subject to author's whims doesn't mean we haven't developed a sense of logic and what to expect in some aspects of the force.

As I say, it's been inconsistent. At some points, high emotion seems to make force users more powerful (Obi Wan in PM, Luke in ROTJ). Other times it's presented as clouding their minds or messing them up (ESB, TFA). This is what makes the force such a powerful narrative tool (and from a rational point of view, such utter nonsense). It's not a highly rules based form of 'magic'. It's frequently employed for ass pulls or moments of high heroism by protagonists. Personally, this has never really troubled me, the corniness of Star Wars is sort of baked in and part of its inherent charm. When we get into the nitty gritty of trying to debate what the force can or cannot do in a given situation, or whether it's "logical" that one space wizard should outperform another under varied circumstances, I cannot help but feel that we've moved past an acceptable threshold of common sense.

No the response wasn't quoted at me, but pretty much a lot of your posts I've read thus far seem to include generalizations about people who don't like Rey.

No, I've stated in general terms that SOME people who "dislike Rey" make really stupid, sloppy arguments, employ transparent double standards, and/or fabulate like champions. No one who isn't doing any of those things should feel those criticisms apply to them. I've been quite clear that everyone is free to like or dislike fictional characters in entertainment media without needing to justify or explain their dislike. If they choose to do so and engage in woeful argumentation, I'm going to criticize their argumentation. Not their opinion.

I mean seriously, how ridiculous would that be? "I don't like a fictional character!" "HOW DARE YOU."

Let me try and give you an example of what I'm talking about. Let's say I didn't like a character. Let's say I didn't like, oh fuck I don't know...let's say I didn't like Luke. And lets say I didn't like him because he was perfect in every way, never failed at anything, and everything came too easily for him. At the same time, I praised Han Solo, Leia, Rey and other characters in the same films to the moon and back, and digressed into ever more fussy minutiae in an effort to rationalize this belief.

If you debated this, would you be telling me I HAD to like Luke, because disliking Luke was wrong? Or would you be debating/debunking my verifiably questionable arguments?

...so if he used two hands...we could have Double Force Rainbows?!?! :O WHAT DOES IT MEAN?!?!? And now I'm getting a Care Bear Share, mixed with Double Rainbow Guy image in my head, with Kylo Ren in the middle. Yeah, I almost want to make that meme just to see it.

Alas, we're unlikely to get Darth Double Rainbow in Episode VIII. Boyega has assured us that it's supposed to be "super dark". Given Rian Johnson's history, I don't doubt it. This was the man who almost had me stop watching Breaking Bad a couple of episodes from the end because I just couldn't take that shit any more.

 

[Metalix Knightmare]

What about it? Did you see me calling Leia a "Mary Sue" or suggesting she was a lousy character who never faced any adversity?

The Point.
---------------
Your head

The point I was making is that when Leia screwed up, it nearly got them killed, while Rey's ended up saving the day. Not that Leia was a Sue, and the only reason I even brought up that point was because you wrote off Harry's mistakes due to Harry being in a bunch of books by that point.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

The point I was making is that when Leia screwed up, it nearly got them killed, while Rey's ended up saving the day. Not that Leia was a Sue, and the only reason I even brought up that point was because you wrote off Harry's mistakes due to Harry being in a bunch of books by that point.

Leia's "mistake" gets the essential plans to the Rebellion, and lets loose both the ship that provides the covering fire and the pilot who fires the deciding shot. Yet somehow this is "screwing up and almost getting them killed", whereas Rey "ends up saving the day" because a dual mission to save her/sabotage the shields results in sabotaging the shields.

You're right, the point clearly is over my head, because it seems like you're trying to make my argument for me.

 

[happyninja42]

Yeah things work out for the heroes eventually, but again when Harry screwed up it cost him big. The singular time when Rey screwed up it ended up saving the day.

1. The quality of fiction is not determined by a contest between two protagonists and how many times each "screwed up".
2. Harry Potter is a complete work of fiction spanning seven door-stopper novels. The Force Awakens is a single film. Shall I compare the travails of Harry Potter after book one to, say, Jon Snow after book five? Would that be a fair comparison?
3. Rey is knocked unconscious twice, the first time after running off into the woods in a fit of childish fear and emotion, leading to her capture and interrogation and a mission to rescue her that inadvertently results in the maiming of her only friend and death of her newly found father figure. Do please tell me about how "the only time Rey screws up" is her pulling the wrong fuse.

Alright. How about Leia? She screws up in episode 4 with her escape with Luke Han and Chewie and gets the lot of them trapped, Luke nearly eaten, and all of them nearly squished in a trash compactor and required R2 to save them all. (And considering The Empire WANTED them to escape it was also a completely pointless move though she couldn't have been expected to know that.)

Also, your 3rd example doesn't work nearly as well as you think in helping your point. The Resistance weren't able to get at the core of the Starkiller until Rey, Finn, and Han blew it open. it may have gotten Han killed, and Finn maimed, but her screw up STILL ended up saving the day in the end. Whereas with Harry, all his screwup did was get Sirius killed, and make Voldemort move his plans up a bit (And that's not getting into the fact his constant suspicions of Draco ended up putting him in a "Boy Who Cried Wolf" scenario).

Well how far back are we going to take this blame game from Episode 4? I mean if you're going to blame Leia for "almost getting them killed" when she was solving their immediate problem of "we're about to be killed by a horde of stormtroopers, 'cause we're trapped", then you need to also blame Luke and Han for getting them into that situation in the first place. She didn't make that situation, she was trying to solve their current situation in a way that didn't kill them all. And she did accomplish that. The immediate threat of "Shit, there are dozens of troopers pouring into this room, and we're cornered" was successfully and immediately resolved in their favor. The fact that this then led to another threat isn't her problem, that's storytelling. They were under a continuous state of threat every second they were on the Death Star. So I don't really see how singling out Leia's very smart plan to escape is at all relevant. In the end, it ended up working in their favor, just like Rey's. It got them away from immediate death by blaster fire, but put them into threat of death by alien/crushing. Almost...why yes, just like how Rey solved the threat of "Shit, we're about to be killed by pirates" in a way that then made the situation "Shit, we're about to be killed by an alien." They are the same thing. Threat, escalation, resolution, threat escalation, resolution. That's how scenes progress in entertainment.

 

[Frankster]

one day I'll learn how to multiquote

- Hum I accept the possibility it might be a quirk of mine but I really do feel the emotion rule to make sense, it's not just high emotion but also how pure it is that matters, and being "in conflict" and having competing emotions screws over force users, both light and dark.
For Obi Wan and Luke in those examples for instance, it made sense that they tapped into their anger and were overcome with a purity of purpose . They got a power boost from having a pure negative emotion but which came at the price of bringing them closer to the dark side.
For the ESB and TFA examples the characters emotional state was more chaotic and both Luke and Ren were shaken and unfocused/distracted by comparison.

I might very well be wrong and it might be a delusion on my part, but whilst the force can be inconsistent the relation of emotion to power always made logical sense to me and seemed to be supported by most SW material I consumed. If you feel this is nonsense, then fair enough, this might be me being a star wars nerd nerding out and making sense out of nonsense.

- I'm relieved to hear that! I guess maybe my own perceptions might have been colored by what I read on the net.
I came into the film with very little knowledge (I even still thought Finn was the main character) and then checked out what was the general opinion of the net after that, only to find a lot of "drama" around Rey for whatever reason. And even on the escapist in TFA related threads, the most debate/drama seems to be around Rey and nothing else.
Which annoys me because I feel there's plenty of things in TFA to ***** about.

And yeah definitely, I wouldn't be ordering you to like Luke xD You already know my opinion that he isn't the best at everything he tries so I'd certainly contest the opposing opinion if only to act as the Wedge fanboi defence force. Only pilot to have survived all 3 major battles without getting shot down+2 death star runs in the OT! >:O