I’m probably going to regret getting involved, but oh well.
To answer, there is a reasonable argument to be made that Rey is a Mary Sue, the problem is context. I wish Rey was better written – but Star Wars as a franchise (especially the movies) has often struggled with well-written main characters and there are also reasonable arguments to be made that characters like Anakin are also Mary Sue. This inevitably colours the argument surrounding Rey because the question will be asked – if this is a problem for you here, why isn’t it a problem here in this previous work?
The term Mary Sue isn’t new, it’s been around since before Star Wars was a thing. So questions are naturally going to arise on why there is a major push to identify this particular character as a sue when character who came before could also fit the bill. The answer is a combination of factors, including the tendency of the SW fan base to hate on the new era – something that’s been happening since, well, every movie after ANH.
I think one day we’ll be able to sit down and answer the question honestly, context and all, but we’re going to need a decade or so to pass and people have cooled off before we get an honest, productive discussion.
Tathra Khaeus said:
The only bold blatant truth to be had is that more people are excited for 30 minute spaghetti western style episodes of The Mandalorian than the new Movie coming out in about 20 days.
That says enough.
Anybody who claims rey's gender has anything to do with her popularity is just revealing themselves as a sexist. Its ridiculous, unfounded and illogical.
To be clear, you’ve no business claiming thing to be “ridiculous, unfounded and illogical” when your argument boils down to “you’re sexist for complaining about sexism”.
It wouldn’t take you long, if you were to engage with this honestly, to find the problematic content people reference to when the talk about this. Hell, I went onto YouTube and typed in Star Wars feminism just to see what came up, maybe start there. Or just look for complaints about being woke or sjw or what have you.
Now does this meant all critique of Rey is sexist? No, it is indeed reasonable to dislike the character without regard for gender. What is inescapable, however, is that there is a dedicated and loud minority who are in fact sexist and are contributing to the push back on Rey that has made the complaints about her more severe than other main characters in Star Wars. You shouldn’t be mad at the people pointing that out, you should be mad at the people who are the actual problem and are poisoning the argument.
The Star Wars fandom has had this problem for a long time. People who act vile, who take things too far, people who are loud gatekeepers desperate to keep something for themselves and ruin it for everyone else.
You don’t solve that by deflecting and pretending it isn’t a problem.
Jor Kvall said:
Arguments in defense of Rey are now boiling down to "but the prequels and some EU books had bad writing too!"
Wow, great argument guys, you really convinced me.
This implies you are acting in good faith and are open to being convinced. Reading your comments, I think you found your hill to die on regardless of what is put forward.
As mentioned above, context matters. None of us walked into the sequel trilogy with a sterile view of Star Wars. Comparisons to other things in the franchise are going to happen, you can’t just brush them off.
