SPECULATION Way to Cure Rey's Mary Sue accusations?

http://www.newsweek.com/star-wars-last-jedi-female-fans-747611

43% of fans who went to the premiere of TLJ were women. up 10% from TFA.
not only do women watch and love Star Wars, but they are in no way a far minority fanbase.

 

Newsweek's offices were just raided by the FBI:

https://nypost.com/2018/01/18/nypd-officers-raid-newsweek-headquarters/

I wouldn't trust any of their statistics.

Toy sales are a far better measure of the health of the franchise.

 

@Darth Simple Jack
i'd still trust their numbers (and the voices of countless female fans on this site alone) over your random generalizations.

the burden of proof is on you anyway.
i can say i personally know more women who love Star Wars than men, but that's my personal experience.
you show me that women don't watch or love Star Wars and we can have a discussion.

 

Except that toy sales in general are in a serious decline, as children are more interested in virtual media.

 

You'll get your wish on May 25th.

 

"Newsweek Media Group has been assured by the DA’s office that the investigation is not about any content-related issues"

Literally in the article you posted it says the investigation has nothing to do with their content.

 

What is out of context you sexist troll?
You have been railing against women since you poked out from under your bridge.

You are literally belittling a female lead JUST BECAUSE SHE'S FEMALE.
FFS.

Boys played with Princess Leia figures. Toys just don't sell that well anymore. Everything is about digital now.
I have two young cousins. Neither of them play with toys. They want video games and digital content.
Even my now teenage cousins never played with action figures.
(Oh and the lone girl of the bunch likes Star Wars more than the 4 boys...oops)

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 15, 2018, Original Post Date: Feb 15, 2018 ---

There's women still in the movie and god forbid one likely HELPS Han Solo out so that will be an issue I'm sure he will raise later.

--- Double Post Merged, Feb 15, 2018 ---

Yes but being intellectually honest and accurate to an internet troll is akin to sunlight to an actual troll.

 

Well one thing about her character that could be easily changed is to make her do something really stupid or selfish. The problem with her personality is that she seems to good to be true while Luke was a whiny little b*tch when we got to know him. As a result Rey's evolution as a character is nowhere near as satisfying as Luke's. From zero to hero is a lot more satisfying than form hero to even more hero.

Another thing I think should be fixed is that we need to see her fail against Kylo and we need to see her fail badly. She won the 1vs1 on Starkiller base, she was the last one standing on the Supremacy. If she wins against Kylo it would be a 3:0 so there needs to be at least one time, maybe in the beginning of IX where we see her fail badly against a Kylo who has surpassed her in terms of power in between VIII and IX.

Last but not least her incredible power in the force and her ridiculously steep learning curve needs to be explained. I don't have a problem with her background as a nobody but I am not particularly fond of it either (after all 99,9% of all Jedi had nobodies as parents) but there needs to be an explaination why she is so powerful, now that her bloodline and early training is no longer a factor. She could have been born in a nexus of the force on Jakku or she could be the reincarnation of the prime Jedi. Whatever it is, it needs to be explained or there will be contradictions with what we have seen in Canon so far.

 

She literally thrusts into the darkside without hesitation.
She is wildly too trusting, gullible and naive.
She's not whiny or selfish but way too far on the other end of the spectrum.
Rey being selfish would be 100% out of character.

Going to Ren was stupid.
Trying to turn Ren was stupid.
Keeping the Force-skype secret from Luke was stupid.

She does plenty of stupid things.

 

I

The problem with Rey is that her character never experiences setbacks. Sure, we do hear that she taps immediately into the dark side but what are the consequences for her behaviour? There are none, we are told she gave in to the dark but we never see her act based on this idea and it is never even brought up again. Same with her theoretically stupid idea to confront Snoke. She survived without a scratch and even acted as the catalyst for Kylo to kill Snoke. She then proved to be equally powerful as Kylo and even managed to get the Saber of Anakin back. So a stupid idea turned into a plan that actually worked absolutely well. When Luke did the same he lost his hand and learnt more about Vader then he was ready for. His disobedience cost him a lot.

This is exactly what I mean with too good to be true. Many problems and obstacles are thrown at Rey but they bounce off like rubber balls, leaving no room for suspense or character development. Rey get's out of every sticky situation on her own. Luke would have died right there when the Tusken raiders showed up. Then again in the Cantina. On Hoth. On Dagobah. On Bespin. On the Death Star. Dude had a lot of help and so had the other characters. Leia needed to be saved, Han needed to be saved... Leia was also bossy at times, Han a selfish prick only interested in money. They were believeable characters.

Rey however is not affected by a difficult situation in a way that would require some outside help or result in some permanent damage to her health or psychological well being. And she doesn't have any negative personality traits. Sure she is "naive" (or unknowing) but she has spent her entire life on Jakku. If she was more knowledgeable about the universe it would be ridiculous. We never see her having any problems to adapt to a Galaxy she has never explored before unlike Fin who clearly struggles to adapt to the world beyond the First Order.

 

If you only compare Rey to Luke then sure, the argument is dumb. But so far Rey inexplicably has the steepest learning curve in all of canon. She gives in to the force and this is where her power comes from, I get that. But we have seen hundreds of force-users and dozens of approaches to mastering the force. So the question is not why is Rey a faster learner than Luke. The question is why does she learn faster than all the other nobodies. The Ahsoka Tanos, the Plo-Koons, the Savage Opresses... If giving in to the force is all that's required then there should be a bunch of force-users (especially Sith) much, much more powerful than her after a comparable amount of training. But there aren't and this is why I hope that we will get some explanation why she is so gifted and JJ might very well do just that in IX. It will be interesting to see the reactions of fans who think that Rey's power is already sufficiently explained if there is indeed more about Rey's power than we already know. I think there's a reason why Rey saved the old Jedi texts.

 

Notice that everyone you're mentioning are Jedi.

Rey was not wholly trained as a Jedi.

Perhaps the Jedi path is restrictive in its careful tendencies to avoid the dark side?

(or, really, any number of other hypotheticals. We're still discussing a mystical Force, after all).

 

...the Ahsoka Tanos, the Plo-Koons, the Savage Opresses... If giving in to the force is all that's required then there should be a bunch of force-users (especially Sith)... => note how I wrote forceuser and difefrent ways of approaching the force. I was not talking about Jedi exclusively.


/edit: Speaking of non Jedi there have been quite a lot of dark Jedi, grey Jedi, untrained Jedi, Jedi who turned Sith, Sith who turned Jedi, Sith who became bounty hunters, witches of Dathomir, force magic empowered darksiders, etc...
So again. Why is Rey so succesful? Giving in to the power of the force is easy, especially if you are a darksider. Also Yoda was as much in tune with the force as you can be (he became a forceghost). He even became a force Jedi so thinking that the Jedi dogma automatically holds forceusers back to such a drastic degree is unproven at best.

 

Fair enough, I missed that. But remember, Ahsoka was still trained as a Jedi and Savage...

Wait, why are you bringing up Savage? Doesn't he kinda represent really well an apprentice that did learn very quickly? He was picked up in 20 BBY or 21 BBY (depending on your source), and the last we see of him in The Lawless was 19 BBY. That's, at max, two years of development.

I mean, he was not as powerful as the other Sith Lords, but I think it's clear that Rey was never a match for Snoke, either.

I think we're measuring apples and oranges (as is any debate about the Force, which many people tend to forget), but Savage is hardly an example of a force user who wasn't trained exceptionally quickly.

 

I mentioned him because he discoveres the force in rather unconventional ways, like Rey. Additionaly he is infused with massive amounts of Dathomir force magic, trained by an ex-Sith an first and then by Dooku without the intention of making him more than a tool. Opress does not follow any clear doctrine and his training process is shown in relatively great detail. He gives in to his emotions all the time but is nowhere near as powerful as Rey even though he is driven mainly by his instincs like her.

I then mentioned Ahsoka because she broke free from the doctrine but didn't unlock any substantial new powers. Apparently the ways of the Jedi did not hold her back substantially. Her gain in power can be explained by the fact that she is a lot more experienced in Rebels than she is in the clone wars. Her learning curve matches up with what we would expect from a normie like her (previous to TLJ)

Last but not least the biggest issue I take with Rey's power is that the characteristics that apparently make her so powerful are not really rare. She is forcesensitive, her parents are nobodies, she has no expectations in the force and trusts her instincts.

If you look at all these factors you will see that none of them is especially rare. There are many force-sensitive sentient beings in the Galaxy, pretty much every force-user has parents who are nobodies (not being special isn't rare), most of them have no idea about the force which means 0 expectations and instincts are the most basic emotions of a living organism. There are many potential candidates with exactly the same setup of attributes Rey has so the question remains. What makes her so special?

 

Hold on right there. How is Savage clearly less powerful than Rey?

 

He isn't very gifted in the force. Only when he gets electrocuted by Dooku he shows some talent when using the force. Other than that he doesn't display any special talent for the force at all. He is a good fighter but nowhere near as powerful in the force as Rey who can lift a complete landslide of rocks with ease. Speaking of her learning curve I was always wondering how she could beat Kylo on the Supremacy. Kylo has had training for more years than Rey is old (if I remember correctly he is 29, started training at age 8. Rey is 19), Luke did not agree with the dogmatic rules of the Jedi and Soke probably had some completely outlandish training methods. How is Rey as strong as Kylo when they use the force to get Anakins lightsaber? I TFA I thought it had called to her. But how does that work in TLJ. Also what about the other force sensitives I mentioned with the same setup of attributes that Rey has. Why is she so much better than them? Why is the Galaxy not teeming with extrmely powerful nobodies relying on their instincts?

 

I feel like we're gerrymandering facts now.

You honestly think that Savage and Rey go head to head, Rey easily wins the fight?

Obligatory section of my post once again acknowledging the mystical nature of the force and the futility of trying to fit it into a box box of logic aside, I guess I have to ask- do you think it no longer calls to her or has a connection in TLJ? Why?

 

I don't think she would win in a 1vs1 because of his brute strenght and the fact that he has fought against many Jedi and had a lot more training then her. If they had a competition only using the force it would be Rey who comes out as the clear winner. The force powers she displayed after mere days of training surpass the powers of a force infused Opress by far.

I'm not trying to fit the force into a box by saying that you can't bend the rules but there is no denying that there are rules. We can assume these rules by observing how the force is used. For example I've seen many cases of telekinesis and based on these observations I can roughly assume how powerful this ability is. Lifting a pebble is easy. Lifting an X-Wing is impressive. And lifting a landslide of rocks was unprecedented in Canon prior to TLJ. Now the question is. Why have we never seen something like this before in a Canon that is more than 40 years old.

I can understand that the "the force doesn't follow any rules" explanation is appealing but it is as unsatisfying as "god works in mysterious ways". If this rally was true, the force could have magically ripped Snoke apart just like that, no explanation needed. Rey could be able to split a whole mountain or even a planet in half if the story required her to. We have already gotten a taste of the force as a deus ex machina in case of Space Leia. Rules are necessary to establish a sense of suspense. It also makes absolutely no sense to me why they would even make Rey so powerful to begin with. Why does the story even require her to be so powerful?

 

Yep, rules are necessary. I'd agree with you on that. But the force does work "in mysterious ways". That's why there was a prophecy, a chosen one, etc.

At some point, you just have to decide if your suspension of disbelief in space magic is flexible enough to allow you to think that someone might advance prodigiously in it while another would have a more gradual approach. I guess that's where you and I differ, and it appears to be a pretty fundamental difference.