The Star Wars universe grapples with the idea that everyone has a "dark side," but its vague definitions of The Force and who wields it make for heroes with equally vague justifications. What Bunch and Landis's arguments both ignore is the fact that The Force is an incredibly convenient story device in and of itself. An argument of "because genetics" doesn't even work here, because while Leia has some knowledge of the Force, her natural talent for it doesn't match Luke's — and they're twins.
The Force is one of the most prominent uses of "because I said so" in modern storytelling. In that case, who's to say Rey can't be just as powerful as Luke? Thus, the most logical conclusion is this: Their stories aren't exactly the same, but Rey's sudden realization of her powers isn't necessarily more impressive than Luke's.
If Rey is a Mary Sue, then so is Luke. In an excellent essay over at The Verge , Tasha Robinson pointed out the hypocrisy of a fandom that isn't quick to call out its male heroes for having the same issues:. Are they all getting the same level of suspicion and dismissal? Back in , were we wringing our hands over whether Han Solo was too suave and funny and cool, or whether Luke's access to the "powerful ally" of an all-connecting, all-seeing, all-powerful Force that "binds the galaxy together" made him way too overpowered?
We wouldn't be worrying about Rey's excessive coolness if she were Ray, standard-issue white male hero with all the skills and all the luck. At IndieWire, Samuel Adams argued that people calling Rey hyper-competent are resting on a "sloppy reading" of The Force Awakens , as they fail to acknowledge how surprised and delighted Rey herself is at said hypercompetence.
There's a bigger story here. At this point, though, it seems as if a couple of things on both sides of the argument are true. As both Robinson and Adams concede in their pieces, Rey is incredibly good at a great many things — and very quickly.
And as even Landis concedes, pop culture is generally starved for decent action and fantasy heroines who don't stand wanly on the side, rooting for their respective heroes, which may drive some of the overly enthusiastic responses to Rey's character. Both, however, hold firm on one point: we would not be analyzing Rey so closely, if she were a male hero.
While my kneejerk reaction to criticism of Rey was that it's absolutely in the wrong, I have to admit that questioning her merits isn't inherently misogynistic. The real problem is that there's an undeniable false equivalence at play. Many who question female heroes don't just question them, but instinctively dissect them in a way that they usually don't for male heroes. We won't know what's truly up with Rey for another couple of years, at the very least. Until then, I have no interest in tearing down her entire character by virtue of her being too good, too fast.
Rey is very good, in a universe that divides its characters into factions that literally define themselves as the "light" and "dark" sides. It makes no sense to question why some of her good qualities may be exaggerated in the context of Star Wars , because let's be honest: Star Wars is many things, but it is not, and has never been, subtle.
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The short answer? Strap yourselves in. It's about to get real nerdy. Where did the term "Mary Sue" come from, and why is it so controversial?
It seems like everyone else is out of character just because she exists! A Mary Sue is an original character oc and has no flaws. Of course the author of this oc will say "they are clumsy" or "they are not very good at maths" or whatever. They also might have an impossible bloodline. Such as a half werewolf or half fairy. Oh my god I really hate 'Mary Sues'.
In the story, she saved the day single-handedly, though perished at the end. Mary Sue has however been misused on occasion and has received some controversy among groups of extreme feminists, and can be associated with misogyny, though cases like that are very rare and highly exaggerated.
See Mary-Sue. A female fanfiction character who is so perfect as to be annoying. The male equivlalent is the Marty-Stu. Often abbreviated to "Sue". A Mary Sue character is usually written by a beginning author. Often, the Mary Sue is a self-insert with a few "improvements" ex.
The Mary Sue character is almost always beautiful, smart, etc In short, she is the "perfect" girl. There are several main types of Mary Sue: Victim! Sues : The Victim! Sue is your whiny, wimpy, pathetic female character who can't seem to do much of anything except cry and get herself into trouble that the romantic interest of the fic has to rescue her from.
Sues: The Warrior! Sue is usually loud, obnoxious and of course an amazing warrior. She'll usually have some tragic past that led her to become a warrior, and she'll upstage all of the Canonical characters with her mad Sueish powerz. Sue: Similar to the Warrior! See Common Mary Sue Traits for the superficial tropes that get involved in a lot of Mary Sue fiction, but are not immediately evocative of it.
For a short explanation of non-fanfiction Mary Sue characters, see Canon Sue. See also Possession Sue when an existing canon character is derailed towards this and Copy Cat Sue when a character is a blatant copy of a canon character. See Mary Sue Classic for the extremely common plot framework that the character often uses.
As mentioned above, there are many interpretations of what does or doesn't constitute a Mary Sue. In this sense, Mary Sue isn't so much a trope as it is a brand name, with the usage being determined by both writer and reader.
It is not limited in usage, getting applied to all characters regardless of gender, role, or species. Sometimes, even whole groups, organizations, and even societies are labeled as being Mary Sue.
This is a list of some of the interpretations. They are here to offer insight into why people might call a character a Mary Sue. People who accuse characters of being Mary Sues rarely admit that this is the definition they're using.
The best way to tell is if their justifications for the character's Sue-hood are all based on shoehorning, Alternate Character Interpretation , misrepresenting the sources, and Accentuate the Negative.
Describe any non-fanfic character as a Canon Sue , and you'll be lucky if no one accuses you of using this definition of the term. Essentially, this amounts to treating the symptoms rather than the disease. Averting this will only result in Anti-Sue. However, both this interpretation and a shift of society as a whole towards cynicism has led to many people trying to mask their otherwise idealized characters with either total non-flaws e.
Dark and Troubled Past , or flaws that simply don't play any role in the plot at all e. Often, this leads to a particular extreme where people start treating flaws themselves as Character Development and create a character that simply has no merits outside of being able to do the most basic biological functions Anti-Sue.
In practice, therefore, most characters fall somewhere on a continuum between constant failure and constant success, and it's up to each person to decide how often a character needs to fail to be realistic, how significant the failures need to be, and so on.
Characters who unambiguously qualify as Sues under this definition are quite rare, usually the result of authors who are so much in love with their precious creations that they can't bear to see them face any setbacks whatsoever see also the "Author Avatar" and "Power Fantasy" definitions, above.
One advantage of this definition is that it can apply to canon characters , but it also explains why Mary Sues are especially annoying in fanfiction: if you're reading fanfic, it's probably because you're interested in the canon characters and want to hear about them — you didn't download the fic just so you could see the canon characters become props used to demonstrate the awesomeness of some OC in whom you have no stake whatever.
It also helps account for the striking amount of overlap between Author Avatars and Mary Sues — many if not most people have a hard time truly accepting that they aren't the center of the universe. And, finally, it also explains why some characters who have no shortage of significant flaws are still often considered Mary Sues.
After all, say what you will about the classic, idealized Mary Sue, but at least you can see why she makes such a strong impression on all the other characters. How much more annoying is it when the character doesn't have any obvious virtues, and yet the universe still seems to revolve around them? This overlaps slightly with the center of attention reading above, as the entire world is redesigned for the benefit of a specific character.
Very, very common in fanfiction that is written as an escape for the author rather than an appeal to a larger audience.
In works with a shifting set of writers, this interpretation often gets used on characters that were introduced by a new writer that change the work in an undesirable way. This interpretation often gets used on characters that were always part of a particular work's dynamic simply because of the implausibility surrounding them.
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