*IF* Rey is a Mary Sue... then Ben Solo’s *definitely* a “Gary Stu.”

[Blind Wedjat]

For reference, what do you think is the criteria and/or any examples that we could refer to?

The biggest one everyone seems to be forgetting about is that Mary Sues are author inserts. That is, Mary Sues are characters inserted into a story (usually an existing franchise or fandom) for the author to live vicariously through them.

I don't think people truly get it: Mary Sues are perfect characters. I mean, literally perfect. Very few of them actually exist outside of fan fiction, and even people that write fan fiction today are smarter than this (unless they're still in their preteens or something).

The very fact that Rey is even Palpatine's daughter does not make her a Mary Sue. If she was, she'd be the daughter of two incredibly powerful Jedi, one half 'human', the other half Twi'lek or something (I'm not a huge SW fan but I'm guessing Twi'leks are renowned for their beauty). She'd have completely unique features which makes her desirable to any and every guy (and they wouldn't stop talking about how beautiful she is) Every girl would like her too, but if there's one girl that doesn't like her, she'd turn out to be evil because Mary Sue knew she was and said so. If Rey was a Mary Sue, she most likely wouldn't have been a poor scrapper hustling for food. She'd be a young Jedi in training. She'd be the true chosen one, and she'd singlehandedly end the conflict by just existing and making everyone love and respect each other, because Mary Sue is such a good person that it rubs off on everyone. If Rey was a Mary Sue, she most likely wouldn't even be the main character of these films. She'd be the main character's love interest.

I say she came closer to it in TROS because she was revealed to be Palpatine's daughter and that movie wasn't well written, but even then she doesn't get there. Palpatine is evil, and Mary Sue's aren't born from evil.

Here are some good examples of how a Mary Sue would be written.

https://www.quora.com/Could-Spider-M...red-a-Mary-Sue
https://www.quora.com/If-persons-cri...-Sue-character

I agree that Rey is written in a way that makes how overt competence somewhat unrelatable. But being a power fantasy or a badly written character doesn't make you a Mary Sue.

[Blind Wedjat]

A bit outdated, but here's another example specifically about Rey (scroll to the second post).

https://www.quora.com/Is-every-compe...-a-sexist-term

[godisawesome]

Having watched the “Siege of Mandalore” episodes from TCW today, I realized there’s another interesting element to this argument:

Ahsoka has long been labeled a Mary Sue by detractors, and bears many of the familiar characteristics, including what I think is probably the biggest giveaway: you can tell that Dave Filoni is focused on her first and foremost, and has her as his favorite character.

Which brings up three things:

- Ahsoka’s later appearances in the timeline, the further they get away from the TCW pilot/Last-Minute-Theatrical-Release movie, demonstrate how a lot of “Mary Sue” characteristics are simply badly handled or immature aspects of a successful lead character; you *want* a main character to sit and command center stage when they appear, to have cool and interesting attention grabbing aspects, and to have moral quandaries revolve around them. The key is to execute them well, not loose sight of the forest for the trees with the story around them, and to massage the character going forward and add more human elements as you go on.

- Rey *clearly* isn’t either Rian Johnson or LFL’s favorite character: there’s parts of the ST post-TFA where her story and focus is clearly taken away and given to someone else, and instead of moral conundrums circling her, she begins circling *other* character’s moral conundrums...

- By which I mostly mean Kylo, though Luke gets in on that action as well in TLJ. Rey’s story is subordinate to both of their stories and their arcs in TLJ, and their “suffering“ is focused on and prioritized over hers. Both also resemble Johnson’s usual preferred type of moody male lead; it’s possible to look at Luke as being the “true” moody male lead Johnson could use as a self-insert and is focusing on most of the time, and Kylo as the “lesser” moody male lead Johnson feels could be viewed similarly... but Johnson’s sympathy for him still clearly rises larger than his estimation of former child-slave-soldier Finn or scavenger-and-Kylo-victim Rey. and we know that Driver as Kylo was both Johnson and Kennedy’s favorite character, and that the latter producer-fan is behind a lot of TROS’s issues, including the return of Palpatine to serve the redemption of “Ben Solo.”

[WebLurker]

I never understood the claims of Legends Luke being flawless. Let's be honest that's what you're refering too. Legends Luke made plenty of mistakes. He was hardly flawless.

Maybe it would be fairer to say that Legends Luke's story arc finished in the movies, with the books treading water and/or not giving him as much of an arc. TLJ gave him more of an arc.

[godisawesome]

Maybe it would be fairer to say that Legends Luke's story arc finished in the movies, with the books treading water and/or not giving him as much of an arc. TLJ gave him more of an arc.

Heh! This reallly should go to the thread about Luke in TLJ!

...But I’d argue that Luke’s main arc being over in the OT films is probably the right move, from a holistic perspective. He completed his Hero’s Journey in ROTJ... and the Sequel Trilogy *isn’t* his Trilogy, in the same way that the OT isn’t Anakin’s trilogy.

The arcs that Legends wound up giving him that had more impact and staying power were the natural next steps away from being the central hero; Like as the Jedi Master for new heroes, and as a father.

Legends Luke suffered whenever they tried to relive the glory days of him being the main hero... while TLJ suffered from doing the same thing and trying to add a tragic epilogue to a story that didn’t fit it, and where it was least appropriate for the new heroes’ stories.

It was time for Luke to step back, and let someone else take the main spotlight. It was time for him to play the Obi-Wan or the Yoda.

TLJ’s mistake is a bit like it mixing up the pseudo-Arthurian aspect of TFA woth the lightsaber: TFA was making Rey the King Arthur character drawing The Sword In The Stone, the pronunciation of the champion hero on the rise who’s worthy of the mantle of main hero, while TLJ was trying to make her Galahad, trying to bring the Holy Grail to a Fisher King/King Arthur hybrid in Luke... or later, some weird mishmash of Mordred, Lancelot, and the Fisher King.

Problem: there’s a reason why Galahad doesn’t have many modern day stories dedicated to him.

A character who’s job it is to just finish the physically impossible quest by being blandly heroic isn’t interesting, and just doesn’t have the meat to be the main protagonist.

Rey in TFA is set-up to be a “Wart”: a young Arthur-like here with a good heart, but enough humanity and self-doubt to go through a complicated adventure about their growth into the hero the story needs. That’s why her denial is a much greater and more human flaw in TFA than her other “flaws” in the other films, and why she shows more struggle with her otherwise insane powers, and why Kylo is couched as the threat to help her story move along with a good conflict.

The Last Jedi ignores that, and makes her a Galahad: here to try and fix the real hero’s problems, with their own personal story being secondary to it. It doesn’t even let her be a Percival, who at least got a strong character arc for his Grail Quest. And it wants to elevate Kylo as being someone more akin to Lancelot, but if he were an obvious douche, but still got Author favoritism.

Galahad is too much of a support role to be a true Mary Sue- he’s an overpowered plot device, but a plot device nonetheless, like Rey is in TLJ. Lancelot often can become a Mary Sue in a less skilled writers hands, when the story ends up accidentally embracing a message that adultery is good and justified... and Kylo is Lancelot by way of Mordred.

[ChrisIII]

The Legends stuff pretty much had Luke act more or less like he did in ROTJ-far more reserved and quiet, if still a tad overconfident. I think in a few ways ROTJ often gets criticized for changing the characters a bit too much-Han and Leia, for instance, don't banter at all, and Han's been toned down quite a bit on his own as well. It's kind of cool that TFA at least brought some of that back while still keeping part of the love story intact.

In a few ways TLJ Luke seems a bit closer to the "whiny" Luke from ANH and ESB.


I'm kind of reminded a bit of how the Rocky films went, III and IV had Rocky and Adrian pretty much acting almost totally different from the earlier films (Although they still get humbled here and there), and V. Balboa and the Creed films kind of sort of undid a big chunk of that to "get back to basics" in a sense.

[Punisher007]

The problem is, Luke outgrew his ANH and ESB persona. That was kind of the point. LF just didn't know how to properly take him, or any of the OT heroes, in new directions so they hit the reset button on everything.

[godisawesome]

The Legends stuff pretty much had Luke act more or less like he did in ROTJ-far more reserved and quiet, if still a tad overconfident. I think in a few ways ROTJ often gets criticized for changing the characters a bit too much-Han and Leia, for instance, don't banter at all, and Han's been toned down quite a bit on his own as well. It's kind of cool that TFA at least brought some of that back while still keeping part of the love story intact.

In a few ways TLJ Luke seems a bit closer to the "whiny" Luke from ANH and ESB.


I'm kind of reminded a bit of how the Rocky films went, III and IV had Rocky and Adrian pretty much acting almost totally different from the earlier films (Although they still get humbled here and there), and V. Balboa and the Creed films kind of sort of undid a big chunk of that to "get back to basics" in a sense.

Eh, Luke wasn’t a self-centered coward in ANH or ESB, which is exactly what he is in TLJ. The whininess may be the similar, but that Luke got radicalized to go save people pretty easily. His flaws were more outward looking than onward (valuing his friends and family so much he was reckless to save them and others, and easily angered on others’ behalf.) Luke sitting on his duff for years while billions die, contemplating his own navel, isn’t getting back to basics. It’s just ignoring the nuances and core values of the character in exchange for exaggerating the depth of Luke’s brokenness to melodramatic levels, which gets resolved by a five minute conversation with Yoda - it’s basically the definition of a pretentious “This dude’s pain matters more than others’!” bit of tripe.

Han’s relapse into smuggling always struck me as pointlessly superfluous; Ford didn’t so much play ANH Han as he did Grump Old Man Han, who didn’t actually need to be a smuggler to act that way. The central premise of his TFA characterization is that it’s the older and wiser Han ironically occupying Obi-Wan’s role and testifying to the existence and will of the Force, coupled with pain over the tragedy of his son’s fall. The smuggling bit only shows up for a few gags on his intro, and from there on out doesn’t really add anything to his character. The fact that earlier version of Han were just looking for the Falcon kind of illustrates how the smuggling bit was probably just for those who held a small grudge against ROTJ.

Legends Han went on a more natural progression in the great Wraith Squadron series, becoming a lateral warfare mastermind, and then the idea guy in Zahn’s books. I don’t actually mind the way that TFA had him break down after Ben’s fall, but that’s because I also thought that TFA’s decisojnand usage of him would have reverberations for the character in the ST films.

Instead it didn’t. And I think that’s because Johnson exposed some lack of understanding or just plain sloppiness for most of the characters in TLJ. His Like portrayal at least showed he was aware of his risks, even if he still wrote him out f character while having him hijack the movie. He clearly didn’t understand Finn or Poe even a little bit. He didn’t seem to clue onto any characterization for Rey and instead treated her like a broad hero archetype.

And again, for some reason he looked at the School Shooter Neo Nazi Patricide and Mind Rapist and thought: “He’s so sympathetic!”

[MASTER-OF-SUPRISE]

Maybe it would be fairer to say that Legends Luke's story arc finished in the movies, with the books treading water and/or not giving him as much of an arc. TLJ gave him more of an arc.

I don't think you'll ever convince me or anyone else who hated Luke's portrayal of TLJ anything positive about it.

[godisawesome]

I don't think you'll ever convince me or anyone else who hated Luke's portrayal of TLJ anything positive about it.

One of the issues in the comparison is that TLJ is an inherently less expansive, more restrictive, and limited story for Luke in some ways: he now can’t have had any successful a Jedi students, had to have a low profile after Endor, has no family left, and can have no real adventures post Ben’s fall.

So there is effectively this forever contrast and question for Luke fans: was it worth limiting so much of his future tales for the story and emotional journey in TLJ?

And for Legends fans... that gets quite a bit tougher to call in favor of TLJ. I mean, I’d argue that Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor has a deeper emotional and philosophical journey than TLJ Luke... and that took place in the universe where he was still a few years away from meeting his future red-headed ex-Imperial agent agent wife and fighting a Mad Dark Jedi, before doing Kylo’s story with his own Clone Palpatine (but better), before forming a Jedi Order which had far more students fall to the dark side but others stay strong in the light, and all that with literally hundreds of other adventures.