How to make Rey a NON-Mary Sue

[NecronLord]

I agree, it may be that I've consumed a lot of star wars, but I don't really get the people who say that she's too powerful. She has a few solid skills, but within the legends continuity at least her skills are far from unprecedented. I was listening to the Tales of the Jedi audio, and Nomi Sunrider's first force power was Battle Meditation, using it to force two monsters to eat each other; after that, Rey catching on quickly doesn't seem too out of the ordinary.

[APlayerHater]

Oh, I know!

Make her a dude, then she wouldn't be called a 'Mary Sue'

Does anyone have any defense of Rey that doesn't involve attacking the people who complain about her? She's a Mary Sue for many demonstrable reasons. She is written like a self-insert fanfic character, which is the very genesis of the term.

Her qualities in TFA are:
She's the best pilot in the movie. (Aside from maybe Poe, we never see them flying ships at the same time.)
She's the best mechanic in the movie.
She's the best shot with a gun in the movie (and makes Finn, a trained soldier, look like a chump. 1-shot 1-kill with a handgun, from half a football field away, on every stormtrooper that enters her field of vision. Literally the first time she uses a gun (we know this))
She's the best melee fighter in the movie (and makes Finn and Kylo look like chumps.)
She knows the most languages out of everyone in the movie (droid and wookiee language. Only Han Solo / C3PO understood Wookiee and only C3PO ever understood droid languages. If you disagree with this, actually watch the older movies.)
She's the most powerful force user in the movie. (And learns to overpower the apprentice of snoke and luke about 1 hour after learning the force exists)

Luke's qualities in ANH are:
He can clean but not necessarily repair droids.
He can't speak any droid language. They buy C3PO specifically because no one can speak droid languages. He can't speak anything but Basic.
He can fly a ship reasonably well, but isn't demonstrated to be any better than any other pilots. (There is 1 scene where Darth Vader is failing to lock weapons on him, but evidently either Luke or Obi was interfering via the force some way.)
He's a terrible shot. (He its a panel on a door and he shoots some security cameras, but that's about it. Leia kills more stormtroopers than him.)
He makes a 1 in a million shot by trusting the force rather than his targeting computer. But he was already lined up to make that shot, it was just 1 second of good instincts that allowed him to succeed and that's with Obi helping him.

Not to mention that Rey's feats outstrip everyone's in TFA in their on fields of expertise.
Better force user than Obi (Compare his mind tricks to her mind tricks/force powers)
Better pilot of the MF than Han (Compare how she and Finn handle some TIE fighters vs Luke, Han, Leia and Chewie)
Better shot with a gun than Han or Leia

Compare how Rey handles getting roughed up by 2 thugs compared to Luke/Obi. Luke folds like wet cardboard, and Obi has to physically maim one of them with his lightsaber to end the fight. Rey just beats the two of them unconscious with her staff. ((I know one of them pulled a gun in ANH... This just raises the question of why Rey even has a staff if guns exist in the star wars universe. She's not a jedi, she's a regular person. She'd get shot to death.))

It's been repeatedly explained why Rey is a Mary Sue and is ridiculously competent at everything and has no flaws. Whereas Luke needs someone to save his ass every 3 seconds, and is insanely privileged compared to Rey (with a loving family, etc) Rey is somehow more knowledgeable than him despite having had no one to raise her, it makes no sense. She should be illiterate. No one taught her how to fight with a staff or repair machines.

People need to be taught things to be able to do them, that's not just a rule of storytelling but patently obvious. Having her be a self taught mechanic/greasemonkey would be one thing, fine, but she's also a self taught pilot, marksman, staff fighter, linguist, swimmer, force user. It's insane.

[NecronLord]

This just raises the question of why Rey even has a staff if guns exist in the star wars universe. She's not a jedi, she's a regular person. She'd get shot to death.))

That's an asinine complaint. She's a slave, why would Plutt or other bosses let guns be traded at Nima outpost? I expect that any guns recovered from the salvage have to be turned in immediately or the workers are punished/killed. She has a staff because it's what she can get.

It's also useful if you're an explorer of giant shipwrecks, for poking things to see if they're dangerous.

[APlayerHater]

Why does anyone obey Plutt? We've already established that he leaves the MF unlocked and just sitting there with the doors opened. Anybody could just steal it and fly anywhere.

Rey doesn't have a bomb in her head, or any kind of restraints. She or any of the slaves could have left any time they wanted to. As far as I could tell most of the people on that planet were just their own independent scavengers, not slaves. There is no reason those people wouldn't have guns; there's probably thousands of guns strewn all over those ruins.

And those are Plutt's goon's. He wouldn't even give his own men guns? Rey doesn't even seem concerned that she's been attacked by the minions of her own boss.

[tezunegari]

Why does anyone obey Plutt? We've already established that he leaves the MF unlocked and just sitting there with the doors opened. Anybody could just steal it and fly anywhere.

Rey doesn't have a bomb in her head, or any kind of restraints. She or any of the slaves could have left any time they wanted to. As far as I could tell most of the people on that planet were just their own independent scavengers, not slaves. There is no reason those people wouldn't have guns; there's probably thousands of guns strewn all over those ruins.

And those are Plutt's goon's. He wouldn't even give his own men guns? Rey doesn't even seem concerned that she's been attacked by the minions of her own boss.

Well, Rey doesn't need restraints. She didn't want to leave until the First Order attack forced her to.
She is, according to TFA and TLJ, obsessed with waiting for her parents to return.

And with Plutt being the only source of food and water in Niima Outpost... they are either too afraid to try, have tried in the past but were stopped before even reaching the Falcon, or just don't have the training.

[NecronLord]

Maybe his guards were put somewhat off their game in protecting his ship(s) by the fucking airstrike from the First Order that just started blowing up his ships.

[Formless]

Oh, I know!

Make her a dude, then she wouldn't be called a 'Mary Sue'

Does anyone have any defense of Rey that doesn't involve attacking the people who complain about her?

The problem is the term "Mary Sue" itself. It is an inherently gendered term (setting aside its origins), and it has come to carry a lot of sexist baggage in the decades since it was coined. This is not to say that there aren't badly written female characters. This is to point out that a lot of sexist douchecocks have a tendency to disguise their sexism as criticism by using the term. It and its masculine twin "Marty Stue" (which I have used as well to describe Poe-- few would say its sexist when applied to male characters) are also often used by people as a lazy criticism because they don't want to think that hard about why they dislike a character. If you want to avoid accusations of unfairness or sexism, right or wrong, I suggest you learn how to criticize female characters without using the cliche. Or even male characters too. We are responsible for what people read/hear just as much as for what we intend.

[Sidewinder]

where it's established that Rey is Plutt's ward

Some people DEFINITELY get the idea that there is a relationship there that's not wholly exploitative. And that she is somehow special to Plutt. That's not supported in the movie. They think Plutt values her enough to give her a personal bodyguard!

My intention regarding the armed guard is that Plutt views Rey as his private property- valuable, but in the way an astromech droid is valuable- and the guard is also there to make sure Rey doesn't "get ideas above her station." Why doesn't Rey just run? She was raised to serve Plutt; she knows no other life, and the idea of "going on an adventure" makes her panic (but not as much as the idea of dying; when the Stormtroopers start shooting, she'll run, the unknown risks be damned).

[APlayerHater]

Oh, I know!

Make her a dude, then she wouldn't be called a 'Mary Sue'

Does anyone have any defense of Rey that doesn't involve attacking the people who complain about her?

The problem is the term "Mary Sue" itself. It is an inherently gendered term (setting aside its origins), and it has come to carry a lot of sexist baggage in the decades since it was coined. This is not to say that there aren't badly written female characters. This is to point out that a lot of sexist douchecocks have a tendency to disguise their sexism as criticism by using the term. It and its masculine twin "Marty Stue" (which I have used as well to describe Poe-- few would say its sexist when applied to male characters) are also often used by people as a lazy criticism because they don't want to think that hard about why they dislike a character. If you want to avoid accusations of unfairness or sexism, right or wrong, I suggest you learn how to criticize female characters without using the cliche. Or even male characters too. We are responsible for what people read/hear just as much as for what we intend.

It's not an inherently gendered term. It's a reference to a star trek fanfic character. You can have a male Mary Sue. ((Setting aside it's origins? What? The people who made it a gendered term are the ones accusing people who use it of sexism.))

You can disregard all the valid criticism I bring to the table, by pretending I'm sexist. It's not a gendered term, it's a reference to a Star Trek fan fiction character who was herself a parody of self-insert fan fiction characters.

You can pretend this is about her gender. I'm not going to accuse you of being dishonest, but the moment I'm told I'm morally wrong for disliking a character in a movie that's going over the line.

People use "mary sue" as a short hand because we understand what kind of character I'm talking about when I say mary sue. We've all written characters like this when we were in elementary school: the self-insert character who's super competent, loved by everyone around them, has no flaws, and the setting bends over backwards to make that character special. Rey is a self-insert fan fiction character, and her sex has nothing to do with it.

I've used the term Mary Sue for years and no one batted an eye, mostly from reading TV Tropes. As soon as people started complaining Rey was a Mary Sue, suddenly it became gendered and sexist. Convenient.

(("And then Han Solo shows up and he's like "wow you're even better pilot than me" and then luke skywalker shows up and he's like "I've only seen this raw strength once before" and then yoda shows up and he's like "our students have surpassed us. Rey has surpassed me, Yoda, who trained jedi for 900 years, in the span of less than 18 hours. We know this because there's a time limit in this movie."))

I've already told you all the criticisms I have with the character. Unless you want to refute each of those, don't accuse me of being dishonest.

And yes, male writers can write a female mary sue. See: Thousands of self-insert fan fiction stories.

[APlayerHater]

where it's established that Rey is Plutt's ward

Some people DEFINITELY get the idea that there is a relationship there that's not wholly exploitative. And that she is somehow special to Plutt. That's not supported in the movie. They think Plutt values her enough to give her a personal bodyguard!

My intention regarding the armed guard is that Plutt views Rey as his private property- valuable, but in the way an astromech droid is valuable- and the guard is also there to make sure Rey doesn't "get ideas above her station." Why doesn't Rey just run? She was raised to serve Plutt; she knows no other life, and the idea of "going on an adventure" makes her panic (but not as much as the idea of dying; when the Stormtroopers start shooting, she'll run, the unknown risks be damned).

Hey pays her in freeze dried cupcakes, I doubt she's valuable. This whole slavery situation makes no sense. He has no power to control any of them. He just sends them off on their own into the desert, miles away, with no supervision, and they just... Don't leave for some reason. This is a galaxy where a farmer can casually afford a space ship and it's no big deal.

[Simon_Jester]

Still a big jump from that to "can build his own highly-advanced protocol droid by age nine."

I always figured that Anakin scrounged up the brain and other key parts to make a protocol droid from what was already the (burnt-out) chassis of a functioning protocol droid designed by someone else. The rest of the chassis, now, was his own original work... And frankly, C3PO never impressed me with the flexibility, capability, or durability of his physical design.

Hell, you probably do think that Rey knowing how to read requires justification.

I don't think it ought to strain the imagination of an intelligent audience member to assume that, in the twenty-odd years that she was largely fending for herself on planet shit hole, Rey might have learned a few things. The only thing that even begins to strain credibility, pre-Force powers, is her piloting skill, and as you yourself conceded above, she and Anakin are on even ground there (advantage to Rey, actually, since we weren't asked to swallow her doing it as a damn nine year old).

I'd say the only issues are her piloting and her ability to understand Wookiees, which is a pretty rare skill.

The point is the whole 'portions' and 'paid in food' is not evocative of a place where workers are educated and skilled; it is evocative of extreme forms of exploitation. We see that she has a few decent things, but the idea that you need sophisticated education to be a scavenger is, well, it's not actually true. In real-life, scavenger children and adult slaves are an actual thing, for instance in Chechnya; they are typically not well educated, except in practical skills which can be learned on the job, such as handling and defusing live landmines (not all children manage to pick that skill up of course).

You take education for granted; her background as a scavenger slave does not imply education would be provided to her. I do not; when I see someone getting paid in food and having lived in a burned out tank, I do not assume they have it.

Star Wars is weird like that. Even people living on the fringes of society often seem to be making use of some uncannily advanced technology to do it with. About the only people we see who can credibly be described as "primitive" are the Ewoks (who never left the Stone Age and have no contact with the outside world) and the Tusken raiders (who seem to have reverted to pure barbarism, to the point where the only vaguely advanced technology they have is their rifles).

Almost everyone else has high tech, and uses it, and often maintains it themselves to a much higher degree than most of us maintain our own vehicles and personal equipment in real life. And the thing is, it's basically impossible, at least in society as we know or can imagine it, to be truly illiterate and yet be a competent operator of advanced technology.

So either Star Wars is weird in that people who "ought" to have a terrible education given their low socioeconomic status tend to have a pretty good (if patchy) one... or it's weird in that people with a terrible education can do things like repair robots and maintain starships.

The problem is the term "Mary Sue" itself. It is an inherently gendered term (setting aside its origins), and it has come to carry a lot of sexist baggage in the decades since it was coined. This is not to say that there aren't badly written female characters. This is to point out that a lot of sexist douchecocks have a tendency to disguise their sexism as criticism by using the term. It and its masculine twin "Marty Stue" (which I have used as well to describe Poe-- few would say its sexist when applied to male characters) are also often used by people as a lazy criticism because they don't want to think that hard about why they dislike a character. If you want to avoid accusations of unfairness or sexism, right or wrong, I suggest you learn how to criticize female characters without using the cliche. Or even male characters too. We are responsible for what people read/hear just as much as for what we intend.

One can make a case that almost any derogatory term with its origins in a gendered character is a gendered insult; I don't think the case is very strong as a rule.

We talk about "Typhoid Mary" because there was a real person named Mary who acted as an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever and got a lot of people sick, not because of deep-seated personal superstitions about women being exceptionally germy and icky. We talk about "Benedict Arnold" and "Quislings" as a metonym for treason, traitors, and treachery because those were real men who sold out their countries, not because of a deep-seated personal belief that men are super-treacherous.

I can grasp that sexist idiots may be calling female characters "Mary Sues" unfairly, but they also derogate female characters unfairly in all sorts of other ways, such as calling them stupid, or overly promiscuous, or weak, or things like that. The problem isn't the terms being used, it's the sexists themselves, who will abuse any and all negative terms if they feel that their negative stereotypes of women are not being upheld by what they see in fiction.

So "Mary Sue" remains a valid shorthand for "I think this character is shown displaying too many special abilities, and too much ability to convince other people they're impressive, out of proportion to what I would expect or think plausible from a character with their background, demonstrated talents, and resume."

[ray245]

Star Wars is weird like that. Even people living on the fringes of society often seem to be making use of some uncannily advanced technology to do it with. About the only people we see who can credibly be described as "primitive" are the Ewoks (who never left the Stone Age and have no contact with the outside world) and the Tusken raiders (who seem to have reverted to pure barbarism, to the point where the only vaguely advanced technology they have is their rifles).

Almost everyone else has high tech, and uses it, and often maintains it themselves to a much higher degree than most of us maintain our own vehicles and personal equipment in real life. And the thing is, it's basically impossible, at least in society as we know or can imagine it, to be truly illiterate and yet be a competent operator of advanced technology.

So either Star Wars is weird in that people who "ought" to have a terrible education given their low socioeconomic status tend to have a pretty good (if patchy) one... or it's weird in that people with a terrible education can do things like repair robots and maintain starships.

Because Star Wars is not a real sci-fi by any means. It's an "upgrade" of early 20th century with lasers and stuff. Starfighters are equivalent of Jeeps with machine guns during WW2. Someone who is a mechanic can be trained to fix it and maintain it without too much formal education.

Why can a farmboy fly an X-Wing? Because X-Wings are basically a slightly more advanced version of a crop-duster plane used by farmers. Those are the in-universe rules.

The problem is when Rey can do so much MORE than the basic stuff. Luke went into his real battle and was almost killed without his fellow squadron-mates covering his back. He had support and help from more experienced pilots during the battle. Rey did practically everything by herself without much support. She learned to escape from prison mostly on her own, she flew on her own, she learned to use the lightsaber on her own. There was never a serious point where she needed much of a help other than the time when she was knocked unconscious.

Yes, everything can be explained as the force was aiding her, but she basically did nothing to earn her abilities. Her abilities were practically given to her on a free plate by the writers. Anakin and Luke got an arm chopped off for being too headstrong and not fully mastering their abilities when they charge headlong into a fight.

One can make a case that almost any derogatory term with its origins in a gendered character is a gendered insult; I don't think the case is very strong as a rule.

We talk about "Typhoid Mary" because there was a real person named Mary who acted as an asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever and got a lot of people sick, not because of deep-seated personal superstitions about women being exceptionally germy and icky. We talk about "Benedict Arnold" and "Quislings" as a metonym for treason, traitors, and treachery because those were real men who sold out their countries, not because of a deep-seated personal belief that men are super-treacherous.

I can grasp that sexist idiots may be calling female characters "Mary Sues" unfairly, but they also derogate female characters unfairly in all sorts of other ways, such as calling them stupid, or overly promiscuous, or weak, or things like that. The problem isn't the terms being used, it's the sexists themselves, who will abuse any and all negative terms if they feel that their negative stereotypes of women are not being upheld by what they see in fiction.

So "Mary Sue" remains a valid shorthand for "I think this character is shown displaying too many special abilities, and too much ability to convince other people they're impressive, out of proportion to what I would expect or think plausible from a character with their background, demonstrated talents, and resume."

True. I am really starting to find the accusation or the implication that those that don't like Rey and uses the term Mary-Sue must have some elements of sexism tiring. As far as I know, Mary Sue has been practically applied to both genders. There is a formal male version of the term, called Gary Stu, but no one even remembers that or knows it well enough to use it.


And Mary-Sue in its very original context did have some relevance to the criticism of Rey as a character. From the woman who popularise the term Mary-Sue:

http://journal.transformativeworks.org/ ... ew/243/205

[2.2] PS: It all goes back to the early 1970s, when Star Trek fandom was just breaking away from mainstream science fiction fandom. I went to a lot of conventions around that time and I bought every zine I could lay my hands on. It was just an explosion of mimeograph and hectograph and ditto; very few zines were even photocopied back then. I read everything. Some of it was pretty good. Some of it was extremely good. But an awful lot of it was just plain awful.

[2.3] As Theodore Sturgeon said, 90 percent of everything is crap. The amazing thing was, the crap had so much of a pattern. I'm very much a pattern seeker, and you could see that every Trek zine at the time had a main story about this adolescent girl who is the youngest yeoman or lieutenant or captain ever in Starfleet. She makes her way onto the Enterprise and the entire crew falls in love with her. They then have adventures, but the remarkable thing was that all the adventures circled around this character. Everybody else in the universe bowed down in front of her. Also, she usually had some unique physical identifier—odd-colored eyes or hair—or else she was half-Vulcan. The stories read like they were written about half an hour before the zine was printed; they were generally not very good.

[2.4] Then came along this one story. I don't even remember the title of the zine, but I remember vividly that its cover was illustrated with hand-colored yellow ducks. Well, that didn't seem to have a whole lot to do with Star Trek, but I guess it meant something to the author. This particular one not only had the young teenaged girl who was a lieutenant come on the bridge, where Kirk and Spock immediately fell in love with her—I think Scotty and McCoy did as well—but they all backed off and were very respectful because she only had eyes for Chekov.

[2.5] So during the adventure, everybody beams down to the planet and everybody gets captured by the aliens, and this character manages to spring them because—literally—she has a hairpin. When they get back to the ship, she's sick. She had caught something down there and she dies.

[2.6] And then she resurrected herself… [Interviewer smiles.] I can see by the expression on your face that you're trying to resist making a comment, but I didn't resist. I made my comment in Menagerie 2, the December 1973 issue, which Sharon and I edited. I was absolutely fried from studying in grad school at the time, and tossed off "'Gee, golly gosh, gloriosky,' thought Mary Sue as she stepped on the bridge of the Enterprise." Lieutenant Mary Sue—that's what I called her just to give her a name. And the piece was—what? Probably two hundred words. It was half of one of our reduced columns. It wasn't very much. I really just retold the story of that quintessential Mary Sue. It was a parody. At the time, I was getting very heavily into writing parodies. In fact, for issues of Menagerie, what I did a lot was the so-called Trek primers and parodies of the episodes.

[2.7] Q: That was the beginning?

[2.8] PS: Yes, and it might have died right there, but I began doing LoCs—letters of comment—and reviews of zines in other zines. Anyway, because this was still the early 1970s, there were still a ton of these stories coming out. So, when we wanted a shorthand to refer to them, Sharon and I began to call them "Lieutenant Mary Sue" stories. We explained why the first couple of times we used it, but the term caught on because she's very identifiable: Here it is, that same character, and isn't it a shame because she's just so tiresome.

[2.9] And then in the letter columns, we started seeing the writers react: "What's so wrong with my story? I'm just telling a story that I think is great." And we would fire back: "Yeah, but the problem is, the presence of the Mary Sue warped all the other characters in the story away from their known characterization." Because in fan fiction, you aren't writing stories about an unknown universe, and readers expect certain characterizations.

While Rey is much better written than your average Mary Sue, everything she does can be applied to the model of a Mary-Sue as described above. Did Rey become the center of the story and "stealing the show" from Luke, Leia, and Han? In a way, she did. Her character introduction basically necessitates the old heroes to have even more flaws than they did in the OT. Luke must fail because Rey is the one to truly rebuild the Jedi Order. Han and Leia must fail because their child must not be allowed to steal the limelight from Rey.

A new character that can do almost everything the established cast could do, but much better than them in all sorts of ways? That's something that can be applied to Rey in many ways.

[APlayerHater]

Words

If I could upvote you I would.

[Sidewinder]

The problem is the term "Mary Sue" itself. It is an inherently gendered term (setting aside its origins), and it has come to carry a lot of sexist baggage in the decades since it was coined. This is not to say that there aren't badly written female characters. This is to point out that a lot of sexist douchecocks have a tendency to disguise their sexism as criticism by using the term.

Does this apply to criticism of Wesley Crusher from 'Star Trek: The Next Generation', or Tom Paris from 'Star Trek: Voyager', or Drift from IDW's 'Transformers' comics, or Kyp Durron from Kevin J. Anderson's 'Star Wars' novels- all of whom are MALE?

I doubt the accusation "Rey is a Mary Sue!" will be thrown less often if the character was male.

[Ave Dominus Nox]

Does this apply to criticism of Wesley Crusher from 'Star Trek: The Next Generation', or Tom Paris from 'Star Trek: Voyager', or Drift from IDW's 'Transformers' comics, or Kyp Durron from Kevin J. Anderson's 'Star Wars' novels- all of whom are MALE?

I doubt the accusation "Rey is a Mary Sue!" will be thrown less often if the character was male.

Ahh Paris could do anything couldn't he... pilot, mechanic, medic, historian, capable of designing and building a ship and engine that can go to infinity...

Sidewinder is right though. All those character's got called out what they were and screamed discrimination. A good character has a rational for what they are capable of doing and as many other's have pointed out Rey doesn't.

[Vendetta]

I agree, it may be that I've consumed a lot of star wars, but I don't really get the people who say that she's too powerful. She has a few solid skills, but within the legends continuity at least her skills are far from unprecedented. I was listening to the Tales of the Jedi audio, and Nomi Sunrider's first force power was Battle Meditation, using it to force two monsters to eat each other; after that, Rey catching on quickly doesn't seem too out of the ordinary.

To be fair, I think a lot of people don't understand the Force because they weren't paying attention in Empire Strikes Back.

The scene in the swamp where Yoda tells Luke to lift his X-Wing out was a demonstration that use of the Force is not a skill that requires refinement and practice, Luke could have gone straight from lifting little stones to a huge starfighter because there is no difference to the Force.

Once someone who can use the Force realises a thing can be done with it, they can do that thing. They don't have to practice it to do it better, they can just do it. It's intuitive and sometimes even unconscious. The Jedi almost certainly preferred younger recruits because they wouldn't have preconceptions about what they couldn't do holding them back like Luke did.

[NecronLord]

My intention regarding the armed guard is that Plutt views Rey as his private property- valuable, but in the way an astromech droid is valuable- and the guard is also there to make sure Rey doesn't "get ideas above her station." Why doesn't Rey just run? She was raised to serve Plutt; she knows no other life, and the idea of "going on an adventure" makes her panic (but not as much as the idea of dying; when the Stormtroopers start shooting, she'll run, the unknown risks be damned).

Astromechs don't tend to rate bodyguards either. And she's demonstrably worth less than an astromech, at least a top of the line one, because he's prepared to have his goons beat and possibly kill her to acquire one.

Hey pays her in freeze dried cupcakes, I doubt she's valuable. This whole slavery situation makes no sense. He has no power to control any of them. He just sends them off on their own into the desert, miles away, with no supervision, and they just... Don't leave for some reason. This is a galaxy where a farmer can casually afford a space ship and it's no big deal.

Motherfucker are you kidding me? By Isis' wings you're being dumb here. Clearly they should have kept the scene of Rey pining to leave the place with a big electric fence between her and the starships.



For all that people called The Phantom Menace full of random exposition it does seem that people need stuff like the kid explaining exactly why he can't run off to the jedi who doubtless already knows these things. She couldn't buy thing because she has no money because she's paid in fucking cupcakes. Plutt has a gang of prods who will beat anyone who crosses him, and he's a provider of food on a planet where survival would otherwise be extremely difficult. What's to get?

Star Wars is weird like that. Even people living on the fringes of society often seem to be making use of some uncannily advanced technology to do it with. About the only people we see who can credibly be described as "primitive" are the Ewoks (who never left the Stone Age and have no contact with the outside world) and the Tusken raiders (who seem to have reverted to pure barbarism, to the point where the only vaguely advanced technology they have is their rifles).

Almost everyone else has high tech, and uses it, and often maintains it themselves to a much higher degree than most of us maintain our own vehicles and personal equipment in real life. And the thing is, it's basically impossible, at least in society as we know or can imagine it, to be truly illiterate and yet be a competent operator of advanced technology.

So either Star Wars is weird in that people who "ought" to have a terrible education given their low socioeconomic status tend to have a pretty good (if patchy) one... or it's weird in that people with a terrible education can do things like repair robots and maintain starships.

Enslaved battlefield scavengers are not an invention of Star Wars. Ingushetia used to be full of kids scavenging battlefields for scrap metal (something far worse has happened to it now, to paraphrase Lor San Tekka) - literacy isn't required to be a scrapper, just knowing what looks valuable and how to disconnect it, and knowing to avoid warning labels (which IRL are designed so you don't need to read anything to get that they mean 'bad!') and how to use a dosimeter etc; these are simple practical skills.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I've not got some sort of hate-on for Rey, I just think it would be appropriate flavour to match her backstory. Perhaps they should have kept her scavenging-assistant droid (also seen here) too, in order to gloss over suspension-of-disbelief. Though I don't think it's necessary.

[Kojiro]

I propose, as an exercise for fun, try to make up the characters in an RPG style (I'd use the White Wolf system myself). See how Rey comes up there.

That said, there are many changes that would help her look less Sueish (without changing the movie too much).

Start out making her an indentured servant/slave/whatever of Platt's traveling scavengers (they move from hulk to hulk). Show it arriving in a big mover ship she is piloting.

1. Have her find BB-8. This removes her willingness to get into it with another scavenger over a droid and scraps one of her languages. She also does not appear unduly enlightened on droid rights.
2. Have BB-8 accompany her back to her AT-AT, where in we see her flight simulator. Have her and BB-8 bond a little over him climbing into the astromech spot and them flying a practice mission. Have her acknowledge his beeped advice, something like "That's what that's for? I could never work it out! Thanks!' which establishes she has some flight skills but isn't amazing and gives her time to talk about her life a little.
3. Have her bloodied in the ambush. She's a street rat (so to speak) so she's tough, but these are street thugs- proportionately tough. You can still show she's not helpless without having her destroy two attackers who ambush her.
4. Have her lose to Finn. Yeah she's hardened and all but he's literally a soldier trained from birth. The TR8R trooper with the baton was in his squad, of which he was the leader. FO troops are trained in hand to hand and he's got 30 pounds on her.
5. Let Finn lead her to safety. He knows about their sensors and staying low, he can know about their attack patterns and when to run.
6. Have her fly well- very well even to hint at her nascent abilities but not Hollywood chase scene good. She's still in a totally unfamiliar, large, asymmetrical craft. Let the trained soldier do the work of killing their pursuers.
7. Skip the gas leak. Jakku is a battlefield of Rebel and Imperial craft, doubtful there were a ton of (at the time) 30 year old freighters there. The scene does nothing but again show Finn as a bystander and show off her abilities.
8. Don't let her speak wookiee. There are none at Nima outpost, she's not shown to socialise at all so it just comes off as inappropriate.
9. Let her offer Han advice, which he acknowledges as valid- if it weren't for the extreme customisation the Falcon has undergone. Show she's got sound knowledge, but this isn't any old YT freighter.
10. Have Han ask for the rathtars to be released- don't make it a 'mistake' that saves their lives by her. She can still save Finn though.
11. At the cantina, have her notice a lightsaber hanging over the bar or in a back room Maz takes them to for privacy. NOT LUKE'S. The kyber crystal still calls to her quietly and she still touches it and has her vision, but it no longer appears fate has miraculously delivered her the most famous lightsaber of all time.
12. Have miss all the stormtroopers. There are no blasters in Nima Outpost, so Finn notes, so there's no reason to believe she's familiar with them. Certainly none to realise she could outgun *three* stormtroopers.
13. Have her resist Kylo's mid probe. Not reverse it, just resist it. That alone demonstrates she's got something extra going on. Have Kylo remark 'The Force is strong with this one' (you're already doing ANH, why the fuck not).
14. Drop the mind trick. Just drop it. Have the infiltration team do a general 'power cut' rather than lower the shields (this means you also don't need to have Phasma job to them). When the power goes the magnetic clamps on her restraints go and she breaks free. Have her instinctively perform a force push on the trooper, knocking him out. This way she doesn't appear to be using a subtle, refined power but just a raw exertion.
15. Main power is down but emergency red lights are on. This makes it harder to spot her and assists in sneaking around a FO base looking nothing like a member of the FO, instead of her being a fucking ninja who avoids all security cameras, personnel and patrols.
16. Have her actually break down a little when she finds her friends- until this moment she had no fucking idea where she was or how to get out and should be rightly terrified.
17. Have Finn return the saber to her, and him take the blaster. When they encounter Kylo, Finn goes into the tree and is knocked out. Rey is terrified but holds her ground.
18. Have her losing, as she was in the film, and give her a moment where she opens herself to the Force. Again, give her an unrefined force push, sending Kylo flying. She stands there, holding the saber, newly resolved to fight. In that moment, the kyber crystal attunes to her and either goes back to white or changes colour slightly to show her new ownership of the saber.
19. Have Kylo and her fight, but she's on the back foot *a bit*. Have them both wound each other a little. Make it worse for her though- show her Kylo is dangerous but at the same time so is she. This sets us up for them to be rivals and equals.

Rey still comes out a force user and is still highly competent. But it's a far easier pill to swallow in my book.

[Gandalf]

Why is "Rey speaks languages" such a point of contention? Child Anakin spoke whatever Sebulba spoke. Maybe slaves just live together in little polyglot communities, and Rey worked alongside some Wookiees/Droids/other.

[NecronLord]

1. Have her find BB-8. This removes her willingness to get into it with another scavenger over a droid and scraps one of her languages. She also does not appear unduly enlightened on droid rights.

I dislike this. Rey being willing to stick her neck out for others was a good feature.

4. Have her lose to Finn. Yeah she's hardened and all but he's literally a soldier trained from birth. The TR8R trooper with the baton was in his squad, of which he was the leader. FO troops are trained in hand to hand and he's got 30 pounds on her.

Or conversely, he's entirely used to fighting in armour and she just smacks him in the balls with that big stick.

11. At the cantina, have her notice a lightsaber hanging over the bar or in a back room Maz takes them to for privacy. NOT LUKE'S. The kyber crystal still calls to her quietly and she still touches it and has her vision, but it no longer appears fate has miraculously delivered her the most famous lightsaber of all time.

I'm pretty sure that was an overarching directive of the film, alas. Which is a shame, Rey looks cool with her own lightsaber.

12. Have miss all the stormtroopers. There are no blasters in Nima Outpost, so Finn notes, so there's no reason to believe she's familiar with them. Certainly none to realise she could outgun *three* stormtroopers.

They're stormtroopers. Their iconic role is to get shot.

Personally I liked Finn's "uselessness" - he's a fish out of water and I like that.

Why is "Rey speaks languages" such a point of contention? Child Anakin spoke whatever Sebulba spoke. Maybe slaves just live together in little polyglot communities, and Rey worked alongside some Wookiees/Droids/other.

I'm pretty sure Sebulba's meant to be speaking huttese; which is probably a common language. I may be wrong though.

[Kojiro]

Partly because a point of it is made that others *don't* speak as many languages. It's why droids like C3P0 exist. If she was a well traveled diplomat, or a Jedi or something- someone who had exposure to many cultures over their career- it'd be more acceptable, but we're shown she's an uneducated sand rat living in a knocked over AT-AT as a slave. More over, she doesn't converse with *anyone* except Platt, who speaks basic. There are no other droids in Niima Outpost, nor any wookiees (who probably aren't fans of the oppressive heat) so the opportunity to learn seems limited. She's not some upper class private schooled British lad who was taught French and German as par for the course- she's a sand rat. If she couldn't read I wouldn't be entirely surprised. Stripping her of the BB-8 alien language does nothing overall. In fact, you could make him speak basic and nothing would change. The language in there does nothing *except* make her an exceptional polyglot. If you're wanting to 'unSue' her, that's a start.

I dislike this. Rey being willing to stick her neck out for others was a good feature.

It *is* a good character trait, but remember Luke wasn't really worried about R2- he just didn't want to get in trouble. She's lived a hard, deprived, scavengers life (which undoubtedly has some rules around stealing others salvage). I could certainly see her sheltering BB-8 but you've got to have a special appreciation of droids to do what she did. It feels too high minded, too noble for the rough and tumble, street fightin' loner scavenger. At least to me. Why is her sensibilities on droids so much more enlightened than the rest of the galaxy or her surroundings?

Or conversely, he's entirely used to fighting in armour and she just smacks him in the balls with that big stick.

She manages to get in front of him- which is fine, she undoubtedly knows the place better than him- and more or less uppercuts him. It's not the most egregious of things, but when looking for ways to make her less Sue, this is a chance. Also, just as stormtroopers exist to be shot, so too does their armour do nothing

Personally I liked Finn's "uselessness" - he's a fish out of water and I like that.

That can certainly be an entertaining bit, but it should have limits. There's no reason to jam the Falcon's gun, just to give Rey the kill. There's no reason why Finn can't know how to fly (especially if you see where the pilot sits in the Stormtrooper transports AND is has a backup flight control system in the troop bay!). There's no reason- absolutely NONE- why when they're hacking the FO security/tech it's *Rey* that knows what to do. Surrounded by all that pristine, new technology Rey should be the Fish out of water... but Finn is still the useless tag along.

[Vendetta]

Partly because a point of it is made that others *don't* speak as many languages. It's why droids like C3P0 exist.

On the other hand, the only time C3P0 ever actually had to act as a translator was to the Ewoks.

[NecronLord]

The reason Finn doesn't know how to fly, plot wise, is so that he rescues Poe to defect; if he could fly on his own, he'd just do a Kyle Katarn defection of wait until he's on flying duty, shove one finger up at traffic control, and hit the accelerator. By the time we've got Finn on the Falcon, it's been established that he can't fly.

Which is why I think if you want to take that role from Rey, giving it to Poe is much easier.

[Kojiro]

Which is why I think if you want to take that role from Rey, giving it to Poe is much easier.

Well yes and no. Since the last 'Behind the Scenes' video it was revealed that Finn was the one who botched the landing in Canto Bight, so apparently he's picked up the skill at some point.

But yeah, they could have had Poe and Finn both survive the crash (well, they did actually) and wander off together, meet Rey, yadda yadda yadda. If Poe was along it'd also give Han a good reason to get involved again, as it's possible they've met and Poe certainly knows of him. Poe pulling those piloting maneuvers would definitely be less jarring and Finn and Rey could each take a gun, like Han and Luke (why not one more throwback?).

[Kojiro]

On the other hand, the only time C3P0 ever actually had to act as a translator was to the Ewoks.

If I'm not mistaken, he also acts as a translator for R2 and Luke when first acquired doesn't he? EDIT: And Jabba.