Dec 24 2015

The Problem of the Mary Sue

In my extended commentary about Episode VII, I said I’d bring up the charge of Rey being a Mary Sue in a later post. This is that post. There will be some light spoilers, but nothing you can’t conclude from the trailers. Without further ado, let’s begin.

I’ll grant that Rey is a little too perfect. She’s not flawless, but she comes pretty dang close. Her only real “offense” is initially rejecting the call to adventure. I postulated in the previous post that they had to make her so good at just about everything to both sell her to an audience (actually or merely imagined to be) skeptical of a female lead. That only addresses one extreme. On the other end, if you have a female lead show weakness, it could open up charges of sexism. Personally, I thought it would’ve been funny in one scene where Rey’s struggling to move a floor grate for the Falcon if she had to get Finn to move it for her. Better yet, if she asked in a somewhat tsundere manner to protect her pride. That of course didn’t happen and if it had, Tumblr would’ve been alight with complaints. Basically, Rey’s characterization plays it safe to shield her from the ire from both sides of the fence. She suffers a little in depth as an individual for it, but I still like her all the same. PC wrangling is a sad but true fact of life.

Compare Rey with Finn. Finn certainly has his virtues but he’s also deeply flawed. While he can be brave, he’s reasonably scared of the First Order and tries to run from it until his back is up against the wall and he finds his true priorities (primarily Rey). He’s by no means an imbecile, but his knowledge is limited, as you’d expect from a rank-and-file Stormtrooper. Though he was apparently in the top percent of his batch of trainees, he had the indignity of being assigned to sanitation at Starkiller Base. None of this demeans him as a person. A lot of it’s played for comedy but I certainly never thought less of him as a character. You don’t get anything like that with Rey and I believe fear is a large component of that. Even Luke, her closest analog in the Original Trilogy (and likely her father), had plenty of weaknesses, being prone to whining, shooting from the hip, and fumbling his way through training until he matured both as a person and as a budding Jedi. Again, these didn’t make him any less of a person. These flaws gave him something to overcome on his journey. There’s still a chance as Rey begins her formal training that she’ll actually have to struggle more and there’s potential for her character on that note. Similarly, her anger at Kylo Ren can provide a dangerous lure to the Dark Side for her to struggle with, much as Luke had to do before her.

Now, let’s take a step back and look at what a Mary Sue actually is. I’m a stickler for precision in language. People who pretend that terms can’t be precisely defined are obfuscating. There are other sources that can more accurately and comprehensively define what a Mary Sue is, but I’ll be using my own approach that should capture the essence sufficiently. A Mary Sue is “perfect” and I use air quotes because the definition of perfection is often rather bent. “Ideal” is perhaps a better description and that ideal depends on the author, which will likely be at odds with a significant portion of the audience. The Mary Sue serves the purpose of wish fulfillment, by the author, for the audience or both. This is why the Mary Sue is often an author insert character. The Mary Sue receives frequent validation and any opposition is crafted as strawmen (even if the strawmen actually have a point). Related to this validation is the romantic factor. Expect multiple love interests to trip over themselves to win the Mary Sue’s affection. This will be particularly galling if these love interests are actually comparatively well-written and appealing characters throwing their lives away on the reprehensible Sue.

Perhaps the most notorious Mary Sue in recent history is Bella Swann of Twilight fame (“infamy” would be more apt). She’s presented as this special little snowflake from the start, so special in fact that her blood draws the vampires like no other. She is pursued by both the vampire Edward and the werewolf Jacob, who are at her heels the whole time no matter how much she manipulates them and otherwise treats them like crap. Naturally, any opposition to her constant demonstration of what a terrible human being she is never amounts to anything. She certainly doesn’t learn a thing from it. She serves as an avatar for bored housewives and clueless preteens to live out their fantasies. Taking this into consideration, how does Rey stack up as a Mary Sue? Well, she’s a mechanical genius, a competent martial artist, a promising pilot, and she’s got a strong connection to the Force that allows her to tap into significant powers without any real training. This all starts to sound rather Sueish, but mechanical proficiency comes with being a scavenger, the martial arts proficiency a necessity for surviving alone in the harsh world, and the piloting is part of a practical skillset. If I’m right about her lineage, she stands to have a Force potential that could rival Yoda. It’s entirely possible that if she’s indeed Luke’s daughter, she received some rudimentary training before she was deposited on Jakku, but even without factoring in that, it’s been established that the Force can exert a measure of control over people (something I mentioned in the previous post) and given how much Snoke’s plot is warping the Force, whatever sapience it has would have an interest in taking a firmer hand guiding Rey to operate as its agent against Kylo Ren. All these considerations diminish the Sue factor. Also, she isn’t constantly being praised by everyone around her. There’s mutual congratulations exchanges between her and Finn when they escape Jakku and Han gives her acknowledgment (though entirely justified by her performance), but this isn’t the same as the constant ego rubbing you see with a typical Mary Sue. Also, as of yet, there’s not much of a romantic factor. Rey and Finn have a thing, yes, but it could just as easily remain platonic as it could go romantic. Now, if you had Finn, Poe, Kylo Ren, Chewie, Threepio, and Admiral Akbar all forming a clumsy harem for her, then we might be getting into serious Sue territory. Love triangles, even love dodecahedrons, don’t necessarily make a Sue, but when it’s not particularly justified and serves the purpose of wish fulfillment, then there’s a problem.

If you want a Sue from the Star Wars universe, look no further than Starkiller of The Force Unleashed, a ridiculous Marty Stu who snatches away Vader’s lightsaber as a toddler, can bring down Star Destroyers, and somehow becomes an inspiration for the Rebel Alliance all while having all the personality of a bowl of rice gruel. And let’s not forget the tacked-on love interest too. Ugh… Seriously, if anyone still feels like complaining about Rey, look back at that rubbish and realize it isn’t so bad.

I may do another post at a later date regarding the challenge of writing a flawed female character that doesn’t undermine the character or come across as sexist. In the meantime, hopefully I’ve made something resembling a case to refute the accusation of Rey as a Mary Sue. Until next time. Stay tuned.

1 Comment

  • By James Carmack, Sun 21 Jun 2020 @ GMT+0000 10:32:07

    Turns out I was wrong. Rey was a Mary Sue all along. TFA laid down the foundation, TLJ built the frame, and TROS put the finishing touches. I feel like a fool for trying to defend the character. Admittedly, better writers could’ve turned things around in the subsequent films, but that’s not what we got. So it goes.

    As with my other ST-related posts, I’m keeping this up so I can be exposed to all the scrutiny I richly deserve. Also, it serves as a time capsule of my thinking at the time and can be instructive for future reference.

    Dangit. I really did like Rey at first, but it just kept getting worse and worse. Also, the Rey actress at Disney World was a bit of a jerk to my niece, so there’s that too. (Yes, I know that last one isn’t fair, but it still steams my clams.)

Other Links to this Post

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

Leave a comment