5 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Luke fails way more than Rey ever has. He lost his hand. He failed to save Han. He couldnt get his x-wing out of the swamp. and so on. Real meaningful failure. Even Anakin has meaningful failure. he does not save his mom. Anakin fails at self control. Anakin loses an arm to count Dooku and fails to prevent his escape.

We apparently have watched different movies, as we see Rey failing quite often. Maybe not to the same extent of failure as Luke and Anakin have experienced, but things haven't gone exactly the way she's wanted either. Yes, things may ultimately work out for her in the end, but then that's true for pretty every movie protagonist in the history of cinema, including Luke (who apart from ESB has a far better success record than Rey does).

It's hilarious to call Luke getting his hand chopped off real failure when he gets a replacement within like five minutes of screentime and so any real struggle there is immediately negated.

And here’s where we are...we’re at a place in time in which it’s no longer enough to say, “I didn’t care for Story X,” or “Character Y didn’t work for me.” No...we must twist and contort those presentations to prove that, rather than being a matter of personal taste, that the story or character is inherently flawed or wrong...that someone or something must be at fault for it.

In this case:

”Rey is a Mary Sue because she never fails.”

”Here are ways that Rey fails.”

”Well...she doesn’t fail enough.”

8 hours ago, HappyDaze said:

Do any of her failures ever make her rely on someone else to get her out of a situation? When Luke failed, he usually had to have someone else bail his butt out of the fire. When Rey fails, it's just so she can look even more awesome in the next scene. In fact, many of her "failures" are because she looks to others instead of just doing things herself.

She relied on Chewie to escape both Starkiller and the Supremacy.

Luke has to snap her out of her metaphysical dive to the dark side during the first lesson.

Snoke was tossing her around like a rag doll until Kylo intervened (leading to her failure to turn him from the dark).

She (and the entire Resistance) relied on Luke to provide a distraction to allow what few of them remained to escape.

Meanwhile, you’ve successfully set a standard in which later successes for Rey negate her failures, while allowing Luke’s later successes to be viewed as distinct from his failures. With such a double standard, it is impossible for you to see Rey fail, as - being the protagonist of (let’s face it) a straightforward heroic narrative, she is expected to ultimately succeed.

8 hours ago, Daeglan said:

See the problem is you guys keep calling things failures that really arent failures because she never really loses anything. For a failure to really mean anything there has to be actual loss. They have to lose SOMETHING. For example Luke Lost his hand and saber and Han in Empire. Those are REAL losses. And she has NO GROWTH really. I dont really see anything different about Rey.

She lost Han.

Finn was injured to the point of coma after coming to her aid.

She, too, has lost that very same saber.

She lost Luke.

If progressing from repeatedly rejecting her call to adventure to heeding it and accepting the hero’s journey and her place in the story is “NO GROWTH really,” then I’m not quite sure what you expect.

I’ll say it again: it’s fine if the character doesn’t click for you. Such a reaction does not require flaws in the storytelling exist. (To which you’ll agree, while insisting that such flaws do exist in this case. And the wheel will go round and round.)

Hey remember MASH? That Altman, what a hack. So much dialogue in that movie that you can't clearly make out. Bad storytelling!

4 hours ago, jivjov said:

her vs Luke on Ahch-To was also a case of neither of them trying to actually harm the other. The fight was a physical manifestation of their disagreement on how to handle the Ben situation. Note that when Rey knocks Luke down, he stops himself with the force with zero effort or trouble. At any point he could have completely wiped the floor with her. But that fight was never about one of them hurting the other.

Just to expend on that a little, I always find it strange that people actually think that Rey was better than Luke. I think that it's pretty obvious that if Luke wanted to, he would have beaten her.

He start the fight by hitting her directly on her back, would it have been a lightsaber duel, that would have been a dead Rey right there. Then, he easily block all her blows until he disarm her to stop the fight. It's only when she lights the lightsaber that he falls down, surprised that she would go this far.

Two times he tried to stop the fight by showing her that she's out of her league. Or was people really expecting Luke to beat the s*** out of Rey?

2 hours ago, Nytwyng said:

If progressing from repeatedly rejecting her call to adventure to heeding it and accepting the hero’s journey and her place in the story is “NO GROWTH really,” then I’m not quite sure what you expect.

I might be wrong here, but I think that most people that says that Rey never grow as a character (an opinion I don't share by the way, I think that there is a lot of character development in the Sequel trilogy, especially in The Last Jedi) are people that judge a character growth simply by his/her skills.

In the case of Rey, it's true that she starts the Sequel trilogy already a good fighter (something that I can easily get behind since she grew up on Jakku, a world shown to have a survival of the fittest environment) a good pilot (it is said in the movie that she has already flown, just never out of the atmosphere. And it is explained in the book 'Before the Awakening' that she spends a lot of her free time in a flight simulator) and doesn't seems to have trouble using the Force. But it doesn't mean that she doesn't grow as a character internally, learning to take her place in the universe, like you already said. There is more than physical prowess for a character to grow.

That's also why I don't really get the idea that the Canto Bight arc was pointless. It's the arc that gets Finn from 'I just want to gtfo and want nothing to do with this conflict' to 'No, there is a reason to join the fight, there is some things worth fighting for'. It's also the start of Finn and Rose relationship. Saying that the Canto Bight scene in Last Jedi is pointless is pretty much like saying that the Asteroid scene in Empire Strike Back is pointless. They hide to repair the Hyperspace but fail to do so and are right back to where they were before they got into the asteroid field. But it was important for the character development of Han (why he didn't leave the Rebellion after all) and the evolution of Han and Leia relationship (sound familiar?). So, people can hate the Canto Bight scene, or the pacing of it, that's their opinion, and one shared by many. But it was not pointless, it served its purpose in the movie, just like the asteroid scene did in Episode 5.

5 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

But an increasingly accurate one because of folks like you that keep repeating the same tired old tune of "Rey's a Mary Sue!" over and over while never bothering to consider that YOU might be the one who's mistaken, especially as ever single one of those so-called "points" has been quite thoroughly dismantled and debunked or marked as being the misogynistic tripe that they are.

I've seen absolutely nothing from you or HappyDaze or Daeglan or anyone else that "challenges" my opinion on Rey. If anything, all I've seen is more and more confirmation the Rey hate draws more for misogyny and the haters' own insecurities about a female protagonist than any actual sort of perceived flaws about her character, all while Luke and Anakin get a free pass simply for having a different set of sex organs.

All of which has absolutely NOTHING to do with the now-released Rise of the Sep artists book.

Try openning your eyes and and legitamately consider what we are saying instead ofnimmediately dismissing an idea you dont like.

19 hours ago, Daeglan said:

Anakin never raced before? No Anakin raced several times. Anakin never won a race.

Luke was with yoda for at least several weeks. As the Falcon did a sublight tun from Hoth to Bespin.

Fair point on Anakin, he had raced, but had not won...and had also crashed. But that still doesn't explain him winning the race or blowing up the space station.

Luke had 30 seconds of training on the Falcon before he's blindly blocking bolts. He uses the force to blow up the Death Star. That is the same amount of training he has before Hoth. He doesn't get any training prior to leaving Hoth and going to Dagobah.

50 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Try openning your eyes and and legitamately consider what we are saying instead ofnimmediately dismissing an idea you dont like.

I tried that, except your so-called "points" are 100% laughable.

You could also try taking your own advice and not immediately dismissing ideas that you don't like simply because they highlight just how utterly flawed your preconceptions on this particular matter are.

1 hour ago, Red Castle said:

Two times he tried to stop the fight by showing her that she's out of her league. Or was people really expecting Luke to beat the s*** out of Rey?

Given the rampant misogyny by her more vocal detractors, they were probably hoping for Luke to cave her skull in.

15 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Given the rampant misogyny by her more vocal detractors, they were probably hoping for Luke to cave her skull in.

Well except all the detractors I know are fine with Ripley, Buffy, Zoe, Blackwidow, Willow, The Wasp, Leia and dozens of other strong female leads etc. So is it misogyny or are you claiming it is misogyny because critically thinking about it is uncomfortable?

36 minutes ago, kmanweiss said:

Fair point on Anakin, he had raced, but had not won...and had also crashed. But that still doesn't explain him winning the race or blowing up the space station.

Luke had 30 seconds of training on the Falcon before he's blindly blocking bolts. He uses the force to blow up the Death Star. That is the same amount of training he has before Hoth. He doesn't get any training prior to leaving Hoth and going to Dagobah.

Im gonna go out on a limb and say that Luke practiced more more at blocking bolts than we see in the film. it is years between that training and Return of the Jedi. Plus there are weeks where
Luke is on Degobah with Yoda training. I suspect there was lightsaber training on Degobah. I just dont think it was possible to show it with a puppet.

57 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Well except all the detractors I know are fine with Ripley, Buffy, Zoe, Blackwidow, Willow, The Wasp, Leia and dozens of other strong female leads etc. So is it misogyny or are you claiming it is misogyny because critically thinking about it is uncomfortable?

I'm claiming it's misogyny because of a portion of those detractors pretty much saying it's misogyny, and even they have taken "issue" with those female protagonists you listed. Many of whom didn't get this level of vitriol because the culture of the time didn't permit openly crass misogyny as "acceptable alternate opinions."

And from your posts, it's abundantly clear I've done far more critical thinking about the matter than you are ever likely to, since you're obviously still stuck in your bias against Rey in spite of evidence that your bias may be unfounded.

51 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

I'm claiming it's misogyny because of a portion of those detractors pretty much saying it's misogyny, and even they have taken "issue" with those female protagonists you listed. Many of whom didn't get this level of vitriol because the culture of the time didn't permit openly crass misogyny as "acceptable alternate opinions."

And from your posts, it's abundantly clear I've done far more critical thinking about the matter than you are ever likely to, since you're obviously still stuck in your bias against Rey in spite of evidence that your bias may be unfounded.

Then maybe those people should be ignored and you should listen to the ones who DONT have an issue with those characters but have an issue with Rey. As many of them only had a problem with her when they were given really bad storytelling.

2 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Then maybe those people should be ignored and you should listen to the ones who DONT have an issue with those characters but have an issue with Rey. As many of them only had a problem with her when they were given really bad storytelling.

Then they shouldn’t have a problem with her, as the storytelling is no worse than in the entries in the franchise that are held up as examples of how to do it right.

That doesn’t mean they/you are required to enjoy it. But it does beg the question why they feel the need to so publicly and forcefully “prove” that their matter of personal taste is objective fact?

Just now, Nytwyng said:

Then they shouldn’t have a problem with her, as the storytelling is no worse than in the entries in the franchise that are held up as examples of how to do it right.

That doesn’t mean they/you are required to enjoy it. But it does beg the question why they feel the need to so publicly and forcefully “prove” that their matter of personal taste is objective fact?

Or they have a problem with how she is written and you guys refuse to listen to the issues. As I have repeatedly said her failures are not really failures because A. she doesnt lose anything. and B. as someone else pointed out she has never had a friend need to save her *** like Luke has. Like Han has. Like Leia has. She has never had any real failure.

What amazes me, is that any time the topic of Rey/TLJ/TFA comes up, it quickly devolves into Rey is a Mary Sue.

I get it guys, you don't like her. That's cool. Derailing other forum topics with the constant need to vent your spleen about it gets a bit old.

I know we're all passionate about this stuff, but how many threads do we really need to go through this again? Seriously?

2 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Or they have a problem with how she is written and you guys refuse to listen to the issues.

Back to the matter of personal taste.

4 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

As I have repeatedly said her failures are not really failures because A. she doesnt lose anything. and B. as someone else pointed out she has never had a friend need to save her *** like Luke has. Like Han has. Like Leia has. She has never had any real failure.

And we’ve repeatedly shown that both A and B are demonstrably false. Those points being disproven, once again, does not require you to suddenly like Rey’s character any more than, say, the outpouring of praise (and Oscar win) for Into the Spider-Verse requires me to suddenly like Miles Morales’ character.

25 minutes ago, Daeglan said:

Then maybe those people should be ignored...

You're right, you should be ignored. Welcome to my block list. Thanks for making it abundantly clear your contributions to meaningful discourse are absolutely nil.

And to add to Rey’s list of failures; you guys claimed that Rey piloted the Falcon without issue. Watch the movie again. The very first thing Rey did when taking off was drag the starboard side of the Falcon on the ground and smash into the main gate of the town. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d call that a huge screwup.

1 hour ago, Daeglan said:

Im gonna go out on a limb and say that Luke practiced more more at blocking bolts than we see in the film. it is years between that training and Return of the Jedi. Plus there are weeks where
Luke is on Degobah with Yoda training. I suspect there was lightsaber training on Degobah. I just dont think it was possible to show it with a puppet.

Here's something that I find interesting. You suspect that there was lightsaber training on Dagobah, it's never actually shown, said, or even alluded to in the movie. And going by the movie only, we never know how much time Luke actually spend on Dagobah. If we were to go back to 1980 and only see the movie, there is nothing telling us that Luke spends more than a couple days on Dagobah. We see him run in the jungle, climb a vine, lift some rocks, get some cool wise quotes from Yoda and that's pretty much it before he flies away to save Han and Leia. He then achieve to hold his ground against Vader in the final fight.

You are willing to assume that Luke actually got lightsaber training on Dagobah even though it's never said or shown in the movie.

But what about Rey?

Regarding her pilot skills, she says at least 2 times in the movie (while running toward the Jumpmaster and right after while sharing her excitment with Finn) that she's a pilot and already flew, just never in space. That's not even taking into account the book 'Before the Awakening' where it is said that she spent a lot of times in flight simulators to kill time and loneliness. Granted, she skillfully fly the Falcon, but we know by now that she has the Force, so it's not hard to understand that it played a part in her achieving to masterfully fly into the graveyard. We already have precedents of the Force helping users achieve the impossible with Luke blowing out the Death star without a Targetting Computer and Anakin winning a podrace at the age of 10 even though no human should be able to do it (Anakin says in the movie that he's the only human that can do it).

So if we know from the movie that Rey already flew and consider herself a pilot, and we know that the Force can play a big part in it, why is it bad storytelling in this case, but assuming that Luke got some training on Dagobah is not?

Same goes for her fighting skills. How is it okay for Luke to stand his ground against Vader with a only a couple days/weeks of training (assuming that he really had it) but not for Rey to stand hers against Kylo when it is shown pretty much from the start that she already knows how to fight (surviving the harsh environment of Jakku. If we are allowed to assume that Luke spent some time training on Dagobah, and think we can also assume that Rey spent her entire life needing to defend herself, especially since she is alone). Even more so, if you actually take the time to analyze the fight against Kylo, you'll realise that she is actually running away the whole time. It's only when the Force awakens in her and surprise a guard down already hurt Kylo that she wins the fight.

I just find it intersting that in one case it's okay to assume and suspect, but in the other everything must be shown, explained and overanalyzed to believe it.

10 minutes ago, Red Castle said:

I just find it intersting that in one case it's okay to assume and suspect, but in the other everything must be shown, explained and overanalyzed to believe it.

Welcome to fandom in the 21st century, where something that just didn’t work for a viewer must be proven to be an error (at best) or intentionally designed to give the audience the finger (at worst).

We’ve seen the same sort of cycle begin in the past week regarding Game of Thrones, with a vocal segment of the audience up in arms because a character behaved in a way that was consistent with their desires, words, and deeds as presented over 8 seasons. It’s just not what they wanted to see happen once the character - previously largely isolated from the rest of the narrative, and thus presented as the hero of their own story - found themself fully intersecting with the other stories.

37 minutes ago, Red Castle said:

I just find it intersting that in one case it's okay to assume and suspect, but in the other everything must be shown, explained and overanalyzed to believe it.

That's largely because it's not the 70s/80s anymore and expectations are different.

44 minutes ago, Red Castle said:

Here's something that I find interesting. You suspect that there was lightsaber training on Dagobah, it's never actually shown, said, or even alluded to in the movie. And going by the movie only, we never know how much time Luke actually spend on Dagobah. If we were to go back to 1980 and only see the movie, there is nothing telling us that Luke spends more than a couple days on Dagobah. We see him run in the jungle, climb a vine, lift some rocks, get some cool wise quotes from Yoda and that's pretty much it before he flies away to save Han and Leia. He then achieve to hold his ground against Vader in the final fight.

You are willing to assume that Luke actually got lightsaber training on Dagobah even though it's never said or shown in the movie.

But what about Rey?

Regarding her pilot skills, she says at least 2 times in the movie (while running toward the Jumpmaster and right after while sharing her excitment with Finn) that she's a pilot and already flew, just never in space. That's not even taking into account the book 'Before the Awakening' where it is said that she spent a lot of times in flight simulators to kill time and loneliness. Granted, she skillfully fly the Falcon, but we know by now that she has the Force, so it's not hard to understand that it played a part in her achieving to masterfully fly into the graveyard. We already have precedents of the Force helping users achieve the impossible with Luke blowing out the Death star without a Targetting Computer and Anakin winning a podrace at the age of 10 even though no human should be able to do it (Anakin says in the movie that he's the only human that can do it).

So if we know from the movie that Rey already flew and consider herself a pilot, and we know that the Force can play a big part in it, why is it bad storytelling in this case, but assuming that Luke got some training on Dagobah is not?

Same goes for her fighting skills. How is it okay for Luke to stand his ground against Vader with a only a couple days/weeks of training (assuming that he really had it) but not for Rey to stand hers against Kylo when it is shown pretty much from the start that she already knows how to fight (surviving the harsh environment of Jakku. If we are allowed to assume that Luke spent some time training on Dagobah, and think we can also assume that Rey spent her entire life needing to defend herself, especially since she is alone). Even more so, if you actually take the time to analyze the fight against Kylo, you'll realise that she is actually running away the whole time. It's only when the Force awakens in her and surprise a guard down already hurt Kylo that she wins the fight.

I just find it intersting that in one case it's okay to assume and suspect, but in the other everything must be shown, explained and overanalyzed to believe it.

there is however lightsaber training in the book for Empire. So I am pretty sure they intended for there to be lightsaber training. Also look at how Luke fights on Bespin. Clearly he has had some lightsaber training. As he actually did fairly well considering the vast difference in likely skill levels. The problem is at that time Yoda was a puppet. and there are serious issues with the puppetry level available to them.

51 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

And to add to Rey’s list of failures; you guys claimed that Rey piloted the Falcon without issue. Watch the movie again. The very first thing Rey did when taking off was drag the starboard side of the Falcon on the ground and smash into the main gate of the town. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d call that a huge screwup.

and yet she immediately proceeds to outfly tie fighters who have trained pilots...soooo yeah. they immediately negate their own narrative that Rey is supposed to not know how to fly then suddenly she is able to pull off amazing aerobatics immediately following that. And again the falcon is no worse for wear after words.