Ooooookay. Why is the term "Mary Sue" being thrown around like paint?

[Metalix Knightmare]

Luke: Good pilot, pulls off a shot anyone could've made.

Blind. He pulls off a shot everyone else missed blind, with little, if any, training in that particular spaceship. This shot, of course, happens to be made at the end of a long trench filled with enemy fire and Darth "Best pilot in the Galaxy" Vader. Also, his shot manages to just curve in midair at the exact moment it needs to while the computer that would tell it to do this is turned off while a Force Ghost speaks to him. And that's just in the first movie, before he is able to lift his crashed ship out of the swamp and defeat Darth Vader in a sword fight.

Rey: Phenomenal pilot, skilled martial artist, above average marksman (with no real training. Seriously, she missed twice and then nailed every Stormtrooper sent after her), Able to resist force mind jerkery and turns the tables on the uy who did it and then pull off the Mind Trick (Again, with no training) all with no real personality issues beyond not wanting to leave home. (Seriously, Luke was a hothead who tended to look before leaping and it eventually cost him his hand, while Anakin's issues with loss pretty much marched him down the dark side.)

Spoiler: Guess I'll do spoilers because I use less vague language about later plot developments.

See, the thing about Rey is she has a reason to be trained as a pilot and an experienced fighter in that she's implied to have worked on the Falcon and she lives on a world of asshole scavengers, not to mention that heavy implications that she's a former Padawan which kind of comes with a bit of training. Comparing her to Anakin in piloting skills is incredibly misrepresentative because Anakin was able to podrace despite humans supposedly not being able to, blows up a command ship at the age of like 8, and is hailed as the best pilot of the Republic whereas Rey manages to outmaneuver two TIE Fighter mooks and pull off a cool move at the end. Considering that those that are Force sensitive are naturally superior pilots, maneuvering through a ship and doing a flip at the end isn't that out there.

Beyond that, she's able to resist Kylo Ren's mental attack that we've only seen fail on Poe prior to this and she's strong with the Force. After this, she fails to use a mind trick twice before pulling it off on a brainwashed, weak-willed, Stormtrooper, which is probably the easiest target for the mind trick that's not a toddler. And again, due to the heavy, how-can-people-continually-ignore-this-part-of-the-film implications that she was trained in the Force as a child you should probably wait until we actually know anything outright conclusive about her past before you start declaring that she has no training in anything.

As for her personality, we're still talking about the woman who, when she witnesses a series of visions and, when told by tiny pirate lady that this is an important thing, she just runs the fuck away into the forest to be captured by Kylo Ren right? And, considering you're pulling character flaws for Luke and Anakin from later films in their trilogies, maybe you should give Rey more than a single film before you start in on that particular bit of criticism.

Gotta admit, she's coming off as kinda sueish here.

When you misrepresent things, you can pretty much make anyone appear sueish or not sueish.

But I'm not misrepresenting things. Luke made that shot blind yes, at Obi Wan's insistence. Making a good shot is still leagues below resisting mind ripping (Which I'm willing to buy, other series showed it's possible for non-force sensitives to do so) and then turning it around on their interrogator (Which is where the line is crossed for me). And while she did fail the mind trick the first two times, she STILL got it to work without any training, while Luke couldn't use it until three movies in.

Also, Luke and Anakin's flaws were readily apparent from their first movies. Luke and Han were told to stay in the control room, but Luke wants to go rescue Leia which leads to the entire group getting in so many tight spots it's rediculous, while Anakin was willing to give up freedom because he couldn't leave his mother behind. Though granted, expecting a 9 year old to be willing to do so is a massive stretch, It still shows signs of issues to come.

Rey though? All we see as far as flaws go is that she wants to stay on that planet of sand and junk for reasons that aren't even given any DETAIL until nearly the third act, and running away when the lightsaber starts acting up which isn't so much a flaw as it is something anyone genre savvy with Star Wars would do. (Seriously, I'm not up on my old EU, but I have NEVER heard of lightsabers pulling crap like that.)

 

[Gengisgame]

Mary Sue gets overused because it sounds better and more "objective" than "I don't like this character".

Any amount of descriptive criticism sounds better than "I don't like this"

Mary Sue gets used if the person thinks they are a Mary Sue

 

[happyninja42]

Luke: Good pilot, pulls off a shot anyone could've made.

Blind. He pulls off a shot everyone else missed blind, with little, if any, training in that particular spaceship. This shot, of course, happens to be made at the end of a long trench filled with enemy fire and Darth "Best pilot in the Galaxy" Vader. Also, his shot manages to just curve in midair at the exact moment it needs to while the computer that would tell it to do this is turned off while a Force Ghost speaks to him. And that's just in the first movie, before he is able to lift his crashed ship out of the swamp and defeat Darth Vader in a sword fight.

Rey: Phenomenal pilot, skilled martial artist, above average marksman (with no real training. Seriously, she missed twice and then nailed every Stormtrooper sent after her), Able to resist force mind jerkery and turns the tables on the uy who did it and then pull off the Mind Trick (Again, with no training) all with no real personality issues beyond not wanting to leave home. (Seriously, Luke was a hothead who tended to look before leaping and it eventually cost him his hand, while Anakin's issues with loss pretty much marched him down the dark side.)

Spoiler: Guess I'll do spoilers because I use less vague language about later plot developments.

See, the thing about Rey is she has a reason to be trained as a pilot and an experienced fighter in that she's implied to have worked on the Falcon and she lives on a world of asshole scavengers, not to mention that heavy implications that she's a former Padawan which kind of comes with a bit of training. Comparing her to Anakin in piloting skills is incredibly misrepresentative because Anakin was able to podrace despite humans supposedly not being able to, blows up a command ship at the age of like 8, and is hailed as the best pilot of the Republic whereas Rey manages to outmaneuver two TIE Fighter mooks and pull off a cool move at the end. Considering that those that are Force sensitive are naturally superior pilots, maneuvering through a ship and doing a flip at the end isn't that out there.

Beyond that, she's able to resist Kylo Ren's mental attack that we've only seen fail on Poe prior to this and she's strong with the Force. After this, she fails to use a mind trick twice before pulling it off on a brainwashed, weak-willed, Stormtrooper, which is probably the easiest target for the mind trick that's not a toddler. And again, due to the heavy, how-can-people-continually-ignore-this-part-of-the-film implications that she was trained in the Force as a child you should probably wait until we actually know anything outright conclusive about her past before you start declaring that she has no training in anything.

As for her personality, we're still talking about the woman who, when she witnesses a series of visions and, when told by tiny pirate lady that this is an important thing, she just runs the fuck away into the forest to be captured by Kylo Ren right? And, considering you're pulling character flaws for Luke and Anakin from later films in their trilogies, maybe you should give Rey more than a single film before you start in on that particular bit of criticism.

Gotta admit, she's coming off as kinda sueish here.

When you misrepresent things, you can pretty much make anyone appear sueish or not sueish.

Concerning Proton Torpedoes, originally in the script he was supposed to hit the thing dead on rather than going over, but the director realized that wouldn't really work for the trench run scene, and so changed it so the Proton torpedoes worked more like conventional bombs, indeed, if you slow the frames in question down you see that the animation is a very rough parabolic arc. The targeting computer animation from the missed torpedoes also bears this theory out.

I always figured it was some kind of magnetic thing that drew the torpedo in, or that it has it's own internal propulsion, and just, you know made a turn based on targeting data. Hell we can do that with missles today, and could do that back in the 70s too I believe.

 

[DementedSheep]

Mary Sue gets overused because it sounds better and more "objective" than "I don't like this character".

Any amount of descriptive criticism sounds better than "I don't like this"

Mary Sue gets used if the person thinks they are a Mary Sue

No shit, any criticism sounds better than "I don't like the character". That's why people pretend it's about something else.

 

[happyninja42]

Mary Sue gets overused because it sounds better and more "objective" than "I don't like this character".

Any amount of descriptive criticism sounds better than "I don't like this"

Mary Sue gets used if the person thinks they are a Mary Sue

No shit, any criticism sounds better than "I don't like the character". That's why people pretend it's about something else.

I would disagree, when the criticisms are lame and not very well thought out, and also, frequently just incorrect, just saying "Eh, I just didn't like her character" would be far more palatable to most people.

For example: I like Rey's character, but I don't have to provide a breakdown of why. Someone else can equally say "I didn't like Rey" and that's perfectly fine. They don't have to justify that statement if they don't want to. But once they do provide a reason, that's open to debate/analysis. It's not an attempt to say "No, see you should like the character because your reasons are wrong." It's simply a "The reasons you state for her being a bad character aren't accurate, based on what was shown/etc, so your reasoning is flawed."

 

[s0denone]

No shit, any criticism sounds better than "I don't like the character". That's why people pretend it's about something else.

Why is it inherently wrong or dumb to say "I don't like the character"? There are many, many characters that I don't like from all kinds of literature, movies and the like. I certainly have my reasons for disliking every single one and sometimes, though not particularly frequently I think, that reason could be because they are a "Mary/Gary Sue". Me saying "That character is a Mary Sue and therefore quite fucking boring" isn't pretending anything else.

What character are you so invested in that you cannot for the life of you understand why people wouldn't like it?

 

[DementedSheep]

No shit, any criticism sounds better than "I don't like the character". That's why people pretend it's about something else.

Why is it inherently wrong or dumb to say "I don't like the character"? There are many, many characters that I don't like from all kinds of literature, movies and the like. I certainly have my reasons for disliking every single one and sometimes, though not particularly frequently I think, that reason could be because they are a "Mary/Gary Sue". Me saying "That character is a Mary Sue and therefore quite fucking boring" isn't pretending anything else.

This is the part you seem to be completely missing. It regularly gets applied to characters who are not Mary Sues and is so broad as to meaningless.

What character are you so invested in that you cannot for the life of you understand why people wouldn't like it?

Not liking a character is fine, there are plenty of reasons to not like a character. It could simply be you dislike their personality and there is nothing wrong with that. Pulling the sue card to pretend the character is objectively bad and talking like the author has committed a cardinal sin of writing is not fine.

 

[happyninja42]

What character are you so invested in that you cannot for the life of you understand why people wouldn't like it?

Not liking a character is fine, there are plenty of reasons to not like a character. It could simply be you dislike their personality and there is nothing wrong with that. Pulling the sue card to pretend the character is objectively bad and talking like the author has committed a cardinal sin of writing is not fine.

Do you agree that it is possible for a character to actually be objectively "bad", and thus worthy of direct criticism? And that one of the ways in which a character can be objectively bad, is if it's what is commonly referred to as a "Mary Sue"? And do you agree that the very act of criticizing something doesn't mean we consider something to be "a cardinal sin"? Because the wording of this response kind of sounds to me, like you are implying any and all criticism is petty and toxic.

 

[DementedSheep]

What character are you so invested in that you cannot for the life of you understand why people wouldn't like it?

Not liking a character is fine, there are plenty of reasons to not like a character. It could simply be you dislike their personality and there is nothing wrong with that. Pulling the sue card to pretend the character is objectively bad and talking like the author has committed a cardinal sin of writing is not fine.

Do you agree that it is possible for a character to actually be objectively "bad", and thus worthy of direct criticism? And that one of the ways in which a character can be objectively bad, is if it's what is commonly referred to as a "Mary Sue"? And do you agree that the very act of criticizing something doesn't mean we consider something to be "a cardinal sin"? Because the wording of this response kind of sounds to me, like you are implying any and all criticism is petty and toxic.

Why do you assume I'm applying this to every use of the word or criticisms?

 

[s0denone]

Not liking a character is fine, there are plenty of reasons to not like a character. It could simply be you dislike their personality and there is nothing wrong with that. Pulling the sue card to pretend the character is objectively bad and talking like the author has committed a cardinal sin of writing is not fine.

Ah, so you're saying there are no "objectively bad" characters?

Being a "Mary Sue" or a "Gary Sue" is a valid criticism by itself, because that implies a character to be lazily and poorly written. In some genres (For example action movies) Gary and Mary are more accepted. In some genres they are terribly out of place. In all situations, they are childish and boring to look upon as an adult observer.

"That character is a Mary Sue" means "That character is disproportionally powerful/clever/loved/whatever without proper justification within its own token universe". It is an easier way of saying something is poor writing. Mary Sues are poor writing. It is wish-fullfillment and absolutely childish. Does it work for some movies and books? Certainly. That doesn't make it less lazy.

 

[Gengisgame]

No shit, any criticism sounds better than "I don't like the character". That's why people pretend it's about something else.

Why is it inherently wrong or dumb to say "I don't like the character"? There are many, many characters that I don't like from all kinds of literature, movies and the like. I certainly have my reasons for disliking every single one and sometimes, though not particularly frequently I think, that reason could be because they are a "Mary/Gary Sue". Me saying "That character is a Mary Sue and therefore quite fucking boring" isn't pretending anything else.

What character are you so invested in that you cannot for the life of you understand why people wouldn't like it?

Pretty much the point I was getting at, no one's pretending or hiding ulterior motives, if these people are saying something negative about a character but not reassuring us that they still like them then you should be safely assuming that they don't like them.

This uproar is a bit of a joke, are we going to need to pretend to like every female character because of how sensitive people are to criticism towards them.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

This uproar is a bit of a joke, are we going to need to pretend to like every female character because of how sensitive people are to criticism towards them.

Pretending criticism of criticism is because of "teh girl" is just as inane as presuming all criticism of the character is for the same reason.

The overwhelming majority of counterpoint reasoning in this thread is criticism of sloppy arguments, misapprehensions or misrepresentations. People could be criticizing a potato and it would be just as fucking stupid. If you want to read about the gendered aspect of the debate, we had the Return of Kings thread for that.

 

[happyninja42]

What character are you so invested in that you cannot for the life of you understand why people wouldn't like it?

Not liking a character is fine, there are plenty of reasons to not like a character. It could simply be you dislike their personality and there is nothing wrong with that. Pulling the sue card to pretend the character is objectively bad and talking like the author has committed a cardinal sin of writing is not fine.

Do you agree that it is possible for a character to actually be objectively "bad", and thus worthy of direct criticism? And that one of the ways in which a character can be objectively bad, is if it's what is commonly referred to as a "Mary Sue"? And do you agree that the very act of criticizing something doesn't mean we consider something to be "a cardinal sin"? Because the wording of this response kind of sounds to me, like you are implying any and all criticism is petty and toxic.

Why do you assume I'm applying this to every use of the word or criticisms?

I'm not assuming, I'm asking for clarification on what you said, based on how it seemed to me. Like I said, the way you said it, sounded like you were making a blanket statement, hence my request for the clarification.

 

[Gengisgame]

This uproar is a bit of a joke, are we going to need to pretend to like every female character because of how sensitive people are to criticism towards them.

Pretending criticism of criticism is because of "teh girl" is just as inane as presuming all criticism of the character is for the same reason.

The overwhelming majority of counterpoint reasoning in this thread is criticism of sloppy arguments, misapprehensions or misrepresentations. People could be criticizing a potato and it would be just as fucking stupid. If you want to read about the gendered aspect of the debate, we had the Return of Kings thread for that.

Pretending that this isn't about the gender aspect is just ignorant, pretty much every major article regarding the issue says the criticism is made because of some form of sexism, removing the gender aspect is removing the main reason why people are talking about.

People could be criticizing a potato and still someones sloppy argument is another's valid point, we are talking about character which can be incredibly complex because even if the criticism lands that could have been what others wanted in the character.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Pretending that this isn't about the gender aspect is just ignorant, pretty much every major article regarding the issue says the criticism is made because of some form of sexism, removing the gender aspect is removing the main reason why people are talking about.

All of them, eh? Literally EVERY media article. To say nothing of the fact you're posting in this thread, not the comment section of a media article. Remember what I said above? About sloppy reasoning? Yeah.

People could be criticizing a potato and still someones sloppy argument is another's valid point, we are talking about character which can be incredibly complex because even if the criticism lands that could have been what others wanted in the character.

Questions of whether someone is "overpowered" or enjoys "too much success" are a matter of opinion. When those opinions are rooted in events that never happened, informed by a complete overlooking of salient evidence, or are supported by verifiably incorrect statements, then you have lousy/lazy argumentation. Which is kind of amusing, since "lousy/lazy characterization" is the charge being thrown around, but I imagine some people are quite happy to demand others employ critical thinking whilst demonstrating none themselves.

Which is not to say everyone who is criticizing this character is being a jackass about it, that would be absurd. Some people, like Frankster, or Dazzle, just don't like her. That's fine. There's no writ demanding you like a character, and one person's likable is another's annoying. I give fewer than zero shits what someone's opinion of fictional characters is, I cannot underscore that point enough. I just get antsy when there are attempts made to present such opinions as "objective" by lacing them with ten miles of concentrated bullshit.

 

[s0denone]

Questions of whether someone is "overpowered" or enjoys "too much success" are a matter of opinion. When those opinions are rooted in events that never happened, informed by a complete overlooking of salient evidence, or are supported by verifiably incorrect statements, then you have lousy/lazy argumentation. Which is kind of amusing, since "lousy/lazy characterization" is the charge being thrown around, but I imagine some people are quite happy to demand others employ critical thinking whilst demonstrating none themselves.

Which is not to say everyone who is criticizing this character is being a jackass about it, that would be absurd. Some people, like Frankster, or Dazzle, just don't like her. That's fine. There's no writ demanding you like a character, and one person's likable is another's annoying. I give fewer than zero shits what someone's opinion of fictional characters is, I cannot underscore that point enough. I just get antsy when there are attempts made to present such opinions as "objective" by lacing them with ten miles of concentrated bullshit.

But surely you will agree that "bad writing" exists, yes?

No character is objectively unenjoyable, uninteresting or otherwise unlikeable - but a character may be objectively poorly written, right?
I think that is actually one of the cornerstones of current feminist critique of media: That certain female characters are objectively poorly written in order to fill a stereotype or appeal to a section of the fanbase.

Male and female characters alike suffer from being created by lazy writers. "Mary Sue's" fall into that same category; and it may well be a primary reason for someone not liking that same character.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

But surely you will agree that "bad writing" exists, yes?

Please to define "bad". There is incomprehensible writing, but that hardly qualifies as writing at all. "Twilight" is popularly considered terribly written, but was wildly popular. Some people would struggle to get through a page of "Ulysses". I've had people on this website assure me George RR Martin is an incompetent hack, while he wins awards for his high quality work. It's subjective. 'Bad' is almost entirely in the eye of the beholder. Particularly when we're dealing with an unfinished work.

No character is objectively unenjoyable, uninteresting or otherwise unlikeable - but a character may be objectively poorly written, right?

You're welcome to make an argument in an attempt to support that, but I doubt you'll get much traction. Take a character like Superman. As bland and one dimensional as characters get, certainly at inception. One of the most enduring pop cultural sensations of the century. Is Mickey Mouse a bad character? He's no Walter White, but he's iconic. You have to consider what the goals of the character and the goals of the piece are. This is Star Wars. They're not writing Tony Soprano. A primary complaint issued at Rey is that she's overtly archetypal, and we've basically described virtually the entire fucking Star Wars film universe.