The Mary Sue Awakens

      Many spoilers for THE FORCE AWAKENS and for A NEW HOPE below





        A conversation that has come up in the wake of the release of THE FORCE AWAKENS is one revolving around Daisy Ridley's character, Rey, and her strength and resourcefulness. Many seem to think that she is a bit of a "Mary Sue", or a seemingly faultless female character of low rank who manages to save the day with extraordinary abilities, usually without much difficulty. They feel that due to he apparent competence with the Force, and her absurd levels of resourcefulness, that she's a totally unrealistic (at least for the STAR WARS universe). I can see some of their point, as she does have a good deal of capability, and on first glance I thought a bit of the same. The problem is, after further thought, I could see that Rey isn't a "Mary Sue" in any way, but is a victim of poor communication by the film.
        Essentially, her (probable) lineage leads her to adeptness, but she has skill all her own from her own comings and goings in her life. She was a scavenger on Jakku for most of her life, digging through massive ships for parts; she learned the ins-and-outs of spacecraft and machinery due to necessity; she became adept at combat due to protect herself. All of those things have an in-universe explanation within the text of the film.
        "But," some would say, "she held her own way too well against Kylo Ren at the end of the film!" Well, actually, that ultimately has a text based explanation as well. Just before their encounter in the snow, Kylo was hit in his side by a blast from Chewbacca's space-crossbow, causing a somewhat serious injury. When facing Finn, he was beating the wound with his fist, either as a means of toughening himself up to it, or as a way of feeding into the pain to fuel his rage. Rey, who had been show to have extreme force sensitivity, faces him next and seemingly gets bested. Yet, she surges forth and, more-or-less, defeats him. Some would contend that this is totally incompatible with what we know of her, but this is untrue.
        Earlier in the film, during her "force vision" from touching Luke's lightsaber, we see Kylo Ren killing what appears to be a number of jedi. Immediately after this, it shows Rey being left on Jakku as a young child, with the ship containing her parents leaving the planet. Why would she be left there? Given the succession of events, it seems that she was left there to hide her from Kylo, as she may have been the last of the padawan (jedi in training) left alive. At one point, Han Solo even says that the reason Luke went AWOL was due to Kylo being turned to the Dark Side and killing all the students. If she was present with them, she had some sort of training. This explains Kylo's rage at finding out she's alive. Even more, when he interrogates her with some sort of Force ability, she resists and seems to be able to peer into his mind. In the process, she seems to learn to use mind tricks (after a few unsuccessful attempts), so that is further evidence of Force recognition.
        Given that the film seems to go out of its way to suggest that Rey is Luke's child (Kylo seeing the imagery of blue waters and green plants being in her mind, then her finding Luke on a planet that looks EXACTLY LIKE THAT), it makes complete sense that she would be naturally adept at any Force based abilities.
        "Ok...well, maybe all of that makes complete sense," they say. "Even so, if you look back at the original trilogy you see that Luke was a bit of a 'Marty Stu'!" To this, I also say no, and that only serves to highlight some of the problems of THE FORCE AWAKENS.
        In A NEW HOPE, Luke's first official Jedi training comes from Obi Wan Kenobi aboard the Millennium Falcon. At one point, his head is covered and eyes obscured, and small laser blasts must be deflected by using the Force to detect them before they injure Luke. Flash forward to the climactic ending in the trenches of the Death Star, and we see Luke flying in his X-Wing fighter towards the space station's weakness, an exhaust port opening. While in flight, he hears the voice of the now deceased Obi Wan Kenobi telling him to use the Force. He disables his targeting computer, closes his eyes, focuses, then takes a perfect shot. That then destroys the Death Star. The important thing to note in all of this is that the film sets a precedent by showing him training with his vision obscured. There is a clear growth in ability there, and that is helped by the clarity of the delivery of that information. Even more, there is emotional climax in that moment, as the Empire had killed all he knew as family. Everything was building to that moment. It all flowed to that point.
        This isn't the case with THE FORCE AWAKENS. The film's pacing goes through character moments so quickly that the emotional motivations barely stick. I'd say that the reasons for Rey to be as she is certainly lie within the text, and Daisy Ridley certainly adds a lot with her performance, but ultimately, it's the lack of clarity. Perhaps it could have been more straightforward within the Force vision? Certain elements, such as much of the Maz Katana sequence, could have been trimmed to make more room for those elements. Ultimately, within A NEW HOPE, Luke was the focus. He was the focal point of the whole work. This simply isn't the case with THE FORCE AWAKENS. It's goal isn't to be a fully functional self contained movie, but to be a continuation in a series, and I think that weakened the work overall.