Mary Sues and Fictional Portrayals of Women in Combat

[ShadowArxxy]

Throughout the movie multiple scenes say Luke is a great pilot. But...

Please name the scenes. Because Biggs calls Luke "the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim Territories", but that's a Special Edition add-in scene that doesn't happen until right before the Death Star assault, and "bush pilot" is exactly why I compared Luke's piloting "experience" to a Grumman Ag Cat.

Before this, we have Luke bragging that he's "not such a bad pilot" and Han shutting him down; Luke aboard the Falcon showing he had zero comprehension of hyperspace travel; I can't remember any scenes prior to Biggs where anyone actually called Luke a great pilot.

Has to be saved by Wedge in the Death Star attack.

Again, Luke demonstrated superior offensive and defensive skills to every other Rebel pilot in the Death Star attack. At worst, he's tied with Wedge and Biggs, both of whom are highly experienced veteran aces.

"The inexperienced newbie is 'only' tied with the best-of-the-best aces" is classic hero's arc plotskills.

Manages to tie Han for kills against the TIE fighters after the Death Star but hardly dominates, and Han gets the first kill.

Luke who has never even seen a gun turret like that (unless you count the ANH novelization mentioning he's used such guns hundreds of times in his imagination) achieves shooting on par with Han who has literally years of experience with that exact mount.

How are you claiming that is not an unbelievable, exceptional performance?

Luke has a great many failures and scenes where he needs others and has to be rescued, which are generally Anti-Mary Sue markers.

They're markers showing that Luke is a brash, naive, and inexperienced kid who has a good heart but very little comprehension of his own lack of skills and experience. Which is a consistent characterization of early-era Luke, and consistent with the hero arc.

You need to limit the discussion in order to ignore the other 119.5 minutes of movie that are all about Rocky Balboa's endless struggles both in and out of the ring.

The difference is that the rest of the movie clearly establishes that Rocky has prior training and experience as a boxer. Luke in ANH is the classic "Heero Protagonist" whose plot-driven skills come out of nowhere. Which, again, is consistent with the epic hero story arc, but what I'm saying I object to is holding Rey to a totally different standard when her demonstrated skills are far less extreme than Luke's.

 

[PsihoKekec]

Just remembered Ironclad (had to do a bit of search because I misremembered the name), where when the gate is breached, the lady of the castle puts on a silly armor and for the first time in her life picks up a sword, killing mumber of Vikings, before retreating to the keep, where she takes up the role of distressed damsel once again.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Just remembered Ironclad (had to do a bit of search because I misremembered the name), where when the gate is breached, the lady of the castle puts on a silly armor and for the first time in her life picks up a sword, killing mumber of Vikings, before retreating to the keep, where she takes up the role of distressed damsel once again.

That’s a parody right?

 

[PsihoKekec]

Nope and it's far from being the worst part of the movie. Let's just say that whoever wrote the scenario, had very poor reading comprehension when it comes to medieval siege techniques.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Please name the scenes. Because Biggs calls Luke "the best bush pilot in the Outer Rim Territories", but that's a Special Edition add-in scene that doesn't happen until right before the Death Star assault, and "bush pilot" is exactly why I compared Luke's piloting "experience" to a Grumman Ag Cat.

And? Being a brush pilot qualifies you to fly an X-Wing. This is established in-movie, not only does Biggs think that's the case (and he's a brush pilot himself), but Red Leader agrees when he says Luke will do after hearing Luke's a brush pilot, and Luke proves it because he's a good pilot in an X-wing.

Of course if you have a scene where somebody says otherwise, you'd have an argument. Otherwise well, that's how the universe works and the only reason there's any argument is your insistence that it doesn't work that way when it manifestly does. You might as well complain that Han should need decades of special college training to work on the Falcon because spaceships require a rocket scientist to work on, or complain that there's no such thing as FTL travel so Luke should have died of old age on the way to Alderaan.

For Scenes? Kenobi references it in comparison with Anakin. Luke mentions it in the bar. Biggs mentions it to Red Leader and the (probably) most veteran pilot in the Rebellion agrees.

Again, Luke demonstrated superior offensive and defensive skills to every other Rebel pilot in the Death Star attack. At worst, he's tied with Wedge and Biggs, both of whom are highly experienced veteran aces.

Since you're playing the "demand exact scenes" game I'm going to return the favor. Show me the scene that establishes that Wedge and Biggs are highly experienced veteran aces and not brush pilots themselves.

Come to think of it, since you pulled out the novelization in your message, I'll go ahead and point out that Luke talks to Biggs on Tatooine while the droids are landing in the escape pod (He saw the Star Destroyer with his electrobinoculars and was talking to Biggs along with Camie and Fixer about it), which establishes that Biggs is also a brush pilot who has only a few more days in the Rebellion, a week at the outside given how long it takes Luke to get to Yavin from when the droids land. Your complaint is a brush pilot is as good as... another brush pilot?

"The inexperienced newbie is 'only' tied with the best-of-the-best aces" is classic hero's arc plotskills.

And Han Solo is, at this point, established as the best-of-the-best ace?

Luke who has never even seen a gun turret like that (unless you count the ANH novelization mentioning he's used such guns hundreds of times in his imagination) achieves shooting on par with Han who has literally years of experience with that exact mount.

How many years of experience? How do you know Han's been using that mount as much as you claim? I can't help but notice the Falcon needs four people to use those mounts (Pilot, Copilot, and 2 gunners) and he's got exactly two people, himself and Chewbacca, normally available, and as we see in every other scene, Han normally does the flying with Chewbacca as copilot. How often did Han get to use these guns?

A lot of your arguments seem to boil down to claiming other character must be better than they're established as being and then claiming that Luke's a Sue for managing to tie with somebody who has... not much more experience than he has. And you miss the point entirely doing so.

They're markers showing that Luke is a brash, naive, and inexperienced kid who has a good heart but very little comprehension of his own lack of skills and experience. Which is a consistent characterization of early-era Luke, and consistent with the hero arc.

They're failures, the very thing that Rey lacks and that people point to as making her a Sue. I don't personally entirely agree with that but I understand where they're coming from. Rey isn't permitted to fail and it hurts the story in numerous areas.

The difference is that the rest of the movie clearly establishes that Rocky has prior training and experience as a boxer. Luke in ANH is the classic "Heero Protagonist" whose plot-driven skills come out of nowhere. Which, again, is consistent with the epic hero story arc, but what I'm saying I object to is holding Rey to a totally different standard when her demonstrated skills are far less extreme than Luke's.

And the prequels establish that Rey has lots of prior training and experience in her wide assortment of super skills... where?

That said, you're limiting things to one narrow subsection again, and completely missing the point. Establishing skills is good storytelling but it can be handwaved, such as Luke's "best brush pilot" line, that's all it really takes. The point at hand is failure.

Rey's skills are far more extreme than Luke's. Rey has a massive list of accomplishments from taking down multiple opponents with a staff, to beating Finn effortlessly, to repairing the Falcon when Han couldn't, to learning Mind Trick from seeing it once, to defeating Kylo Ren the first time she fought with a lightsaber (after Finn was beaten effortlessly), to lifting hundreds of boulders with only a few days of training where Luke was managing one rock. But all that's forgivable, plenty of heroes, and heroines, have obscenely good skills because that's heroic. Leia never misses a shot in the OT, for instance, and nobody wonders how she can use a blaster or complains that she's a Sue. Rey can do stuff, sure.

What Rey can't do, is lose. And that's the point you've managed to miss in my previous post, the anti-sue marker isn't explaining where skills came from, it's the hero getting a bloody nose and getting back up again. Sues don't ever fail. If Rey had lost to Kylo on Starkiller Base and was only saved when Chewbacca strafed his position in the Falcon, that would be a strong anti-sue marker because she failed. If she didn't manage to effortlessly beat down multiple larger, better trained opponents on Jakku, that would be an anti-sue marker because she lost.

Luke needs saving in the movies. Han needs saving. Leia needs saving. The entire Rebellion needs saving.
Poe needs saving. Finn needs saving. The entire Resistance needs saving.

Rey never needs saving, she does the saving herself.

Basically what Rey is missing, is this:

 

[ShadowArxxy]

And? Being a brush pilot qualifies you to fly an X-Wing. This is established in-movie, not only does Biggs think that's the case (and he's a brush pilot himself), but Red Leader agrees when he says Luke will do after hearing Luke's a brush pilot, and Luke proves it because he's a good pilot in an X-wing.

I've already explained exactly why I think this is a poor attempt at "establishment". Being a bush pilot (not brush pilot) is a completely different skillset than being a combat pilot, something that the movie itself actually highlights by showing Luke to be vapidly clueless in the Falcon's cockpit ("What's that flashing?").

Farmboy piloting skills convert to professional combat act only in the storybook context of a plot-driven hero. They are not actually a realistic conversion. That's the only point I'm making, stop trying to strawman it into something more.

For Scenes? Kenobi references it in comparison with Anakin. Luke mentions it in the bar. Biggs mentions it to Red Leader and the (probably) most veteran pilot in the Rebellion agrees.

Uh, Red Leader doesn't agree. He's the one who questions whether Luke can even handle an X-Wing, and he dooesn't actually reply after Biggs brags that Luke is the "best bush pilot in the Outer Rim Territories".

Since you're playing the "demand exact scenes" game I'm going to return the favor.

I asked for citations because you explicitly claimed that Luke is "repeatedly established throughout the movie" to be an ace pilot, not to play gotcha games. And while Kenobi does say that he's "heard" that Luke has become a pretty good pilot, you'll notice he also quietly but firmly quashes Luke's idea of just buying their own ship and flying it to Alderaan instead of chartering the Falcon.

Show me the scene that establishes that Wedge and Biggs are highly experienced veteran aces and not brush pilots themselves.

Wedge has no established backstory for pure ANH, but taking the rest of EU canon *or* Disney canon, he's established as a veteran ace with Red Squadron. Biggs, from ANH alone is established as having gone to the Imperial Academy years before; if you add EU canon, he is a fully trained Navy officer who had multiple months of combat operations with the Alliance prior to Yavin, and before that months also with the Imperial Navy.

A lot of your arguments seem to boil down to claiming other character must be better than they're established as being and then claiming that Luke's a Sue for managing to tie with somebody who has... not much more experience than he has. And you miss the point entirely doing so.

You're literally ignoring my explicit statement that I consider Luke's plot-driven "farmboy ace" skills to be a normal part of the epic hero story. The difference is I'm saying Rey should be held to the same standard, versus saying Luke should be exempt from criticism of unrealistic plot-driven skills because he's the Hero Protagonist, but Rey should be harshly criticized for being exceptional in any way, even though her degree of plot-driven skills is actually substantially less.

 

[S'task]

Farmboy piloting skills convert to professional combat act only in the storybook context of a plot-driven hero. They are not actually a realistic conversion. That's the only point I'm making, stop trying to strawman it into something more.

Did... did you ignore my entire post debunking this idea?

Firstly, one think you HAVE to remember is that Star Wars space combat is explicitly modeled on World War 2 airplane combat. Everything about it, from the close range of the fighters, to the ball turrets on the Falcon, to the way ships move, they are all very much designed to evoke the feel and to reference to World War 2 airplane combat.

Now I will refer you back to my original post in the thread:

Bear in mind the technology in that period between civilian aircraft used for crop dusting and the like and military aircraft was not so extreme as it was now, as such skills from such activities actively transferred to combat, and this was a known thing. For instances, the most successful American Ace of WW2 was Richard Bong, a farmboy turned fighter pilot not dissimilar to Luke's story. With how much technology has changed and how we no longer focus on WW2 aces and the like in our media, it is understandable why this idea, which was commonly understood in the 1970s, is lost on more modern audiences.

Where I bring up an EXPLICIT example of a REAL LIFE farmboy turned civilian pilot turned GREATEST AMERICAN ACE of WW2. So no, it's not just "storybook context" where this idea comes from, rather, it explicitly comes from real life experiences and real events surrounding real people.

 

[Bear Ribs]

I'm snipping a few bits out because S'task answered for them already and I don't want to dogpile but there's a few more points to be made.

Uh, Red Leader doesn't agree. He's the one who questions whether Luke can even handle an X-Wing, and he dooesn't actually reply after Biggs brags that Luke is the "best bush pilot in the Outer Rim Territories".

He doesn't? Weird, because you can clearly see here:


...that your statement is false and he replies instantly "You'll do alright." the moment he hears Luke was a good bush pilot (0:52).

I asked for citations because you explicitly claimed that Luke is "repeatedly established throughout the movie" to be an ace pilot, not to play gotcha games. And while Kenobi does say that he's "heard" that Luke has become a pretty good pilot, you'll notice he also quietly but firmly quashes Luke's idea of just buying their own ship and flying it to Alderaan instead of chartering the Falcon.

You realize you can't have it both ways? Either Luke's supernaturally, realism-breakingly skilled or he was bad enough that Obi-Wan thought he couldn't fly a shuttle to Alderaan. You're literally contradicting your own position here.

You're literally ignoring my explicit statement that I consider Luke's plot-driven "farmboy ace" skills to be a normal part of the epic hero story. The difference is I'm saying Rey should be held to the same standard, versus saying Luke should be exempt from criticism of unrealistic plot-driven skills because he's the Hero Protagonist, but Rey should be harshly criticized for being exceptional in any way, even though her degree of plot-driven skills is actually substantially less.

'Cause you're making things up to support a position that the movies don't, maybe? And you're ignoring my own position that "skilled" is less problematic than the fact that Rey does not ever fail.

But let's fulfill your request and treat Rey fairly. Let's take a look at a simple, easy comparison, Luke's first real lightsaber fight vs. Rey's. Of course it's not really completely fair because Luke at this point had trained with Yoda for some time and had a lot more experience, so naturally Luke will do better, especially if her skills are substantially less, right?

Luke Skywalker, after extensive training by Obi-Wan and Yoda, fighting Darth Vader.

Rey, after no training, fighting Kylo Ren.

Substantially less skilled indeed.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Where I bring up an EXPLICIT example of a REAL LIFE farmboy turned civilian pilot turned GREATEST AMERICAN ACE of WW2. So no, it's not just "storybook context" where this idea comes from, rather, it explicitly comes from real life experiences and real events surrounding real people.

I consider that an entirely ridiculous argument because Bong didn't go from barnstorming to the front lines without training; it is a well-documented fact that a major factor in American victory in the air over the Germans and Japanese was that the Army Air Corps had far superior pilot training programs.

Luke literally went from zero to ace without any training at all.

Luke Skywalker, after extensive training by Obi-Wan and Yoda, fighting Darth Vader.

Rey, after no training, fighting Kylo Ren.

Substantially less skilled indeed.

Darth Vader = probably the most skilled Force-wielding combatant in hundreds of years, with literally hundreds of kills of full-fledged Jedi Knights and Masters, including several noted to be among the Jedi Order's very best.

Kylo Ren = flailing emo-goth wannabe, can't even build a stable lightsaber, and at the time was also severely wounded with a freaking bowcaster bolt through the abdomen.

Not comparable opponents at all.

 

[Bear Ribs]

I consider that an entirely ridiculous argument because Bong didn't go from barnstorming to the front lines without training; it is a well-documented fact that a major factor in American victory in the air over the Germans and Japanese was that the Army Air Corps had far superior pilot training programs.

Luke literally went from zero to ace without any training at all.

Do you also consider it ridiculous that Luke was able to speak, walk, and dress and feed himself with "zero training?" Or is it possible to pick up some skills before the movie starts? Luke didn't go from zero to ace with zero training, he started out decent before the movie started, alongside his equally good bush pilot buddy Biggs who had basically the same backstory but didn't have the force, which Luke did receive training in, and which did prove to be the tipping point for him.

Your fixation on "Luke is a great bush pilot" is getting kinda odd here. We've already repeatedly pointed out, his ability to fly a fighter was well foreshadowed and the fact that he failed, needed rescue, and suffered defeats is vastly more important to his character and the question of Suehood.

Darth Vader = probably the most skilled Force-wielding combatant in hundreds of years, with literally hundreds of kills of full-fledged Jedi Knights and Masters, including several noted to be among the Jedi Order's very best.

Kylo Ren = flailing emo-goth wannabe, can't even build a stable lightsaber, and at the time was also severely wounded with a freaking bowcaster bolt through the abdomen.

Not comparable opponents at all.

Ah, that tired excuse. Did Vader ever stop a blaster bolt in midair? No? Maybe Kylo's not so weak then?

The thing is, even if you're right (and pedantism aside, I actually do agree), you're still wrong. Kylo Ren and Darth Vader serve the exact same narrative function: they're both the masked Dark Side enforcer for the big bad who does the dirty work and acts as a threat to the heroes. Consequently in story terms they have the same weight, fill the same roles, and do the same things. To draw a comparison, General Woundwort in Watership Down and M. Bison in Street Fighter serve a similar narrative role, both are murderous psychopathic leaders of terrifying organizations who try to dominate, control, and destroy the heroes. Bison is significantly stronger and more skilled than a bunny rabbit with no special powers but Woundwort has probably given more children nightmares than Bison, because of how the narrative treats him.

And this is the thing, being handed easy victories and random circumstances conspiring to support the MC by making the opposition weak and imbecilic are also Sue traits. The universe bent over backwards to make sure Rey didn't lose by giving her pathetic enemies and conveniently weakening them even more as needed, because as I've said repeatedly, the Sue issue is primarily that Rey can't fail, not Rey being able to fly the Falcon. You can look up 1,000 garbage-tier Naruto fanfics where Naruto is made into a Sue and Sasuke is a weak pathetic emo, all examples of how being handed pathetic enemies is a standard Sue trait to ensure the Sue can't fail.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Luke being a great pilot never really bothered me when I was younger (due to not giving a damn or noticing) or now for the most part. I just figured, I suppose... that it was upscaling of some sort. Bush pilot becomes fighter pilot in our reality. In Star Wars its a starfighter pilot.

This is the same universe where it's exceptional but not impossible to be a slave boy who builds his own pod racers and protocol droids as per the prequels (and of course nine year old Anakin did his own fighter run which was far more ridiculous then anything Luke or Rey did commandeering a starship) so the idea that Luke can fly a starfighter well? Ehhhh doesn't really strike me as too out there or odd for a hero character. It was partially explained by the fact he flew a T-16 and how it's similar to an X-wing plus the word of mouth from Biggs later on, Gold Leader seemingly being cool with it, him wanting to submit an application to the Academy, and of course it was later fleshed out by deleted scenes and the like as well.

And exceptional moments aren't too surprising for a Hero character to have. They're supposed to eventually perform better then some mook.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Do you also consider it ridiculous that Luke was able to speak, walk, and dress and feed himself with "zero training?"

This is a ridiculous red herring.

Ah, that tired excuse. Did Vader ever stop a blaster bolt in midair? No? Maybe Kylo's not so weak then?

Vader straight up no-sells a blaster to the hand in TESB, and midair-freezes several in Rogue One. So yes, Kylo is still a weak-ass bitch emo.

This is the same universe where it's exceptional but not impossible to be a slave boy who builds his own pod racers and protocol droids as per the prequels (and of course nine year old Anakin did his own fighter run which was far more ridiculous then anything Luke or Rey did commandeering a starship) so the idea that Luke can fly a starfighter well? Ehhhh doesn't really strike me as too out there or odd for a hero character.

I literally said it's not out there for hero plot skills, but it isn't grounded enough to be realistic and not count as hero-plot skills..

My argument is solely and specifically that there's a blatant double standard in saying that it's perfectly sensible for Luke to have magic ace plot hero skills with thin narrative justification, but Rey is "an unrealistic Mary Sue" even though she displays far more limited skills with far more justification.

And exceptional moments aren't too surprising for a Hero character to have. They're supposed to eventually perform better then some mook.

Rey had to have a blatant "Use the Force!" moment just to take out a mook TIE FIghter and people still sneer at that. People are basically arguing that Rey is "Mary Sue bullshit" for being so much as *competent*, much less *exceptional*.

 

[Bear Ribs]

This is a ridiculous red herring.



Vader straight up no-sells a blaster to the hand in TESB, and midair-freezes several in Rogue One. So yes, Kylo is still a weak-ass bitch emo.



I literally said it's not out there for hero plot skills, but it isn't grounded enough to be realistic and not count as hero-plot skills..

My argument is solely and specifically that there's a blatant double standard in saying that it's perfectly sensible for Luke to have magic ace plot hero skills with thin narrative justification, but Rey is "an unrealistic Mary Sue" even though she displays far more limited skills with far more justification.



Rey had to have a blatant "Use the Force!" moment just to take out a mook TIE FIghter and people still sneer at that. People are basically arguing that Rey is "Mary Sue bullshit" for being so much as *competent*, much less *exceptional*.

Okay, either you're having more of those memory issues that kept you from remembering Biggs and Luke's conversation with Red Leader or you watched an entirely different movie than the rest of us. Rey didn't have a Use The Force moment to kill a mook TIE Fighter, she was the pilot and Finn did all the shooting, so you're off to an extremely rocky start. You also don't recall how Rey's skills worked, at all. Let's review:



At 1:12 Rey is in the Falcon flying it for the first time by her own admission. And there's nothing Sueish about it, she janks all over and smashes several things, a promising start to a hero's journey where the hero goes from nobody to, well, hero. But what happens?

Half a minute later by 1:44 she's able to fly NOE and pull off advanced maneuvers as she slips through the dunes and weaves in between wreckage without ever crashing again. At this point she's on par with Luke skimming the Death Star, somehow she's simply picked up the pilot skill after a few seconds of flight.

By 3:45 her skills have advanced so much that she's taking the Falcon up a Star Destroyer's tail pipe and doing maneuvers through it's guts on par with Lando and Wedge inside the DSII, moves that are far beyond anything Luke ever managed, much less his first movie.

At 4:15 Finn's gun is jammed in position because John Boyega apparently negotiated in his contract that his character would never, ever, be allowed to win at anything and if he did have any success, another character would have to set it up for him. So Rey puts the Falcon into a maneuver where she's able to perfectly aim the gun, which she can't see and doesn't know exactly where it's aimed, at the TIE fighter so Finn can shoot it while drifting the Falcon along multiple axis at the same time. This goes well beyond what anybody managed in the OT.

That's not "Less than Luke Skywalker skill with more justification," that's Ace of Aces material where she compares favorably to Wedge Antilles at his very best, but she learned it in only 3 minutes instead of several years.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

You know, this thread may as well be totally dedicated to Rey in Star Wars, honestly I think people will forget her within the decade somehow

 

[Big Steve]

You know, this thread may as well be totally dedicated to Rey in Star Wars, honestly I think people will forget her within the decade somehow

Depends on how many little girls grow up idolizing the character, I'd say. And while she may not be my favorite character ever, I'll probably not forget her so easily (then again, I'm an outlier in how well I remember fictional things while I keep forgetting the ointment that saves me from debilitating, whimpering-inducing pain). But that's probably because I consider her a sympathetic character as she's basically a slave who still managed to retain some optimism and a moral center even as she wrestled with her anger about being abandoned into said slavery. It's an admirable quality.

Of course, I'm not also obsessed with dismissing the character as a "woke Mary Sue" as a justification to hate the new trilogy. There's plenty about the ST that I can find fault with as it is.

 

[Bear Ribs]

You know, this thread may as well be totally dedicated to Rey in Star Wars, honestly I think people will forget her within the decade somehow

Well it was a spinoff of a comment on Rey to begin with...

In all honestly getting away from is Rey a sue, I don't have a problem with her directly. It's the other characters and how they're written. Rey was good in TFA, there were some grumblings about weird things, like how Leia ignored Chewbacca to comfort Rey after Han's death, but overall she was much as Shadow is suggesting, a hypercompetent hero and that's okay.

In TLJ she's still okay but she starts getting absurd because everybody else is torn down. Poe's only success is painted as a failure, then he's demoted and humiliated, then he leads a mutiny that turns out to be the exact wrong thing to do, then he leads an attack on the giant cannon that accomplishes nothing at all, then his escape plan is thwarted until Rey saves them all. At every turn he's torn down. And Finn... I've already made my acute displeasure with how he's treated known. He gets steadily turned into a clownish laughingstock until what could have been an awesome moment of sacrifice gets snatched away by Rose. And Luke... more words have been said about Jake Skywalker than he deserves.

Rey herself is a fine character and she'd be fine if it weren't for the fact that everybody around her is treated so shabbily, her own heroic moments stand out as ridiculous in comparison. @ShadowArxxy's analysis is flawed but not entirely off, but it misses the big picture. Rey is a diamond and Luke is a diamond. However Luke has several other diamonds standing next to him while Rey is standing next to several pieces of broken glass so her diamondness seems extra-special and gets judged more harshly as sueish in comparison. That's why I've largely disengaged from the "skill" discussion and pointed at other issues.

 

[The Original Sixth]

It’s not just a matter of the elite hero beating nooks. Well, that is a factor, but male heroes typically have much harder times with fights, even against mooks. Look at Juke vs Rey, as just one of many examples. Luke gets injured in just about every fight and loses through out the trilogy. When does Rey ever get hurt? How many female superheroes take beatings like Batman at Bane’s hands? Can you think of any movie where a man and a woman get into a fight and the man wins? Maybe, but it’s very rare.

Eh...while being a Mary Sue is a problem with Rey, that's not her primary problem.

Rey's primary problem is that she lacks enough of a character for people to care. Scientifically proven, actually. Apparently they did a study in 2019 for the Last Jedi and it turns out that while the violation of expectations for Luke caused people to dislike Luke and the violation of expectation caused an increase of preference for Kylo (even if it was small)--there was almost no change for Rey. In fact, it turns out that people had little to no opinion on Rey because they did not care about Rey.

In the case for Mary Sues in fictional combat, I think it comes down to several problems.

1. The Feminist need to portray women just as capable as men in every possible field has reached a point where actual writers and directors feel as though they can't portray a woman who loses a fight to a man, because to do otherwise would be sexist. Or risk the 'Damsel in Distress' trope. Thus, they fall into the trap of trying to play it safe in order to appease the audience, when in fact doing so is the exact opposite of what the audience actually wants. So instead of giving a fight in which audiences feel as though the women are in danger or have something to lose, they instead feel flat and uninteresting at best--comical at worst.
2. I think an additional force to falling into the trap of not writing a woman who can lose is the initial preference in society for men to get their ass kicked to women. You can ask most groups; if you'd rather see a woman get unjustly beaten or a man unjustly beaten, they'll pick a man every time. This probably comes from countless centuries of natural selection; the men who were able and willing to sacrifice themselves for women were generally selected because they were more likely able to protect offspring, resulting in them being selected. Those who were labelled as 'cowards' were deemed as unworthy.*
3. Because writing positions are now being handed out to those of the right politics to the intersectional super ego and not because of merit, we are being handed more trash and so it really wouldn't matter if we had tacos or hot dogs.

*It should be noted that coward is not merely someone who refuses to engage in direct battle. Women can and do in fact respect those who refuse direct confrontation in preference for a more intelligent approach. A man who retreats to get his gun to defeat a man who is twice his size and mass in order to win a fight to the death will not necessarily be seen as a coward. It is only if there is some expectation of it being underhanded would it be seen as violating a woman's expectation.

However, I think that this also leads to a problem for feminists in the dating scene. Because I think a great deal of feminist men view themselves as the intellectual types and while they may fit that type, I think a great deal of them are cowards who are only pretending to agree with everything the actual feminists are saying in order to get laid. Hence when women present them with shit tests, they are generally going to end up unhappy with the results.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

@The Original Sixth
You know, honestly I think that Feminist writers may not be so used to female fighters themselves

Non-Modern Feminists like say Robert E. Howard wrote female fighters who were Badass and he was from a way less modern age

Hell, I’m currently reading Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International and both Julie and Holly are pretty Badass(not even the MCs), they’re not even the MC and not exactly in control and are just as hurt as the dudes so far.....Larry Correia’s a Libertarian-Mormon and pissed off said SJWs a few years back

When writing female characters, just don’t write em with so much more favoritism or emphasis on being Badass “in-spite” or “because” they’re female. Hell, I think all those fanservicey comicbook cheesecakes are more Badass than em.

 

[The Original Sixth]

@The Original Sixth
You know, honestly I think that Feminist writers may not be so used to female fighters themselves

Non-Modern Feminists like say Robert E. Howard wrote female fighters who were Badass and he was from a way less modern age

Hell, I’m currently reading Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International and both Julie and Holly are pretty Badass(not even the MCs), they’re not even the MC and not exactly in control and are just as hurt as the dudes so far.....Larry Correia’s a Libertarian-Mormon and pissed off said SJWs a few years back

When writing female characters, just don’t write em with so much more favoritism or emphasis on being Badass “in-spite” or “because” they’re female. Hell, I think all those fanservicey comicbook cheesecakes are more Badass than em.

You can have a feminist or a non-feminist write an empowered female character that is likable and even a badass, but generally people who are selected to write because of adherence to the feminist-intersectionalist super ego are chosen for their adherence to doctrine, not skill.

 

[ShieldWife]

Eh...while being a Mary Sue is a problem with Rey, that's not her primary problem.

Rey's primary problem is that she lacks enough of a character for people to care. Scientifically proven, actually. Apparently they did a study in 2019 for the Last Jedi and it turns out that while the violation of expectations for Luke caused people to dislike Luke and the violation of expectation caused an increase of preference for Kylo (even if it was small)--there was almost no change for Rey. In fact, it turns out that people had little to no opinion on Rey because they did not care about Rey.

In the case for Mary Sues in fictional combat, I think it comes down to several problems.

1. The Feminist need to portray women just as capable as men in every possible field has reached a point where actual writers and directors feel as though they can't portray a woman who loses a fight to a man, because to do otherwise would be sexist. Or risk the 'Damsel in Distress' trope. Thus, they fall into the trap of trying to play it safe in order to appease the audience, when in fact doing so is the exact opposite of what the audience actually wants. So instead of giving a fight in which audiences feel as though the women are in danger or have something to lose, they instead feel flat and uninteresting at best--comical at worst.
2. I think an additional force to falling into the trap of not writing a woman who can lose is the initial preference in society for men to get their ass kicked to women. You can ask most groups; if you'd rather see a woman get unjustly beaten or a man unjustly beaten, they'll pick a man every time. This probably comes from countless centuries of natural selection; the men who were able and willing to sacrifice themselves for women were generally selected because they were more likely able to protect offspring, resulting in them being selected. Those who were labelled as 'cowards' were deemed as unworthy.*
3. Because writing positions are now being handed out to those of the right politics to the intersectional super ego and not because of merit, we are being handed more trash and so it really wouldn't matter if we had tacos or hot dogs.

*It should be noted that coward is not merely someone who refuses to engage in direct battle. Women can and do in fact respect those who refuse direct confrontation in preference for a more intelligent approach. A man who retreats to get his gun to defeat a man who is twice his size and mass in order to win a fight to the death will not necessarily be seen as a coward. It is only if there is some expectation of it being underhanded would it be seen as violating a woman's expectation.

However, I think that this also leads to a problem for feminists in the dating scene. Because I think a great deal of feminist men view themselves as the intellectual types and while they may fit that type, I think a great deal of them are cowards who are only pretending to agree with everything the actual feminists are saying in order to get laid. Hence when women present them with shit tests, they are generally going to end up unhappy with the results.

You make good points. Rey is a Mary Sue but there wasn’t really much effort put into her to make her interesting. I think those two things go together to make her character unlikeable. Sometimes a particularly interesting character can be really overpowered, often without explanation, and it isn’t a problem for viewers.

I kind of feel that modern left wing writers are emotionally less mature than writers have traditionally been, even left leaning ones. It’s not enough for them to have their hero with the right demographic background, they can’t let that hero have weaknesses, can’t make them flawed, can‘t allow them to suffer. They can’t even bear to see a bad guy that is too competent. It’s almost like what a very young child might want from a story.

You go back a few decades and look at sci-fi and fantasy movies from then. The writers and directors were almost all left wingers, they liked to have badass women, and throw in a token non-white here and there. But they actually tried to make deeper stories too, not like this generation of SJW’s who want their flawless female or POC characters to breeze through the poor excuse for a plot without breaking a sweat.

I would contend that if you’re a male feminist, your life has become a failed shit test. Feminism is a giant shit test that western societies need to pass in order to survive.