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[Duane Cunningham]

It's a great post, and it's definitely a good idea for anyone seeking to label Rey thusly to reconsider, especially if you coincidentally happen to not like her character, citing "Mary Sueness" as why.

This excerpt from the trope's Wikipedia page always stood out to me in stark terms:

This is a case where a specific angle of criticism has been relied upon so hard that it begins to feed back and actually have a negative impact on the development of content itself. If an author has in mind, "boy, I better not make this character a Mary Sue" the character will almost undoubtedly suffer for it no matter which way the "problem" is addressed. It's easy for me to extrapolate the relationship this concept has with the dearth of heroic female protagonists in popular fiction.

A related and very important point is that pop conventional wisdom has at some point in the recent past begun to equate "tropes" with "mistakes."

This is to say that people watch movies with the idea in mind that they should be hunting for tropes- the more tropes they find, the worse the movie! This is part of why I find the whole M.O. of CinemaSins to be so joyless. Not only is this exercise fruitless- about as compelling as someone commenting on the quality of a meal based on how many ingredients they'd heard of in the recipe- it ignores the extremely strong, relevant reasons that tropes came to be in the first place. They're devices; tools used in service of story. In isolation they can be good or bad, but void of context they are are neither.

Good post, Hawk. Yeah, no writer should be paranoid anyway, because even if they DO create a "Mary Sue" (by whoever's standards), it doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad character, or a bad story or anything else.

Hell, TV Tropes has an entry specifically called "Tropes Are Not Bad" pointing out exactly that... using an existing, even common, character archetype or plot device or setting etc doesn't
ruin the work. In fact sometimes some of the most brilliantly written things rely on using a lot of familiar elements but then giving them some unexpected small twist or subversion.

 

[Aselith]

I think one thing to consider in the Kylo v Rey fight is that he has been sword trained but probably rarely fought in any sort of even fights whereas Rey has clearly been using her fighting skills judging by how thoroughly she whomped those three guys on Jakku.

I'm guessing but I feel like he probably wasn't super far into training when the bad stuff went down and apparently hasn't been fully trained by his dark lord so he's probably hardly a master swordsman at this point. I mean it really doesn't take that much training to just stab people and that's really all he's needed to do since he fell.

 

[ProudCanuck]

Luke is more Mary Sue than Rey

Even Finn was able to get thru RENs defenses

 

[Neoweee]

Luke is more Mary Sue than Rey

No he isn't. He starts off whiny, fails constantly and requires frequent saving. He loses to Darth Vader in Empire, and lives only because Leia saves him. He loses to the Emperor at the end of Jedi, and lives only because his father saves him.

 

[Zabka]

People act like using the Force is Karate where one person is a black belt and another is a white belt so naturally the black belt must win. It's not even close to that. The Force is an unbalancing...force in itself.

Also it's not like she has it written into her contract that she can't lose a fight like Vin Diesel does for F&F.

ETA: The twisting of Mary Sue from a fan insert character into a criticism of competent protagonists is stupid.

 

[shira]

It was all over the internet. A lot of it was because Max Landis said she was one, and a lot of people disagreed, yadda yadda yadda, big ol' debate about it in social media.

Wow, I consider myself a huge Star Wars fan. Weird, I thought I was pretty tapped in. I guess you need to be following the next echelon of social media.

PS: The movie was great, Rey was great.

 

[Madness]

I never even thought about any of this after I saw the movie. And yet, it's a bone of contention for some reason. I mean now that I think about it, I agree. But still, I enjoyed all the characters, I don't really look too much into this stuff anymore. I liked Finn who's become the sort of everyman, Han type like us etc.

I mean Kylo was blasted with a huge ass gun and even had to pump his chest several times just to keep going. It's not like it was necessarily a fair fight. Who knows.

I didn't even know of the term 'Mary Sue' until I tried to read up on the movie or come to GAF. Half the new terms people use I don't even know. Seems like everyday there is some new buzzword used to describe something. I liked Rey, I liked Finn, I liked Kylo Ren, I liked Poe Dameron, I LOVED Han, I liked the prequels, the original trilogy. I like star wars.

 

[Count of Monte Sawed-Off]

The only time this happened was in ESB, and only because the hyperdrive parts that were broken were irreparable and needed to be replaced.

Later on, when they're trying to escape at the end of the film, we're meant to think that the crew believed the hyperdrive was just never actually fixed (even Lando seems to think his people misled him), with R2 having learned that the Empire had it deactivated through interfacing with the city's central computer (which is even more wtf than Rey knowing how to fix it, given that this shouldn't have been info that was on record).

Eh, yeah, but even Han was a bit too "holy shit! You're amazing!" At that moment for me. But I reiterate I really liked the character overall, and feel she fits in fine with the series.

 

[Flo_Evans]

Luke is more Mary Sue than Rey

Even Finn was able to get thru RENs defenses

Yeah. I think its weird that apparently Mary Sue is now some sexist term directed at female characters... Luke was always a classic example to me.

Its also strange to me for people to even complain about this... an overpowered lead character in a fantasy setting is kind of the norm.

 

[ProudCanuck]

No he isn't. He starts off whiny, fails constantly and requires frequent saving. He loses to Darth Vader in Empire, and lives only because Leia saves him. He loses to the Emperor at the end of Jedi, and lives only because his father saves him.

Watch a new hope

 

[Trokil]

Luke is more Mary Sue than Rey

Yes, that is why he could barley get his lightsaber out of the snow, while no other Jedi was around, while Rey not only can move it without any training, she pulls it even more that the Sith with Force training.

 

[Moaradin]

Great post

 

[shem935]

Watch a new hope

Seriously. That's comparing three movies of character development to just one for Rey.

Yes, that is why he could barley get his lightsaber out of the snow, while no other Jedi was around, while Ray not only can move it without any training, she pulls it even more that the Sith with Force training.

More power creep than anything else.

 

[aeolist]

the character work was by far the best part of the movie

her being so good at using the force doesn't bother me at all because it gets back to the OT ideas of jedi training being more about controlling your emotions and facing your fears than the stupid shit in the PT. i imagine they'll stick to that in the sequel so that luke will focus on getting rey past her hangups and flaws, which will also hopefully serve as some much-needed backstory development.

 

[Aselith]

Yes, that is why he could barley get his lightsaber out of the snow, while no other Jedi was around, while Ray not only can move it without any training, she pulls it even more that the Sith with Force training.

It was frozen into ice not just in a snowdrift like this one was.

 

[Musolf815]

I made the regrettable choice of saying she is obviously not a Sue on Twitter and am now having sooo much fun getting responses.

 

[GhaleonEB]

So, with the scavenging, she was by all accounts at the bottom of the pole in terms of social class if she was allowed to be so easily screwed out of her portions like she was and couldn't do anything about it. She didn't beat that conflict except by stealing the Falcon from her boss, and she did that unwillingly, and I am pretty sure it wasn't all that great a loss to him. She escaped the storm troopers, but it has to be noted that she only did so because Finn was an extraordinarily good shot and would have been dead without him on the guns. She didn't 'win' the freighter incident, she just survived it, with her greatest victory being that she could close the doors on the monster in time so that Finn wouldn't be eaten. Otherwise, all she could do was get in the falcon and GTFO with Han (though she admittedly helped by pointing out the compression issue, but even then, Han would have spotted that a second later). She flat out lost in the storm trooper invasion on the rebel base, and the few victories she did get were against stormtroopers, and those weren't well placed shots. That's one thing Rey is undoubtedly less talented in than any other fighter, she flat out sucks at blasters. Not to the point that she can't take down stormtroopers, but you should pay attention to the wild shots she is taking when Kylo Ren stomps in. Then she won the mind battle, and successfully sneaked about, lost and wandering, until Han and Finn spotted her. Otherwise, what would she have done exactly? Ren suspected that she'd steal a ship, so he immediately ordered to put the harbors on lock down, so she was screwed there. She couldn't do anything to save Han. She was on the run for most of the fight with Kylo Ren (i'll get into the particulars of that fight in a moment) and then found a ship to steal away from the base afterwards.

To add to these points, one of the critiques I've seen of Rey is that she's perfect at everything she tries. But as you noted, two of the pivotal events in the film are from her screwing up, and both for the same reason - over confidence and impulsiveness. She's so confident from her tinkering on Jakku that she can block off the other smugglers, that she lets out the big CG buggers with ruinous consequences (Han loses his smuggling freighter).

Later, she's in the woods (having fled from Maz after the reveal of her force sensitivity), and takes a shot at a nearby stormtrooper who hadn't seen her yet. First with the safety on (proving Han right about her still having a lot to learn), then she misses the first shot outright. Then her worst mistake - she's so glad to have landed a shot she turns and angrily fires from the safety of the woods at other troopers, instantly marking her and setting Kylo on her tail, leading directly to her capture. Had she kept a level head and lay low, she's have been fine.

Yes she's capable and independent, but her cocksure attitude is a bit ahead of her skills and judgment, and that lands her and others in deep shit a couple of times.

 

[SigmasonicX]

I also feel that there's a larger point to be made that even if the lead of a story is a Mary Sue, or is a black hole, that still isn't necessarily a bad thing. A bad story would be a bad story even if the main character didn't have those qualities. Twilight wouldn't have magically become a better story if it just focused less on Bella. Sometimes it's fine to have a story where the hero is never wrong and completely wrecks people in fights. Sometimes it's fine for characters besides the main character to only be important insofar as how they view and affect the main character.

The fear of creating a character that can be viewed as a Mary Sue has had documented negative effects on women writers, and for creating female leads in general.

EDIT: As for why Rey was able to use the force so quickly, I viewed it as her skills being activated by the trauma of Kylo Ren's force interrogation. Like a nen baptism, for those who have watched/read Hunter X Hunter.

 

[ProudCanuck]

Yes, that is why he could barley get his lightsaber out of the snow, while no other Jedi was around, while Ray not only can move it without any training, she pulls it even more that the Sith with Force training.

Rey has more force than Luke did this early
Luke used the force to destroy the Death Star in one shot
Luke was able to see the laser practice thru his closed visor within 45 seconds
Rey is more like anakin level power this early than Luke
Ren is not fully trained he got nearly killed by Finn with the lightsaber

 

[aeolist]

i will also add that i've read all of the twilight books and they are hilarious. i highly recommend them if you're the kind of person who gets a kick out of bad media.

 

[Toxi]

Batman is

• A vigilante crime fighter
• A multibillionaire with a seemingly inexhaustible fortune
• The world's greatest detective
• An expert engineer
• Well-versed in a multitude of scientific fields including biochemistry, psychology, physics...
• A skilled pilot
• A talented marksman
• Fluent in at least a dozen languages
• Master of over one hundred different martial arts
• A human without superpowers with physical prowess and feats surpassing those of top athletes
• And much more!

WORST CHARACTER EVER

 

[God Dayumm]

Rey is the Mary Suest of Mary Sues. But she happens to be enjoyable unlike 99% of other protagonists in film. Probably because of two reasons:

1. There is actual conflict in the movie
2. She is not shoehorned into some pointless romance so that the author or director can live their romantic fantasies through her.

 

[Leeness]

Thank you. I love Rey, she's my queen :')

It's been bothering me a bit that, "oh my god a strong, capable woman? Must be something we can bring her down with!!!" seems to be the main thing to talk about with TFA.

 

[Napoleonthechimp]

Max Landis made a youtube video about this very subject and I agree with him 100%.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpS6TlqgLIQ

Incidentally, saying this or that character from another movie/property is a Mary Sue doesn't make it right in this one.

Never once did the thought of she being a Mary Sue cross my mind when I was watching the movie. I did think it was odd to have her be such a skilled ship pilot and being able to use the force so efficiently that quickly but just shrugged it off as movie logic.

There is no logic to the force stuff (at least not yet). That's the point.

Rey has more force than Luke did this early
Luke used the force to destroy the Death Star in one shot
Luke was able to see the laser practice thru his closed visor within 45 seconds
Rey is more like anakin level power this early than Luke
Ren is not fully trained he got nearly killed by Finn with the lightsaber

That occurred after personal training from Obi-Wan Kenobi and a journey that took him from a farm boy to fighter pilot. While being a pilot might be a stretch, the acceptance of the force was a part of a journey begun earlier in the movie.

Rey being that powerful came out of the blue.

 

[Scientist Supreme!]

Batman is

• A vigilante crime fighter
• A multibillionaire with a seemingly inexhaustible fortune
• The world's greatest detective
• An expert engineer
• Trained in a multitude of scientific fields including
• A skilled pilot
• Fluent in at least a dozen languages
• Master of over one hundred different martial arts
• A human without superpowers with physical prowess and feats surpassing those of top athletes

WORST CHARACTER EVER

He kinda agrees with you that's why he likes Nightwing.

 

[ProudCanuck]

Max Landis made a youtube video about this very subject and I agree with him 100%.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpS6TlqgLIQ


There is no logic to the force stuff (at least not yet). That's the point.

Max landis is a joke who can't agree that someone else can make a better movie or script than him. Big ego issue. Most of his points are moot

 

[Hawkian]

Good post, Hawk. Yeah, no writer should be paranoid anyway, because even if they DO create a "Mary Sue" (by whoever's standards), it doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad character, or a bad story or anything else.

Hell, TV Tropes has an entry specifically called "Tropes Are Not Bad" pointing out exactly that... using an existing, even common, character archetype or plot device or setting etc doesn't
ruin the work. In fact sometimes some of the most brilliantly written things rely on using a lot of familiar elements but then giving them some unexpected small twist or subversion.

Thanks, that is a wonderful link that everyone who has ever commented on a piece of fiction should read.

 

[Megalosaro]

Rey is the Mary Suest of Mary Sues. But she happens to be enjoyable unlike 99% of other protagonists in film. Probably because of two reasons:

1. There is actual conflict in the movie
2. She is not shoehorned into some pointless romance so that the author or director can live their romantic fantasies through her.

Op just wrote a pretty long post on how she isn't a mary sue.

 

[DryEyeRelief]

Sometimes it's fine to have a story where the hero is never wrong and completely wrecks people in fights. Sometimes it's fine for characters besides the main character to only be important insofar as how they view and affect the main character.

Care to list any examples?

Or even elaborate why it's okay in this case?

 

[Trokil]

Rey has more force than Luke did this early
Luke used the force to destroy the Death Star in one shot
Luke was able to see the laser practice thru his closed visor within 45 seconds

Garven Dreis almost blew up the Deathstar just by using technology. Wedge and Han had to save him while he was attacking and the training he got was together with a Jedi Master against a toy, which Han reminded him of. No, move objects with your thoughts or fight against a Sith or Jedi mindtrick or be able to fly the Falcon with no training.

 

[Corpekata]

Seriously. That's comparing three movies of character development to just one for Rey.



More power creep than anything else.

Yeah, I think, more than anything, at this point people are used to Jedi and Sith doing really crazy shit, either from the prequels or the glut of video games and cartoons. Luke and Vader don't do a whole lot in the original trilogy with the force, but when you have video games showing like a sith taking out a Star Destroyer by himself, the average force user in the new movies is likely to be incredibly powerful in comparison just by default.

 

[jacobeid]

Great post. I really couldn't believe (yes I could) seeing those articles discussing her as a Mary Sue character.

Can we enjoy ANYTHING anymore?

 

[ProudCanuck]

Garven Dreis almost blew up the Deathstar just by using technology. Wedge and Han had to save him while he was attacking and the training he got was together with a Jedi Master against a toy, which Han reminded him of. No, move objects with your thoughts or fight against a Sith or Jedi mindtrick or be able to fly the Falcon with no training.

Finn nearly killed Ren with Luke's lightsaber .

Everyone is a Mary Sue

 

[aliengmr]

No he isn't. He starts off whiny, fails constantly and requires frequent saving. He loses to Darth Vader in Empire, and lives only because Leia saves him. He loses to the Emperor at the end of Jedi, and lives only because his father saves him.

Well, yes after 3 movies it was made clearer to the audience that Luke has some difficulties and wasn't super jedi master because he blocked 3 shots from a training remote and blew up the Death Star.

 

[mdubs]

Don't understand why people consider her a Mary Sue, like she more or less got the run around from Kylo Ren even when he was hurt by both Chewie and Fin.

Also about the lightsaber, that's like questioning why Arthur was able to pull the sword from the stone without being properly trained, I thought it was pretty clear why she was able to pull it

 

[Stallion Dan]

I disagree, she's a near perfect character who can do almost everything and solves nearly all the problems the good guys face in the movie, her biggest moment when she wasn't perfect was just to lead into her force powers awakening, making her more perfect.

But! Mary Sue or not has nothing to do with a character being good or not. James T Kirk is the Mary Sue of Star Trek and he is a great character.

Screw the people trying to use Mary Sue as a pejorative. Rey is a great character.


Also Bella isn't a Mary Sue, she isn't the answer to everything, she is just a horrid blackhole and reader self insert, something which Rey is not. I think people have lost the meaning of what a Mary Sue is.

 

[-Pyromaniac-]

Great post. I really couldn't believe (yes I could) seeing those articles discussing her as a Mary Sue character.

Can we enjoy ANYTHING anymore?

I'll be honest, her being a mary sue doesn't diminish my enjoyment of her character. Not saying she is one but if she was, meh. As long as other characters get a chance to shine.

 

[Razgriz-Specter]

Luke is more Mary Sue than Rey

How exactly?
He doesn't do shit in ANH,

He follows Han's lead while saving Leia.

Shoots some ties down.

Doesn't do shit at the Death Star leading to everyone but Wedge getting shot down.
Doesn't even confront Vader, is about to be easily killed by him from behind before Han has to save the day.
Uses Force to aim better, something that likely could have been accomplished eiter way.


Mary Sue Points
. Swings across gap with Leia
. Gets medal while Chewie doesn't

 

[Toxi]

He kinda agrees with you that's why he likes Nightwing.

I don't care if some random on the internet disagrees with me. One of the most popular and long-lasting fictional characters of all time, a character who has starred in various critically acclaimed works from comics to cartoons to movies, is a larger-than-life character who is basically good at everything. That doesn't stop him from being in interesting stories or, hell, being an interesting character. Complaining that a character in a work like Star Wars is larger-than-life in their feats and expertise misses the entire kind of story Star Wars is.

 

[orthodoxy1095]

I'll bring over my thoughts from my second viewing this morning:

-Rey being so skilled with the force so quickly never bothered me that much, and it really doesn't bother me now. Look, maybe the critics would have a point if all we had were the first three movies where it took Luke a week of training to learn how to move a rock, but in the decades since the expanded universe including TV shows and especially video games have scaled up the level of "force magic" considerably. Plus the force prodigy angle is one that I'm okay with, I like the idea of an "awakening", that the force, as a quasi sentient oversoul, has selected its champion of the Light Side to put forth.

-On the other hand, Rey's character overall is still the thinnest of the main three, and having really paid attention the second time I don't think this is due to any Mary Sueness, but this is almost entirely because she got Mystery Boxed in her own damn movie. The first time I saw it I didn't keep total track of just how much they were neglecting her backstory versus hinting at it, but having paid attention now yeah they're really leaning into "Rey's past" as one of the big dramatic hooks going into the next movie. Which is incredibly dumb, IMO, especially when she's juxtaposed right next to Finn and Kylo

-On the whole "she's good at everything" thing: she is, and whatever, that's not really a bad thing inherently. But they don't contextualize it well. People point to the "we used to hit womp rats, they're not much bigger then that" line as an example of how you can use a single line to establish skill without needing much more context, but the thing about the womp rat line is that does establish context, it gives us a mental image of a dumbass kid and his friends in the outback gunning down rats. Rey, on the other hand, basically gets two lines "I'm a pilot!" and "I've never flown off planet" to justify her piloting skills, neither of which tell us anything about why this scavenger character who just drives a speeder to wreckage and back would have ever seriously flown a ship before. All they had to do was throw in something like "I helped Dargo Bylan run stuff cross planet a few times but nothing like this!" Is this more mystery boxing? I don't know, I don't know if her mysterious past is "she has repressed skills" or just "why she was left alone

I feel like these are fair critiques. I saw the movie for a second time last night and I walked away with the impression that she wasn't quite the Mary Sue/Gary Stu I thought on the first viewing. I noticed quite a few more instances of flaws and such throughout the film. But her character definitely isn't above reproach, and I feel like these comments begin to get at it.

 

[Napoleonthechimp]

Max landis is a joke who can't agree that someone else can make a better movie or script than him. Big ego issue. Most of his points are moot

Don't do that. Attacking the person rather than addressing the points they raise is dumb.

 

[GhaleonEB]

Garven Dreis almost blew up the Deathstar just by using technology. Wedge and Han had to save him while he was attacking and the training he got was together with a Jedi Master against a toy, which Han reminded him of. No, move objects with your thoughts or fight against a Sith or Jedi mindtrick or be able to fly the Falcon with no training.

Luke literally blocked three laser blasts while blind within ~1 minute of trying. While. Blind.

I like the exchange in ANH when someone says the shot they have to make is impossible, even with a computer. And Luke's like, I totally do that all the time. I wonder why he can do that?

The same reason Rey is an instinctively great pilot, in ways even she doesn't understand (at first).

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Finn nearly killed Ren with Luke's lightsaber .

Everyone is a Mary Sue

That bothered me, actually.

Not that the heroes show competence. That's fine. But when the villains are laughably inept, that bothers me. Especially in Star Wars, where you had badass villains in the original trilogy. Kylo Ren is pathetic, the Hitler Youth poster boy is lame as hell too, and the Supreme Leader left me cold (and his name is Snoke? WTF, that's not a badass name, that's like a cute puppy's name).

 

[Corpekata]

How exactly?
He doesn't do shit in ANH,

He follows Han's lead while saving Leia.

Shoots some ties down.

Doesn't do shit at the Death Star leading to everyone but Wedge getting shot down.
Doesn't even confront Vader, is about to be easily killed by him from behind before Han has to save the day.
Uses Force to aim better, something that likely could have been accomplished eiter way.


Mary Sue Points
. Swings across gap with Leia
. Gets medal while Chewie doesn't

Did you somehow forget destroying the death star and saving the planet in the Mary Sue Points category?

 

[Toxi]

James T Kirk is the Mary Sue of Star Trek and he is a great character.

LOL people really are just tossing around the term Mary Sue for anything now.

 

[Joe Shlabotnik]

At worst, the film is guilty of cheating a little to dramatize Rey's development, but her arc is perfectly valid--SPOILING THE ENTIRE NARRATIVE ARC OF THE MOVIE NOW: she experiences an awakening of the Force (reasons for which are currently withheld) which over the course of the movie allows her to face and defeat (but not kill) Kylo Ren. Kylo is powerful but undertrained, conflicted, reckless and petulant. Also, injured. It's the inherent superiority of the Light Side of the Force overcoming the Dark Side.

Kylo's powers are perhaps overplayed at the beginning and Rey's are developed quickly for dramatic effect, but those "cheats" are just a matter of degrees. You can argue "they shouldn't have shown Kylo stopping a blaster bolt in mid-air" or "Rey learned a Jedi mind trick way too quickly" but those don't really affect the broad strokes of the characters and their interactions.

 

[Not]

So, while I would never accuse any one person in particular of sexism without proof, the fact that general populations tend to unwittingly be more critical of women should be kept in mind at least. It doesn't mean it's the driving factor or that criticisms should be swept aside for it. It's just something people should be aware of.

Great for me to keep in mind. This is what I often try to convey, but it comes off too pejoratively. The data is there that women are judged more harshly, but that doesn't necessarily denote sexism in every individual. Maybe it'd be better for me to first go after the reasoning for someone's criticisms of a woman or female character, even though science says no one is objective and people tend to give men and male characters a fairer shake, because then people might be less defensive. I.e., I can personally believe that unknowing sexism may be the root cause, but I should never lead my argument with that accusation.

 

[Vice]

Finn nearly killed Ren with Luke's lightsaber .

Everyone is a Mary Sue

No he didn't. He touched his shoulder and caused a non-serious wound before getting knocked out.

 

[Fliesen]

Finn nearly killed Ren with Luke's lightsaber .

Everyone is a Mary Sue

that is not true.

Kylo Ren is merely toying with Finn. He's not going to give the "TRAITOR!!" a quick death. He wants him to feel fear.

The very first time Finn lands a lucky strike, Ren's like "ok, that's it, enough toying around" and his very next two moves are:
* disarming Finn, followed by
* slicing Finn across the back

Finn NEVER 'nearly killed Ren'


Also: What i noticed during my 6th time watching the movie:

At multiple occasions Rey is more lucky than skilled.
As LegendofLex pointed out, she messes up the Fuses, actually ENDANGERING everyone on board.
Also, instead of listening to Han Solo giving her advice on how a blaster, she arrogantly just aims down the sight 'you just pull the trigger'.

The first time she needs to use said blaster, she completely forgots about the safety, wasting the element of surprise, almost getting herself killed.

 

[Napoleonthechimp]

Luke literally blocked three laser blasts while blind within ~1 minute of trying. While. Blind.

I like the exchange in ANH when someone says the shot they have to make is impossible, even with a computer. And Luke's like, I totally do that all the time. I wonder why he can do that?

The same reason Rey is an instinctively great pilot, in ways even she doesn't understand (at first).

The power levels and use of force abilities are greatly inconsistent in the movie. Kylo has had years of training under Luke Skywalker and then later under Snoke. He displayed amazing mastery of the force early in the movie, overpowered Rey, but then could barely finish off Finn and then was dominated by Rey who somehow knew how to mind control people.

As I mentioned Max Landis makes good points about the character development of rey and the others in his video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpS6TlqgLIQ

Don't just dismiss it because Max Landis is arrogant. He's an arrogant dickhead who is a working screenwriter and knows how these things are structured better than 99.99% of the people here.