If that's the type of behavior you expect from a Skywalker (or ANY force user, for that matter), then I'm just going to go ahead and agree to disagree with you. This conversation has run its course; we'd spin in circles from here on out. Thanks for your input though.
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Rey as a Mary Sue [STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS SPOILERS]
- Thread starter Veelk
- Start date
- Status
Principate
Saint Titanfall
she litterally did by your own admission, unless your now arguing she didn't tap into the force to win.
The whole point is that star wars duels as contrived as they might be do not end either winner simply tapping into the force, Anakin lost by arrogance, Vader old age and Maul lost, because of Obi wans bullshit manuever that shouldn't have worked. None of these fights had someone get their was kicked tap into the force and start outright, outfighting their opponents.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
That's only because you think was weak. Again, Anakin had the most Force in him. Anakin being one of the strongest Force users-and comparatively being able to utilize it better at a young age-really isn't 'farfetched'. It could've been written better, yes, but that doesn't make take away the fact that Anakin is the strongest Force user in the canon, whether you want to use midichlorians or not.
The force is a mary sue
You mean after Obi-Wan got his ass kicked down a tunnel, and he tapped into the force after Qui-Gon died and force jumped and sliced Maul in half.
And again, Rey fought him pre-force and after force focus. Yes there is precedent of someone 'getting their ass kicked' and then tapping into the force and winning no problem. Obi-Wan did.
So yes, the force lets you outfight your opponents. It's been canon for a while. And utilizing the force like this isn't a deus ex machina, it doesn't make anyone into an unbelievable Mary Sue, it's standard fare.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Yeah, that's a good point. It was a group of people that collapsed the Lukes order.
prag16
Banned
I get all the reasoning as to why she's not a Mary Sue. And I don't personally think she is. But the fact remains that a shitload of people upon first viewing come away thinking Rey is overpowered.
Even a ton of people here, who later decided (only after lots of back and forth, analysis, and in many cases repeat viewing) she's definitely not a Mary Sue INITIALLY thought she was overpowered.
So I guess we can blame Abrams for the pacing and the way a lot of the film was cut together. But sorry.. this isn't a situation where people who think she displays strong Mary Sue tendencies are just self evidently wrong (and possibly sexist). If it takes so much further examination for even many people here to "see the light", then this isn't just some batshit insane fringe theory.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
I've also mentioned that. That because TFA focuses on Finn-Rey-Kylo, compared to ANH which mainly focuses on Luke and who he meets, and TPM focuses on 'The Quest to free the Chosen One' and the subsequent importance and time spent on Anakin, that TFA is more of a Space Opera in the sense that it focuses on different things almost equally, so Rey in a way does seem 'overpowered', but only because she's sharing alot of time with Kylo and Finn.
To put it in math terms, in terms of character importance and screen time, and comparing similar roles from other movies(Although really the dynamic of Finn and Rey are unique to TFA)-
TFA:
Rey:Finn:Kylo
33:33:33
ANH:
Luke:Han:Vader
70:20:10
TPM:
Anakin:Ben/Qui-Gon
arth Maul57.5:37.5:5
As far as importance of character, how much is shown of them, how much each character is mentioned, TFA is the most equal between the 3 main characters compared to TPM where a good chunk of the movie revolved around Obi-Wan and Qui-Gonns quest to find the 'Chosen One', or even ANH where Luke is the mainstay of the whole movie and it's really his quest.
I can see why people might think Rey is a Mary Sue or overpowered. I can understand that. But in a discussion, if they're still deep-seated in the belief that Rey is unjustly powerful, then the onus is on them for not understanding how her plot was truncated in order to keep the flow of the movie steady.(IIRC they had to cut out some significant chunks because Disney wanted a smaller run time, nyet?)
Tl:dr:Rey is not a Mary Sue. Neither is Anakin, despite how badly that movie is written. Luke is the most Mary Sue of the 3, but that's not much because Rey/Annie are low on the Mary Sue level. The real Mary Sue is the Force. And Yoda is a Cosmic Asshole.
Thank you, I'll be here all night.
I don't think she's a real Mary Sue but she's definitively OP as hell, there is no real or logic explanation about how fast she got her powers and how easy is it for her to use them...
I won't talk about her skill as a mechanic or pilot or about her fighting skills as a all but using Jedi tricks is too much, Luke spend months/Years to learn them and he failed so many times that the fact that she's using it like it's nothing is ridiculous.
Some people are making theories about the fact that she could have been trained younger etc... but I don't believe it one bit, she thought that Jedi were legends until Solo came and she wasn't that young when she was dropped in Jakku, she would have remembered it somehow, and even if it's true, I don't think you train kids to use Jedi mind trick and stuff like this...
She's not only using Jedi tricks without someone to teach her but she empowered the bad guy who is already a real monster, dude is only an apprentice but can do amazing things like stopping a blast of blaster in the air or tanking Chewie bow and shit like this but still lose against someone who touch a laser sword for the first time... damn ridiculous.
the first part of her fight against him is good, she's in a defensive situation while trying to survive as much as possible and they should have stopped before the stupid close your eyes while fighting for 10 seconds to feel the Force moment, they should have been separated by the earth split and gave her the opportunity to escape because it wasn't their times to fight...
I won't talk about her skill as a mechanic or pilot or about her fighting skills as a all but using Jedi tricks is too much, Luke spend months/Years to learn them and he failed so many times that the fact that she's using it like it's nothing is ridiculous.
Some people are making theories about the fact that she could have been trained younger etc... but I don't believe it one bit, she thought that Jedi were legends until Solo came and she wasn't that young when she was dropped in Jakku, she would have remembered it somehow, and even if it's true, I don't think you train kids to use Jedi mind trick and stuff like this...
She's not only using Jedi tricks without someone to teach her but she empowered the bad guy who is already a real monster, dude is only an apprentice but can do amazing things like stopping a blast of blaster in the air or tanking Chewie bow and shit like this but still lose against someone who touch a laser sword for the first time... damn ridiculous.
the first part of her fight against him is good, she's in a defensive situation while trying to survive as much as possible and they should have stopped before the stupid close your eyes while fighting for 10 seconds to feel the Force moment, they should have been separated by the earth split and gave her the opportunity to escape because it wasn't their times to fight...
prag16
Banned
This assumption is the premise from which all your complaints flow. It's not a safe assumption. Rey just being some random with absolutely no history with any of Han/Leia/Kylo/Luke/Snoke/etc makes zero plot sense. But if we're ASSUMING that and taking it for granted, then sure, shes' kind of Mary Sue-like.
But the absence of any of that from her backstory is so unlikely that I'm not sure the possibility is worth seriously considering.
The movie should hold by itself like every other movies... Until we know more about her back story, she's OP to me and I'm not sure I'll take the " She was trained as a Kid and that's why she can do all that stuff" as something ok, the movie would have been way better without the mind Trick scene ( with Craig only, the Kylo Ren one is really good ) and the second part of her fight, I'm sure no one would have seen her as an OP person.
We'll see how it goes from there but I don't know why she need Luke's training, she's already better than he was in his two first movies...
Kylo Ren teaches her everything she needs to know. Her uses of the Force are all direct responses to him.
Lokimaru
Member
I think Rey was Scoundrel Class with high Dexterity, Intelligence and Charisma so already had High Persuade (Dealing with Unkar), Repair, Awareness (Low Demo due to Repair being non class-skill), Stealth and Security. I swear it's like JJ rolled her as a KOTOR build. She even has Melee weapon and Blaster pistol. With Stats like that Affect Mind would have been no problem, Hell I think she pulled off Dominate Mind given she had dude disarm.
BouncyFrag
Member
JJ picking a class that doesn't have force jump is disappoint. He can redeem himself if he uses this KOTOR2 track in the next SW movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__gLIyeQYDU
wow that's easy as fuck to use the force then, Luke was so bad at the time when we think about it, he can't even do it properly the first time when he was trained by 2 of the biggest masters of his time, what a loser...
Principate
Saint Titanfall
You seriously aren't implying that's remotely the same. And your saying I have a bad argument. It's literally just a force jump anyone could do it even Darth Maul. The fact it worked is because Darth Maul couldn't react to a surprise attack for whatever stupid reason. Obi wan did not tap into the force to make that attack, in fact it was implied in straight combat that he'd get his ass kicked which is why that was the only way he'd win the first place. The exact opposite with Rey, who straight up outclasses Kylo in even combat because the plot demanded it so despite it not making a lick of that.
You know who did and was overtly shown to be tapping into the force in that fight (as in actual mediation)? Qui Gon Jin, and he died. It's pretty telling when even the prequels displayed how silly a scenario that was.
Are you giving up the argument that if Nine Year Old Force Jesus/Mozart/Michael Schumacher/Nikola Tesla/Anakin is a Mary Sue then Young Adult barely scraping by exploited scavenger who can defend herself and is a good pilot and clever mechanic Rey is also a Mary Sue? Because it makes no sense. The parallels between Young Adult Rey and Young Anakin are really really weak.
No. It's not the Force that makes a Mary Sue; Bad writing makes a Mary Sue. And Young Anakin had that in spades compared to Young Adults Rey and Luke.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
He was way less accepting of it compared to Rey. Remember the iconic line
"I don't believe it.."
"That's why you fail."
And Rey was like "OMFG ALL MY FANFICTIONS ARE TRUE" when she meet with Han
The Force is easy to use for some people. It's not a martial art, it's a combination of genetics and religion.
Maybe you remember the first movie differently than I do but Luke's able to block blaster shots with his lightsaber with very little training in the Force.
FriendlyGoat
Member
Come on now, it's not unbelievable that in time of need and desperation you can pull powers out of a hat. When Luke was in a pinch, say flying down a trench trying to blowup the Deathstar, he drew upon vague powers of the force. When Luke was hanging in the Wampa's cave and needed his lightsaber, he pulled it to him. That power came pretty readily to him, and I don't recall Obi-Wan telling him anything about it. Doesn't mean he could lift a fricken' x-wing, but R2D2 and a few rocks were easy enough.
Rey's powers similarly manifested in times of desperation. Harnessing the power's and using them at will, and at a larger scale, seems to be what requires a little more training.
Yeah, it is more "peter pan flight" than "kung fu" =P
All you have to do is believe hard enoght and it works
QuantumZebra
Member
I don't get how people don't see this.
The criticisms I've seen leveled at TFA are some of the most absurdly blind bullshit in a while.
Like, fine, you don't like the breakneck pacing, or the lack of exposition, those are valid points.
But the criticisms of Rey being OP and Finn needing to have been in a PTSD shock coma the entire movie are so cringeworthy it hurts my face.
Rey is a highly intelligent survivor, who picked up on what Kylo's M.O. was and saw his uses of the Force and copied them. It's not complex.
Lol yep, he literally starts blocking laser shots while blind, and then later in the Afternoon blows up a space station in a ship he'd never flown before while effectively blind without a targeting computer
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
She's basically a starwars fangirl, an obvious stand in for the audience like Luke originally was.
I don't understand the point to have masters and the need to be train as a child if you only need to believe in it to succed, that Fairy Tail kind of crap with the power of friendship at this point.
Her power up is just to big to be believable at this point, if you are fine with it, that's ok but people who think she's too OP are as right as you.
Her power up is just to big to be believable at this point, if you are fine with it, that's ok but people who think she's too OP are as right as you.
Think organized religion.
Theoricaly you only need to have faith, but mankind still managed to create 72 rituals, baptism and theology and all that shit.
You don't need to train with a lightsaber to be a FORCE user, but they gave jedi some light saber training because rituals =P
Monks totaly meditating ... and training kung fu because whatever
1D4Chan explains Mary Sue
This read pretty much explains why some are on the side that says Rey is a Mary Sue (and can ignore Luke's ability to pick the winning Lotto Numbers each week flawlessly). Just so cray cray.
Enjoyment of fiction is now forever destroyed. No fun allowed.
This read pretty much explains why some are on the side that says Rey is a Mary Sue (and can ignore Luke's ability to pick the winning Lotto Numbers each week flawlessly). Just so cray cray.
Enjoyment of fiction is now forever destroyed. No fun allowed.
QuantumZebra
Member
A. That is false equivalency, and you can't prove that as true no matter how you try to sell it
B. Nothing about what she does is OP. The mind trick is simple - she saw what Kylo was doing to her and picked up on it. The lightsaber fight? She centered herself and used battle meditation to overcome Kylo Ren who was literally dying from a massive bowcaster wound, and already exhausted.
This isn't calculus; it's pretty clear in the movie. If Kylo was healthy he would have roflstomped her.
Discipline and personal attachments. Untrained and emotional Force users are more vulnerable to the dark side of the Force. For example, Anakin. That one really bit them in the ass.
LegendofLex
Member
You only need to believe in and reach out to the Force to connect with its power.
Theoretically, that belief could be abused, and twisted into the kind of overconfidence and self-importance we see from those who turn to the dark side.
Jedi are trained to avoid this path, to use the Force in a way that's subservient to the good. The training also helps them "unlearn what they have learned" about what is possible.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Yup. Its why Anakin went dark side, because among other things The Jedi had a backeards belief of trying to enforce emotion+attachments being bad. The Jedi, as we see in the PT, are backwards traditionalists.
LegendofLex
Member
This isn't correct.
Anakin fell to the dark side exactly because he had unhealthy emotions and attachments (he was willing to do anything to save his wife).
And in ROTJ, Luke almost fell to the dark side for more or less exactly the same reasons (because Vader threatened his sister, essentially).
What happened was that the Jedi were ill-equipped to deal with Anakin's struggles before they blossomed into a serious problem.
In that case I think it would have made sense to see Kylo Ren use the Jedi Mind trick himself previously. It's hardly a glaring problem for me, but I find it weird that they didn't set up her knowledge about it in any way.
LegendofLex
Member
Aside from Force Push, Jedi Mind Tricks are easily the most signature move employed by Jedi, and certainly the one mentioned by the most non-Jedi across the entire saga. (I think it's even the only one given an explicit name in any of the films.) It's not far-fetched to think that Rey must have heard about that particular ability from somewhere given that she's aware of the Jedi myths.
Not to mention that it can't be that far removed from the mind probing abilities she was just exposed to - in fact, the mind probe is probably actually more difficult, since we've only explicitly seen Vader, Kylo, and Rey pull thoughts out of people in the films.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
The bolded is what I mean. Like, I think there's a scene where Anakin asks Yoda for help with his mom, and Yoda is like 'nah you should forget her bruh, you going dark side.' instead of trying to help him with a solvable problem. He wanted to be with Padme, but had to do it in secret or else get kicked out/chastised. It was the Jedi not willing to help someone with emotional problems out. Because they were dead bent on the belief that having emotions=dark side. That's why I say that their traditions are backwards. Luke, for example, almost went dark side, but he displays alot of emotion for being a Jedi, and he turned out ok.
Even Qui-Gonn Jinn was more emphatic compared to the rest of the Jedi. If he was alive, no way Anakin would've gone dark side. I see the Council and Jedi as being one of the major reasons for Anakin going dark side, because they were incompetent and unwilling to help Anakin in times of need. Like when his mother died.
True, it's not far fetched that she probably heard about it, but I find it weird to make the audience have that conclusion. In a blockbuster like this you usually want to keep people in the movie and not thinking "wait, how does she know that". Throwing some line in somewhere previously to set it up wouldn't be too hard.
LegendofLex
Member
To be fair to the Jedi, there was a Catch 22 involved with this issue where his prophecy was actually a self-fulfilling one and Padme wasn't actually in any real danger until he tried to interfere.
But he never would have accepted that possibility, either; he would have still done everything he thought he could to actively stop the vision from coming true, and that means ultimately the thing he needed to learn and do was still to let go of his fear and grief so that it doesn't consume his judgment.
edit:
Luke displayed exactly the opposite of emotion. Notice how stoic he is in all his most triumphant moments.
He surrendered his sense of agency completely because he trusted his father still had good in him. It was compassion that led him to do this; it wasn't emotional attachment. (In the end, he didn't even get to be with his father - his father died immediately after being redeemed.)
double-edit:
Yeah, I buy that, too. We've heard the Force guides people multiple times, most notably:
Even without the novelization, though, I don't think it's at all far-fetched for the Star Wars universe.
deathkiller
Member
The novelization says it was intuition rather than Rey having heard about it (according to a previous post in this thread).
BreezyLimbo
Banned
Yeah. It's why I think that Anakin being the 'Chosen One' and bringing 'Balance' to the jedi meant him helping overthrow the Jedi and leaving only a few left alive, so that there would be a literal balance between the Dark Side and The....Light Side. Basically the scales were tipped in the Jedi's favor for too long, and had to even out again.
And still, to let go of grief and fear, I think there's something backwards in that. Like, Luke's sister was threatened and he went into rage mode, beat Darth Vader, but then declares he's a Jedi right afterward. In a twisted way, Anakin as Darth Vader dabbled in this, seeing as he comes back as a force ghost which is something that only Jedi can do at that time, so despite being dark side Anakin retained some Light in him all that time.
(Which is why I think it'd be interesting if the new trilogy should venture into exploring the mastery of both dark and light side, because it's obvious that mastering both is the only real way to become a master unlike the Jedi and Sith).
Yeah, after he beats Darth Vader he's more stoic, but there is a balance and strength in being able to be angry and then being stoic afterwards. And there is something emotional about banking on the hope that your father will come and save you, while grief and anger are something the Jedi said to let go, it also meant that they should let go of things like love and compassion. It's why i feel they were backwards, because Luke still displays compassion, love, happiness, compared to what the Jedi wanted to instill which is complete stoicism. No pride, no negative emotions, no positive emotions.
Even when Yoda is about to slip away(Or is it when he's about to train Luke), I forget if it's Ben Kenobi that says it to Yoda, but there's a comment said of "Maybe the Jedi were wrong". Whether that's because of attachments, emotions, or how they were, it reinforces that the Jedi were backwards.
Yeah, that's the running thread through her encounters with Ren: he teaches her, inadvertently. Rey really only does three things after her awareness of her Force sensitivity: mind trick, right after Ren was employing a flavor of it on her (and she fails twice, landing it on the third try). Then the saber pull to her, which she saw Ren doing, and then kept it coming to her. And then finally employing Maz's advice at the end of the saber fight (which Ren reminded her to do).
Ren says she needs a teacher, without quite realizing he was teaching her all along, and it blew up in his face.
LegendofLex
Member
This is explicitly not what this means.
http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/8720/whats-the-meaning-of-bring-balance-to-the-force
Yes, but Luke needed to let go of his attachment to/desire to save his sister and instead remember that he's not there to kill to protect his friends; he's there to offer his father a chance at redemption by giving up himself even to the point of death. Sacrificing your own life is the most extreme way in which someone can reject clinging to mortal attachments.
Vader needed simply to say "no" to his reliance on hate and anger as a source of his power.
Crossing Eden
Hello, my name is Yves Guillemot, Vivendi S.A.'s Employee of the Month!
The CW show actually confirmed this somewhat. The "confirmation" that Anakin is the chosen one is him quite literally controlling the personifications of the light and dark side. Kylo Ren according to Snoke is also a great mix of the two that he specifically needs.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
I quote this when we went through the same discussion last thread-
To give up his life for his fathers redemption isn't a rejection of attachment, it's wanting your Dad to go to the Light side. That is a form of attachment.
Thanks for that link~ But yeah, it's. just taking what's said in the movies when ignoring the Clone Wars show that goes indepth on the concepts that weren't fleshed out in the PT movies. And George Lucas' word is one thing, but he also gave us MIdichlorians >_>;
LegendofLex
Member
I guess I actually need to watch this now.
It's a form of mercy.
When the Jedi say "attachment," they mean it in the sense of "possession."
The kind of "love" Anakin displays is: "You are mine. I want you to live because I want you in my life for my own pleasure." Notice how in the end Anakin ultimately didn't care about Padme's wellbeing (he was ostensibly the one who killed her); his wish was purely selfish and focused on what he wanted. Notice how he appears to spend the power to keep people from dying on himself as he clings to life on Mustafar.
The kind of love Luke displays is: "I know there is good in you. I want to bring out that good in you for your own good, even at the cost of my own life."
Anakin is an anti-Christ, while Luke is a true Christ figure.
BreezyLimbo
Banned
(The show is really good. It took me a while to actually start watching, but people are right in that it's much better than the PT in every way.)
I don't think any Jedi as they were trained in the PT would've tried to save their father like Luke did. Luke, unlike many of the Jedi, had emotions. Maybe I'm misinterpreting Luke trying to have Vader redeem himself as an emotional plea to him, but that's how I took the scene.
LegendofLex
Member
I've watched Season 1. So far it's just "okay."
You can think of it this way:
- The Jedi see themselves as diametrically opposed to evil/the dark side. Because Anakin turned to the dark side, Obi-Wan's response is to "do as I must" (i.e. kill him). We see in the OT that neither Obi-Wan or Yoda believes Vader is capable of redemption, because "once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny."
- The Sith see the dark side as a necessary ally. The Jedi are, conversely, an obstacle to peace and freedom because they take a narrow view of power and the Force that abstains from personal desire and ambition. Thus, they must be eliminated in order to achieve true peace and freedom.
- Luke represents a kind of middle way: instead of believing that the dark side must be destroyed, he believes his father should be offered a chance at redemption. Notably this is not about embracing both the light and the dark side:
And this is really his most major departure from the Jedi: that he doesn't believe that his father is fully evil; he believes there is still good in him. Yin and Yang, not just Yin. What breaks Vader in the end is ultimately his realization that he's not resigned to simply walking the path of the dark side. So for Vader it's the same: he's not wholly Yin - he's not stuck in dark side mode for all eternity - he still has some Yang in him.
This is a radical difference between Luke and his teachers, but it's not the same thing as "balance to the Force" meaning "equality between light and dark" or that you must embrace the dark side to achieve balance.
And that's kind of how I read that Yin-Yang scene on Mortis. Notice that Anakin is being offered a definitive ultimatum: choose one or the other. The view that the light side and dark side are definitive ultimatums is an incorrect and flawed view; Anakin isn't locked into one or the other for eternity.
When Anakin "fulfills the prophecy" it's when he kills the Emperor. It's a fulfillment of the prophecy because he eliminated the cancer that was twisting the Force to his own ends. The natural balance - the will of the Force - is restored/fulfilled. The connection between the Yin-Yang imagery and his status as the chosen one is important because he moves between the two sides to fulfill that destiny. His destiny isn't "forever dominated" by his choice to "start down the dark path."
What's more: even Luke has anger in him. Obi-Wan remarks that he was much the same way. The OT still makes it clear that not letting that anger consume you is a virtue. It doesn't pretend that Luke almost killing Vader out of fear and anger was a good thing. What happens, of course, is that Luke masters his own fear and anger, and likewise for Obi-Wan, and in end even likewise for Vader. It's like the common wisdom about courage: it doesn't mean not being afraid, it means pressing on despite your fear. Both the fear and the courage exist side-by-side; indeed, they depend on one another.
I think that's ultimately what we're supposed to take away from the prophecy.
QuantumZebra
Member
This is a great point.
Anakin exhibits the hubris and selfishness of Lucifer, whereas Luke willingly gave himself to possible death as a means of redeeming others ala Jesus.
So where does Rey fall? A Taoist figure? Rejecting the tenets of both sides and following a middle ground?
LegendofLex
Member
I guess you could say Anakin ultimately joins his son in that regard, once he rejects the Emperor and the domination of the dark side.
Right now she's basically where Luke was at the end of ANH. So we have no idea, yet.
That both she and Luke are clothed in grey at the close of the film suggest they're both aligned with the middle way, though. (See my post above for my thoughts on this.)
QuantumZebra
Member
I agree that Anakin fulfilled the prophecy by removing the cancer (Palpatine).
I also agree/think that the Force is not meant to be organized... in a way the issues of the Jedi/Sith are like organized religion... there is an underlying point that spiritual energy and beliefs should never be categorized, and trying to organize and ascribe rules to the balance of creation and the force/energy behind it is a recipe for disaster.
LegendofLex
Member
This is why I find Rey to be such a compelling character.
She isn't wielding the Force in alignment with the calcified us-vs-them dogma of one side or the other. She's simply "letting it in," to use the language from the trailer. That's the extent of the guidance she's gotten from experienced Force users over the entire course of the film.
Yet we see that "letting it in" doesn't include some kind of balanced mastery of light and dark. It simply means letting the Force use you in a way that transcends what you'd be capable of on your own.
She doesn't strike down Kylo Ren, even though she has the chance to and that's what wielding the dark side would lead her to do (out of anger). She summons the Force to do what is necessary to stop him in that moment, and then when her anger pushes her to do more, she pulls back. The film gives her the moral high ground by placing her on the literal right side of the chasm that erupts between them.
In the end, maybe she doesn't need Jedi teaching after all. Maybe the Jedi teaching will get in the way of the natural, raw guidance of the Force.
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