Feminists DEFEND The Rise Of The Mary Sue? (Galadriel, Rey & Captain Marvel)
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- čas přidán 7. 12. 2022
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A Twitter thread labeling Rey, Galadriel, and Captain Marvel "Mary Sues" angered online activists... But was it right?
is galadriel a mary sue, galadriel mary sue, mary sue trope, mary sue star wars captain marvel mary sue rey mary sue - Zábava
The part that I hate the most is that modern Mary Sues aren't even actually virtuous. The majority of them would be villains if they weren't loved by default by everyone
Especially the superheroes. She-Hulk almost murders people on multiple occasions over catcalls (not being physically confronted, just words) and is treated as if she is justified for responding to gross language with superhuman physical violence
@@drawingdragon Yes, words are NOT violence, since they're not physical. Physically beating other people is always violence.
What if we give captain marvel this power and that power and everybody's power..... you really don't see why people hate captain marvel, do you? 🤦
Galadriel is a perfect example, and the most angering because that was a character that had a single vision of that character. There have been a million iterations of Captain/Ms. Marvel (wouldn't it be amazing if they just started calling her Ms. Marvel? Just knocking Brie Larson down a couple more pegs) but when you screw with Galadriel, you are perverting a man's vision.
Honestly, the female characters coming out of Hollywood makes me think the women in Hollywood are a pack of stuck up and entitled bitches who I'd never want to be around based on the characters they write.
Carol Danvers stole some guy's motorcycle just for saying to her that she should smile more. She also destroyed the jukebox in a bar for absolutely no reason. So yeah, she was pretty much a villain.
If Luke had been a Mary Sue, he would have beheaded Darth Vader instead of losing his own hand.
And then he'd have gone to the dark side.
He _did_ behead Darth Vader!
Of course, that was in a vision, but details, details.
@@warrioroflight6872Twist was that he beheaded an evil version of himself.
And then he would’ve said something virtuous like “Now that I am the emperor the Trans women of color are free!”
@@LucasFernandez-fk8se Who says he would be emperor?
I love how the feminists respond with “you’re just insecure”, there’s no counter argument at all, just finger pointing
That's how I win ALL my arguments....screeching ...YOU'RE INSECURE BEOTCH!!!...and people generally cover their ears and walk away muttering something like.. " somebody get a net for this dude"...as I look around the now empty space triumphant and think " VICTORY IS MINE!!! "
Because it's not an argument; well, it's a fallacious one (an ad hominem attack).
They are projecting what's inside their broken soul.
Is specially hilarious because those troglodites always default to always attack the masculinity of those who they disagree, but then go and talk about "alternative masculinity"
@@brettrobinson2901 are souls even real? Lets find proof for a soul first before we wonder if they can actually be broken.
But if they do be real why not? God is omnipotent right? That would mean he could also break a soul and he could also make a soul breakable
One of the main problems with storytelling right now is most modern writers don't see art as valuable in and of itself but as a mere vessel for political activism in pushing a political, ideological narrative.
This. Wish I could like this comment more than once.
And money making. That's why we get so many crap sequels (and that's been an issue for decades)
Yep that and money from people who don’t have better taste in movies 😆
We have Marcuse to thank for that.
And pushing their own career, by forcing hollywood to cast by gender and/or race, these people increase their chance to be picked. They can try to convince otherwise (even themselves) but i'm pretty convince that, in the core, this is most about self interrest than anything else.
Edit: we even have opposite exemples, like P. Dinklage who pushed for a non-dwarf casting for a snowhite remake, there he is trying to blast a good opportunity for other dwarf actors. Of course he doesn't care, after GOT he is well known.
One of the biggest holes was that Rey, a person who grew up on a barren desert planet, could swim with ease when she got to Luke island.
LOL. Maybe she has a hobby to swim in the sands. 🤣
Could you imagine if Rey started screaming saying she couldn't swim? Maybe Luke would even have to save her!?!!? The udder misogyny of it!!!!
@@benyaminobedsigarlaki2316 the funny part is that would've still been technically better than "she just knows", at least in regards to building her character up 😂
She also kicked Luke's ass, a jedi master, with a lightsaber she has only used a couple of times and weilds worse than a junior league player with a baseball bat.😆
And she was a master sailor in the final film. Like WTF. How does a desert dweller know how to swim and sail? They aren't innate skills. They take time and effort to learn.
"Rey isn't written as a real person and here's how she could be better written to be more realistic."
"You can't handle a woman being PERSON."
"Uh...I literally just said how she could be more like a person, how does that mean I can't handle the thought?"
Rey isnt a person.
She has no weaknesses or quirks or struggles
" I think Arwen and Éowyn are great female characters! "
" You just can't accept a female whose strength doesn't come from trauma inflicted on them by MEN!!!! "
" ???? I think those two ladies didn't have any men-related trauma, and even if they did, it had nothing to do with them being strong? "
@@saddlerrye6725- Éowyn did have male-related trauma (Wormtongue), but her “realization of strength” had nothing to do with him or any trauma she had specifically from him.
Reading comprehension 0/10
Remember when feminism used to be about "gender equality"? All I see is them trying to turn the tables. Hypocrisy.
As a consequence of a character being too competent without the necessary justification, it sends the message that you just have to be born special, rather than showing how anyone can grow and become a better version of themselves. It ironically takes away agency instead of fostering it.
Well, that is the problem with all stories involving any kind of "chosen one" protagonist.
Matrix, Harry Potter, Dune, Last airbender, even the old Star Wars.
Those stories are founded on the base that the character is special by his birth. He is destined to greatness, because ... well, because !
Starting form that, there are generally 2 ways of maintaining some kind of journey for the character:
1- Installing some difficulty for him to discover / masterize his power
2- Raising question about the using of his power. Is he gonna use it for good or for evil?
Any way, I still prefer stories that involve "normal" people that will find the courage or the strengh to act beyond normal. Or will develop some special ability only by hard work and dedication, not by any pre given ability.
Right. They were born "special" because they were born as women. The only goal is to make the audience feel good about themselves in the moment (emotional junk food).
dues ex machine Sue?
@@drgang1the difference is anakin actually had to experience so much pain and internal struggle and actually became the villain (darth vader) for 3 whole films
idek what tf airbender is
"If you were born as a woman, you are flawless, invincible, genius and perfect" -Disney 2023
I really love the part where he pointed out that Mary Sue's act like villains are supposed to. That just makes my day so much.
Rey force lightning the transport with Chewie supposedly in it, lmao
They are unknowingly making female protagonists villains because deep down they probably know on a subconscious level that women are the villains these days 🤣
A great villain is the one that we can understand their motive , we understand their background and why they are villain in the first place , a good villain example is thanos in my opinion.
The idea that Luke is a Gary Stu is laughable. He needed his friends help to save him on various occasions in the Original Trilogy. This wouldn’t have happened if he was a Gary Stu. Rey is pretty much perfect at everything she does and has very little trouble figuring things out and has things work to her advantage. She defiantly fits the mold of a Mary Sue.
Luke also goes from being being a naive inexperienced farm boy, then through training and only by facing his dark side and father does he become the character he is.Rey is gifted with the force and like most feminist heroes only needs to believe in herself to succeed. Rubbing some dirt on her face and giving her an obnoxious attitude does nothing to make her relatable or likeable.
Not to mention that he got his hand cut off and had his whole worldview shocked the first time he actually confronted his enemy face to face
Luke got his ass kicked in every movie.
Luke was also the first obviously gay man in the star wars universe
@@paulgardner5079 What? There was a whole thing with him and Leia which just got ignored when they revealed that she was his sister. If I remember correctly, Luke also canonically got married at some point after the events of the original trilogy
“Extremely attractive” - no, they try to get the Mary Sue as unattractive as possible to avoid pleasing the “male gaze”
Must admit, this is 100% true. If they cast Mary Sue's that looked like Lauren. All heterosexual males would watch over and over regardless. 😉
They usually cast attractive enough (never really hot) actresses, but then they do everything they can to make them look plain and to remove their femininity. No curves allowed!
Trans-formers lol.
Early examples like Rey were attractive, but later examples like She-Hulk don't even look feminine.
Galadiel looks kinda hot actually...
The worst is when they're already perfect and the only thing holding them back is people not believe in that they are perfect the way they are. 🤮
The oedipal father complex of my daughter is a princess and a spoiled brat complex made into a constant movie through line.
This is modern feminism: women are born perfect, with no flaws.
And girls get this ingrained so hard, they never learn from their mistakes, never grown, learn, or improve. If you're perfect then you never do anything wrong, it's always someone else's fault.
Galadriel was OP when we first saw her in the lord of the rings movie but we gain respect for her when we see her struggle wanting to take the ring and overcoming that weakness inside of her. If the movies were written now she would just take the ring and say sauron don’t have nothing on me.
Galadriel has a backstory of thousands of years.
The villain believes the end justifies the means? Wait. Like social justice? 🤔 Waiiit...
Lenin certainly believed that the ends justified the means. He was perfectly willing to have any number of people die as long as he could create a Communist utopia.
No wonder modern socialists revere him so much.
Actually, on that note, Joshua's claim makes me think about Captain Sisko in DS9, specifically in one of the darkest episodes in the series.
Despite his strong moral code that he always upholds, in _In the Pale Moonlight,_ the need is dire for him to do things that he wouldn't ordinarily do, and he ends up sacrificing one part of his character after another in pursuit of the greater good. Basically, he allows himself to do what typically defines someone as a villain, yet he still comes off as a hero because we already know what kind of a person he is and how much it bothers him to do the things he's doing even when his intentions are ultimately good.
I personally think that that is the real difference between a hero and a villain, because the fact of the matter is that sometimes you may find yourself in messy situations where you have to use questionable means to achieve noble ends.
But a hero will let themselves be questioned for the actions they take-and that includes the hero questioning themselves-as opposed to a villain who arrogantly assumes that any decisions they make are indisputably correct and justified.
@@warrioroflight6872 He did it because... he can live with it. He *can* live with it...
every real perosn put in a dangerous situation thinks the end justifies the means. only spoiled brats think this is untrue
End justifying means I merely ONE problem that Hero can struggle with. Morality is so much more than that.
For example, parent that progressively shed their naivete over the course of the story to protect their offspring yet remaining a hero because reality is complicated and we root for your every day parent, not a savior who does everything perfect.
So yes, depending on situwiton end justify means and makes one hero.
I've always loved the response that 'men just hate strong women' because it ignores, belittles, and erases actual women who have the same problems with the characters. Poorly written fictional characters get more respect than real-life women trying to weigh in on the conversation. Yet they're the ones crying misogyny.
Agree, and it's completely untrue. Pop culture has a history of strong women leads that were immensely popular, going back decades. The modern take on the "strong woman lead" is just badly written characters.
Oh yes, it's the SJWs whole schtick didn't you know? "You are a woman so I am going to talk over you and tell you exactly what to think and do. If you don't like it I'm going to ignore you and do it anyway whilst claiming I'm an ally for women!"
Personnaly I always think "and who are these strong female you're talking about?". Because they're not.
Struggling, adapting, embracing necessary change, persevering,... this is strength.
Being overcheated against males who are weak and dumb for convenience is not. Always chosing the easy way of violence without suffering consequences is not.
I remember being too drawn to strong female characters like the ones in Saturday show, to the point I had to work hard to feel sympathy for a character who screamed in fear, reminding myself to be sympathetic to those who feel such fear
Wait...women hate those characters for the same reason?
Nah it can't be, that's illegal 🤣
If these people see themselves in Mary Sue characters, then there is a much larger problem at hand, as it means that they perceive themselves as having more worth than they actually do, which boils down to them being completely narcissistic.
Well.. that’s a growing trait due to social media, absolute narcissism
“She women, I women too” that made me laugh
Ironically, with Galadriel, Hollywood put a sword in the hand of the most powerful female (possibly person) in Middle Earth, so we would see her as "strong". Hollywood sees feminityas weak. So they make girls into toxic men. Feminine traits like compassion and grace are seen as weak. Even magic is classically feminine and therefore seen as weak.
Galadriel was already a strong female character, a powerful sorceress, trained by the Gods, who could read your mind and heart and even kill you with just her THOUGHTS if she wanted to. But she didn't. She was the most compassionate person in Middle Earth. And still strong.
I've certainly noticed that the Hollywood idea of a "strong woman" looks remarkably similar to a "toxic male."
Galadriel, is not a Marry Sue. She is jus a POS. She is a supernatural character that has lived for several thousands of years, so it’s not like she just picked up a light saber and she could instantly beat the BBEG. The writing makes it really hard to root for her though.
During the final War of the Ring, she tore down the battlements of the Dol Guldur fortress so her husband could lead their military forces in
Tolkien sort of wrote Galadriel as a sort of Mary Sue, from her youth she was incredibly powerful named in the origin essays second only to Feanor of the Eldar born in Valinor. The writers seem to picked through those essays and said ooh Galadriel is really good with a sword too, as good as cousins and brothers who were for the most real high on the badass list. Yet she was very different from Feanor, she very empathic, compassionate and understanding well of everyone except Feanor. Basically I had no issue with her using a sword, though I thought it silly, her vengeance motivation makes zero sense she knows Finrod only spent a short time in the Halls of Mandos.
Instead they made her unlikeable, completely dense who needs basic rules of behavior or obvious facts mansplained her at least twice per episode. I quit after 3 it was just a butchery of the lore and filled with massive character issues that changed vital characters like Elrond into virtually unrecognizable people.
magic is weak!? these women need a taste of fus ro dah or some firaga
The problem with Rey is that her actions don't ever have serious consequences. She constantly makes bad choices and nothing happens to her because of it. Luke makes bad decisions like confronting Vader before he was fully trained and lost a hand because of it
and nearly died
What? She was captured in Force Awakens, her decision to go to Ben in TLJ resulted in getting captured again because he played her, she blows up the ship she thought Chewie was on. She follows that by trying to abandon her friends, which results in her getting outsmarted by Kylo and having him destroy the very thing they were looking for. In the final battle a reformed Kylo shows up to help her, something no other protagonist in the series needed. Rey spent far more time failing than she did actually succeeding
@marquislumas5914 HA SERIOUSLY?! What was the point of that battle anyway? I mean, kylo is a horrible villain; why?! Well, acts like a fucken childish raging person, always losing control of himself and constantly attacking or killing people when asking or telling logical questions even gets his ass kicked every time by Rey when they battle, even the first it's just sheer dumb luck he didnt fucken die I mean come on Rey and kylo ren where fucken awful characters and Darth Vader never did that! He never lost his cool, anyways was in control, and didn't kill people for no reason if some people weren't so fucken stupid to realize that he was either proving a point, threatening those who doubted his power, or choking or killing ineffective or destructive decision commanders who endanger the completion of his mission I mean how it is that not so obvious?!
@@marquislumas5914 in TFA, she ends up escaping without any help, and just figures out how to do force mind tricks without any training while also overpowering one of the strongest force users of the time. In TLJ, She intentionally got captured to try and save Ben, and while she did fail, it didn’t really impact her character that much, not even the broken lightsaber ends up doing that, cause it just gets fixed anyway. In TROS, Rey bounces from location to location with little to no failures, and new things are added to the Star Wars continuity to make the character’s even stronger, Her with blowing up the ship she thought Chewie was on ended up being inconsequential cause they just fly up rescue him and get out. At the end, She somehow is able to beat the most powerful force user with 2 lightsabers, when this guy is basically working with godlike power at this point, and he dies to Rey cause of 2 lightsabers. The flaws you speak of are inconsequential. They don’t end up being a problem for her
@@brendofire2084 TFA established that she had prior knowledge of mind trick's existence. By comparison Luke uses force pull in Empire, which was the first time anyone in the series ever used it. He literally pulled the power out of his ass. Rey didn't overpower Kylo, she spent 95 percent of that fight running away. Go watch it again. She didn't intentionally get captured. She thought that he would immediately turn and he didn't. Furthermore, she failed, her plan ended up making him the unopposed leader of the first order. Her blowing up the ship is only made inconsequential to the audience. She and the rest of the characters aren't aware he's alive until well after that point. The final scene of the movie makes it clear she is being helped by the spirits of all previous Jedi. In other words it's not even her power it's theirs. Moreover, it doesn't even matter because Palpatine essentially kills himself. She barely did anything, and spent more time getting flung around by him. Once again, go watch it again.
I remember when Ahsoka Tano first appeared in the Clone Wars movie and series the fans didn't like her. Because she wasn't a Mary Sue, but instead learned and grew as a person, she became one of the most popular characters in the Star Wars universe. I'll come right out and say it, she's my favourite.
because Ashoke WAS, pardon my language, a cocky little piece of bullcrab. but her story wasnt like Anakin's 'choosen one' syndrome, her story was one of growth and acceptance. she grew up as both a jedi and a person, because of what she experienced. Her constant cockiness disappeared when the troops under her got ambushed. she grew as a person because she lived through Second Geonosis invasion. she survived without her lightsaber in many occations. and in the end, she became someone Anakin would love to call his sister, and we would call a favored character. my point is: Ashoka is purpously made to be bad, because there will be entire seasons of content to build her up to who she is now.
You've pretty much nailed the very problem with 'Marry Sue' characters in one sentence. They're 'hero's journey' ends when the story begins, and without a proper arc for them go through, they don't grow as characters. Nor do we see them overcome they're obstacles before the story ends.
There's not a story there. For there to be a story, something has to happen.
@@TheRisky9 ya, that is why i always believed that Sequal trilogy is created just to make new characters and Factions to currently exploding SW Galaxy of Heroes.
Whenever I see a modern female lead character I instantly remember Ripley and how she got through Alien and Aliens. I watched those films and her journey instantly transported me (a man) into her shoes. I gasped for air and sweated bullets with her from the first encounter with the alien till the credits. Thats what makes a good character to me, making the path they walk so compelling everything else is not important. The way Ripley basically cried her way in shear terror into the space suit before she ejected the alien out of the ship, that's not female "weakness", thats a real person terrified to death knowing one false move will end her life or worse. In that scene I wasn't watching Ripley, I was watching myself knowing I'd be shitting bricks. Rey and those like her as characters do nothing but harm to the industry and perception of "strong ANYTHING leads" and detract from the overall story. There is no emotional connection to be made with them.
LoL Arcane, it's a show that'll give you the same feeling Ripley did, none of the characters are many sue's
Dude Ripley is one my all time favorite characters.
Well said.
Ripley, Kiddo (Kill Bill), Sarah Connor, Captain Janeway, Wednesday Addams, Princess Leia, Tracy (James Bond), Pheobe Spengler, Vaylin (Star Wars old republic) .... female characters written with passion. Female lead everyone can relate to. Written by authors who thought about their storys. Flawed, sometimes mad, but telling a convincing story. My personal favourite line, written for a vilian comes from Vaylin. it shows how twisted and demaged she was written. "I want you to find our enemies and burn their bodies into glass. I WANNA MAKE A WINDOW OUT OF THEM!!!"
@@thomasnieswandt8805 the only one there I disagree with you on is Capt Janeway otherwise that's a spot on list.
You know who I looked up to as a child while reading through dozens of series? Percy Jackson. He reminded me so much of myself. I had a mother who was married to an abusive stepfather, I had learning difficulties, I was bullied, and my best friend was disabled, I didn't need to have Percy be a girl, or perfect. Imperfections in characters make them relatable and likeable.
I assure you the mother is the main abuser. Your father had to leave to protect himself, then came the next guy.
@@auramdickerson112 actually. My alcoholic abusive father had a secret life with another woman in another town. He had been living a double life with his mistress since I was six months old. Nice try though.
@@hailey7596 your mom was so abusive that he had to find love elsewhere....
@@auramdickerson112 whatever troll.
Yes, I love the Percy Jackson series too, and I would like to add that there was also Annabeth, who is a great character too. So they are two examples of how to write great characters that are flawed but also relatable and likable
One of the most powerful stories in "stranger things" was Max's story. There was a journey - she (as other victims) was weak in some terms. The whole "running up the hills" scene was so powerful as she was fighting her weakness. Same with a cheerleader who died at the beginning. She was not an "important" character - but she bought the audience by who she was, how she was, and how she struggled. This is why we love authentic shows opposed to woke ones.
The way you described the self insertion fantasy all I can think of is the kid when we were playing a game of pretend. That kid would not die in the game, they would come up with any excuse to say you missed or he had a shield. We now live in a world filled with selfish children.
The reason we like Leia, Ripley, Lara, Sarah and many other is because they show how human they are, they show their weakness and fear when facing a villains when they defeated they retreat and get the training they need to overcome the villains
Yes tho I think being human has more to do with having heart rather than weakness
The best example of a character who's loved for having a traditional hero's journey AND hated for being a Mary Sue are the two versions of Mulan.
The animated version goes on the hero's journey, overcomes obstacles, experiences growth and is beloved.
Live action Mulan has inexplicable super powers, doesn't go on the hero's journey and is generally disliked.
Absolutely!!! Sarah Connor (T1 and T2 only!) was the epitome of bad-ass!!! When I saw She-Hulk twerking...I lost all faith in new heores. "Is there anything worse than dating in your 30's?" uhhhhh...how about 50% of the world being wiped out. Guess she forgot about Thanos pretty quickly.
@@eddiepalmer9543 “Having heart” can be taken multiple ways, as it’s often confused with “having A heart”.
“Having a heart” means caring. Not to be confused with “having heart” which means being determined, especially in the face of adversity.
@Metal Head Sara was a badass in t2, in T1 she was the DiD.
"Men don't see women as people and only see them as valid when they are written to please them" is so absolutely ironic. A Mary Sue is a character that has their human aspects stripped from them, only leaving the idealized traits without the worldly hardships that humans do face in order to work up to those traits and skills. In every essence, a Mary Sue is written to please a writer self-insert, and this Shaley person is accusing someone who is calling that out for it. It's sad and hilarious, really
Women are supposed to please
I think the unfortunate and sad part about this whole issue isn’t that the archetype is a form of wish fulfillment--I believe this character type is actually how many people see themselves: awesome and without fault. Women genuinely deserve better writing.
Totally agree with you. There are strong female characters, and then there are "StRoNg FeMaLe ChArAcTeRs", and they are inexplicably better than everyone else, they're superior for no apparent reason; they just are and you're not supposed to question it. They're predictably stronger, faster, smarter than everyone else, all the other characters instantly and naturally like them, and all the other characters just become supporting characters for her. It's kind of patronizing and insulting when you think about it. Women can't be flawed, women can't be vulnerable, women can't make mistakes or be bad or not know everything or need help. It's a caricature of a strong woman.
They also seem to think we enjoy seeing women act like bitchy, smarmy, entitled cows and be rewarded for such behaviour. We despise those types IRL so why would we want to see them on screen? They use the excuse as was mentioned here, that we're supposed to suspend disbelief for films/shows but when it goes way beyond what's possible, we obviously won't. They hate us for that. As an oldie I never thought I'd see the day when a seller demands a customer buy/enjoy what's offered or be insulted/attacked, I'd never have believed it. It's not a winning formula as they're discovering.
Women CAN make mistakes in female-power-fantasy world...
But it's never their fault. It's always a man's fault.
And BOY is he going to pay a price for MAKING HER make a mistake.
there is only one woman in history I can think of that fits the kind of thing they're really after. Her name was Khutulun, a mongolian princess, and she earned her place in history. Not one person ever beat her in wrestling or in battle....and they tried like hell to do it.
Ripley is one of the best of these.
It's also funny that a woman can only be strong when she's manlier than the men around her.
Eowyn killed a freaking Nazgul and had to suffer the Black Breath for her valor. That's a real hero.
Everything you said points to why Shonen anime are so popular. All of my favorite characters begin a journey in which they have to grow and overcome. Some of the most satisfying moments in story are earned when a character is shown to stare down the dark pit of inadequacy. When they see that people they love have been hurt because they weren’t strong enough and then they go to great lengths to get better! I love Anime like Naruto, One piece, Demon Slayer, Bleach, Erased, Dragon Ball, the list goes on for this reason.
Unfortunate, this Mary Sue/Gary Stu problem is invading Japanese anime as well. There is a growing number of overpower character without failure that makes the character one dimensional, and there is always audience for such trope.
@@onisuryaman408 I'm curious as to what series you're talking about. I've yet to find any(not that I actively look for them, so that may be why).
@@Pulstar232 Try Smartphone isekai. The main guy is an absolute bore
Man watching this made me feel good. Just hearing someone else express similar views to mine in an intelligent way gave me hope.
The three Mary Sue characters you've discussed share some common characteristics that make them worth discussing in the context of the people who are supporting them. The first observation is that if they were gender swapped to be men they'd be obviously dripping with so called 'toxic masculinity' for their behavior of rejecting help (Rey), belittling and bullying subordinates (Galadriel), and in a deleted scene in Captain Marvel directly interacting with a caricature of a 'toxic man' to try to hide her own behavior by contrast. It's almost as though feminists really like the things they call 'toxic masculinity' after all, and think that they represent the pinnacle of strength and heroism to be pursued, even when the resulting characters are being coarse abrasive losers. It unintentionally tells us a lot about the psyches of the people who enjoy the characters. The second observation comes in that all of these characters seem to have either astonishingly small weaknesses or none whatsoever. This shows that in western society there's still a gigantic blind spot covering the reality that women can have flaws too, and that they can be as serious as the flaws that we are comfortable showing in male characters (that aren't boring!). People love to cheer for an underdog, but the writers don't seem to be comfortable showing that a woman can fail and be humbled.
If Rey had turned to the dark side directly after finding out that her parents had purposely left her there, that would have been more interesting than what we got.
Interesting to note on the "Wish fullfillment"-part is, that it is not even impossible to make a story where the character has no struggles at all. Sometimes people just want to have a good time. It's just that many people who write those stories, still write it as if their is going to be any tension.
For example, one good story without struggles is a Pokemon fanfiction where the main character makes so many friends that he can literally call someone to deal with the problem at hand and if he makes a string of logic that could be possible, the universe literaly goes "makes sense" and adjusts itself to allow that, even if everyone else around him says "this should not be physically possible".
But the important part is, the story never tries to imply as if the main character could lose. Everyone knows, he will save the day, mostly effortless at that, the entertaining part is, that we don't know how he's going to do it, what over-the-top solution he will go with, what kind of insane logic will break reality and allow for a victory.
Compare that to many other stories with overpowered characters. There it's constantly "Oh, no, a new enemy shows up, how will our invisible hero defeat this definitively dangerous menace?!" They try to build tension but since the hero has never lost before, they fall flat on it and make the whole battle boringly easy.
And if they try to not make the battle easy and build tension within a fight, they have to make the fight continue longer than it naturally would and the only way to that is for the character to just not use the ability which would end the fight instantly. Which makes the audience think the character is stupid and cheated, if no one chastises the hero for risking so much because he did not use one of the abilities he previously had.
TL;DR: If you want to make an overpowered character without any struggles entertaining, you have to go for full-blown comedy, instead of trying to add tension where there won't be any.
"Invincible", not "invisible".
You have absolutely nailed it. One does not need to be the same gender or age to relate to the character. We love a hero because we can relate to his/her struggles and pains, the choices they make and certainly their growth. We can relate to them because the are not perfect much like us and grow and develop to become a favorite character. Love LOTR. could barely sit through LOTR Rings of Power.
The woman who posted "None of you will EVER have a fulfilling relationship with a woman" is probably married and is in the most fulfilling relationship possible. Or more realistically she is projecting her own insecurities because she can't argue with what is presented.
She's butt-hurt because she doesn't think that women should have to earn anything.
Shame, guilt, insults and the need to be right. Those are the 4 common weapons of a woman who can't argue a point and knows she's lost.
In a fulfilling relationship with her cats.
@@rickmossop3733 All 256 of them
It's funny how C3P0 is actually more human than Rey.
Bulletproof facts!
I hadn’t really thought about it this way before. I always assumed that Mary Sues were just lazily written, but maybe they are intentionally bland because they are supposed to be a blank canvas for you to project yourself onto.
That's not too far from the truth. And quite frankly, its annoying.
There are lots of characters who are kind of purposely blank so you can 'be' them. And certainly not all Mary Sues are blank... many, in fact, are rather obviously supposed to 'be' the author, including the character for whom the 'Mary Sue' trope is named. I will always mock Stephen King for literally writing himself into one of his novels as GOD.
The weird thing is when I first watched Capt. Marvel, I was like, "This is okay... but something seems off, and it feels like it's missing something else." It wasn't till I found out later about Mary Sue character writing that I realized what the problem was... a complete lack of an actual character arc for the protagonist and not one likable or relatable trait. She was like, "Oh, I'm awesome, and I just needed to realize how awesome I've always been so I can become even more awesomer-r!"
I had the same reaction to that movie. It was all flashy and tried to tell some sort of story, but everything felt incredibly bland and unmemorable because I could never connect with Captain Marvel. She always seemed sure of herself even without her memories, and people told her to stop being emotional when she had expressed maybe one emotion throughout the whole movie. It made that flashback scene of her getting up to keep going lose all it's intended impact.
This entire generation is basically Anakin during the Mustafar battle
Both figuratively and literally.
They don't understand the prequels, they continue to vilify the Jedi Order instead of judging Anakin for his choices
@@user-yq9im9dk9z amen.
Anywho, wanna see The Pensuke Files. Honestly, there are some parallels between “Modern” Palpatine and Pensuke.
The fact that some people say they can't relate to a character just because they aren't fully represented by them is laughable. I relate to Edward Scissorhands, Revali from BoTW, Abed from Community, Rocket from GotG, Genya from Demon Slayer, Raphael from Rise of the TMNT, and I'm not male, nor a bird, nor a raccoon, nor a mutant ninja turtle. It's the experiences the characters go through that you see yourself in, not solely physical appearances.
It seems like you’re downplaying representation. For example, I didn’t know superheroes or cartoons could be black until I watched static shock. Are you saying that it shouldn’t matter what skin color static shock is and that me realizing this is worthless because I should have known cartoons and superheroes could be black
@@BabyGirlTiny It shouldn't matter what color someone's skin is, that's right, and no character should ever be made Black just to serve as a token for representation. What's good is when rounded Black characters are made because the creator wants Black characters in their work, either because they are Black, or because know/appreciate Black people/culture, neither of which was common among the people making gold and silver age super heroes. You never want people to be pushed to create (or worse, race shift) Black characters when they don't understand the Black perspective whatsoever just because they've been pressured to be representative. There is no going back in time, the majority will never be the majority that existed back when super heroes were all White again.
@@BabyGirlTiny There is one race, the Human Race. Everyone's skin color is brown, despite there being different shades of it. The idea of "Representation" sounds good in theory, but isn't as good or effective in a practical sense. It's really a shallow look at media if you think about it. It's way more important to represent universal experiences and struggles when building characters and stories. Oppression isn't a uniquely "minority" experience. And you don't have to share similar physical characteristics or identities to relate to fictional characters or non-fictional people.
Downplaying Representation isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially when it becomes a quota and, more often than not, is added at the expense of good storytelling and character writing.
It's not a black and white (literally) issue. When I was a child in the 50s, there were NO black heroes depicted in media. Hell, there were no black characters at all in any children's p;rogramming. I certainly did identify with some of the white heroes they presented. Sure, I could imagine myself being Superman or Batman or GI Joe.
But... as a child I did take a brown magic marker to my GI Joes. I made my heroes look like me when I could. And when Johnny Quest gave us a brown protagonist, we took him as one of our own. So, yeah, I did as a child manifest a desire to see heroes that looked like me. It's not a necessary thing, but it is an important thing.
@shionkreth7536 why not?
Not to come over all "old Fogey", but regarding identification with characters, there used to be this thing called "imagination". I can remember identifying at times with Mole from wind in the willows despite a total absence of sighless burrowing on my part
Watched the star wars with Rey in theatres. Two problems I saw right off the bat when watching it were the fact that Rey trashed the Millenium falcon calling it junk but changed her mind only cause she learned which ship she was on thanks to Han, than somehow the guys who had lived and work on that ship all their lives can't fix why the ship won't go into hyperdrive but all of a sudden she "bypasses the converter" or something without any extensive knowledge on the ship she declares junk? Also a notable thing for all jedi doing the mind trick is the hand motion that they all do throughout the main trilogy even the prequels, but all powerful Rey can not only do the mind trick with no knowledge or respect for the force but can do it while tied up and not even looking at the trooper while he leaves. And lastly during the fight that she wins against an opponent who has trained in the force and jedi martial arts she wins? And the only defense is she used the force?
I heard a youtuber come up with a new phrase to describe this new wave of mary sues. Instead of the "hero's journey" which was perfected by creators like george lucas. We now have the "heroine's destiny." The differences are painfully obvious in the writing structure 😩
I agree. The term "Mary Sue" was actually coined by two women editing an early Star Trek fan-fiction magazine who were frustrated by how many poorly-written self-insert characters they saw in submissions: so the term is not sexist and has always been driven on some level by the wish-fulfillment of creating or consuming stories about someone you can imagine as yourself living a perfect life. They have always been around and always been a mark of bad writing, but usually in the past they were contained to more amateur works. I think what's taken Mary Sues out of amateur writing and turned them into the main stars of multi-million dollar shows (and the reason they all seem to be women or minority characters) is the push for Hollywood to create characters not as individuals who happen to be members of certain minority groups, but as representatives of those minority groups whose main purpose is to give members of those groups someone they can imagine as themselves.
If the PRIMARY purpose of a character is to act as a representative of an entire demographic of people that you want to portray in a positive light (rather than an individual human who just so happens to be a member of that demographic, but is not supposed to represent anyone other than themselves as an individual), there is pretty much no way to write that character that won't result in them being a Mary Sue. You can't give them flaws, because that would insinuate that you think all members of that minority group are also flawed in that way. You can't give them weaknesses because that would imply that all members of that group are weak. You can't let them lose a fight to the big bad or more minor enemy because then you'd be portraying the entire demographic they represent as a bunch of helpless losers. You can't give them struggles or trials that they need to overcome to be strong enough to resolve the plot, because that would imply you don't think that members of that demographic are strong enough to do what they have to in their own lives either. And of course, you can't give them a personality without stereotyping the group they represent and undercutting the character's main purpose: which is to serve as an audience-avatar for members of that certain group. Pretty much all you can do is make these characters or other characters doubt or fail to realize their own insanely high levels of inherent awesomeness, because that at least you can spin as a "believe in yourself" positive message to the demographic they are supposed to represent.
And so the moment a Hollywood writer sits down and decides this character is going to represent everyone who looks like them rather than just being an individual, they are trapped. They have to write a character that has no flaws, weaknesses, losses, trials, or personality whose only possible struggle is that they doubt themselves or others dislike/doubt them for absolutely no reason. Maybe a writer could get away with it if this character was a mentor figure or minor character, but since the Cult of DEI insists that a representative character like this MUST take center stage, they have to make this character the protagonist, and by definition that makes them a Mary Sue.
The tragedy in all this is that Mary Sue characters are not actually that relatable. They are great for wish fulfillment and indulging in the fantasy of being a perfect person leading a perfect life where your only struggle is that others don't see how awesome you are. But the reality is nobody lives a life like that. Everyone has flaws, weaknesses, losses, trials, and a personality. And the fact that Mary Sue characters don't have any of those things makes them about as relatable as a cardboard cutout. Sure, they're a fun fantasy to engage in when you're 4 and imagining how perfect life will be when you grow up and everyone loves you for how perfect you are in every way. Or if you're a sheltered ideologue who thinks your life actually would be perfect if only people would believe in you and your super-awesome-perfect ideas. But when you grow up into an actually not perfect life and you're going through a hard time, hurting, feeling weak, having to push yourself through each day, watching your plans fall apart, and not sure if you can make it: who are you going to look up to and relate to? Rey, the woman never had to struggle and won handily every time because she was just born better, stronger, smarter, and more awesomely perfect than everyone else? Or Lara Croft from the 2013 reboot, who felt weak and overwhelmed like you do, who felt hurt like you do, who wasn't sure if she would make it, just like you, whose plans fell to pieces like yours did, but somehow managed to push herself through each day, like you do, and eventually got to the other side? Ultimately the Mary Sue characters will be forgotten and abandoned, mostly because no one whose a real human living a real life can related to them.
That original Mary Sue story is hilarious though, it's like watching The Room where it's so bad it's masochisticly enjoyable.
@@Snow-Willow I need to read that one of these days lol
The issue with mary Sues is female characters are now treated like people with disabilities In film.
They have no faults, flaws or weaknesses because the studio is afraid of portraying a woman in negative light
That is fascinating
@@jonservo That one, and the absolutely horrible Harry Potter fanfic called "My Immortal" are just comedy gold in how bad they are.
Yeah it was awesome how Rey had all these force powers just by default when it took every single other Jedi ( including other women ) years of training and apprenticeships. Amazing.
She was even stronger than Anakin. The same Anakin who had growin pains and got owned multiple times through ep2/3 showing that just because he was so powerful didn’t mean he was invincible. That’s the exact opposite for rey
Luke did force-assisted aiming on the Death Star after spending at most a day with Obi-Wan. He also did telekinesis to grab his light saber on Hoth, no further training. Neither of these were even demonstrated by his one trainer.
Rey got “trained” by Ren trying to mess with her mind - she’d seen Force persuasion before. Obi-Wan was, in the first movie, dismissive of how easy that power was.
The “it’s unprecedented” claims seem to be from people who haven’t paid much attention.
Let’s not get started on Anakin’s fighter pilot skills…
You probably need to go look at some of the canonical stuff around force users. Often it is not about teaching new techniques, but rather finding ways past whatever is blocking a person’s power from manifesting.
Oh (and if you remember) it was Anakin’s arrogance that had him getting beaten - he overestimated his own abilities and ignored the possibility that his opponent might be as skilful as him.
The issue with Rey is not that she is powerful, it’s that she’s unlikeable and terribly written.
@@Justanotherconsumer The Force assisted aiming was the only moment Luke shine in the first movie, the moment he proved he has it in him. Hoth was a battle ocurred a year later, and Luke was practising everything he could on his own, and his best was concentrated a lot to move a really small object, after a year.
Rey in one day move from not believe the Force was real to defeat a sith lord trained by the two most powerful beings in the Force in the galaxy.
Two days later she move a montain with ease. And a year later she learn on her own how to use the Force to heal and resuscitate someone, and to channel the power from all the previous jedi in existence.
"A series of events that just kind of happen to someone..." - That's a great description of just about every film made in the last few years. First time viewer - and thanks for that one!
Wow, so many things finally make sense in my head now about recent media. Thanks for connecting the dots 🤯
The fact that in the responses they flat out insulted him, warped the entire issue into something else, or just ignored it completely rather than refuting any of the points he brought up, really tells you everything you need to know.
It’s how you instantly win debates with strangers. With them being unable to refute anything you said.
The flip side is a good way to lose instantly
This guy : "they're not even written like people, and act like villains at times"
People on twitter : "You need to understand that women are people"
.... well that's the point, not these fictional women
I'm thinking alot of these "feminists" are actually sexists based on these comments.
@@matthewconnor5483 100% I bet you if a woman said this then they wouldn't dare speak out against it, hell they might even join in.
A lot of the qualities that mary sue characters have are exactly what feminists would call "toxic masculinity" Arrogance, refusal to ask/accept help from others, lack of empathy, etc. So by their own admition the perfect woman to feminists is a man with tits, they make it seem like anything feminine is undesirable, which in itself is anti woman.
@@matthewconnor5483 they actually are. I have dived deep into twitter drama a few times and the hypocrisy is real. alot of these "feminists" are what you would call. sexist- anti men who are subverting the actual meaning behind feminism. they don't want to be equal, they want to be superior. woman good men bad. Its the bad actors that are the most vocal.
14:51 . . . YES!!! As a woman I absolutely look up to, admire and “identify with” a character like Aragorn, and he’s a far healthier character for a boy or girl to be inspired by than a Mary Sue character.
Geuinely first time in YT comments I see a self-declared woman with a Gadsden avatar. Nice (y)
Also glad to hear such opinion. Anyone who's actually "inspired" by a marysue, IMO must have zero soul while simultaneously having ego enormous enough that if it had gravitational impact, it'd make geocentric solar system a reality.
Absolutely!!!
@@Magepure6749 - 😂😂 You know how they say gingers have no soul? Granted, my hair has darkened to auburn with age, but apparently I’m a freaking unicorn! I’m a red-headed, Gadsden flag flying, Aragorn-adoring woman.
Welcome to YT comments. 😂
Aragorn is Tolkien's portrayal of what it means to be a man.
And you see this gradual growth from a lowly Ranger of the North, last of the Dunedain...
To the King of Gondor, garbed in Black and Silver and being crowned after the War for the Ring had been won.
He remained faithful to a woman who was not of his kin, and even turned away Eowyn, because his heart was set upon another woman who, until RotK, he had believed long gone and to the Western Isles.
He was a leader, and you see that after Gandalf fell in Moria. Instead of hunkering down and weeping like the rest of them, especially the Hobbits who all had special friendship with Gandalf, he propped them, began giving calm but confident orders, and reminded everyone that the Orcs were still hot on their trail and would arrive by nightfall.
He was a man who could bridge old hurts between Rohan and Gondor.
He lifted up Theoden, instead of berating him when he made decisions that seemed to be rash or incoherent in logic, he supported and personally assisted him.
He showed mercy to a man deserving death (Grima Wormtongue) by stopping Theoden from cutting him down on steps leading to his hall.
Aragorn is the shining example of a man of virtue, courage, loyalty, honor, and respect. And of all things, love. Love being the most important core of them all.
One of my favorite characters in fiction when I was a child was Johnny Tremain. I certainly read plenty of books with solid female protagonists, but Johnny Tremain was a good one because he was smart, determined, and always tried to do the right thing. I didn't think I couldn't be like that just because his character was male and I'm a female, and I was only 9 when I read that book. I certainly knew I could become smart, determined, and learn the difference between right and wrong. It's almost like my tiny female brain can still think gud bruh 🙄👌.
Haven't seen you in quite a while, good to see you back. Always refreshing to hear the voice of reason.
I think Ray as an OP character could work as a simple light vs dark moral story if the writers for her weren’t fan fiction writers. I think it would have been far more interesting to started off with her being very enthusiastic to help people but with her innate powerful connection to the force she has a tendency to either dismiss or maybe even use the force to push people around a bit. Someone who is well meaning but overall lacks the ability to see the bigger picture due to living alone for most of her life or is more interested in being the hero at the end of the day like how she imagines how Luke and the other jedi would act. She could also use the force to influence her allies to due what she wants as well and when people realize what she did they would get upset with her and she becomes socially isolated from the group and people would only talk to her when on a mission. However near the end before the fight between with Kylo she could kill a storm trooper out of anger that was surrendering and wanted to be like Fin to escape the empire's control. Fin is furious with her and all his pent up criticism comes out as he screams at her. Her realization that she’s becoming what the resistance hates about the empire being the storm trooper’s judge, jury and executioner. She comes to realize that with all her power it can’t give her what she truly wants which is friends and have a family to belong to. So when she goes off to find Luke it’s out of hope he can teach her to become a better person and use the force in a more controlled way. A bit of a rushed idea but I think it would still keep Ray’s OP force powers but still have a flawed character.
That actually sounds interesting, and there's nothing wrong with characters having a few of these characteristics, but to be a Mary Sue you need most or all of these (at least the way I understand the term). Your plot would give her a personality flay and give her story arc some character growth
Even your "rushed idea" sounds way better and more believable than what they actually did.
My frustration with Mary Sues knows no bounds because it doesn't NEED to be this way. We have all the classic examples to point to of course, but I also just watched Arcane on Netflix and goddamn the female characters in that show are incredible. Yes they're strong, they kick ass, but you know what they also do? They screw up. They lose. They show a full range of vulnerable emotions. You know, like human beings do. They're all very different from each other as well, ranging from a beautiful, feminine political manipulator to a rough and tumble boxer. And to back them up is a full cast of competent, interesting, distinctive male characters who are never (okay okay RARELY, but these days I'll take that) made to look foolish in order to make the girls look better. All the characters are just people and this makes the show dynamic, believable, and incredibly moving.
It's how media SHOULD be. And they did it while checking a lot of "intersectional" boxes, so it's like...Hollywood can have the representation they want without ruining the characters in the process. They just choose not to most of the time and it makes me insane.
Well said...very well said.
I wonder if this is why "Wendesday" is so loved, or most of the female heroines in "Game of Thrones" none are perfect.
And perhaps why Max in "Stranger Things" is more liked than Eleven is Eleven a Mary Sue? I think Nancy appears at the beginning to be one but she definitely grows as the series progresses I do really find her character to be kind of interesting.
Decades ago Joseph Campbell wrote a book called "Hero with a Thousand Faces" describing the many depictions of the Hero's Journey in literature for thousands of years. A depiction which follows the same classic storyline.
George Lucas consulted Campbell when writing the Star Wars script. Luke's story is classic - average dude stuck in a small town, a "Call" for a quest is answered and he goes on a journey, he meets friends who help him along the way, develops skills, and finally returns to defeat the monster.
Campbell does say the classic hero story for women is not the same as men's. Men have a call to journey out and seek danger, while women tend to have the danger come to them. These heroic men often have huge flaws - like Rocky, or Iron Man - and overcoming these flaws is a compelling part of the story. Putting a woman's face on a classically men's story has not worked out for the most part because the women can have no character flaws - if they do it is hard to see them as a hero. Ripley in Aliens had no character flaws but it was not a classic hero journey - she was just doing a job and a monster shows up so she did the best she could with the situation presented to her - she did not seek it.
Interesting point about Ripley, because its the same dynamic for Sarah Conner.
A horrible destiny nobody would want, but she does the best with whats given to her.
She didn't seek it either nor want it.
Ironically, men must often develop themselves to be attractive to women, which is where the Hero's Journey is manifest in the real world (basically what J peterson bangs on about). Whereas women have to protect their appeal to men in the dating marketplace, so (average and above average looking) women coming with automatic value is more of the women's journey in life. So, I guess it's not entirely weird that what appeals to modern feminists is usually about women getting plot power handouts like a Mary Sue where they shortcut the hero's journey, much like a spoiled rich boy (e.g. irl job quotas for women and the like).
@@TheDalinkwent dude....I never heard it put that way but you're sooooo right. Gonna have to watch Aliens tonight...for the millionth time!
@@whenpigsfly8178 even spoiled rich boys can be a good underdog story. Ever see Billy Madison?
@@AlexanderTheGoodEnough Forever 39 is the real one to put it in perspective...I never thought about it until I read the above comment.
Thanks for posting this.
Mary Sue characters became extensions of "progressive" portrayals of women/gays/poc, etc.. They believe that by making Mary Sue characters for these groups that they are rounding the curve for representation and making them "look perfect" is the only way to make up for the lack of diversity of yesteryear. It's an understandable thought, but it's having the opposite effect. By going about it this way, they are making "woke" material very unlikable and the people behind it are narcissistically refusing to acknowledge that they are the problem. Instead, they blame the audience and they blame systemic issues and that just further insulates the audience.
It's just a new kind of toxicity that people need to figure out.
I've been seeing a few people defend Rey from being a Mary Sue and I'm gonna share why I think in a bunch of ways, she's actually worse than even Captain Marvel.
Let's start off the feats she pulled off and I'll give my two cents on each:
Fights off trained soldiers without really breaking a sweat in the opening.
I can give this to her, being a scavenger, one would need to be able to defend themselves to get their loot from others. I still think she should've taken a hit or two, but fine, she gets this one.
Somehow knows how to fly the Millenium Falcon as well as Han and Chewie.
This is where the Mary Sueness begins. Bear in mind, the Millenium Falcon is a ONE OF A KIND ship, because it's a modified version of a DISCONTINUED ship model that was discontinued long before Rey was even born, so there's no way in hell she could have prior knowledge or if she does, it's never shown. This feat is complete BS that can't be explained logically. Even with technical aptitude, she would still need to be taught or need a good amount of time to learn considering how unique the ship is. If that was a common ship, then fine. But this is a ONE OF A KIND ship. That's one point against you Rey.
Was able to use a Jedi Mind Trick with no training whatsoever.
Obi-Wan stated that this power is EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to use and requires extensive training to pull off, not to mention precise control. There are Jedi Knights who have spent years practicing and still can't perform this. Hell, Anakin himself couldn't do it and Anakin was THE CHOSEN ONE. This made no sense whatsoever. Point against you Rey.
Beat Kylo Ren in a lightsaber duel with no prior training with a lightsaber.
Kylo is a trained Jedi and Sith Lord. It was never stated how much training he got, but it's more than Rey. Sure he was pissed off and emotional because he had just killed Han so he wasn't focused, but someone with training should be able to beat someone who has had ZERO training, especially with such a difficult weapon to master because a lightsaber is considered to be one of the most difficult weapons conceived to wield with finesse. There's a reason why most people who use lightsabers are either cybernetically augmented or are Force Users, because a regular human just isn't capable of wielding one with a high degree of skill without hurting themselves. You can only chalk so much up to sheer dumb luck. Kylo was shown to be powerful enough in the Force to stop blaster bolts in mid air (something we've NEVER seen done before) and it's reasonable to assume that he had a good amount of training considering Snoke was sending him to clean up any Jedi out there in the galaxy. Massive point against you Rey.
I'll finish by saying that I'm not advocating for Rey to not be good at things. But it needs to make sense. If we saw her training, had a backstory where she discovered she's Force Sensitive and has been practicing with it on her own, maybe had a Vibrosword so she has some kind of swordmanship skills so that it would make sense how she's able to use a lightsaber without slicing her own arm off... just SOMETHING.
I have no problem with women being awesome, but it needs to be shown how she got to where she was. And that's the number one problem. You can only attribute so much to born with talent and having great aptitude. Skipping training or struggles makes it impossible for the audience to latch on and as such, Rey is 100% a Mary Sue. She didn't have to be if Disney had just shown her training or explained her backstory better, but they didn't cause they wanted her to be awesome.
Hollywood doesn't seem to understand that being awesome is a process, not an innate quality.
@@joshuacline6572
I mean, Anakin performed it but he had to train extensively to do it, which is the point I'm making.
Even if Kylo got shot in the rib a few minutes before, his rage and connection to the Dark Side can allow him to ignore the pain and if he was trained as a Sith, a blaster shot is nothing.
Someone doing the mind trick instinctively with no training and somehow not wiping the person's mind or worse is just straight BS lol.
You’re points don’t make sense. We were given all of Rey’s backstory in the films, especially TFA. Rey has been taking care of herself for 14 years and knows how to defend herself, because she had to, when other scavengers would have stolen her parts.
-A Mary Sue is a character, normally a supremely confident character who can do anything without any education or training. And this is not Rey. A Mary Sue would not have spent the last 10 years of her life needing/waiting for her parents or a her parents to come back and tell her she is a loved/worthwhile and needs encouragement. A Mary Sue does not wait for permission from others to live their life.
She was abandoned to live on Jakku and given to Plutt. She had to work for him scavenging parts. She is so heartbroken by that abandonment that she refuses to leave and why she refuses to leave.
Rey fights and injured soldier who was had no interest in harming her and was pulling his punches to see how she reacted. He was also instructed to take her in alive.
She knows and is familiar with the Falcon because it was sitting Plutt’s ship yard and she was instructed by him to work on refurbishing it
Rey has been a Scavenger for 14 years and has made herself familiar with how machines work, and she also was paid (or given more food) by ensuring the parts worked well.
She scavenged old military ships for parts and in them (as you would expect) came across old computers and holo pads containing schematics.
She learned the mind trick, by one going into Kylo’s mind and trial and error.
She had access to Luke’s old Jedi texts and studied them and was trained by Leia.
This is all in the films. Did you honest to God need a training montage, and/or a Wikipedia type recap to get this?
Very well-written and spot on. I'll disagree with the first point because it's still unrealistic for a small woman to survive or win against trained soldiers. She might have learned some defense stuff as part of her life scavenging, but she's still 120# soaking wet and isn't technically trained in combat. She wouldn't have survived long in the wilds if she didn't use a lot of things - like explosives - simply because she can't take a physical hit without collapsing. This is always the biggest problem with female characters because it's automatically unrealistic. Some little bit of fluff taking out guys who weigh twice as much and have muscles as big as her head... just unrealistic no matter how much she trains. With speed and a firearm, she might be able to outdraw them and put rounds through their guts, but anything H2H is just unrealistic because the muscle mass isn't there.
You missed one thing: the "I bypassed the capacitor" scene
This person, whose only prior experience with technology was to remove and sell parts, is somehow able to run diagnostics on a one of a kind, illegally modified ship that she herself has never taken apart before
Although I personally disagree and find that one of Captain Marvel's feats actually out-Mary Sues everything Rey did:
Blasting a diner store jukebox with nobody getting mad or anything
The “unlikeable but competent” part was interesting. 🤔 I think a Mary Sue written according to the original archetype would be hyper-competent *and* likeable (or rather: written to be unrealistically likeable). After all, part of her annoying perfection is also that she’s loved by all the other characters. These new Mary Sues are loved and admired by their peers, even though they treat these peers like cr*p.
Prime example is Batwoman with Ruby Rose. She treats her friends like trash yet they worship her and mourn her after her "death". 🙄
Captain marvel is a poop character but she isn’t a mary sue.
I think the new Mary Sues-it’s difficult to explain, but not all of them are liked by all the characters. Though overall you’re right that generally that is still true.
But, I think ultimately the new type of Mary Sue is essentially the author intending for the audience to like the female character-the writer(s) not realizing that the female character they made is unlikable.
I think that’s what many people today are trying to say about current female characters that are despised by the audience.
It’s not because the audience can’t enjoy watching an unlikable character-actually audiences do enjoy that. Those are villains and lots of female characters in the past were villains and enjoyed by audiences.
The thing people despise is when you can just tell by the writing that the female character has bad morality, behavior, etc. but that the writer didn’t intend for audiences to dislike those bad characteristics. That the author actually thought the bad characteristics were good.
People hate that.
@@narnia1233 Unlikeable protagonists can also work (Dr. House, Sherlock etc.). As long as it’s intentional. Many of those are anti-heroes or tragic heroes, not villains. Modern Sues are written to be “likeable for being sassy”, but the writers confuse sassy with bratty. Even woke booktubers and authortubers are now starting to recognise that… 😁
@@cosmicprison9819 Exactly! You’re much better at explaining it.
But I think that’s what audiences-what we’re objecting to.
And it’s not easy to explain though because people will say, how can you know what the author intended?
But the truth is, you do know-but it’s not some easy formula or specific thing that can be identified.
Ultimately you just can tell overall by the writing.
And that’s what audiences find detestable. When an author intends the audience to like-to approve of-to admire bad behavior and bad characteristics.
But yeah audiences absolutely enjoy watching antiheroes, villains, etc. As long as the author isn’t intending for the audience to like their bad characteristics-to approve of them.
At least with Wonder Woman and even Princess Leia showed their weaknesses and had grown. They learned things they had to learn. Thanks for sharing this. God bless you!
They call Joshua "insecure" but then they are the ones pushing the idea that the only way for a woman to be a good main character is to be unrealistically overpowered to win every encounter without any struggle and forcefully be liked by everyone unconditionally.
There's a lot of good reasons why people miss good old movies with female protagonists, and almost none of them are because they were "helped by men".
Mary Sue is the ideal archetype for the pathological narcissist. Not surprising that feminists only seem to be able to come up with such characters.
The women who complained about the post all reveal one of their OWN flaws...
They don't want to have to EARN anything.
They want it to be GIVEN to them (like Rey)...
simply for being female.
@@nyetzdyec3391 Well said. Well said indeed.
It's basically "I have everything I need, I am enough and more"-thinking gone far beyond the normal scale, like hubris. It's denial of your chance and need to grow, even if you know you are enough for a normal life right now. I think the only persons that would relate to these kind of characters are those, who have a strong need NOT to confront their own flaws, problems and traumas - to run away from them and blame others for them. This is really sad. I would rather see those people to gather up their courage and face their fears, instead of going the bad guy route of "I have no flaws you pathetic male weakling, claim that again and I WILL CRUSH YOU".
Like said, feminists have already decided, that every bad thing in their life is because of the patriarchy, so for them there is no need to self-reflection. The villain of their story is set, no need for personal growth, no need for hero's journey, just the pathologic urge to punish someone you think is making your life miserable. Too bad they broke and threw away every mirror they ever had, because they could have shown the real villain of their story...
@@ilwrathiavenger5233 facts.
@@ilwrathiavenger5233 Fantastic analysis. I can certainly agree based on those I've actually been in the room with who were exactly how you described.
I care about those little girls dressing up as Rey too. That’s a reason why I wished she was better written.
The little girls dressed as Ashoka Tano give me hope.
Like he literally said that he WANTED the women to be more like real people and the responses were “oh so you don’t want women to be like real people”
Thank you!
I'm a photographer and I follow a lot of models on varioius social media platforms. What I've found really interesting is that a huge number of them will do some cosplay stuff when one of these Mary Sue characters first makes an appearance in a film, but that typically ends in a pretty short amount of time. More often than not they will go back to doing gender bending shoots of male characters.
I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s self representation / wish fulfillment. When you read the responses in this example, or others, you can see this come through in their statements. I’ve had these very same conversations with folks with similar mindsets, and those conversations almost always end with some claim of exclusion and lack of diversity/representation. If they person cannot see themself as the “perfect” character in the story then the writer suffers from some sort of ism, ist, etc. issue.
Amen and thank you!
I love that South Park's character 'Strong Woman' has more character building in an episode or two than a lot of these newer heroines in their entire stories.
I love how she plugs her mama. That's just so sweet.
That just sounds gross lol
I remember that when I was young, I imagined stories quite similar in quality to those Hollywood churns out these days: the hero was awesome from day 1, he never failed, everyone who disliked him was a villain, everyone he fought was evil and so on. However, I was as I said young; a kid - and I certainly wouldn't come up with stories like that today.
But the problem (well, ONE of the problems) with wokeys is that they are in a permanent state of arrested development: they never grew out of that mindset that they are perfect and the center of the universe and that people who don't share their opinions are evil incarnate, and therefore they are so immensely receptive to these garbage stories: because these stories reflect how they see themselves and still serve to fulfill their immensely childish wish fulfillment fantasies.
When I watch the SW 7,8&9 this first thing I remember wondering is, how did she know how to use the JEDI MIND TRICK
You covered the subject, illuminating the virtues of each prominent perspective, without declaring a winner.
Excellent video. Back in the 1960s there was an interesting "Mary Sue" movie called "Our Man Flint". The protagonist (played by James Coburn) was perfect in just about every way. It's hilarious - but it's a PARODY. The humour is in his very 'mary-sue-ish-ness'. Greetings from an old man in New Zealand.
Good point to remember. Yes, Flint was that character, reborn as Austin Powers.
Flint was directly inspired by Sherlock Holmes, and had similar weaknesses updated for his time. But in a comedic light ,yes.
In WandaVision, they retroactively gave Wanda Maximoff a struggle/journey. She was born with reality manipulation powers but they were mostly dormant until the incident with the undetonated missile that trapped her and her brother, in an attack that killed her parents. Then she was experimented on with the Mind Stone which amplified her powers. Up until WandaVision, she was arguably a Mary Sue. And that is largely why I enjoyed that series (up until the finale).
How would wanda pre wandaVision be a marry sue? if anything its the opposite way around.
In order to be a marry sue, one of the most important aspects is that the story is actually about them (or rather, the story appears to mainly have the purpose of showing their greatness, rather than them being part of the story as a whole). That was not the point at all with pre WV wanda. She is also not shown with a lack of flaws (she is literally an antagonist at first, which mary sue characters are pretty much never, since being evil is kind of a flaw, even when there is an explanation for it).
If you compare that to post WV Wanda, she actually has a lot more mary sue traits then:
- The story of Doctor strange: MoM is mainly about her, even though she is not the protagonist
- She is being told how great she is in the end of WV, even when she commit some of the worst acts to people imaginable.
- She can do things other in-universe mages cant do (like astral project WHILE also walking around and being active in her body) with no explanaition at all, other than the scarlet witch simply being "special"
Im only 5 minutes in and you already nailed it completely.
Nailed it. Thank you.
If memory serves the term was coined by a woman, and it was in reference to stat trek fan fiction and comic books.
I think that behind these changes are the developments in fanfic (fan fiction). Where too many of these stories end up as narcissistic sandcastle building cheered on by the fandom. The waves are coming.
Well said. Thank you
💯 Agree with you and Joshua! Well put! In my opinion, good character development should be at the heart of storytelling. Totally disappointing when it’s lacking , it makes zero sense or they go backwards without good reason.
I rarely see anything worth watching today. Just those riding on the coattails of nostalgia, little to no effort or thoughtfulness for characters or plot because they’re too busy pushing agendas.
Even before movies were becoming more woke by the year, I noticed this Mary Sue archetype in video games show up more and more. For example, in Fire Emblem: Fates, the main character named Corrin is a sibling of a royal family. She spends all of her time in a tower, basically locked up and not allowed to go anywhere. She does talk to her other siblings and maids, and she eventually trains with one of her brothers, but for the most part, she is incredibly sheltered and ignorant of the world.
As you play through the game, you start to notice that literally everyone loves her - adores her completely. She is fantastic at using swords. She becomes the leader of an army, and almost nobody questions her at all (and the one that does is controlled by an evil being, so I guess that one doesn't count). She is instantly charismatic and brings tons of people to her side throughout the game, and eventually leads the army to take over the other kingdom.
As you play through the game, there is no shortage of characters that tell you how amazing you are.
On top of this, the character herself in terms of gameplay is a pure power fantasy. She is the strongest character in the game, and in one of the paths - Revelations - the designers intentionally make her so vastly overpowered compared to everyone else that everyone else becomes useless. She is also the only character who can destroy the final boss too, because of being awesome and all of that.
This game is largely considered the worst story in the entire Fire Emblem franchise. People might like the sound track, the gameplay, the character designs, etc., but one thing pretty much everyone agrees on is that Corrin and the story are abysmal.
Can't Corrin be of either sex like Robin? I only know the characters because of Smash Bros.
@@robinthrush9672 Corrin can be either sex, yes.
@@robinthrush9672 Yes, although the archetype is not really specific to a gender. There is also the term Gary Stu which is the same thing.
For what it's worth, female Corrin is the canonical version of the character so I used that. That is the one that got the first Legendary hero in FEH, and is also featured in the upcoming Fire Emblem Engage.
In either case, this character is written horribly, as are all the interactions with Corrin. Way too many of them want to have sex with Corrin, even if they are related. It's as pure of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu situation as you can imagine.
Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem also had a Mary Sue/Gary Stu character in Kris. They did stop doing this with Byleth in Three Houses, who was a real character with real development. Thank goodness. If you ever wanted to play these games, I definitely recommend Three Houses.
And while some of the games in the franchise have featured Mary Sue characters, I want to emphasize that none of the games are woke in the slightest. I just find it interesting because these games were doing the Mary Sue thing before it really became big in movies.
@@Katie-hb8iq Yeah, but the topic was specific to "Mary Sues" with no regard for the masculine versions and you used the feminine to refer to Corrin, so I was curious about the character.
I don't think literal self-insert characters (aka, blank slate characters that you are literally meant to insert yourself into the story as) count as Mary Sues. Is Mario a Gary Stue if you happen to be good at Mario games...? Is Robin a Mary Sue because the literal point of Robin being a master tactician is to explain why _you,_ the player of the battle strategy game, are the one making the strategy plans?
Maybe the reason Corrin is wicked strong is because 1. She was literally trained from infancy in combat, and 2. she is literally the incarnate form of a Divine Dragon (she actually loses herself to the power of the Divine Dragons on multiple occasions, proving she isn't actually the one the power is coming from, but it is instead a force she has to learn to control.) Maybe the reason "everyone" loves her immediately is because she's literally related, through blood or adoption, to at least half the characters in the game. Kind of makes sense that her adoptive siblings who have been raised with her since her childhood would like her and hesitate to kill her in battle - and it also kind of makes sense that the blood siblings who have spent literal years scouring the world to find her (one of them even taking up the Naginata and the role of Pegasus Knight in the first place because of how desperately she wanted to find her lost sister) would also kind of not want to kill her? (And regardless of which route you take, Takumi is initially skeptical of you - he even loses himself to a dark force because of his overwhelming drive to kill you for your betrayal in one path.) The other characters? Almost all retainers of the aforementioned siblings; it doesn't matter if they like you or not, they're literally sworn to serve the royal family, and that includes Corrin.
The reason "everyone wants to marry her" is because, once again, this is a _self-insert character_ and this gives you, the player, the ability to woo any character you want, since the game has romance options. This began in Awakening and was still a thing in Three Houses. It's not because "Corrin is gr8 and everyone wants to date her", it's because if some character options were just inexplicably unavailable to you, the player, for no reason other than "not everyone wanna date u", players would rightfully complain. (Not talking about the step sibling stuff, talking about literally no other explanation than "not into u")
I don't know what version of Fates the other FE fans are playing, since everyone seems to unanimously hate it and it's one of my favorite video games I've ever played. I love all the characters, I love the branching paths and seeing how they connect, I literally sat in the car and cried all the way home after finishing Conquest.
It makes me glad to know we have women in the world like you! Your daughter has a wonderful influence in her life!
Check out Melonie Mac and That Star Wars Girl also.
Yikes. You have a very low standard of women then
thanks for the breakdown! well said
I love your careful rational approach to discussion. So unlike the way I hear so many “far left” progressives (“far left” meaning almost anyone in what is frequently called mainstream media, BLM and CRT advocates and anyone who identifies as LGBTQxyz+ or the many who are just deathly afraid to disagree with them) describing non-progressive women.
And, yes, I deliberately said “non-progressive” rather than conservative or Republican.
Keep up the great work!
Luke even wanted to join the imperial academy. He didn't want to have anything to do with the rebellion, until stormtroopers brutally killed his aunt and uncle.
As an author in military science fiction and urban fantasy, I've dabbled in the grrl power tropes, but I try to make sure my characters (male and female) have flaws - it makes them more believable and relatable.
Thats all we want. That and good writing. Hollywood doesn't understand that. Nor do they care.
Create strong yet compelling and relatable female characters and "girl power" wil come organically from that. Set-out to create "girl power" and you just get these tiresome Mary Sues like Galadriel, Rey, and the rebooted Mulan.
They accuse us of acting like we don't see them as people when they're portraying women as weak victims who can't be strong and overcome challenges.
the responses to Joshua show the old adage is true "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but there will always be something to offend a feminist."
My favorite part was Lauren waving her hands voicing the counter argument 😂
In that case, you're going to have a heart attack when you see literally anything out of Eastern Europe
Thanks for this great insight. I kept wondering why today’s movies seem so empty and you hit it. The writers want you to see yourself as the perfect hero right from the start. Given our culture’s obsession with ourselves, this makes perfect sense. For me, I have always seen myself as a flawed person and heros like Luke and Aragorn were people I aspired to become because they overcame their flaws too. So you hit it on the head… people today start at a different point. Sadly, I think they will find it very unsatisfying in the end.
15:08 that defines all what they think. Literally.
The responses to his tweet shows us how lost we are are today.
They are writing Steven Seagal as a woman. It sucked as a male character, and it sucks as a female character.
Yes I thought of Seagal characters too!
The worst is that they are All despiseable
I wish there was a way to track history and paths taken of such twitter comments and measure that somehow against any subject matter within social media. I am sure such visibility and knowledges of these tweets would be very enlightening.
I heard this quote one time. “Any good puzzle keeps the player invested. Too easy the player gets bored, too hard and the player rage quits.” I see it like that right now too many stories with a solution already at the start so why watch. I already know how it’s going to end
The funny thing? If you can have a flawless or near flawless character of power in your story and have them *not* be a Mary Sue *but* you have to adjust accordingly. They won't be the main character, though they may be a primary part of the cast. The struggle for such a character will need to vary, but there will still be one. I don't remember the last time Superman was written that way, but yeah, that is one compelling way to approach his character; he can save anyone but *not* _everyone._
When I first saw TFA, I really thought they were setting Rey up to become an all-powerful enemy that Luke would have to battle after training her. It was the only way I could fathom why Kylo Ren was such a weak, lame villain at the start of the trilogy. Boy was I wrong.
That would have been an actual twist and subversion of expectations done competently. Definitely would have been a better story than the polished turd they served up.
You got the nail with the last statement yes story telling us now a out representation not about writing good characters
Those Tweet responses - wow. And those people are allowed to drive.