#also this trend that's always been there in fic where rey has to win at everything every match between her and ben

[benperorsolo]

I’ve fucking hated the Rey is a Mary Sue take for four years but TROS makes it kind of undeniable because of the way the narrative has no consequences for her character and just treats her like a fan avatar 😬

Uhhh...yeah. Under cut bc bitching, including general bitching about overall characterization.

TROS Rey is the definition of an MS. And to be honest...her character is not as stellar in previous installments as i think the fandom likes to make out. People like to talk about how she fails in TLJ, but I still don’t think she does in a very meaningful way. Sure, she fails to bring Ben back to the light side-- but we know that Rey is morally right in this situation and Ben is wrong, and we know that Ben will eventually also be proven wrong. So, sure, it’s a failure, but only cosmetically. And it doesn’t seem to affect Rey at all afterwards. She definitely sees it as Ben’s failing (and it mostly is) as she slams the door on him; and then in TROS she has moved on from any cogent emotion or self inspection and just tries to kill Ben on principle. 

Yes, Luke is rude to her on Ach-To, but this is again a problem with Luke, and not really Rey. She is doing the right thing by coming there, by talking to Ben, and by trying to help him. And she gets vindicated by all three of those actions. 

She succumbs to the dark side hole in the ground on Ach-To, but again; we know she’s right to do it, and she gets important insight into herself. She finds out her parents are nobody, but this isn’t really a failure on her part --you have no control over your parentage (oh, I guess unless you’re TROS Rey)-- barring the years she wasted on Jakku. But she’s already left Jakku at this point as well. 

A flaw she does have is that she is constantly trying to make others give her a ready made identity and purpose, especially Ben’s family. TLJ positions the narrative well to examine that in the next installment, but then ofc TROS does the exact opposite and gives her like, three ready-made identities. And loneliness would be her other...idk if it’s a flaw, really. It’s not her fault she’s lonely either; she’s not lonely because she alienates others or is rude to them, except in the very light touch they give to concepts like how she is emotionally walled off to her friends about important things, like Ben’s communication with her. But the way the narrative handles this behavior is so inconsistent that I’m not sure if it’s meant to be a flaw-- because we’re evidently supposed to believe that the trio is this great friend group despite how they all hate each other and keep secrets.

The narrative especially in TROS bends over backwards to accommodate her in places where any other character receives untold suffering. Her selfish actions are coddled because of the protagonist-centered morality of the movie. Her characterization in general throughout the trilogy is one where I think previous behavior could either be contextualized well or badly depending on where her arc ended up. TLJ did well to begin contextualizing it better, in a way where she felt more humanized. But her arc was a circle, which means that all of her inexplicable plot armor and luck in TFA was really just that, and it served no greater purpose. And yes, I know all of the arguments people make about how Rey is so good so fast because she fought on Jakku her whole life, and/or because the force bond allowed her to ‘download’ skills from Ben, and all of that, but like...so what? Does it make a good story when a character does those things, even if we can say they were logically informed? 

The writing for her character is very inconsistent --and, of course, it’s not just Rey-- and it’s difficult to discern what is meant as an intentional flaw and what is bad writing making the characterization look bad by accident. And it comes down, as you said, to JJ seeing her basically as an audience avatar before a real person. This is just kind of how JJ writes characters. Finn and Poe suffer from this too. 

I don’t hate Rey. This fandom is entirely too trigger happy to denounce criticism as hate, and any accusation of “Mary Sue-ness” as being from entitled manbabies. But, you know...some of this potential for TROS rot was there in the beginning. TLJ went a long way to nipping the issues with TFA into productive buds. But then TROS came along and really just destroyed the journey. The canon character Rey is at this point is not one I feel like following.