Ahhh thank you!! I am glad you like them! My first fanfics were for Reylo and it is still my OTP. Yes, I absolutely would and probably will write more for them at some point, maybe as the hype starts around episode IX!
Soooo the Rey=Mary Sue thing really is a… sore spot for me because it is so clearly gendered sexist and baseless criticism. She’s no more overpowered than Luke, and she has an arc. Firstly let me discuss her arc, and then the definition I’m using of a Mary Sue, and how Rey doesn’t come close to fitting that definition.
Rey has flaws that matter for her and for the story–she’s angry, all the time. She lashes out at Finn, at Kylo (she did not have to scar his face, that’s clear), at Luke. She’s traumatized by her abandonment and the idea that Luke could do something so wrong to his nephew he was supposed to love–it triggers her and she flips out, running away to naively try to save Kylo. Because Rey has always tried to be enough, honing all her skills, doing what she can, but it wasn’t enough for her parents. She’s deeply afraid of worthlessness and a lack of love, specifically. Rey’s unable to let go of the past/of the hope her parents will return and that keeps her in a desert, leads to her being abducted, and she clings to the first people she meets who show her kindness.
When she goes to meet Kylo, like I said above, she wants to save him. But she can’t. It’s not a lacking quality in her that can’t save him; it’s that at this point he isn’t ready to save himself (and he will in IX, I’m sure, but right now he made the wrong choice). That’s why her moment in the throne room with Kylo was so powerful–she and Kylo love each other, but she refuses to be with him even though all she’s ever wanted is for someone to come for her, because she at this point knows that what he wants to do is wrong, and she can’t do that. Rey at the start of TFA almost certainly would have gone with him. She’s learning to expand her world from Rey living on Jakku waiting for her parents, to the entire galaxy which she might have to play an instrumental role in saving.
Anyways. All that to say: Rey has an arc. Now let’s talk about the concept of Mary Sues, and I’ll give an example of a character I do think of as a Mary Sue from a manga.
When I think about “Mary Sues” (a term I inherently don’t like because it’s often used as sexist criticism), I think it’s important to keep in mind that the definition varies widely. Generally it’s seen as a self-insert character, an overpowered character, a perfect flawless character, and a character everyone loves for no discernible reason, but the reality is characters can have one or so of these traits and not necessarily fit what I consider to be a Mary Sue.
I consider a Mary Sue character not so much something that comes down to character traits, but comes down to their framing and what their role is within the story. Like you can have a character that everyone revolves themselves around, but if it’s framed as a negative thing (think Mikasa with Eren in Attack on Titan, though does anyone think Eren is a Mary Sue? He’s not lol) then it isn’t necessarily what makes a character a Mary Sue. You can have a character who is largely flawless but whom the others don’t revolve around, like Luke Skywalker in Star Wars (Rey has more flaws than he did). You can have an OP character like Junko Enoshima but if they have flaws they aren’t a Mary Sue. Self-insert is hard to prove anyways, and tbh, we all write ourselves into characters, so eff that definition. Kind of the perfect example of someone who is a reader insert though, and also OP, the world revolves around them, and doesn’t really have flaws is Twilight’s Bella Swan.
Actually, Bella is one of three characters ever I’ve called a Mary Sue. I’m hesitant to use it because of it being a somewhat loaded term. That being said if I do feel it applies I will use it, like for Bella. One of the others is James Bond (but he works for the kind of story he’s in), and the other I’ll discuss below.
The Mary Sue is the center of attention at the expense of basically everything else… The Mary Sue is the center of everything, and that’s not really going to be a compelling read, no matter how interesting her character is… It takes more than a cartoonishly traumatic backstory and a laundry list of positive traits to make a character compelling. Now to be clear, there are stories with a character at their center where the character isn’t a Mary Sue. The distinction is that a Mary Sue warps the way the world works around them. Glorifying the Sue is prioritized over maintaining the established characterizations or the straight-up rules of reality. A hero might be the center of the story, but they won’t be the only important character.
A Mary Sue isn’t a character; they’re the artifact of an overly-centralized story. … That’s what a Mary Sue is. Not just the center of the universe, but everything in the universe. Everything has to lead back to the Sue. In any situation where that’s not true, you don’t have a Mary Sue… the Sue-ness is built on the fact that the story is sacrificed to make the character look good.
That’s literally not at all what happens with Rey.
Now to discuss an anime/manga character I think exemplifies this almost to a freaky degree of accuracy. I know most people won’t like this but it is something I don’t want to argue about as I firmly believe it.
Kaneki Ken of Tokyo Ghoul, post OEK.
I think Kaneki was an incredibly well-written complex character up until around then, and then basically turned into exactly what you see described above in the video. So many of these excellent, complex characters–Mutsuki’s arc, Hinami’s arc, Touka’s arc, Saiko’s possibility of an arc, Hide’s possibility of an arc, Urie’s arc, Ayato’s arc, Tsukiyama’s arc–all came back to their relationship with Kaneki. Forget them working through their own established in-universe issues: they became defined increasingly only by their relationships with Kaneki. I mean the entire world came together to save Kaneki after a century of conflict but didn’t do that for Rize, whom the narrative endorsed the death of in the exact same circumstance as Kaneki was saved from because… Kaneki felt like he needed to kill her. The themes of “live, even if it’s not stylish,” the complexity of the communication, empathy, building a new world–these were all sacrificed to make Kaneki’s journey work. Touka being someone who confronted Kaneki and called him out on his bullshit–a defining trait of why their ship was so beautiful in part one, even if the way she did it was flawed–was erased. Tsukiyama’s growing resentment with Kaneki pre-Dragon was forgotten. The Q’s struggles with Kaneki as a father figure went nowhere.
And before people are like “but he’s the main character!” Sure, but this isn’t the case for Luke Skywalker, Monster’s Tenma, HxH’s Gon Freecss, SnK’s Eren Jaeger, Noragami’s Yato or Hiyori, nor even for BNHA’s Deku. So it isn’t a trait typical of MC’s.
Anyways, rant over. But let’s bring it back to Rey. Finn in TLJ does start out orbiting around his desire to be with Rey again. However, what I like about this is that the story shows us that this desire, while we love where it came from and don’t think of it as a terrible thing, is a narrow-minded mindset. Like Rey, Finn’s world is expanding. His worldview via his adventures with Rose and his budding relationship with Rose show him that Rey is a vital, important part of his world, but she is not his sole world. And he has others, too.
But legitimately no one else orbits around her. Kylo won’t change for her. Luke refuses to train her and when he does he never shows her any kind of affection. Leia treats Rey no differently than she treats the others. Poe like just met her. Rose hasn’t even met her and she wasn’t gushing over this mysterious girl with the force and hero-worshipping her. She was gushing over Finn. Poe, Holdo, Leia, Rose–they all had arcs that had nothing at all to do with Rey. Luke’s didn’t have much to do with her either, to be honest. It was more about him overcoming his own failure not via Rey, as you might have gone into the story expecting, but instead by facing the nephew he hurt and the sister he hurt.
The story’s themes affect Rey just like everyone else. She fails in TLJ, because everyone fails, but she is able to go on as a part of something greater than herself.
So yeah hahaha. Sorry, that was very long. But Rey is the epitome of Not a Mary Sue.
It’s interesting! I really love the Jungian analysis he gives about shadows, etc.
However, I strongly, strongly disagree that Rey is backpedaling after she refuses Kylo Ren–I saw it as balance. I think the videomaker is entirely wrong in his conclusions, and he really seemed to miss the whole point in favor of pithy quotes. He takes everything in the last third of the film at face value which doesn’t fit with what he’d been doing earlier, so I really wonder how he arrived at those conclusions.
This was my interpretation:
Kylo: destroy the past. kill it if you have to.
The Resistance: live in the past (literally returnsto a base that was used years ago in the Rebellion and almost got the entirely resistance wiped out)
Rey: Accept the past. And move on and create something new. It’s not a coincidence that Rey rescues them from the base and they move out into an unknown place, the wide-open galaxy, because they have to create a new way forward.
I do think this could have made it clearer, I’ll give the writer that. But overall I think he had a really great analysis and messed up at the end because he just… had a preconceived opinion. He also neglects to acknowledge that this is 2/3 of the way through a story. You can’t give conclusions in the second act.
The Empire Strikes Back was pretty similarly received when it first came out because of how different it is than the first Star Wars, and now it’s held up as an excellent film, and my guess is that The Last Jedi is going to be held up as an excellent film twenty years from now. I will say that the problems I have with the film are that it tried to do too much in one film–the writing could have been way more concise, but thematically it’s just excellent, and I could not disagree more with his conclusions about the last third of the film.
Well, I think Reylo is canon tbh. They didn’t kiss, but Mark Hamill (Luke) and the writer of the novelization all said it was “romantic tension” and that they were “in love.” Plus the yonic symbolism was absolutely everywhere (the tree, the cave) and there was so much not-remotely-subtle metaphorical sex that I even raised an eyebrow in the theater. We’ll see where it goes in IX but writers don’t build a romance in the middle saga for nothing usually (see: Anidala, Hanleia, Finnrose–all in the middle chapter of a trilogy).
But while I don’t know Supercorp or Klance, I think the appeal of these ships is simply that people have been shipping heroes and villains forever, and it appeals to the notion of people being able to get over prejudices and move to the middle, to understand each other despite coming from different places (Romeo & Juliet, for example). The idea that amor vincit omnia, love conquers all. It also appeals to the yin/yang anima/animus imagery I’ve talked about before. (It’s undeniable in Reylo, but for the others I’m not sure since they’re not necessarily Jungian stories like SW is, but coming from opposite places intrigues people).
For controversy–eh. I think it’s almost entirely people angry their ship isn’t canon and making up a reason to hate it. Which is fine. You don’t have to like a ship. Just don’t harass others and know you don’t have to morally justify liking something or disliking something. Even if it’s just “I prefer Hidekane and don’t like Touken because it’s canon instead”=totally fine. You don’t have to morally justify feeling that way and anyone who gives you grief over it needs to get a life themselves.
Sure. Most of the discussion is going to be under the cut due to the nature of the subject, though.
But to start with, I’ll give you the tl;dr: it comes down to reading comprehension and the lack thereof. Let’s define some terms and talk about context.
When antis talk “abuse” they seem to be discussing domestic abuse. Which you actually need to clarify, because it’s not the same thing as abuse under an umbrella. Domestic abuse=abuse within an intimate relationship such as roommates, a romantic partner, a parent and child.
For example, look at the abuse allegations often lobbied at the Reylo relationship in Star Wars. “He kidnapped her and read her mind by force! = abuse” Not domestic abuse, hon. He captured her, as they were enemies in a war, and reading her mind would certainly be prisoner abuse, but again, consider the context. It’s a war. It’s not domestic abuse. Which isn’t to say one type of abuse is worse or better than another: it’s just to say it isn’t the same thing. Let’s throw “worse/better” out the window for the rest of this discussion. Abuse is abuse, abuse hurts, that’s all we need to know.
Let’s look at Touken. Everything prior to 125=they were not in a relationship. It’s not domestic abuse. Does that make what happened in say 120 right? No. But it’s not domestic abuse, and if you’re going to use the term abuse, you gotta be damn sure you’re using it appropriately.
And now, context. Context does matter. If we’re going to forget we’re reading a specific story, then sure, you could say her shoving Kaneki after he finds out she’s pregnant is abuse and context doesn’t even matter. But if you’re going to say context and how the author treats it doesn’t matter, then let’s apply that more broadly. (The rest of this paragraph is ludicrous and I’m aware but it follows that logic): Kaneki is a half-ghoul who has killed hundreds of ghouls for strength at this point, so let’s call him an irredeemable murderer. In which case, our entire cast is condemned, so why even bother with abuse, they’re all awful. Kaneki also abandoned Touka, Hide, etc., leaving them to worry about him and Hide to join the CCG and a dangerous mission in a desperate mission to find his best friend who couldn’t even tell him his secrets=unhealthy friendship. Kaneki ate Hide’s face off? Definitely abuse. Urie punching Mutsuki through the abdomen in 29? Abuse. Mutsuki stabbing Urie and Saiko in 156? Abuse.
Except, maybe context matters. Maybe them all being murderers is a theme. Maybe Kaneki abandoning Hide is not excusable, but also understandable. Maybe eating Hide’s face off is tragic. Maybe Touka hitting Kaneki’s head on the counter both is humorous and shows us her tendency to use violence instead of communication (like Kaneki uses abandonment instead of communication, and btw, it’s interesting to me that abandonment is Touka’s trauma and violence is Kaneki’s, but whatever) and shoving Kaneki is played for laughs and while it may not be funny to you (and it isn’t for me either tbh) that doesn’t mean Ishida’s intending to show us abuse.
Incidents with Kaneki’s mother, Mutsuki’s father, etc, have all been shown to us as repressed and deeply traumatizing memories that surface in moments wherein that trauma is being repeated. We’re supposed to be horrified.
Touka hitting Kaneki, Akira hitting Kaneki, etc are all shown to us just as Saiko hitting Urie is. It’s coded for laughs and it’s a cultural thing too–in Japan there’s an aspect of “man says something dumb, woman punishes him for it” that’s played for laughs. It’s present in the west too but is less in vogue nowadays. Tbh, I think it’s not a wise decision at all to include in a manga with major themes of abuse and how it fucks you up, but it’s basic reading comprehension. Kaneki has never been shown to be traumatized by Touka or Akira hitting him, nor Urie with Saiko. It’s slapstick humor guys, which is an entire genre. Is it in good taste? I’d frankly say no and that it’s varying levels of irresponsible. But I also think it’s understandable considering the violent physicality of TG as a story.
Essentially reading comprehension is a requirement for reading TG but I’m turning into an old fuddy-duddy at 25 who’s like “what do they even teach kids these days?”
Yuuuup. See, I started out in the Reylo fandom. I’m still active to an extent, like I’m publishing a Reylo and Finnrose fanfic right now, and let me tell you, the harassment in that fandom is legendary. Guess what the top two arguments are? Exactly what you say haha. Abuse and Nazism. Can we not.
Antis are really reliant on overly simplistic morality and a lack of reading/story comprehension. Like sorry, Touken and Reylo have both been where the story is going since the beginning, and you certainly don’t have to like them (I have my fair share of canon ships in other fandoms I’m meh at best on) but you also don’t have to morally justify disliking something. You can just dislike it. You also don’t need to morally justify liking something in fiction. You can just like it.
As an abuse survivor, I personally find it highly offensive for people to tell me that I’m shipping abuse, because they clearly don’t actually care about abuse survivors who don’t fit their perfect narrative. We see this with anti characters too, like Kylo Ren and Mutsuki. If a character doesn’t rise above their abuse, they’re condemned, even though most abuse victims struggle at some point. It’s a part of healing, and even if most don’t spiral like say Kylo or Mutsuki, some do, and why aren’t those stories worth telling too? Why do antis just want to see them die in painful ways and cheer their deaths? Don’t we want those kids to be able to see that there’s still a way out for them?
But also, it’s not healthy to devote hours of your life and time towards hating something. Look I’ve got my NOTPs but I don’t harass people who ship it, and I mostly certainly do not set up an anti-ship blog. It’s genuinely not psychologically healthy to devote that much time to something you don’t like, and it’s not in any way building you up to be a better person.
Furthermore, a lot of the arguments center in double standards and misogyny (Touka is evil! But it’s fine for Kaneki to have bitten Hide’s face off; Rey is an abuse victim because she’s a woman, never mind that she held her own against Kylo Ren every time and is very much an equal) and patronization of female fans, as if they don’t trust women (since the perception is that a lot of tumblr shipping is done by women, though not all!) to make our own decisions. It’s really patronizing to have someone tell you “you deserve better than liking a character who kidnaps someone” (looking at you, Alexandra Petri). Having been raised in a cult-like atmosphere, I’m very much in favor of encouraging openness of thought, not in telling people what they should or shouldn’t enjoy in fiction. And it plays into misogynistic tropes.
This post will contain extensive spoilers for The Last Jedi – consider yourself warned!
Before the release of The Last Jedi, very interesting language was being used to describe the connection between Rey and Kylo Ren. Rian Johnson called them “two halves of our protagonist”, and the Star Wars Databank described their “intertwined destinies” and mutual fascination. While the period prior to the film’s release saw fandom wars waged over the implications of these descriptions and what they meant for the characters going forward, The Last Jedi has finally given us some answers.
I mean, idk. Does what Mr. Darcy says to Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice sound abusive to you?
Mr. Darcy: Miss Elizabeth. I have struggled in vain and can bear it no longer. These past months have been a torment. I came to Rosings only to see you. I have fought against judgement, my family’s expectation, inferiority of your birth, my rank. I will put them aside and ask you to end my agony.
Elizabeth Bennet: I don’t understand.
Mr. Darcy: I love you. Most ardently. Please do me the honor of accepting my hand.
Elizabeth Bennet: Sir, I appreciate the struggle you have been through, and I am very sorry to have caused you pain. It was unconsciously done.
Mr. Darcy: Is this your reply?
Elizabeth Bennet: Yes, sir.
Mr. Darcy: Are you… Are you laughing at me?
Elizabeth Bennet: No.
Mr. Darcy: Are you rejecting me?
Elizabeth Bennet: I’m sure that the feelings which, as you’ve told me have hindered your regard, will help you in overcoming it.
Mr. Darcy: Might I ask why, with so little endeavor at civility, I am thus repulsed?
Elizabeth Bennet: And I might as well inquire why, with so evident a design of insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your better judgment. If I was uncivil, then that is some excuse. But I have other reasons, you know I have.
Kylo Ren is not so subtly coded as a Byronic hero, and in true Byronic romance novel fashion, he makes a proposal (which yes was a marriage proposal) that Rey (rightfully!) rejects. Go Rey. But what he says to Rey is exactly what Darcy says to Elizabeth. Exactly. You’re nobody, I’m somebody, but I love you so let’s get married. And Rey, just like Lizzy, says hell no you bastard. But Byronic romances don’t tend to continue to stay that way.
One of my pet peeves about tumblr is that people on it misuse the word abuse. And if you’re going to use that word you better be damn sure it actually applies, and I’m saying this as an abuse survivor, and that is something I would rather not discuss further or frankly have disclosed at all. Look, I get that that can trigger some people, and I cannot fault them for that. If this line reminds you of something an abuser said, I’m genuinely sorry someone said that to you and that was so wrong of them. You don’t have to like Kylo Ren or Reylo and there is nothing wrong with not liking either of them. But just because something triggers you does not mean that it was the filmmakers’ intent. The context is not the same, unless you too were a person with a Force Bond who just fought for your lives together but have also hurt each other in the past . Rey does not stay with him, being like well, I guess I am nobody, let’s stay. She very clearly tells him what he said is unacceptable. Which, to be clear: it absolutely was.
Also, at the end of the film? Kylo is engaged in a frankly embarrassing temper tantrum. I don’t believe he meant much of what he said and Luke even calls him on that, telling him Luke was not the last Jedi and he’d see him around. Context. Matters.
Look, I said in my review that I am not sure the odds of Kylo surviving the trilogy look great. But yes, I do expect them to “get together” in some fashion even if it’s not, like, riding happily into the sunset. Their characters are inextricably intertwined. But even if they don’t? That doesn’t make this abusive. Being wrong and mean is not necessarily equivalent to domestic abuse.
(Anon, I’m sorry if I sound really harsh. But misusing the term ‘abuse’ is one of my pet peeves because it is a personal issue for me, and it isn’t one I want to discuss further.)
Featuring Things I Was a Fan Of, Predictions for IX, My Schadenfreude Salt, and Things I Was Not a Fan Of.
Under the cut for spoilers!!
Things I was a fan of:
Rose. Just. Rose. I loved her character and her arc. Her pain over Paige and her fangirling over Finn, and how she learns heroes aren’t perfect. In the end she’s the one who delivers the story’s moral: they win by saving each other, not by stopping then. (Can you say: foreshadowing. They’re going to defeat the First Order in the end by saving Ben Solo, not by stopping Hux.) Also I really don’t think she is going to die.
Finnrose. The moment she crashed her ship into his to save him I was like AND THAT’S MY SHIP.
Leia using the Force. FINALLY.
REY AND KYLO’s interactions. All that angst. That fight where they team up. Goddamn. That scene was everything I wanted and more.
Speaking of Rey and Kylo, that was like Pride and Prejudice in Space.
Snoke is an abusive creep and that coding was not subtle.
The
characters were very complex and I loved that gray morality’s been
introduced in Star Wars. Good and bad isn’t clear, and I appreciate
that.
The backstory for Kylo was so sad and it isn’t completely told yet. Luke, what have you done?
Luke’s death was beautifully done. He wasn’t killed. He was at peace.
The film was genuinely surprising in its twists and turns.
The ACTING was INCREDIBLE.
The Finn stan within me is appeased with his arc. He starts the movie wanting desperately to reunite with Rey, and he does and it’s beautiful (THAT HUG YO), but whereas Rey was his only tie to the resistance, at the end that’s expanded, and he’s finding that the cause matters to him, and Rose matters to him, and all those people. Seeing a character who was denied that growing up find love and belonging and hope with Rose and Rey and Poe cements Finn as my favorite character in this trilogy.
Poe went from being a minor supporting character without an arc in TFA to having possibly one of my favorite arcs in TLJ.
Admiral Holdo is a Boss Ass Queen.
Predictions for IX that may change:
Hux
will be the final villain and it will come down to conflict between him
and Kylo Ren, which is fitting on a symbolic level because the sequel
trilogy is all about the children, and Hux and Kylo are not subtly coded as the dueling children of Snoke. Hux and Kylo are now forced to be
“adults” thanks to Kylo killing his father figure in Snoke and his
literal father in Han, but they hate each other, and that conflict is
not over.
Luke Force Ghost will take on the role Leia would have had in saving Ben Solo.
If Rey ends up with anyone, it will be Ben Solo. However I don’t think
the odds look great for him surviving the series (though it’s not completely off the table) so… sigh. I’m really tired of the redemptive death trope. Give me
them
antagonists who have to suffer to earn redemption and live knowing that
many will never forgive them, but have to earn it every day, prove that
they’re really repentant. The one thing that does give me hope is that
if Disney ends the Skywalker line like this I think that’s a dumb
marketing move, so Rey and Ben may get together midway through IX and,
well, yeah. Or maybe he won’t die; see below.
Kylo will be redeemed. The vision Rey had and him
finding the dice, plus Luke telling Leia that no one is truly gone,
basically seal it. I’m not worried about his redemption.
Leia will presumably have… died off screen or be MIA (like if Ben does live, maybe the end will be him visiting her… wherever she is or something in IX? Idk).
Now time for my schadenfreude salt:
I’m
really glad the Rey’s parentage brouhaha has ended.
I’m really glad the Reylo theory and the Force
Bond idea panned out. I remember being skeptical myself of the Force
Bond because I thought it was too “out there” but I’m glad I was wrong.
The Reylo community has been trashed by other fans and called “snobby”
and “delusional” for predicting how the story would go in terms of Rey’s
parentage, Rey and Kylo’s relationship, etc, banned from Jedi Council Forums, I got death and rape threats,
and whoops, we were right. I feel I’m allowed a bit of satisfaction over
this. Suck it antis.
Things I was not a fan of:
I wanted more from Snoke and feel he was kind of wasted as a character.
The pacing was kind of jarring. On one hand it felt long and on the other it felt rushed at the same time.
Yeah, that was kind of ridiculous and read like a temper tantrum over how it looks like the ‘reylo’ (romantic or platonic) is exactly how the story is going to go (which like was pretty set up and so that’s why people theorized it would happen? That’s how stories work lol). I also haven’t posted about reylo in forever, so they must have been combing through and looking for someone to blast. Anyways it’s not normal behavior to act like that and I hope they get help because they need it–it clearly doesn’t have anything to actually do with me or with reylo; it just has to do with anon being deeply upset probably over many things and being completely unable to find a healthy coping mechanism. I hope they find one soon.
hamliet 