Anakin loses his wife, his status, his code, his mentor, and his chance at being a good husband/father. Rey loses nothing because she started with nothing, and yet is given everything.
Fer Cuscuela Lopez exactly, he is the chosen, supposedly the most powerful force user, but still has to train for years, when Rey is just instantly “perfect”
In addition, he lost many times, fights, limbs, loved ones... he had several really poor decisions over his story - even though he made them for the right reason, that doesn`t change the fact that they were bad decisions. So while he still is very powerful, he is actually alot of things, but not a Mary Sue for sure.
This isn't a debate, the an argument between people who like Star Wars and those that don't know what good character writing is. Also, I destroyed Anakin in our duel, he's no Mary Sue.
Obi-Wan Kenobi more like u ran away from the duel you were clearly losing and anakin just made a mistake and gave u the fight. Everyone know anakin was stronger
Rey's lineage being traced to Palpatine might explain her Force potential, but not her Force abilities. Anakin Skywalker was born from the Force but we don't see him just randomly start using mind tricks or Force pulls in TPM.
Thankyou, her being a Palpatine does not excuse her random force abilities without extensive training. Even with a lot of training a lot of her feats are still not believable. That's how bad of a Mary Sue she was from a power standpoint alone.
Someone once argued with me that she got so good at Force powers because she Mind Melded or something with Kylo. And suddenly she downloaded ForceSkills.exe and became great at everything. Kind of checks out, but not really. Her mind would've definitely been tainted heavily by the Dark Side has she done that. Since Kylo (at least then) was a rather large nexus of Dark Side energy.
@@Animalace3 also that is a cheap excuse is the movies never took the time to explain it. That's what I hate when it's all just fans coming up with explanations for poorly written movies. Fans should not have to come up with theories about something that happened in the movie that is important and just not explained. Fan theories are fine if they are spin-offs about noncritical details of the movie. Like Boba in the originals, theories about who he was and etc are fine because he wasn't the main character and he has an assumed past to make him a badass. This was the main character who has unexplained powers relative to the universe, and only a cheap explanation is offered that only proves she would have force potential not force skill or mastery.
Anakin went literally through hell. He's been, on his own view, humiliated by the council, responsible for the fall of the Jedi, for his lover's death, was "killed" by his master, then destroyed his entire old order, brought the galaxy to its knees, only to realize that he was WRONG all along. Definetely not a Mary Sue.
You have to really wonder about anyone who would claim Anakin was anything like a Mary Sue. Are they so totally IGNORANT? Or, are they just saying it out of spite (Just to make real fans mad.)
@@turkeydinnerchewie2499 Let's see, she spent whole 5 minutes being interrogated, while actual interrogation last not even one minute, faced no worthy opponent, I'd hardly call kylo ren a challenge, wanna be sith that fights poorly and any mandolarian with so much as an iota of experience could dispatch with relative ease. anakin has been capture numerous times and badly injured along the way. survived the droid occupation of naboo, grew up in war and experience it to such a degree that near the end it was child's play for him. He grew up fighting, had literally years of constant experience of war at all stages, ground, air, space, under water, name it more than likely he's done it at some point. After that he is inadvertently burned alive, was put into a suit DESIGNED to hurt him, to move was pain. From the moment he was put into a suit to the time he dies he was in constant misery. The pain of padme, the destruction of the order/republic, the realization of what he has done, went from a republic hero, famed general, powerful jedi to a pawn for sidious to go on and do horrible things, not so much as flinching as he orders the destruction of entire cities which leaves him with no one and nothing but his cold, unforgiving life only awaiting death yet never accepting it unless defeated somehow and killed. Imperials/competitors want him dead, the rebelling populations want him dead just as much, history burned to ash, only lives to suffer up until his last minute redemption before death. Rey has no candle to it, even if her story/character was written well she still would not have a chance.
turkeydinnerchewie another fake Star wars fan in these comments, Rey didn’t fucking go insane over his loved ones and visions of them dying she didn’t care to do whatever she could to save who she loved she wasn’t humiliated by the same people who trained her she wasn’t untrusted by half the Jedi council she didn’t almost kill her loved one she didn’t lose everything including her limbs and burnt alive she wasn’t put in a suit for the rest of her life she didn’t kill her master she didn’t go through trauma about any son she didn’t in the end throw away everything she had to save a loved one she didn’t die. There’s no response to this your a fake Star Wars fan and your wrong.
Rey is not even comparable to an action hero. With them, their back story is not known, but based on their on screen success, we can assume it was remarkable. This does not insult our intelligence. However, with Mary Sue.......... I mean Rey!!.... we see her backstory, and it is not remarkable in any way. This insults the viewer's intelligence when she does everything right. If she is a Palpatine, why did they not allude to this in her backstory? Remember Anakin? How he could see things before they happen as a kid and was thus a great pilot? Smacking some people with a stick does not count.
How could anyone call me a Mary Sue? I couldn’t save my mom or my wife from death. I was humiliated by my own master and friend. I spent years trying to defeat a single old guy. I couldn’t resist the temptation of the dark side. I couldn’t even become a master! What did I do? I accidentally blew a ship as a kid.
Hey Thor, I left this comment on the Rey Poll last week. I feel like it fits here. You cannot spell 'Mary Sue' without 'F.' (Well OK, maybe you can.) Still, despite what many in the entertainment media will tell you, Rey Palpatine tics all of the major boxes on the 'Mary Sue' checklist. 1. Personality: Rey has the personality of a piece of wood with a smile drawn on it, and even when she has more than that, it is not the personality one would expect from a character in her circumstances. Even in the prequels, the actors were able to do something with the dialog they were given, but Daisy Ridley delivers her lines like a robot made of wood. 2. Skills: Rey being a good mechanic is one thing; believable based on her backstory. It did not stop there, though; she is an amazing pilot (in later movies Poe Dameron himself beleives her to be better), she outshoots Stormtroopers who have been trained from birth, she fixes the 'Millenium Falcon' better than Han, she speaks droid and Shyriiwook, and uses the Force and then a lightsaber better than Kylo Ren, who was trained by at least Luke Skywalker and probably Snoke (though we do not really know for sure about the latter). She fights Kylo Ren several times throughout the trilogy and always wins, even outduels Luke Skywalker; knocking him to the ground in 'The Last Jedi.' On the rare occasion something goes awry or she 'fails', it always works out for the best (see the Rathtars in 'The Force Awakens', and the sandpit in 'The Rise of Skywalker'). 3. Physical Appearance: Rey looks amazing for someone who has lived their entire life scrapping in the desert. Even after being captured and tortured, she still looks 'normal.' Her physical build does not fit her abilities either, non of those 'unsightly' muscles or scars one would expect such a hard life to give someone. On the whole, the physical aspects are not as egregious as they could be but are still worth mentioning. 4. Accessories: Everything "cool", from the Skywalker lightsaber to the 'Millenium Falcon', and even Luke's Red-5 X-Wing. If it is beloved, she acquires it at some point in the series. 5. Canon Character Relationships: She is beloved by everyone she meets from the moment they meet her. Those who do not, are portrayed in a negative light. Han Solo offers her a position on his crew, Snoke is obsessed with capturing (and turning) her, Leia ignores Chewbacca to give her a hug, Luke """trains""" her, despite not wanting to, etc. Even Kylo Ren remains obsessed with turning her to his side, even giving his life for her at the end, and most of Finn's dialog in the trilogy consists of "RRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYY!!!!!" 6. Story Elements: Three major story elements define a Mary Sue: She is a single person spotlight-stealing squad (She steals Han, Luke, then her own team's spotlight(s)), she is not bound by the rules of the universe (who needs Jedi training when you can use your innate talent to download all you need from the main villain and read the rest from some ancient books?), and her backstory is often self-contradictory (granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine, and daughter of nobodies). I was going to explain how she fits those here, but it looks like I just did in the parenthetical statements. As a bonus point, she even inserts herself into the canon-characters' story(ies) by taking the last name 'Skywalker.' 7. Names: Rey is unusual in that she has no last name. This is an interstellar culture where last names are not mandatory, so this should not be an issue, except that the other characters seem to think it is, marking Rey as unusual for being "Just Rey." That is, until she adds the name Skywalker, making her "Rey Skywalker." 8. Presentation: Rey is the center of the sequel trilogy, stealing the spotlight and plot importance of first the old canon characters and then the trilogy's new main heroes. The most egregious example of this is how she steals being the "Chosen One" from Anakin Skywalker by doing what he apparently could not and killing Emperor Palpatine (her grandfather). 9. Author Investment in the Character: This point stems mostly from fan fiction, but J.J. Abrams created Rey and certainly seems to be invested in her. Like Dave Filoni and Ahsoka, but even worse; he took the few interesting (though still stupid) things that Rian Johnson did with her and undid them, making her Palpatine's granddaughter and the real "Chosen One" of the Jedi prophesy. Even when she died killing the Clone Emperor, Ben Solo gave his life for hers, ending the real Skywalker bloodline to ensure that her bloodline, Palpatine's bloodline, would live on. So yes, Rey is a Mary Sue (MaRey Sue, if you will), and such an awful one that she gets an easy "F" from me. Up until the mind trick in Episode VII, I would have rated her C+ or B-, but taking all of her appearances into account, she gets an 'F.' Disney had their pick of any of the best living writers in the world, a bad fan-fiction trope was the best they could do? What is the opposite of S-Tier, Z-Tier? MaRey Sue is a Z-Tier character.
I'd also add three things: Filoni's views on Ahsoka (or her place in the story), both Ashley Eckstein and Daisy Ridley's views on their respective characters, and why these characters were created: 1) while Dave Filoni is definitely invested in the character of Ahsoka, he knows well enough to not overuse her, because she's not the only character he has to tell a story about. So she's a main character amongst other main characters in the shows she's in (Anakin and Obi-Wan being two other MCs from The Clone Wars). Case in point, Twilight of the Apprentice was, according to him, meant to be Ahsoka's last appearance in Rebels (but not her last canonical appearance), and what happened to her wouldbe explored in another series (of course such things were revealed in season 4, but maybe Dave planned to do it that way since the beginning and was just messing with us). On the other hand, Rey is the only main character of the Sequels. All the other characters are secondary to her, because their actions are always related to Rey in one way or another (Finn going to Starkiller was mainly to save Rey, same with the casino run, etc.). Also, compare the roles of the OT cast with that of the Sequels cast (pilot, mechanic, etc.), and Rey fits all of them (there's actually a meme about that). All the other characters that are with Rey during all these movies are just luggage. 2) the actresses' position on character development are a perfect representation of their respective characters. Back in the beginning of The Clone Wars, Ashley answered the criticism against Ahsoka by telling the fans that "she's young, she's not perfect, she need to have room to grow otherwise she won't be interesting". Daisy Ridley answered criticism against Rey (about her being a Mary Sue) by saying that she didn't believe Rey was a Mary Sue... while also saying that she doesn't think characters should have flaws (thus checking one of the boxes to be classified as Mary Sue). Ahsoka went through character development and had her own hero journey, and she's now one of the most beloved and developed character in the saga, and a fan favorite. Rey didn't have any development, and she's one of the most hated (or at least divisive) character in Star Wars, in part because she's bland, she's uninteresting. 3) Ahsoka was created (or at least became after being created) to be Anakin's padawan (this was Lucas' idea by the way, the original plot was more Rebels like). Rey was created to be a strong female role model to little girls, because they couldn't identify with Luke Skywalker (guess Leia didn't matter). In one case the character exists for the sake of the story, in the other the story exists for the sake of the character. Rey is nothing more than a political device, not even a character, and will never be more than that.
Sorry, I think parts of your list are just meaningless for the definition of a Mary Sue. Your first point is her personality, which reads, like you just don't like Daisy Ridley. I think her performance was okay. Not groundbreaking, but okay. I liked her and the guys in the first movie. Point 3, what does her appearance has to do with her being a Mary Sue? Some people tend to be more muscular than others. She seems to be well hydrated, though... a bit more of a tan would have worked... I'm not sure how number 4 fits into this equation, but I could very well be integrated into the story elements. For all other reasons, I find this pointless. As of number 7... It's just a f'ing name. And her taking the name of Skywalker is totally okay for me. She honors her teachers by taking on their name an ditching her own. Meaningless for a Mary Sue as well. Apart from the mentioned points, I mostly agree with you. And yes, I think as well, that she is a Mary Sue. Some of her skills can be explained, most can't. But the appealed points sound like you tried to shoe horn everything into this list, you didn't like... Have a nice day!
Darth Weebus The Wise I definitely agree but we may also not forget that Vader/Anakin had more time and more lore to develop as a character (but I would still take him over Rey even with the original trilogy only)
I don’t know if I’d call Anakin a perfect example of a flawed character more so than a perfect example of a tragic hero. You can tell that before he becomes Darth Vader, there is nothing but passion in his heart, and that passion to the Jedi Order is dangerous. He would rather live the rest of his life with Padme and his children than become what he did. Blinded by his fear, he becomes protective of any chance for him to preserve that dream of them. The Jedi Order furthers their pushing of him and Palpatine presents a “deal with the devil” solution, one that the Jedi Order can not promise or has the power to grant. Leading ip to Mace Windu’s death, Anakin is still left confused and troubled. Then when he see Mace Windu about to not only break the laws of the Jedi Order, but to kill any chance of Padme’s survival, he chooses to aid Sidious, not only for Padme, but because the Jedi Order has now been deemed completely flawed and corrupt in his mind. If the Jedi Masters can break the rules, dictate the will of the force, and suppress natural emotions all in the sake of the Republic, then they are unworthy and arrogance. Palpatine uses this to his advantage, making a false promise that a new Empire, a government that speaks for the entire galaxy, will persevere the will of the people. Even if this wasn’t the case, Anakin still needs Sidious to teach him the power he needs (I think this is why he doesn’t have Sith eyes when he slaughters the younglings, he didn’t want to do it but had to). After finally eliminating almost all of the Jedi and the clones reigning victorious over the broken spretists, Anakin is fully committed to his dream of Padme and him being able to help the galaxy, just like she wanted and that she would be alive. He is so blinded by his own self righteousness and the manipulation put upon him, he thinks what he is doing is good., and we all know what happens next. With all of that said, if Anakin a flawed character? Absolutely, but I feel he is the perfect example of a Tragic Hero rather than a perfect example of a flawed character. In the end he is only doing it for the greater good, blinded by the atrocities he has committed because of his love and passion. He only becomes Darth Vader when he loses everything: Padme, his children (or so he thought), almost every part of his body, his friend and brother ObiWan. He has nothing at the end of RotS, he is completely broken physically and mentally. Sidious then shows him the only future where he can prosper, as a Sith Lord, hence the personality of Darth Vader was truly born, a cold blooded, massacring machine, obedient and powerful, awaiting the day he over throws the Emperor and completes the ritual of the rule of 2
@@maxstavens5337 I would have been okay with that if it was revealed that someone or something was helping her and she wasn't doing everything on her own. I always thought it would have been cool if it turned out that while Kylo was trying to emulate Darth Vader the whole time, Rey was actually being helped by Anakin's Force Ghost. This would also give her a strong connection to Luke. And while Rey contemplates using her immense power to maybe "fix" everything by destroying everyone who works for the First Order, Anakin could talk her out of it by telling her about his own experiences, but she doesn't fully understand until she absolutely destroys someone, or a lot of someones with the Dark Side. She could have ended up using Force Lightning to disintegrate everyone, which could have acted as the first clue that she was a Palpatine. And if some innocent people got caught in the crossfire, she could have a believable moment of crisis where she fears to tap into the Force. Just the idea of Anakin helping the granddaughter of the man who ruled over him for decades just seems like a really cool way to show how far he's come. And if you think about it, it would also kind of fall in line with his Chosen One Prophecy. Originally, the prophecy should have been fulfilled when Anakin killed Palpatine. However, by helping Palpatine's kin come to terms with her own darkness and find a way to use her power for the light, he's restoring balance by robbing the Sith of a possible champion in Rey, who goes on to use lessons taught to her by Anakin and Luke to bring balance. And then, maybe she goes on to do the same with future Jedi who will then go on to do the same for the Jedi that come after them ensuring that the balance will always remain intact.
One other thing about Rey being a Mary Sue: Basically all the characters have a positive reaction to her. There's no friction. She just immediately hits it off with everyone she meets. Even Kylo Ren starts pining for her the second he sees her. Anakin constantly had friction with his peers, the Jedi. He was almost unanimously rejected by the Council in Episode 1 and only got in by brute force, and the Order always thinks of him as a showboat and an upstart for the rest of the Prequel era (though they are right about his pride and arrogance), and it's this friction that propels him away from the light into Palpatine's waiting arms.
Yes. The Sequels lack meaningful conflict between their characters. Even people that have known each other for years get into heated disagreements. (Like Anakin and Obi Wan.)
Inaren Commander The entirety of TLJ was characters arguing over how things were supposed to be done. Leia and Poe, Holdo and Poe, Finn and Rose, Rey and Luke, Rey and Kylo, Kylo and Hux, Kylo and Snoke, and so on. Plenty of actually organic conflict between characters.
Worse than that. Darth Emo completely forgets his mission, to get the physical map the droid has to be plugged into the physical map the First Order has because he intuits that Rey had glanced at the map for a second. Who cares if the droid is right here, someone's unreliable memory is just as good.
Blake Tyson Anakin also fell because everyone else sucked and treated him like crap. The relationships in the prequels (the films) were hella contrived. Anakin and Padme in particular had such a clunky and forced love story that felt totally messed up. Idk how Padme would have actually fallen for such a weird pervert.
And even if Anakin is the Chosen One, he didn't prove to have the most power and perfect at everything. He'd lost his fighting arm to Dooku and his limbs to Kenobi and even his arm to Luke. Idc if Rey *is* a Palpatine, she should have make mistakes and not be strong with the Force in a short time.
True, but also a whiner. Which I get what George was going for, but don't there's no subtlety to it, which is a big problem I have with Anakin. Didn't need to make that so in your face.
It bugs me that people often say that she just needed to train. Like... a Mary Sue isn’t fixed with a training montage. The problem is so much deeper than that.
@@John333Scout Yeah, her being a Palpatine only explains that she has a bunch of raw potential in the force. But that's just it, potential. One does not suddenly become a master in using the force by having them Palpy genes. Quite literally every other Force user in the history of Star Wars had to train to become great at using the Force (sans being taken over by Sith spirits or guided by Jedi ghosts).
@@Animalace3 Potential is wasted without proper training I mean look at Gohan in Dragon Ball, after Cell Saga he didn't train for 7 years, crowned as the strongest during Cell Saga and drop right down in Buu Saga.
We know Anakin is already a good pilot, since we see him Podracing at a young age. Even as the Chosen One, Anakin still had to receive years of Training, but was still nowhere near perfect when put on his first assignment. He lost his Arm to Dooku, and got a scar from Ventress. He gained a lot of Skill and Experience from leading as a General in the Clone Wars. In the end, he lost everything. He lost his wife, his limbs, his mentor, and even his ability to breathe properly. Rey started with nothing, we only see her Pilot a Ship once, the Millennium Falcon, where she did insane stunts and successfully evaded TIE Fighters. She never trained with the Force or a Lightsaber, but was able to successfully use both, and beat Kylo Ren. And Rey is given everything, and doesn’t have to work for any of it.
Yeah you summed it up in a simple short paragraph, I don’t even know why this even a debate, Rey is and always will be a terrible character, no flaws, no hardships, no training and no personality, she doesn’t even have any character. Never is angry happy or sad, just boring robotic character
@@razzo086 The people she lost barely mean anything to her. Kylo Ren: he's the villain at first, it was only like last 30 minutes of a while 10 hour long trilogy he became good Han Solo: she barely knew Han, sure admire him but his death wasn't impactful enough compared to how Leia feel. Luke: pretty sure the last thing she remember about him is they last confrontation before Rey went back and help others. Leia: Alright her death is sad but is 1 person compared to all the people Anakin lost.
It’s important to point out that Kylo was a skywalker and going by the midiclorian logic (idk how to spell it) then he should be inherently powerful. Not to mention he’s obviously been trained since childhood. By Luke fucking Skywalker. It’s also stated in the novels I believe that he was the strongest of the padawans being trained by Luke. But Rey. A nobody (the creamy sheev grand pappy plot hole didn’t even get thought of till later) can pick up a lightsaber and kick his ass. With no training and no knowledge of the force. By definition she is a Mary Sue.
@@Jonathan-A.C. Then what sort of personality does she have, who is she as person. I seriously can’t answer that after watching all the films because I didn’t see any character at all from her. Maybe you saw something I didn’t
Rey is literally Kathleen Kennedy’s way of promoting feminism, whilst not caring about character development. She is made too powerful at the expense of Anakin’s ark.
Vetarlit Torf I’m just saying that Kathleen Kennedy is clearly feminist, and through her depiction of Rey, has shown this. This is a bad thing because Star Wars is supposed to be in the fantasy genre, but incorporating real world politics to the Star Wars galaxy isn’t supposed to happen
Anakin has a mechanical arm. Rey doesn't. End of story. Anakin lost to Dooku and Obi-Wan and several others both on and off screen. Who beat Rey? It's not like there's time missing between the sequel trilogy movies. We know exactly what she did from the time she ran into Finn.
Meanwhile Obi Wan lost his master,lover,his brother from another mother,his Jedi friends,had to clean up Anakin's mistakes by raising his son Anakin's retarded fanbase:AnAkIn EeS a TwAgIc ChArACtEr
Albert The Peacock So let me get this straight, being in the life of slavery since early childhood, being taken away from your mother and forced to forget about her, being manipulated by the ultimate child predator, having your mother die in your arms, having future visions of your wife dying and being the result of that, losing the chance of being a father, is not tragic?
The lengths people go to to excuse Rey's awful character writing are only matched by the lengths they go to to drag characters like Luke and Anakin down to her level.
Agreed. It's as if they have no clue what a Mary Sue/Gary Stu character is OR they've never seen or given any real thought to the first six Star Wars films.
Anakin was a horrible character.. But that don't make him a Gary Sue it just means he suffered from bad writing.. I mean for fuck sake.. He loses his hand in his the first fight we see him go up against a Sith (Doku) ... Ray BEATS a TRAINED dark side user whom have killed multiple Jedi. Uhmm okay HOW the hell can someone even compare the two? It's same with Luke he loses his hand to vader.
To tell the truth I only see people praising Rey and saying she is too good to be a Mary Sue. Then they just deflect the argument to Luke or Anakin. What I find funny is Luke is nothing when compared to the Jedi of the Clone Wars, and Anakin makes one wrong decision after another. How can either be a Gary Sue at that point?
Rey didnt have any character arcs. She started off with "whoa I can use the force?" And just kept getting better for no reason. She didn't train properly, she didnt have any personal hurdles to overcome, and in the end she just decided that she loved Kylo? Luke and Anakin had their issues with the rights and wrongs of the force, they had conflicts within themselves, they both suffered. The most Rey suffered was when Han died and...honestly she didn't even know him. The death was a cheap one. Idk, if I want a tough woman lead I'll stick to literally any other franchise. Like ffs, PADME had a better character than Rey
She didn’t love Kylo. She loved ben. That is why she said, “i wanted to take your hand. Ben’s hand”. Ben is the person she was getting to know in her force interactions with him. As soon as he took off his mask, he slowly became ben again. This is what intrigued me about their relationship. Kylo always had this internal struggle of who he should be. Because Luke gave up on him after sensing some darkness in him, he was lured in by his abuser. Rey is the first person he felt that “kinship” with. They were able to be vulnerable with each other. Again, the writing rushed it and executed it badly.
even in legends eu we already way better charecters ten the entire sequel the new jedi order book series had better charecter legacy of the force had a way better story arc than the entire sequel trilogy including new jedi order and fate of the jedi even the amazing thrawn trilogy and hand of thrawn duology had way better charecters kathleen kennedy destroyed star wars along with rian johnson j j abrams and bob iger and disney themselfs they never sat in a room on how to begin the sequel trilogy and how to end it the rise of skywalker is the worst by far the worst star wars movie ever made the entire sequel trilogy is garbage they rushed each film and never took their time to make each film
Let's just say Disney don't want to take female characters from EU but claim there's "not enough" canon female characters... Ahsoka Tano literally exist, and people love her.
@@redace4821 Disney:"there aren't enough female characters." Actual star wars fans listing Canon female force users that have shown up on tv: Ahsoka tano Shak tii Aayla secura Bariss offee Asajj Ventress Luminara undulli Depa bilaba Now a list of ones I can describe but can't remember the names of: The jedi librarian The one killed in the duel of her and kenobi vs savage and maul Anymore canon female characters you can list please do
Anakin actually struggled with is growth. He lost his mom, killed sand people, lost his arm due to his arrogance, gave into revenge, lost his padawan, was not promoted to Jedi Master, fell to the dark side, killed many jedi and padawans, and became Darth Vader.
Anakin is the antithesis of Rey, a flawed man who’s life was ruined and served evil for decades until he was redeemed by his son and he helped bring down the Empire he created alongside his old master. Rey has hardly faced anything that has severely affected her, she lost nothing and besides being a Palpatine she’s riding high with the New Republic coming back again after being on hiatus for a year.
@@chewsdaym8 Even in the Phantom Menace he was not that bad. Piloting reflexes helped by a strong innate force connection was basically his thing for the 2 things he was actually needed in the plot for: the pod race and taking down the lucrehulk. Though the way things looked taking down the lucrehulk was helped out a lot by both R2-D2 and that Anakin got a lot of cover from the other royal guard pilots. Aside from that Anakin was basically a burden the entire time. Some people like to point at him building C-3PO as an issue but forget that he was a slave in a shop where they salvaged droids and vehicles and refurbished them. Assembling a protocol droid is kinda easy when you got a bunch of protocol droid salvage to work with.
At least Anakin has somewhat of an excuse of being the chosen one. What's Rey's excuse? She actually acts more like a "chosen one" messiah than Anakin did. Having powers she shouldn't be able to have, always doing the right thing ect. But a deeply flawed messiah makes it more interesting. Prophecy never said he would join the sith but also never said he wouldn't either. And that he did fulfill it, just not exactly how the Jedi envisioned.
@Stripey Arse What I was looking forward to is actually seeing Luke's order being run, not just briefly mentioned. I feel that was the most wasted opportunity. To not show how he ran it and we could have seen how differently he ran it compared to Yoda's. I feel that Rey should have joined the new Jedi order and show that she is talented and there is another reason why she is so strong. I feel that since the sith returned, it does somewhat make Anakin's sacrifice and prophecy almost meaningless. You can't bring Anakin back, so the only way I feel it'd make sense and how it ties to the "Skywalker Saga" is to have Rey be Anakin reincarnated. This would actually explain a lot. Like why she has a connection to the skywalkers, her power, why Anakin's saber called out to her and why Anakin's ghost seemed to be absent, and therefore was unable to help Luke or help Kylo turn away from the dark side. And the prophecy would be fulfilled too, if Rey was the reincarnation of the chosen one and destroyed Palpatine and the Sith Eternal. Anakin feared the return of the sith, so he gives up his immortality and reincarnates into a completely different life. Rey has some of Anakin's characteristics, but she is still her own person. Plus it'd go well with Palpapatine as both he and Anakin return but in different ways, where Palpatine transfers his soul into a modified clone body, while Anakin reincarnates. It would also by symbolic of Anakin himself. There are 3 sets of trilogies and each ones represents the 3 stages of life for Anakin. Birth, Death and Rebirth. Anakin was born from the force in the prequels and died metaphorically as he became Vader, the one we know in the originals, before he became Anakin again and truly died. and then is reborn in the sequel trilogy.
Seriously, although the movies limited the story of Anakin ("I don't like sand" flashbacks), the clone wars and the comics show us how much of a true character he is, he is not perfect, he is cocky yet powerful, and not everything he does goes perfectly (death of yadle, female yoda, and Anakin's mother) Anakin is a great character Rey had the potential, but the directors ruined the characters, the actors, especially Adam Driver (kylo) tried to make kylo a deep character.
Anakin: Character development, shows struggles, proves to mean well but continues to make mistakes. Rey: Perfect, intelligent, powerful without any mistakes. Is this really a question?
I wouldn't necessarily say Rey is intelligent considering the fact that she easily trusted every single person she had met even Kylo Ren who literally just murdered Han Solo right in front of her. It's more so that she's resourceful since she's been forced to learn how to survive on her own.
Ray could have the perfect power even with 1 simple explaination that kind of ok. The problem is Ray doesn't have her moral standpoint. What or who make her a hero. I always point to Superman as example. Superman written to be as strong as the plot need he to be, but his moral point what make his story intresting. He written as symbol of hope and the best a person can be. Try to list superman flaw(s), nothing come to mind on the spot.
One of the few "mistakes" she makes (destroying the transport that supposedly had Chewie on it) is undone mere moments later, too. The world literally adapts to ensure things go well for her. It's bizarre to think there are characters in _kids shows_ with more believable characterization than her.
In a weird way this is why I liked the white haired girl from GOT, she was holier than thou peace and love, but her decisions sometimes caused massive death tolls and catastrophes, and she succumbed to madness in the end. I get that the last season was overall garbage, but I liked her arc.
Luke has no selfish thoughts either. And while he does fail, it only happens because he is not strong enough, not becuse he makes mistakes. Unless you count the whole sequence in Jabba's palace a mistake, which it kind of is, but is peak Lukey Sue
@@moscanaveia luke at least changes for the better. When he first fought Vader he got his hand cut off. But by the second fight he can turn the tides against Vader.
@@moscanaveia laughable. Luke starts out a little kid who gets beat up by the practice robot, then trains hard can’t move his ship 2 feet, then gets beat up by vader, finally almost gets eaten then holds his own against vader and gets beat up by palpatine. His arc takes 3 movies and he has to claw for every gain
@@dylanlewis5113 I mean Elsa of Frozen is a Queen, not a princess and plenty of Disney Princesses (Mulan) aren't princesses in their story and, in fact, civilians. Disney "Princess" is the default for any leading female in a Disney Movie.
Well, she died at the end of the story like an archetypical Mary Sue, but she was brought back by a kiss from her "Prince." She's already a Disney Princess.
People seem to be misinterpreting the meaning of my comment. I understand what a "Disney Princess" is, and that every Disney Princess is not technically a Princess. When I brought up Rey being an Empress, I was using it as an example of Rey being, to quote Doomcock, "the bestest evah!"
Anakin is like the anti mary sue. Nothing goes his way, he isnt universally liked, he almost always makes the wrong decision. The only mary sue quality he has is being over powered and thats actually a plot device.
He isn't overpowered anymore once he becomes Vader. He lost most of his power after getting burned and chopped up. He remains a slave his whole life: Watto, the Jedi, and Palpatine being his masters, he loses his mother, wife, limbs, and ability to breathe without getting locked away inside a walking iron lung, he's universally despised, he is forced to serve the man who damned his soul, and dies to save his son, knowing he will remembered as a monster.
@@goodmind4940 Anakin is not an Anti-Sue. He is just a tragic hero. From what I gather, an Anti-Sue is someone who is pathetic and disliked to the point of absurdity, yet still somehow fawned over by the rest of the cast. It's a lame inversion of the Mary Sue that still has all of the negatives of the original. Anakin does not fit that description. He is skilled and powerful, but makes mistakes, has fears, and he has both friends and enemies. His life is misery, but things do not somehow go his way despite that.
@@brandonmedina494 Well, actually.... Anakin didn't get any weaker once he became Vader. He actually grew stronger in the Force *power*-wise, and it can even be argued that he never lost his *potential.* But he definitely never achieved his true potential, due to all of the conflict raging inside of him once he became Vader. But I agree with everything else.
Rey in episode 7: beats a Sith and she has ZERO Jedi training Anakin in episode 2: gets destroyed by a Sith and he has years of Jedi training Do I need to say more?
@@elisabethb.7088 from the first film, I thought the plot twist was going to be her falling to the dark side because the ways she fights and acts (very selfishly in many ways) is damn sith-like
to add to this is whilst we constantly told that Anakin is powerful and is the most powerful force user, we are often shown that regardless of how damn powerful he is in the force, he still fails in many other ways, gives in to desires. If Rey were Anakin the prequels would have been: PM: pretty much the same actually but she'd have no need of R2 to rewire the ship and she'd fly it perfectly AotC: she forgives everyone and stands equal to Dooku, realises that Palpatine is tricking her. RotS: Beats Dooku, realises that Palps is playing her, cuts of his head and everyone celebrates
Rey was a character who they just wanted to be an icon without wanting to take the journey that it usually takes to get that status. There is no canonical reason for her to be as powerful with the force as she is, and some of the feats she accomplishes are mind boggling in comparison to those that we see from other Jedi who have trained their entire lives to learning the force.
Exactly. She’s barely even a character: just a vehicle for Kennedy’s desire for a female icon for the series to hang her hat on. They couldn’t be more blatant short of having the other characters flat out tell the audience to love Rey, the ultimate hero of the franchise.
The movies screwed up in what they were trying to tell between TLJ and TROS in terms of consistence, but there are two reasons why she would be that powerful. If you go by what TLJ was going for, the force can chose anyone to be a “chosen one” kind of character. The force “awakened” in her to counter the dark side. If you go by TROS explanation (the stupider one) she is a descendant of the most powerful force user ever.
This really shouldn't be a debate. What makes a Mary Sue isn't "being talented" which both of them are, sure. What makes a Mary Sue is "unearned power". Which is what separates them.
Exactly right. Anakin May have been gifted but he still trained for years. He succeeded and failed many times. Rey was gifted as well but she didn’t have any satisfying training, everything was written to be easy for her and therefore there was no sense of succeed or fail in her story
@@petrhamera9399 Thats right i can forgive having an emotionless overpowered character existing, as long as they serve their story, rey just went with the flow, and everything was a coincidence with her.
Anakin is not a Gary Stu because he falls to the dark side Rey is a Mary Sue because she starts perfect and ends perfect, no flaws whatsoever The term "Mary Sue" has less to do with power levels (though it is a factor) and more to do with character flaws, growth, and mistakes the character makes
Nobody who has properly watched the prequels would call Anakin a genuine Mary Sue if they know what the term means... they are just trying to defend their love of Rey and just throwing an insult back at "the haters:"
The debate between Lucas and Disney written characters nearly always turns into attempts to tear down Lucas’ icons to bring them into comparable range of the Disney ones. That argument is lost before it even begins.
Rey is also a Mary Sue because everyone seems to like her with little reason. Even JJ Abrams admits it was a mistake for Leia to hug her instead of Chewbacca.
Yeah, that was stupid. Even Robot Chicken made fun of it when Chewbacca runs towards Leia for comfort, Leia says "Oh get the fuck outta here" and she runs towards Rey and says "Rey, thank God you're alright"
Yeah and how weirdly quick Han Solo warms up to her after only a day. It's to the point where he actually gives her the fucking Millennium Falcon instead of Chewie who was his life long partner.
Here’s the true difference between the two characters. When a fan of Anakin defends the character they are defending Anakin, his story and everything he’s been through. When someone defends Rey they’re not defending Rey, they’re defending some ideology or some fake made up victimhood that they think they’re arguing for or protecting
Winnipeg Is Cold I'm sorry but this is ridiculous. Anakin, Luke, Rey sont des personnages avec des histoires différentes mais toutes intéressantes. Anakin a ramené l’équilibre dans la Force grâce à son fils Luke a maintenu cet équilibre jusqu’à la destruction du temple Rey a ramené l’équilibre avec le soutien de l’ensemble des Jedis du passé
@Skywalker Kitty I respect your opinion; I honestly can't figure out a conclusion that doesn't render her a Mary Sue, I used to like her, but now I unequivocally don't.
Anakin was extremely powerful, possibly more than anyone in Star Wars. However, he had many faults that held him from ever becoming a “perfect” character. In fact, he lost just as many times as any character had in a story. You could argue he lost more than any Star Wars character, he lost his entire persona.
Bro he did lose everything, his mother, his apprentice, his humanity. Vader’s like in ROTJ of “my life is no longer my own”(I think that’s the line during Luke and Vader’s conversation on Endor) just shows how the only reason he is still alive is because his master won’t let him die.
Also Anakin actually lost much of his power by becoming mechanical as well. So even with all the power we see Vader exert. He's supposed to be stronger.
Idk man. She doesn't seem like such a great actress and unlike Adam driver for example she has not really been able to get any new work probably because she didn't show much potential to begin with. She can cry and look like a deer in the headlights but not too much charisma and other emotions
I don’t think telling young girls that they can be awesome, powerful, beloved, and successful without effort, just because, is a healthy message to send.
That's why I'll do all I can to get my daughter to look up to Luke and Leia as heroes and have Anakin be her cautionary tale. She will see these characters not as genders but as people who grew into better versions of themselves.
It took 10 lightsaber fights for Anakin to defeat Count Dooku. Meanwhile, the first time Rey fights Kylo Ren, she beats him despite having no Jedi training and had never held a lightsaber in her life.
In my opinion, "Mary Sue" doesn't necessarily describe an extremely powerful character. It's a character with little flaws or struggles, one who pretty much every other character respects, and one whose universe bends to their will.
There is a channel called "Literature Devil" that has a video explaining why Rey is a Mary Sue. It relies only in the information in Episode 7 so it doesn't have the palpatine excuse, but he also compares Rey to Luke which is quite interesting.
To be fair another trait Mary Sues tend to have is being conviently related to the Most Powerful Character or Characters that universe tends to offer. Almost as if it's suppose to gloss over the other issues. It'd be like if the character had the blood of varrying degrees of 1 of every important race in any fiction you can think of, but also can use the powers of those characters or race even better than those characters or races can. It's basically what happend at the end of RoS where Rey is now conveniently a Palpatine at first was simply a Granddaughter, but for some reason changed her father into being a simple clone and I think they changed that again? A shaky narrative that even fanfiction could probably handle better. But fine maybe it could of worked if they really went with the Darkside of Rey in a compelling enough way, but nope. She got sad a bit and quit for like 2 seconds before returning to face Palps. Force Lightening is the epitome of DarkSide power, but she could 'accidentally' do it while overall still not a Darksided indvidual. In the end she some how becomes the host to all the Jedi that supposedly ever existed, maybe even their abilities as well their knowledge too? She also assimilated Kylo Ren as well. Now, according to other info it wasn't just a spritual conversion, but he also gave her his DNA so on some metaphysical level she's a Palapatine, Skywalker, by blood along with the embodiment of all the Jedi atleast according to the movie, all this goes back to my former scenario.
How can anyone defend Rey by saying that Anakin was the one that was way overpowered and not her?? 🤔 Even if that's the case, Anakin was THE Chosen One, he is meant to be powered above anyone else or it defeats the point. He was conceived by the force itself. Rey is the daughter of a force-less clone of Palpatine, so in theory why should she be anywhere near as powerful as Ani??
If Anakin was a Mary Sue, he wouldn’t have lost his battle in Attack of the Clones and lost his arm and nearly lost his life if Yoda hadn’t intervened If Anakin was a Mary Sue, his damn wife wouldn’t be dead and he would have been the perfect father to his twins Luke and Leia who would have been raised by he and Padme. Anakin became Darth Vader. How anyone can claim he was a Mary Sue is baffling to me.
Anakin's big mistake: betraying not only the jedi order, but falling to the dark side and becoming the right hand man to the Empire of Evil Rey's big mistake: accidentally killing Chewie O H W A I T J U S T K I D D I N G !
i would've liked that she killed chewie but i understand why they didn't do it. it would've caused outrage amongst the fans that a beloved character would die in a careless way with no emotional send off
He turns to the dark side loses his arm can’t let go and has to train 10 year despite being the chosen one. And slaughters all the sand people including children and women. Does this sound like a Gary Sue?
Not to mention that even with 13 years of training, he still lost to Obi-Wan and ended up limbless and burning alive with permanent lung damage causing him to suffer for the rest of his life.
One of my favorite quotes from Avatar could be used to perfectly describe Anakin: "Even with all the power in the world, you are still weak." He's a Chosen One, yet despite having the literal implicit justification to be OP, he *never* achieves anything worthwhile or successfully accomplishes what he sets out to do. Time and time again we witness him fail or be beaten by those more experienced than him (in one movie alone he loses his lightsaber, fails to capture the assassin, fails to follow orders, fails to save his mom after disobeying those orders he failed to follow, fails to keep Padme safe, fails to save Obi-Wan, then gets completely STOMPED by Dooku not once but TWICE, and after having several years of hard Jedi training under his belt). Luke repeats a similar pattern. Throughout the entire trilogy he constantly had to rely on the help of others to achieve his goals and still failed: needed Obi-Wan to help him escape Vader, needed Obi-Wan to help him destroy the Death Star, needed Han to save him on Hoth, didn't complete his training with Yoda and got STOMPED by Vader, failed to save Han, and finally needed Leia to save him from nearly dying for the *second* time within the same movie. Then in the third movie he gets nearly killed AGAIN and ultimately needs/begs his father to save him, and this comes AFTER he finally completed his training and became a Jedi Knight. Without his friends he would've gotten nowhere. Bottom line: being "powerful" in the Force made neither Anakin nor Luke OP or perfect. They still experienced failures time and time again because they were weak, got beaten by people more experienced than them, and had to rely on the help of others to overcome certain obstacles. Rey does NONE of these things. The Force magically blesses her with convenient abilities and she's never beaten by anything or anyone because of them, never suffering any personal losses or experiencing any set-backs. Therefore, she's a Mary-Sue in the power department as well.
True, a lot of people forget that. Young Anakin is still the Chosen One. Being Force senstive, Anakin would of course have passively hyper-enhanced reaction times, even if he doesn't realize it. That's why Jedi and Sith have always made good pilots, no matter the instance. And as you said, Anakin has always been established to be very adept at fixing things. Living in a future with droids and advanced tech being commonplace, and with nothing better to do, it's no surprise that Anakin is good at fixing things. Then there was him blowing up the Lucrehulk in the Naboo fighter. As I said, Anakin's enhanced reactions and "luck" would make him a very skilled pilot despite being a little boy. So none of these instances make TPM Anakin a Gary Stu in any way. That's just how the Force works.
@@nutellaninja4667 All these facts explain why Rey is NOT a Mary Sue. Because she is also forced sensitive, so she would also have hyper-enhanced reaction times. She also spent most of her life scavenging wrecked star ships. So she would've learned how ships work as much as Anakin learned how to build droids by fixing them. he got lucky when he blew up the Lucrehulk. She got lucky when she thought against Kylo Ren. If enhanced reactions and luck don't make Anakin a Gary Stu because that's how the force works, then the same must be said for Rey and her abilities. Otherwise the whole argument against Rey is hypocritical.
@@HoshijiroTS336 Maybe. Perhaps it can be argued that she's not a Mary Sue. But I can still see why people don't like her character. Beating Kylo in TFA, while it made sense, was a narratively stupid decision and rubbed many people the wrong way. Even if Kylo was so injured, he had a massive advantage in three key areas, making her victory feel very lame and undeserved. Imagine how dumb it would be if AOTC Anakin beat Dooku just like that. So even if she isn't a Mary Sue, she is boring and one-dimensional, yet still worshipped by the story and all of the characters around her. It's irritating.
@@nutellaninja4667 I don't think she beat Kylo Ren. If it weren't for the ground conveniently opening up and separating then, Kylo would've recovered from that brief embarrassment and made an example of her. She would've been made, she would've been measured, and she would've been found wanting.
@@HoshijiroTS336 SHE SLICED UP HIS FACE WITH A PLASMA SWORD! How does one recover from that? He lost! He got cut up and he got disarmed in the process. Lightsaber wounds have been shown to make people lose consciousness (Finn, literally seconds earlier) or be completely unable to fight (Obi-wan vs Dooku)
Exactly. Rey defenders are pathetic. Even if in some alternate universe, Anakin happens to be a Gary Stu...it does not change the fact that Rey is still one. Throwing shade at another character just because one is bad is a horrible argument, and does nothing to detract from the fact that Rey is still an unlikable character. And of course, we all know that Anakin is definitely *not* a Gary Stu.
This logical fallacy is called whataboutism. It only works to show your opponents hypocrisy, but by using this argument you acknowledge your opponent is right.
Rey is flawless. She is overly compassionate relative to her situation in life on Jakku. she is beloved by all she meet. She is never anything other than kind and optimistic and hopeful, which is not true of any person anywere, ever and she is OP beyond anything in the Star Wars universe. Rey kicks a Siths ass the first time she holds a lightsaber. Anakin is a ragefilled, overly passionate edgelord who gets his hand cut off because he is overconfident and angry. Rey kicks a Siths ass the first time she holds a lightsaber. Nuff said
"Anakin is a Mary Sue" The guy lost his mother, lost his apprentice, choked his own wife to death, and lost his all his limbs to his brother and master... to finish it all, he even lost many of his clone troopers which he loved like brothers. I mean, he essentially just lost the rights to his own children when he choked their mother.... He lost literally... every! dang! thing! What about that makes him a marry sue....?
He didn't actually choke his wife to death, but yeah to the rest of it. Even the medical droids said there was nothing medically wrong with her afterwards, which they would not have done if the Force choke was the cause of her death.
@@trevordavis6830 you forget he'd been racing for YEARS before that and always lost, was a slave in a slave family where they were all abused and literally had to learn machinery to be useful enough to not get his shit wrecked, fucks up piloting the starship until he can wrap his head around it to being similar to the pod racing which he at that point had YEARS of experience as one of if not the most gifted pilots in the universe. He's literally just a chosen one who's smart and has literally lost everything you can in life until the start of TPM where he finally starts winning, even then it still ends with his mom still a slave, him having to constantly try and try to get into the jedi order being refused, and the only guy in the world who had his back and was going to train him dies. He didn't single handedly change the war either he performed markedly worse piloting then he does later in the movies showing he had even more potential then shown. Sure it can be alot of strength to give early, but it has actual lore reasons and shit given to explain it other then ope she's able to do high level techniques because its funny. Hell chosen one anakin doesn't do one direct force related thing beyond it makes him a better pilot in the entire TPM which is an instinctual normal force sensitive thing to where force sensitive untrained people are usually ace pilots or master combatants. let alone one with the chosen one gimmick tacked on. It all has explanations and things i can go alright this lines up with how this universe works.
Maddox MakesVideos the fans do deserve this trilogy. They hated on the prequel trilogy destroyed many actors lives for a trilogy which was really good and people just hated a couple lines
This isn’t even a competition. Anakin was a very flawed character. That’s the key reason he fell to the dark side. He’s the furthest thing from a Mary Sue, discounting his role in episode 1
@@emberfist8347 yes, a mary sue would mean that he has an unrealistically broad skill set, everything the plot needs him to do he does it. He is only good at two things: flying and fixing stuff. In my book that can hardly be called a broad skill set.
I just realized something really sad. In the CW it’s explained that everyone except force ghosts lose their individuality after death. That means Padme and Anakin‘s mother are gone. So Anakin lost them forever. Does he like being a force ghosts without Padme
It isn't directly in a movie but I believe a novelization of Return of the Jedi explains that as Anakin was dying Obi-Wan came to him in the final moments to teach him how to be a force ghost. Based upon the training Qui-Gon gave to Yoda which is in another or the same book, to become a force ghost you have to accept the final cutting of your attachments before you can become the ghost. So that must mean Anakin in the end finally accepted that he lost Padme and his mother and Luke was the MAJOR reason why he was able to accept this. Through Luke, he was able to finally learn that lesson that he was never able to accept earlier and what made him fall to the Dark Side in the first place.
3:20 Would you call Rambo a Gary Stue character? Sure he is strong and capable, but he also goes through immeasurable hardship and Suffering, and is far from understood or beloved by the people he is faced with.
I wouldn't. Rambo's just Over Powered due to being a literal one man Army. But at the same time he seems to suffer a lot outside being in his element that maybe you can argue he channels all his frustrations against those that wronged him in the first place.
3:21 Rambo: PTSD riddled mess haunted by the horrors of war. Wong Fei Hung: gets drunk in order to fight and ends up shaming his family. Also gets brutally beaten and strung up by the gangsters. Chuck Norris: I haven't seen this one. Sorry. John McClane: Runs barefoot over broken glass, among other severe injuries. But this one stands out. Sure, they may seem like your standard "Male Power Fantasy" characters, but they have a lot more depth than you give them credit for. They are fully formed characteres, each with their own faults, fears, aspirations, and even trials to overcome. And while they may be muscular, tough, and more durable than your average person, their victories do not come easy, and rarely without any personal loss or pain. Rey has no personal stake in her battles, nor does she even have any particular aspirations, fears, or even trials. It's one thing to be a Mary-Sue or a Power Fantasy Character, but Rey isn't even half-baked as a Character.
Remember that time when Rey came back to the gang and explained how she just killed a tribe of aliens, even the women and children when her parent figure died? Oh wait that was Anakin. Rey doesn’t do “struggles.”
Anakin's entire arc is that of loss: He lost his mother, his wife and children, his mentor, his young apprentice, his limbs and thus his the chance of being the most powerful, his code and honor, and his innocence and chance of being viewed as good. All this loss made Anakin Skywalker almost unrecognizable, at which all you see is the corrupted and broken version of the man he used to be in the form of the notorious Sith Lord Darth Vader until a grown up Luke came around. Now, tell what exactly did Rey lose that changed her as a character in any profound or meaningfull way?! lol
Imho, a mary or gary sue are not just flawless characters who exceed in all they do never making a mistake, they are characters with out a wound (a lie a character tells themselves to protect themselves from a reality). The 80's and 90's heroes often carried a wound that the love interest would challenge. Anakin's wound was, with enough power he, "the chosen one," could save everyone. Rey's wound? It should have been, the only being she can rely on is herself. But she had no wound, no lie she told herself to protect herself for the realities of her world.
My problem with Rey was never her parents needing to be the explanation for her abilities..... my problem is she randomly has knowledge with no explanation
Anakin was a character who was made with actual thinking, flawed, lost everything and a tragic story whereas Rey was made to boost an agenda and was flawless and they failed in doing so
Just want to make sure that we separate actors' performances from the evaluation/criticism of the written characters. ----> more Daisy Ridley is not to blame for Rey's failings. She did the best she could with a shoddily-written, too powerful character with few real struggles. Conversely, Anakin's character arc was written brilliantly, though Mr. Lucas did give him a few cringe-worthy lines. Feeling sooo strongly about Anakin Skywalker, I feel compelled to comment on Hayden Christensen, whose performance as Anakin was AMAZING.Hayden never should have gotten the sh*t he did, nor should Jake Lloyd have been so mercilessly attacked, as he mostly did a great job and will always be sweet "Little Ani." The Chosen One was, is, and always shall be Anakin Skywalker -- as portrayed by Hayden Christiansen -- irreplaceably and irrevocably. When Anakin killed Sidious, (and himself in the process), the Sith were no more. He fulfilled the Prophecy. Disney's retcon is nothing more than BAD fanfic. Hayden/Anakin deserves new screentime written and directed ONLY by those who value Lucas's Legacy and The Chosen One Prophecy.
I'd far rather have cringeworthy lines than character arcs that get dropped right away like some crpg and sparkly powers pulled from decanonized resources.
This. People shit on the prequels because of Jar Jar and 3 bad lines without seeing the story behind it. Meanwhile they praise the sequels when they rely on pure spectacle CGI and shitty characters.
Ah yes, the quadrapalegic failure. My favorite Mary Sue. You notice the defense of Rey is just pointing out a different flaw, not defending her actual character
Ask yourself the question: “What trials and tribulations did Anakin have to go through to achieve his status of a character?” The answer(s) is well known at this point. Ask yourself the same question for Rey and you get: “None.” Simple.
I must disagree with many of those examples of Mary/Gary types. The likes of the Bride, Rambo, etc. are all powerful and defeat many impossible challenges. However, these characters did not do so without great effort and they suffered greatly for their ability to do these things. These characters are compelling not for their physical prowess and achievements, but the internal emotional turmoil that they go through. Merely my opinion, but saying that a character is a mary sue is a big accusation, and requires a great deal of evidence to substantiate it. It just so happens that Rey does have that mountain of evidence.
@@emberfist8347 Yeah, Alice is. She's a self insert of the director's wife who is therefore great and perfect and upheaves every original main character's role in the series.
Critical Drinker already did an excellent video on this topic, I hope you could do a collab together sometime. Anakin is definetly NOT a Mary Sue - he fails often, gets hurt (physically and mentally) and manipulated, lots of people don`t like him. And Rey is... well, Rey. Nuff said.
We got to see Anakin go from a child who was the chosen one, into a young adult who turns to the dark side and eventually becomes Darth Vader who redeems himself. But this didn't happen over 3 movies and he was never over powered like Rey.
The thing is her power isn’t explained just by being related to someone. Anakin has the highest count even over yoda. Still trained for 10 years and lost to Dooku. Then trained for another 2/3 years in a war and lost to Obi-Wan.
Anakin: a slave until he's freed due to betting on a pod race with the help of a Jedi master, HAS to leave his mother, misses her after 24 hrs(he's a child so it makes sense), is thought to be dangerous by everybody except Qui-Gon, accidentally helps the republic beat the separatist droid ship above Naboo. Struggles with his training by Obi-Wan (who wasn't ready to become a Jedi master by the time Qui-Gon died), has forbidden feelings of love for Padme Amidala, loses his arm to Count Dooku/Darth Tyrannus, marries Padme in secret, loses his mother and kills the tuskin raiders (men women and children), kills Dooku, kills kids, is partly responsible for Palestine's rise to Emperor, helps carry out order 66(killing even younglings), loses arm and legs in a fight against his former master, murders the separatists, then kills an entire planet, cuts his own son's hand off, tortures his son's best friends and freezes him on carbonite, but then is redeemed by saving his son and killing the Emperor.(obviously some of this is outta order but you get the point). Rey: abandoned by her parents at a young age, learned to live on a desert planet till she met a BB unit and then Finn. (Literally tried to think for about 5 minutes about any flaws after meeting Finn and I couldn't think of one [also about to go to work as of writing this out lol]) I think we can all figure out WHO the Mary Sue is outta the 2 characters
Was this even a debate? Anakin's numerous flaws (inexperience, impetuousness, arrogance, emotional instability, anger, etc.) consistently hold him back and/or result in him having to face significant consequences-ultimately culminating in his downfall and full migration to the dark side. This is in stark contrast to Rey, who without the benefit of training or experience is consistently superior at everything and has no personal flaws or failures to speak of.
Anakin isn't even remotely close to a mary sue, he loses pretty much all throughout the films as he grows up. Maybe they could argue that if he remained Episode 1 kid anakin all the way through? but he didn't. Gets his ass kicked by Dooku fails to save his mom fails to save his wife gets his ass kicked by Hello There High Ground Man is manipulated by *_THE SENATE_* for most of his screentime loses his face, identity and standing Is defeated by his son in the FINAL BATTLE dies PERMANENTLY
Ok lets see what you lost Luke: I lost a hand Anakin: I lost a hand, 2 legs, hair, and the ability to breath on my own Rey: I lost my parents Luke&Anakin: And?... Rey: A supposed to be Boyfriend Luke&Anakin: And?... Rey: Oh you mean body parts, no nothing, Im complete...
The fact that Rey uses force lightning, without no one training her while Anakin couldn't do even though he was a sith lord i think it's pretty self explanatory
![[REUPLOAD] [NOTHING FROM THIS VIDEO IS BY ME] Rewriting the Entire Star Wars Prequel Trilogy](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/cvisyiPA6sY/mqdefault.jpg)
Anakin loses his wife, his status, his code, his mentor, and his chance at being a good husband/father.
Rey loses nothing because she started with nothing, and yet is given everything.
Also lost a lot of his limbs, Rey still has all her limbs.
@@dennydanschin2001 yeah she's not a skywalker. She still has both hands
And Anakin also lost his apprentice. Rey makes no mistakes or lose anybody or anything apart of her whatsoever.
The totally agree, the only characters that died in the sequels she knew them for less than enough time to make it as emotional as anakin
There is a pronounced lack of severed limbs in the sequels.
How is this still a thing??? Anakin trained for years, Rey "trained" for days...
Fer Cuscuela Lopez exactly, he is the chosen, supposedly the most powerful force user, but still has to train for years, when Rey is just instantly “perfect”
And in the end he failed.
In addition, he lost many times, fights, limbs, loved ones... he had several really poor decisions over his story - even though he made them for the right reason, that doesn`t change the fact that they were bad decisions. So while he still is very powerful, he is actually alot of things, but not a Mary Sue for sure.
@@Rakshiir Couldn't said it better myself ;)
more like an hour
Literally the point of Anakin is that everything goes wrong in his journey, turning him into a monster.
It's not that bad things happen to him. It's the way he reacts and the decisions he makes that result in his becoming a monster.
Mac Mcleod well it’s both really. Part of it is his morality conflicting with his need for “a life of significance.”
The point of his story is redemption.
We talk about male Mary Sues we call them Gary stues
Jan prime1909 Mary Sue covers both male and female.
This isn't a debate, the an argument between people who like Star Wars and those that don't know what good character writing is.
Also, I destroyed Anakin in our duel, he's no Mary Sue.
welllll, that's nearly the classic Mary Sue death, isn't it? But Padme got the bier with weeping crowds as no one mourns a Sith.
General Kenobi!
Obi-Wan Kenobi more like u ran away from the duel you were clearly losing and anakin just made a mistake and gave u the fight. Everyone know anakin was stronger
YOU MAY HAVE KILLED ANAKIN, BUT I KILLED YOU
Master?
Rey's lineage being traced to Palpatine might explain her Force potential, but not her Force abilities. Anakin Skywalker was born from the Force but we don't see him just randomly start using mind tricks or Force pulls in TPM.
Thankyou, her being a Palpatine does not excuse her random force abilities without extensive training. Even with a lot of training a lot of her feats are still not believable. That's how bad of a Mary Sue she was from a power standpoint alone.
Someone once argued with me that she got so good at Force powers because she Mind Melded or something with Kylo. And suddenly she downloaded ForceSkills.exe and became great at everything. Kind of checks out, but not really. Her mind would've definitely been tainted heavily by the Dark Side has she done that. Since Kylo (at least then) was a rather large nexus of Dark Side energy.
@@Animalace3 also that is a cheap excuse is the movies never took the time to explain it. That's what I hate when it's all just fans coming up with explanations for poorly written movies. Fans should not have to come up with theories about something that happened in the movie that is important and just not explained.
Fan theories are fine if they are spin-offs about noncritical details of the movie. Like Boba in the originals, theories about who he was and etc are fine because he wasn't the main character and he has an assumed past to make him a badass.
This was the main character who has unexplained powers relative to the universe, and only a cheap explanation is offered that only proves she would have force potential not force skill or mastery.
@@Animalace3 Her mind meld with Kylo didn't happen until TLJ, right? She was already pulling Jedi mind tricks out of her ass in TFA.
@@kjhuang I honestly don't know, I didn't watch past the first of the trilogy.
Rey should’ve trained and grew as a person, but Disney handed everything over to her on a silver platter
*Lucasfilm.
Vetarlit Torf Disney owns Lucasfilm
@@HR-in1dm Yes but they don't make Star Wars. Lucasfilm does. Disney just distributes and profits from it.
Yes, she should have gone through experiences of life like Anakin, not have everything handed to her.
@@emberfist8347 Proof?
Anakin went literally through hell. He's been, on his own view, humiliated by the council, responsible for the fall of the Jedi, for his lover's death, was "killed" by his master, then destroyed his entire old order, brought the galaxy to its knees, only to realize that he was WRONG all along.
Definetely not a Mary Sue.
You have to really wonder about anyone who would claim Anakin was anything like a Mary Sue. Are they so totally IGNORANT? Or, are they just saying it out of spite (Just to make real fans mad.)
Rey also literally went through hell too.
@@turkeydinnerchewie2499 Let's see, she spent whole 5 minutes being interrogated, while actual interrogation last not even one minute, faced no worthy opponent, I'd hardly call kylo ren a challenge, wanna be sith that fights poorly and any mandolarian with so much as an iota of experience could dispatch with relative ease. anakin has been capture numerous times and badly injured along the way. survived the droid occupation of naboo, grew up in war and experience it to such a degree that near the end it was child's play for him. He grew up fighting, had literally years of constant experience of war at all stages, ground, air, space, under water, name it more than likely he's done it at some point. After that he is inadvertently burned alive, was put into a suit DESIGNED to hurt him, to move was pain. From the moment he was put into a suit to the time he dies he was in constant misery. The pain of padme, the destruction of the order/republic, the realization of what he has done, went from a republic hero, famed general, powerful jedi to a pawn for sidious to go on and do horrible things, not so much as flinching as he orders the destruction of entire cities which leaves him with no one and nothing but his cold, unforgiving life only awaiting death yet never accepting it unless defeated somehow and killed. Imperials/competitors want him dead, the rebelling populations want him dead just as much, history burned to ash, only lives to suffer up until his last minute redemption before death. Rey has no candle to it, even if her story/character was written well she still would not have a chance.
@@turkeydinnerchewie2499 u mean being still for a minute then getting insane powers randomly
turkeydinnerchewie another fake Star wars fan in these comments, Rey didn’t fucking go insane over his loved ones and visions of them dying she didn’t care to do whatever she could to save who she loved she wasn’t humiliated by the same people who trained her she wasn’t untrusted by half the Jedi council she didn’t almost kill her loved one she didn’t lose everything including her limbs and burnt alive she wasn’t put in a suit for the rest of her life she didn’t kill her master she didn’t go through trauma about any son she didn’t in the end throw away everything she had to save a loved one she didn’t die. There’s no response to this your a fake Star Wars fan and your wrong.
Honestly, Rey isn’t even comparable to Anakin. As so many have said, Daisy Ridley and Star Wars deserved better.
@D C Disney took a Godzilla sized pile of shit on the star wars rights.
@@christianyttrie5764 god*
Rey is not even comparable to an action hero. With them, their back story is not known, but based on their on screen success, we can assume it was remarkable. This does not insult our intelligence.
However, with Mary Sue.......... I mean Rey!!.... we see her backstory, and it is not remarkable in any way. This insults the viewer's intelligence when she does everything right. If she is a Palpatine, why did they not allude to this in her backstory?
Remember Anakin? How he could see things before they happen as a kid and was thus a great pilot? Smacking some people with a stick does not count.
I’m happy that at least some people see that daisy Ridley didn’t deserve this
@@fulcrum7455 daisy isn't at fault she had no creative talk she did what she was told and she was completely innocent
How could anyone call me a Mary Sue? I couldn’t save my mom or my wife from death. I was humiliated by my own master and friend. I spent years trying to defeat a single old guy. I couldn’t resist the temptation of the dark side. I couldn’t even become a master! What did I do? I accidentally blew a ship as a kid.
You be surprised
Master Skywalker, there are too many. What will we do?
You used spinning, a Gary Sue trick.
your a master to me boah
@@hassathunter2464 I thought everyone liked my spinning trick. ;D
Hey Thor, I left this comment on the Rey Poll last week. I feel like it fits here.
You cannot spell 'Mary Sue' without 'F.' (Well OK, maybe you can.) Still, despite what many in the entertainment media will tell you, Rey Palpatine tics all of the major boxes on the 'Mary Sue' checklist.
1. Personality: Rey has the personality of a piece of wood with a smile drawn on it, and even when she has more than that, it is not the personality one would expect from a character in her circumstances. Even in the prequels, the actors were able to do something with the dialog they were given, but Daisy Ridley delivers her lines like a robot made of wood.
2. Skills: Rey being a good mechanic is one thing; believable based on her backstory. It did not stop there, though; she is an amazing pilot (in later movies Poe Dameron himself beleives her to be better), she outshoots Stormtroopers who have been trained from birth, she fixes the 'Millenium Falcon' better than Han, she speaks droid and Shyriiwook, and uses the Force and then a lightsaber better than Kylo Ren, who was trained by at least Luke Skywalker and probably Snoke (though we do not really know for sure about the latter). She fights Kylo Ren several times throughout the trilogy and always wins, even outduels Luke Skywalker; knocking him to the ground in 'The Last Jedi.' On the rare occasion something goes awry or she 'fails', it always works out for the best (see the Rathtars in 'The Force Awakens', and the sandpit in 'The Rise of Skywalker').
3. Physical Appearance: Rey looks amazing for someone who has lived their entire life scrapping in the desert. Even after being captured and tortured, she still looks 'normal.' Her physical build does not fit her abilities either, non of those 'unsightly' muscles or scars one would expect such a hard life to give someone. On the whole, the physical aspects are not as egregious as they could be but are still worth mentioning.
4. Accessories: Everything "cool", from the Skywalker lightsaber to the 'Millenium Falcon', and even Luke's Red-5 X-Wing. If it is beloved, she acquires it at some point in the series.
5. Canon Character Relationships: She is beloved by everyone she meets from the moment they meet her. Those who do not, are portrayed in a negative light. Han Solo offers her a position on his crew, Snoke is obsessed with capturing (and turning) her, Leia ignores Chewbacca to give her a hug, Luke """trains""" her, despite not wanting to, etc. Even Kylo Ren remains obsessed with turning her to his side, even giving his life for her at the end, and most of Finn's dialog in the trilogy consists of "RRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEYYY!!!!!"
6. Story Elements: Three major story elements define a Mary Sue: She is a single person spotlight-stealing squad (She steals Han, Luke, then her own team's spotlight(s)), she is not bound by the rules of the universe (who needs Jedi training when you can use your innate talent to download all you need from the main villain and read the rest from some ancient books?), and her backstory is often self-contradictory (granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine, and daughter of nobodies). I was going to explain how she fits those here, but it looks like I just did in the parenthetical statements. As a bonus point, she even inserts herself into the canon-characters' story(ies) by taking the last name 'Skywalker.'
7. Names: Rey is unusual in that she has no last name. This is an interstellar culture where last names are not mandatory, so this should not be an issue, except that the other characters seem to think it is, marking Rey as unusual for being "Just Rey." That is, until she adds the name Skywalker, making her "Rey Skywalker."
8. Presentation: Rey is the center of the sequel trilogy, stealing the spotlight and plot importance of first the old canon characters and then the trilogy's new main heroes. The most egregious example of this is how she steals being the "Chosen One" from Anakin Skywalker by doing what he apparently could not and killing Emperor Palpatine (her grandfather).
9. Author Investment in the Character: This point stems mostly from fan fiction, but J.J. Abrams created Rey and certainly seems to be invested in her. Like Dave Filoni and Ahsoka, but even worse; he took the few interesting (though still stupid) things that Rian Johnson did with her and undid them, making her Palpatine's granddaughter and the real "Chosen One" of the Jedi prophesy. Even when she died killing the Clone Emperor, Ben Solo gave his life for hers, ending the real Skywalker bloodline to ensure that her bloodline, Palpatine's bloodline, would live on.
So yes, Rey is a Mary Sue (MaRey Sue, if you will), and such an awful one that she gets an easy "F" from me. Up until the mind trick in Episode VII, I would have rated her C+ or B-, but taking all of her appearances into account, she gets an 'F.' Disney had their pick of any of the best living writers in the world, a bad fan-fiction trope was the best they could do? What is the opposite of S-Tier, Z-Tier? MaRey Sue is a Z-Tier character.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. Brilliantly written comment
I'd also add three things: Filoni's views on Ahsoka (or her place in the story), both Ashley Eckstein and Daisy Ridley's views on their respective characters, and why these characters were created:
1) while Dave Filoni is definitely invested in the character of Ahsoka, he knows well enough to not overuse her, because she's not the only character he has to tell a story about. So she's a main character amongst other main characters in the shows she's in (Anakin and Obi-Wan being two other MCs from The Clone Wars). Case in point, Twilight of the Apprentice was, according to him, meant to be Ahsoka's last appearance in Rebels (but not her last canonical appearance), and what happened to her wouldbe explored in another series (of course such things were revealed in season 4, but maybe Dave planned to do it that way since the beginning and was just messing with us). On the other hand, Rey is the only main character of the Sequels. All the other characters are secondary to her, because their actions are always related to Rey in one way or another (Finn going to Starkiller was mainly to save Rey, same with the casino run, etc.). Also, compare the roles of the OT cast with that of the Sequels cast (pilot, mechanic, etc.), and Rey fits all of them (there's actually a meme about that). All the other characters that are with Rey during all these movies are just luggage.
2) the actresses' position on character development are a perfect representation of their respective characters. Back in the beginning of The Clone Wars, Ashley answered the criticism against Ahsoka by telling the fans that "she's young, she's not perfect, she need to have room to grow otherwise she won't be interesting". Daisy Ridley answered criticism against Rey (about her being a Mary Sue) by saying that she didn't believe Rey was a Mary Sue... while also saying that she doesn't think characters should have flaws (thus checking one of the boxes to be classified as Mary Sue). Ahsoka went through character development and had her own hero journey, and she's now one of the most beloved and developed character in the saga, and a fan favorite. Rey didn't have any development, and she's one of the most hated (or at least divisive) character in Star Wars, in part because she's bland, she's uninteresting.
3) Ahsoka was created (or at least became after being created) to be Anakin's padawan (this was Lucas' idea by the way, the original plot was more Rebels like). Rey was created to be a strong female role model to little girls, because they couldn't identify with Luke Skywalker (guess Leia didn't matter). In one case the character exists for the sake of the story, in the other the story exists for the sake of the character. Rey is nothing more than a political device, not even a character, and will never be more than that.
Sorry, I think parts of your list are just meaningless for the definition of a Mary Sue.
Your first point is her personality, which reads, like you just don't like Daisy Ridley. I think her performance was okay. Not groundbreaking, but okay.
I liked her and the guys in the first movie.
Point 3, what does her appearance has to do with her being a Mary Sue? Some people tend to be more muscular than others. She seems to be well hydrated, though... a bit more of a tan would have worked...
I'm not sure how number 4 fits into this equation, but I could very well be integrated into the story elements. For all other reasons, I find this pointless.
As of number 7... It's just a f'ing name. And her taking the name of Skywalker is totally okay for me. She honors her teachers by taking on their name an ditching her own. Meaningless for a Mary Sue as well.
Apart from the mentioned points, I mostly agree with you. And yes, I think as well, that she is a Mary Sue. Some of her skills can be explained, most can't.
But the appealed points sound like you tried to shoe horn everything into this list, you didn't like...
Have a nice day!
Now this, this is a perfect comment.
@@moranjackson7662 Rey Skywalker is identity theft
Anakin is a perfect example of an amazing flawed Character in my opinion.
Not just an opinion its fact. Anakin is a more well written character that Rey.
Darth Weebus The Wise I definitely agree but we may also not forget that Vader/Anakin had more time and more lore to develop as a character (but I would still take him over Rey even with the original trilogy only)
I don’t know if I’d call Anakin a perfect example of a flawed character more so than a perfect example of a tragic hero. You can tell that before he becomes Darth Vader, there is nothing but passion in his heart, and that passion to the Jedi Order is dangerous. He would rather live the rest of his life with Padme and his children than become what he did. Blinded by his fear, he becomes protective of any chance for him to preserve that dream of them. The Jedi Order furthers their pushing of him and Palpatine presents a “deal with the devil” solution, one that the Jedi Order can not promise or has the power to grant. Leading ip to Mace Windu’s death, Anakin is still left confused and troubled. Then when he see Mace Windu about to not only break the laws of the Jedi Order, but to kill any chance of Padme’s survival, he chooses to aid Sidious, not only for Padme, but because the Jedi Order has now been deemed completely flawed and corrupt in his mind. If the Jedi Masters can break the rules, dictate the will of the force, and suppress natural emotions all in the sake of the Republic, then they are unworthy and arrogance. Palpatine uses this to his advantage, making a false promise that a new Empire, a government that speaks for the entire galaxy, will persevere the will of the people. Even if this wasn’t the case, Anakin still needs Sidious to teach him the power he needs (I think this is why he doesn’t have Sith eyes when he slaughters the younglings, he didn’t want to do it but had to). After finally eliminating almost all of the Jedi and the clones reigning victorious over the broken spretists, Anakin is fully committed to his dream of Padme and him being able to help the galaxy, just like she wanted and that she would be alive. He is so blinded by his own self righteousness and the manipulation put upon him, he thinks what he is doing is good., and we all know what happens next.
With all of that said, if Anakin a flawed character? Absolutely, but I feel he is the perfect example of a Tragic Hero rather than a perfect example of a flawed character. In the end he is only doing it for the greater good, blinded by the atrocities he has committed because of his love and passion. He only becomes Darth Vader when he loses everything: Padme, his children (or so he thought), almost every part of his body, his friend and brother ObiWan. He has nothing at the end of RotS, he is completely broken physically and mentally. Sidious then shows him the only future where he can prosper, as a Sith Lord, hence the personality of Darth Vader was truly born, a cold blooded, massacring machine, obedient and powerful, awaiting the day he over throws the Emperor and completes the ritual of the rule of 2
@@zachtemoro2116 I know what you said was right I am just not going to read all that
@@maxstavens5337 I would have been okay with that if it was revealed that someone or something was helping her and she wasn't doing everything on her own. I always thought it would have been cool if it turned out that while Kylo was trying to emulate Darth Vader the whole time, Rey was actually being helped by Anakin's Force Ghost. This would also give her a strong connection to Luke. And while Rey contemplates using her immense power to maybe "fix" everything by destroying everyone who works for the First Order, Anakin could talk her out of it by telling her about his own experiences, but she doesn't fully understand until she absolutely destroys someone, or a lot of someones with the Dark Side. She could have ended up using Force Lightning to disintegrate everyone, which could have acted as the first clue that she was a Palpatine. And if some innocent people got caught in the crossfire, she could have a believable moment of crisis where she fears to tap into the Force. Just the idea of Anakin helping the granddaughter of the man who ruled over him for decades just seems like a really cool way to show how far he's come. And if you think about it, it would also kind of fall in line with his Chosen One Prophecy. Originally, the prophecy should have been fulfilled when Anakin killed Palpatine. However, by helping Palpatine's kin come to terms with her own darkness and find a way to use her power for the light, he's restoring balance by robbing the Sith of a possible champion in Rey, who goes on to use lessons taught to her by Anakin and Luke to bring balance. And then, maybe she goes on to do the same with future Jedi who will then go on to do the same for the Jedi that come after them ensuring that the balance will always remain intact.
One other thing about Rey being a Mary Sue: Basically all the characters have a positive reaction to her. There's no friction. She just immediately hits it off with everyone she meets. Even Kylo Ren starts pining for her the second he sees her.
Anakin constantly had friction with his peers, the Jedi. He was almost unanimously rejected by the Council in Episode 1 and only got in by brute force, and the Order always thinks of him as a showboat and an upstart for the rest of the Prequel era (though they are right about his pride and arrogance), and it's this friction that propels him away from the light into Palpatine's waiting arms.
Yes. The Sequels lack meaningful conflict between their characters. Even people that have known each other for years get into heated disagreements. (Like Anakin and Obi Wan.)
Anakin and Rey are very different characters if you watched the video 😂. Anakin is supposed to be horrible person because he terms into Darth Vader.
Inaren Commander The entirety of TLJ was characters arguing over how things were supposed to be done. Leia and Poe, Holdo and Poe, Finn and Rose, Rey and Luke, Rey and Kylo, Kylo and Hux, Kylo and Snoke, and so on. Plenty of actually organic conflict between characters.
Worse than that. Darth Emo completely forgets his mission, to get the physical map the droid has to be plugged into the physical map the First Order has because he intuits that Rey had glanced at the map for a second. Who cares if the droid is right here, someone's unreliable memory is just as good.
Blake Tyson Anakin also fell because everyone else sucked and treated him like crap. The relationships in the prequels (the films) were hella contrived. Anakin and Padme in particular had such a clunky and forced love story that felt totally messed up. Idk how Padme would have actually fallen for such a weird pervert.
Anakin isn't a Mary Sue. He's a tragic hero.
Facts
Or fallen hero. Basically same thing. Anakin is also LITERALLY the prophesy chosen one archetype.
And even if Anakin is the Chosen One, he didn't prove to have the most power and perfect at everything. He'd lost his fighting arm to Dooku and his limbs to Kenobi and even his arm to Luke.
Idc if Rey *is* a Palpatine, she should have make mistakes and not be strong with the Force in a short time.
Literally the point of Anakin is that everything goes wrong in his journey, turning him into a monster.
True, but also a whiner.
Which I get what George was going for, but don't there's no subtlety to it, which is a big problem I have with Anakin. Didn't need to make that so in your face.
It bugs me that people often say that she just needed to train. Like... a Mary Sue isn’t fixed with a training montage. The problem is so much deeper than that.
But the fact that people and even this guy in the video accept her power because she's a Palpatine even when she didn't train is laughable.
Yeah it's just part of the problem.
@@John333Scout Yeah, her being a Palpatine only explains that she has a bunch of raw potential in the force. But that's just it, potential. One does not suddenly become a master in using the force by having them Palpy genes. Quite literally every other Force user in the history of Star Wars had to train to become great at using the Force (sans being taken over by Sith spirits or guided by Jedi ghosts).
@@Animalace3 Potential is wasted without proper training
I mean look at Gohan in Dragon Ball, after Cell Saga he didn't train for 7 years, crowned as the strongest during Cell Saga and drop right down in Buu Saga.
@@redace4821 I know. That was my implication about potential. It means jack shit if you don't train and hone it.
We know Anakin is already a good pilot, since we see him Podracing at a young age.
Even as the Chosen One, Anakin still had to receive years of Training, but was still nowhere near perfect when put on his first assignment. He lost his Arm to Dooku, and got a scar from Ventress.
He gained a lot of Skill and Experience from leading as a General in the Clone Wars.
In the end, he lost everything. He lost his wife, his limbs, his mentor, and even his ability to breathe properly.
Rey started with nothing, we only see her Pilot a Ship once, the Millennium Falcon, where she did insane stunts and successfully evaded TIE Fighters.
She never trained with the Force or a Lightsaber, but was able to successfully use both, and beat Kylo Ren.
And Rey is given everything, and doesn’t have to work for any of it.
Yeah you summed it up in a simple short paragraph, I don’t even know why this even a debate, Rey is and always will be a terrible character, no flaws, no hardships, no training and no personality, she doesn’t even have any character. Never is angry happy or sad, just boring robotic character
@@razzo086 The people she lost barely mean anything to her.
Kylo Ren: he's the villain at first, it was only like last 30 minutes of a while 10 hour long trilogy he became good
Han Solo: she barely knew Han, sure admire him but his death wasn't impactful enough compared to how Leia feel.
Luke: pretty sure the last thing she remember about him is they last confrontation before Rey went back and help others.
Leia: Alright her death is sad but is 1 person compared to all the people Anakin lost.
It’s important to point out that Kylo was a skywalker and going by the midiclorian logic (idk how to spell it) then he should be inherently powerful. Not to mention he’s obviously been trained since childhood. By Luke fucking Skywalker. It’s also stated in the novels I believe that he was the strongest of the padawans being trained by Luke.
But Rey. A nobody (the creamy sheev grand pappy plot hole didn’t even get thought of till later) can pick up a lightsaber and kick his ass. With no training and no knowledge of the force. By definition she is a Mary Sue.
@@razzo086
I’d disagree about the personality part, but I agree about the rest
@@Jonathan-A.C. Then what sort of personality does she have, who is she as person. I seriously can’t answer that after watching all the films because I didn’t see any character at all from her. Maybe you saw something I didn’t
Rey is literally Kathleen Kennedy’s way of promoting feminism, whilst not caring about character development. She is made too powerful at the expense of Anakin’s ark.
Do not associate Rey with feminism. Because there is nothing feminist about her other than talking to another female about a topic unrelated to men.
What?
Vetarlit Torf I’m just saying that Kathleen Kennedy is clearly feminist, and through her depiction of Rey, has shown this. This is a bad thing because Star Wars is supposed to be in the fantasy genre, but incorporating real world politics to the Star Wars galaxy isn’t supposed to happen
Huesito 88 What?
To Vetarlit not you
Anakin has a mechanical arm. Rey doesn't. End of story.
Anakin lost to Dooku and Obi-Wan and several others both on and off screen. Who beat Rey? It's not like there's time missing between the sequel trilogy movies. We know exactly what she did from the time she ran into Finn.
Snoke KIND OF beats her. They never have a finished duel, however.
@@Corn_Pone_Flicks Snoke does make a fool of her but he was not her objective Kylo was, and Kylo killed Snoke who was getting between them.
Meanwhile Obi Wan lost his master,lover,his brother from another mother,his Jedi friends,had to clean up Anakin's mistakes by raising his son
Anakin's retarded fanbase:AnAkIn EeS a TwAgIc ChArACtEr
Albert The Peacock So let me get this straight, being in the life of slavery since early childhood, being taken away from your mother and forced to forget about her, being manipulated by the ultimate child predator, having your mother die in your arms, having future visions of your wife dying and being the result of that, losing the chance of being a father, is not tragic?
@@albertthepeacock8020 Both are tragic what do you mean?
The lengths people go to to excuse Rey's awful character writing are only matched by the lengths they go to to drag characters like Luke and Anakin down to her level.
Agreed. It's as if they have no clue what a Mary Sue/Gary Stu character is OR they've never seen or given any real thought to the first six Star Wars films.
Anakin was a horrible character.. But that don't make him a Gary Sue it just means he suffered from bad writing.. I mean for fuck sake.. He loses his hand in his the first fight we see him go up against a Sith (Doku) ... Ray BEATS a TRAINED dark side user whom have killed multiple Jedi. Uhmm okay HOW the hell can someone even compare the two? It's same with Luke he loses his hand to vader.
Every ST movie does this, TLJ is like cinematic gaslighting
To tell the truth I only see people praising Rey and saying she is too good to be a Mary Sue. Then they just deflect the argument to Luke or Anakin. What I find funny is Luke is nothing when compared to the Jedi of the Clone Wars, and Anakin makes one wrong decision after another. How can either be a Gary Sue at that point?
Darth Yoda. I don’t think he was a terrible character. Maybe at the time of the prequels release, but certainly not after Clone Wars 2008
Rey didnt have any character arcs. She started off with "whoa I can use the force?" And just kept getting better for no reason. She didn't train properly, she didnt have any personal hurdles to overcome, and in the end she just decided that she loved Kylo? Luke and Anakin had their issues with the rights and wrongs of the force, they had conflicts within themselves, they both suffered. The most Rey suffered was when Han died and...honestly she didn't even know him. The death was a cheap one. Idk, if I want a tough woman lead I'll stick to literally any other franchise. Like ffs, PADME had a better character than Rey
She didn’t love Kylo. She loved ben.
That is why she said, “i wanted to take your hand. Ben’s hand”.
Ben is the person she was getting to know in her force interactions with him. As soon as he took off his mask, he slowly became ben again.
This is what intrigued me about their relationship. Kylo always had this internal struggle of who he should be. Because Luke gave up on him after sensing some darkness in him, he was lured in by his abuser.
Rey is the first person he felt that “kinship” with. They were able to be vulnerable with each other.
Again, the writing rushed it and executed it badly.
even in legends eu we already way better charecters ten the entire sequel the new jedi order book series had better charecter legacy of the force had a way better story arc than the entire sequel trilogy including new jedi order and fate of the jedi even the amazing thrawn trilogy and hand of thrawn duology had way better charecters kathleen kennedy destroyed star wars along with rian johnson j j abrams and bob iger and disney themselfs they never sat in a room on how to begin the sequel trilogy and how to end it the rise of skywalker is the worst by far the worst star wars movie ever made the entire sequel trilogy is garbage they rushed each film and never took their time to make each film
Padme😳
Let's just say Disney don't want to take female characters from EU but claim there's "not enough" canon female characters... Ahsoka Tano literally exist, and people love her.
@@redace4821 Disney:"there aren't enough female characters."
Actual star wars fans listing Canon female force users that have shown up on tv: Ahsoka tano
Shak tii
Aayla secura
Bariss offee
Asajj Ventress
Luminara undulli
Depa bilaba
Now a list of ones I can describe but can't remember the names of:
The jedi librarian
The one killed in the duel of her and kenobi vs savage and maul
Anymore canon female characters you can list please do
Anakin actually struggled with is growth. He lost his mom, killed sand people, lost his arm due to his arrogance, gave into revenge, lost his padawan, was not promoted to Jedi Master, fell to the dark side, killed many jedi and padawans, and became Darth Vader.
Terrorise the universe for years yet remain a slave to Palpatine and in his death, his son set him free.
@@redace4821 Not to mention he was a slave his entire childhood.
Anakin is the antithesis of Rey, a flawed man who’s life was ruined and served evil for decades until he was redeemed by his son and he helped bring down the Empire he created alongside his old master.
Rey has hardly faced anything that has severely affected her, she lost nothing and besides being a Palpatine she’s riding high with the New Republic coming back again after being on hiatus for a year.
Anakin may have been a bit too powerful in the phantom menace but they fixed that in the next two by giving him flaws and weaknesses.
@Joey Pastrana That's what he said
Would been cool to see the New Republic during the ST for more than 5 SECONDS! Now we got the Renew Republic or whatever these hacks will call it.
@@chewsdaym8 Even in the Phantom Menace he was not that bad. Piloting reflexes helped by a strong innate force connection was basically his thing for the 2 things he was actually needed in the plot for: the pod race and taking down the lucrehulk. Though the way things looked taking down the lucrehulk was helped out a lot by both R2-D2 and that Anakin got a lot of cover from the other royal guard pilots. Aside from that Anakin was basically a burden the entire time.
Some people like to point at him building C-3PO as an issue but forget that he was a slave in a shop where they salvaged droids and vehicles and refurbished them. Assembling a protocol droid is kinda easy when you got a bunch of protocol droid salvage to work with.
@@chewsdaym8 He wasnt too powerful. He was only good at two things: flying and fixing things.
Debate? I think it's clear that Anakin isn't an MS, while Rey is.
For real it's easy to figure out.
At least Anakin has somewhat of an excuse of being the chosen one. What's Rey's excuse? She actually acts more like a "chosen one" messiah than Anakin did. Having powers she shouldn't be able to have, always doing the right thing ect. But a deeply flawed messiah makes it more interesting. Prophecy never said he would join the sith but also never said he wouldn't either. And that he did fulfill it, just not exactly how the Jedi envisioned.
@Stripey Arse What I was looking forward to is actually seeing Luke's order being run, not just briefly mentioned. I feel that was the most wasted opportunity. To not show how he ran it and we could have seen how differently he ran it compared to Yoda's.
I feel that Rey should have joined the new Jedi order and show that she is talented and there is another reason why she is so strong. I feel that since the sith returned, it does somewhat make Anakin's sacrifice and prophecy almost meaningless. You can't bring Anakin back, so the only way I feel it'd make sense and how it ties to the "Skywalker Saga" is to have Rey be Anakin reincarnated. This would actually explain a lot. Like why she has a connection to the skywalkers, her power, why Anakin's saber called out to her and why Anakin's ghost seemed to be absent, and therefore was unable to help Luke or help Kylo turn away from the dark side. And the prophecy would be fulfilled too, if Rey was the reincarnation of the chosen one and destroyed Palpatine and the Sith Eternal.
Anakin feared the return of the sith, so he gives up his immortality and reincarnates into a completely different life. Rey has some of Anakin's characteristics, but she is still her own person. Plus it'd go well with Palpapatine as both he and Anakin return but in different ways, where Palpatine transfers his soul into a modified clone body, while Anakin reincarnates. It would also by symbolic of Anakin himself. There are 3 sets of trilogies and each ones represents the 3 stages of life for Anakin. Birth, Death and Rebirth.
Anakin was born from the force in the prequels and died metaphorically as he became Vader, the one we know in the originals, before he became Anakin again and truly died. and then is reborn in the sequel trilogy.
Only sith deal in absolutes
Seriously, although the movies limited the story of Anakin ("I don't like sand" flashbacks), the clone wars and the comics show us how much of a true character he is, he is not perfect, he is cocky yet powerful, and not everything he does goes perfectly (death of yadle, female yoda, and Anakin's mother)
Anakin is a great character
Rey had the potential, but the directors ruined the characters, the actors, especially Adam Driver (kylo) tried to make kylo a deep character.
Anakin: Character development, shows struggles, proves to mean well but continues to make mistakes.
Rey: Perfect, intelligent, powerful without any mistakes.
Is this really a question?
I wouldn't necessarily say Rey is intelligent considering the fact that she easily trusted every single person she had met even Kylo Ren who literally just murdered Han Solo right in front of her. It's more so that she's resourceful since she's been forced to learn how to survive on her own.
Rey does help Kylo defeat Snoke, which allowed him to take over the First Order and fully embrace the Dark Side. I would call that a mistake.
Ray could have the perfect power even with 1 simple explaination that kind of ok. The problem is Ray doesn't have her moral standpoint. What or who make her a hero. I always point to Superman as example. Superman written to be as strong as the plot need he to be, but his moral point what make his story intresting. He written as symbol of hope and the best a person can be. Try to list superman flaw(s), nothing come to mind on the spot.
@@JoshuaWillis89 But even that 'mistake' is erased in the long run when Kylo turns back to the Light and saves her life.
@@ahsoka5216 But that falcon scene in TFA tho..
The problem with Rey is that she’s too Perfect. No mistakes, nor selfish thoughts, no REMOTELY bad deeds at all...
One of the few "mistakes" she makes (destroying the transport that supposedly had Chewie on it) is undone mere moments later, too. The world literally adapts to ensure things go well for her. It's bizarre to think there are characters in _kids shows_ with more believable characterization than her.
In a weird way this is why I liked the white haired girl from GOT, she was holier than thou peace and love, but her decisions sometimes caused massive death tolls and catastrophes, and she succumbed to madness in the end. I get that the last season was overall garbage, but I liked her arc.
Luke has no selfish thoughts either. And while he does fail, it only happens because he is not strong enough, not becuse he makes mistakes. Unless you count the whole sequence in Jabba's palace a mistake, which it kind of is, but is peak Lukey Sue
@@moscanaveia luke at least changes for the better. When he first fought Vader he got his hand cut off. But by the second fight he can turn the tides against Vader.
@@moscanaveia laughable. Luke starts out a little kid who gets beat up by the practice robot, then trains hard can’t move his ship 2 feet, then gets beat up by vader, finally almost gets eaten then holds his own against vader and gets beat up by palpatine. His arc takes 3 movies and he has to claw for every gain
I honestly won’t be surprised if Rey becomes a Disney “princess”
Rey's the Emperor's sole descendant. She's an Empress. Ugh.
@@dylanlewis5113 I mean Elsa of Frozen is a Queen, not a princess and plenty of Disney Princesses (Mulan) aren't princesses in their story and, in fact, civilians. Disney "Princess" is the default for any leading female in a Disney Movie.
Well, she died at the end of the story like an archetypical Mary Sue, but she was brought back by a kiss from her "Prince." She's already a Disney Princess.
Dylan Lewis moana is the daughter of the village chief not a princess
People seem to be misinterpreting the meaning of my comment. I understand what a "Disney Princess" is, and that every Disney Princess is not technically a Princess. When I brought up Rey being an Empress, I was using it as an example of Rey being, to quote Doomcock, "the bestest evah!"
Anakin is like the anti mary sue. Nothing goes his way, he isnt universally liked, he almost always makes the wrong decision. The only mary sue quality he has is being over powered and thats actually a plot device.
Anti-Sue is still considered Mary Sue, tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AntiSue
He isn't overpowered anymore once he becomes Vader. He lost most of his power after getting burned and chopped up. He remains a slave his whole life: Watto, the Jedi, and Palpatine being his masters, he loses his mother, wife, limbs, and ability to breathe without getting locked away inside a walking iron lung, he's universally despised, he is forced to serve the man who damned his soul, and dies to save his son, knowing he will remembered as a monster.
@@goodmind4940 Anakin is not an Anti-Sue. He is just a tragic hero.
From what I gather, an Anti-Sue is someone who is pathetic and disliked to the point of absurdity, yet still somehow fawned over by the rest of the cast. It's a lame inversion of the Mary Sue that still has all of the negatives of the original.
Anakin does not fit that description. He is skilled and powerful, but makes mistakes, has fears, and he has both friends and enemies. His life is misery, but things do not somehow go his way despite that.
I didnt know there was actually an anti sue. I meant that Anakin was really far from being a mary sue. Almost a polar opposite imo
@@brandonmedina494 Well, actually....
Anakin didn't get any weaker once he became Vader. He actually grew stronger in the Force *power*-wise, and it can even be argued that he never lost his *potential.* But he definitely never achieved his true potential, due to all of the conflict raging inside of him once he became Vader.
But I agree with everything else.
Rey in episode 7: beats a Sith and she has ZERO Jedi training
Anakin in episode 2: gets destroyed by a Sith and he has years of Jedi training
Do I need to say more?
And gets his hand chopped off, while Rey is unscathed.
And the best thing is she never falls to the dark side even if she is always angry when she fights
@@elisabethb.7088 from the first film, I thought the plot twist was going to be her falling to the dark side because the ways she fights and acts (very selfishly in many ways) is damn sith-like
Jordan Kuttler this is perfect. This comment clearly shows this argument 👏
to add to this is whilst we constantly told that Anakin is powerful and is the most powerful force user, we are often shown that regardless of how damn powerful he is in the force, he still fails in many other ways, gives in to desires.
If Rey were Anakin the prequels would have been:
PM: pretty much the same actually but she'd have no need of R2 to rewire the ship and she'd fly it perfectly
AotC: she forgives everyone and stands equal to Dooku, realises that Palpatine is tricking her.
RotS: Beats Dooku, realises that Palps is playing her, cuts of his head and everyone celebrates
Rey was a character who they just wanted to be an icon without wanting to take the journey that it usually takes to get that status. There is no canonical reason for her to be as powerful with the force as she is, and some of the feats she accomplishes are mind boggling in comparison to those that we see from other Jedi who have trained their entire lives to learning the force.
I agree, because the reason why Luke worked as a character is that he represents a hero's journey whereas Anakin represents the tragic hero.
@@ahsoka5216 I'd even go as far as to say rey doesn't even have a character arc.
@@xetachron Pretty much lmao
Exactly. She’s barely even a character: just a vehicle for Kennedy’s desire for a female icon for the series to hang her hat on. They couldn’t be more blatant short of having the other characters flat out tell the audience to love Rey, the ultimate hero of the franchise.
The movies screwed up in what they were trying to tell between TLJ and TROS in terms of consistence, but there are two reasons why she would be that powerful. If you go by what TLJ was going for, the force can chose anyone to be a “chosen one” kind of character. The force “awakened” in her to counter the dark side. If you go by TROS explanation (the stupider one) she is a descendant of the most powerful force user ever.
This really shouldn't be a debate. What makes a Mary Sue isn't "being talented" which both of them are, sure. What makes a Mary Sue is "unearned power". Which is what separates them.
Exactly right. Anakin May have been gifted but he still trained for years. He succeeded and failed many times. Rey was gifted as well but she didn’t have any satisfying training, everything was written to be easy for her and therefore there was no sense of succeed or fail in her story
@@AndreNitroX Yeah, like I'm not even against Rey being super powerful, it's just that the way they went about it sucked.
Also anakin IS literaly given a reason if He were a Mary sue(He aint). He was literaly chosen by force. Rey was Just.........
@@petrhamera9399 Thats right i can forgive having an emotionless overpowered character existing, as long as they serve their story, rey just went with the flow, and everything was a coincidence with her.
Well said
Rey: Mary Sue
Anakin: is not
Period.
its simple
@Neo's danger Don't mind him, he is not considered an evolved being.
He blew up a separatist base at 10 he’s a Gary sue
@Neo's danger where do i find him? What is his exact name?
@Neo's danger i have been reading his 'argument' for an hour.makes 0 sense.i lierally throwed up seeing his points
Anakin is not a Gary Stu because he falls to the dark side
Rey is a Mary Sue because she starts perfect and ends perfect, no flaws whatsoever
The term "Mary Sue" has less to do with power levels (though it is a factor) and more to do with character flaws, growth, and mistakes the character makes
Nobody who has properly watched the prequels would call Anakin a genuine Mary Sue if they know what the term means... they are just trying to defend their love of Rey and just throwing an insult back at "the haters:"
They totally are haters though and I don’t think either are a Mary Sue
@@ekerslithery5955 how do you not think reý is a Mary sue?
People who call anakin a Mary Sue are the type of people who assume it just means “super strong character”
But, was he a super strong character? In terms of forcepowers - probably.
In terms of decisionmaking - oof
Ernsthafter Kanal thats not what the meant lol. he is a super strong character, but he has a reason to be
The debate between Lucas and Disney written characters nearly always turns into attempts to tear down Lucas’ icons to bring them into comparable range of the Disney ones. That argument is lost before it even begins.
Rey is also a Mary Sue because everyone seems to like her with little reason. Even JJ Abrams admits it was a mistake for Leia to hug her instead of Chewbacca.
Yeah, that was stupid. Even Robot Chicken made fun of it when Chewbacca runs towards Leia for comfort, Leia says "Oh get the fuck outta here" and she runs towards Rey and says "Rey, thank God you're alright"
Yeah and how weirdly quick Han Solo warms up to her after only a day. It's to the point where he actually gives her the fucking Millennium Falcon instead of Chewie who was his life long partner.
Han when he meets Rey: Oh dear, oh dear gorgeous.
Han when he meets Finn: You fucking donkey.
Here’s the true difference between the two characters. When a fan of Anakin defends the character they are defending Anakin, his story and everything he’s been through. When someone defends Rey they’re not defending Rey, they’re defending some ideology or some fake made up victimhood that they think they’re arguing for or protecting
Boom! Exactly.
Winnipeg Is Cold I'm sorry but this is ridiculous.
Anakin, Luke, Rey sont des personnages avec des histoires différentes mais toutes intéressantes.
Anakin a ramené l’équilibre dans la Force grâce à son fils
Luke a maintenu cet équilibre jusqu’à la destruction du temple
Rey a ramené l’équilibre avec le soutien de l’ensemble des Jedis du passé
I think you misspoke... There's only one character. The other is a plot device.
When someone defends Rey, they attack the prequels. I rarely see a sequel fan defend the sequels, and instead attack the prequels
@@michaelbarckholtz6172 they attack the ot as well
How could Rey NOT be a Mary Sue???
@Skywalker Kitty the explanation for her strength is her being a palpatine and stealing Kylo Ren's training, she's definitely a mary sue.
@Skywalker Kitty I respect your opinion; I honestly can't figure out a conclusion that doesn't render her a Mary Sue, I used to like her, but now I unequivocally don't.
@Skywalker Kitty what changed your opinion if you don't mind me asking
Skywalker Kitty yeah same why don’t you think she’s not a Mary Sue?
@Skywalker Kitty that is a fair point, i can see why you may say she isn't a mary sue
Anakin was extremely powerful, possibly more than anyone in Star Wars. However, he had many faults that held him from ever becoming a “perfect” character. In fact, he lost just as many times as any character had in a story. You could argue he lost more than any Star Wars character, he lost his entire persona.
Bro he did lose everything, his mother, his apprentice, his humanity. Vader’s like in ROTJ of “my life is no longer my own”(I think that’s the line during Luke and Vader’s conversation on Endor) just shows how the only reason he is still alive is because his master won’t let him die.
And he didn't become powerful in just one day. He had to train 10 years to be a Jedi Knight.
Also Anakin actually lost much of his power by becoming mechanical as well. So even with all the power we see Vader exert. He's supposed to be stronger.
I feel like Rey was a huge waste of daisy ridley’s talent/ potential
Idk man. She doesn't seem like such a great actress and unlike Adam driver for example she has not really been able to get any new work probably because she didn't show much potential to begin with. She can cry and look like a deer in the headlights but not too much charisma and other emotions
The fact the term “Mary Sue” came from a bad fan fiction fits Rey perfectly. The entire Star Wars sequel trilogy feels like bad fan fiction
I don’t think telling young girls that they can be awesome, powerful, beloved, and successful without effort, just because, is a healthy message to send.
That's why I'll do all I can to get my daughter to look up to Luke and Leia as heroes and have Anakin be her cautionary tale.
She will see these characters not as genders but as people who grew into better versions of themselves.
Sure they can Comrade, through the dictatorship of the femletariat.
How can Anakin be a Mary Sue? We saw him struggle, makes mistakes, and defeated by Dooku.
Rey it's win, win, win
Exactly. Making mistakes and learning from them are part of the heroes journey. The problem with Rey is she was already perfect
Literally
And even when she does lose, it somehow becomes a good thing like when she stabbed Kylo and healed him, it somehow redeems him
It took 10 lightsaber fights for Anakin to defeat Count Dooku.
Meanwhile, the first time Rey fights Kylo Ren, she beats him despite having no Jedi training and had never held a lightsaber in her life.
loudboy317 and people will say that Kylo is injured but he really didn't seem all that injured when he was spinning while fighting Rey.
Finally Anakin has the high ground above someone
Guess Obi wan has the highest ground then!
I mean, he did technically have the highER ground at one point
You underestimate his power.
I was 69 like but someone removed theirs
@@SiddharthShenoy OUR POWER SKYWALKER
In my opinion, "Mary Sue" doesn't necessarily describe an extremely powerful character. It's a character with little flaws or struggles, one who pretty much every other character respects, and one whose universe bends to their will.
There is a channel called "Literature Devil" that has a video explaining why Rey is a Mary Sue. It relies only in the information in Episode 7 so it doesn't have the palpatine excuse, but he also compares Rey to Luke which is quite interesting.
To be fair another trait Mary Sues tend to have is being conviently related to the Most Powerful Character or Characters that universe tends to offer. Almost as if it's suppose to gloss over the other issues. It'd be like if the character had the blood of varrying degrees of 1 of every important race in any fiction you can think of, but also can use the powers of those characters or race even better than those characters or races can.
It's basically what happend at the end of RoS where Rey is now conveniently a Palpatine at first was simply a Granddaughter, but for some reason changed her father into being a simple clone and I think they changed that again? A shaky narrative that even fanfiction could probably handle better. But fine maybe it could of worked if they really went with the Darkside of Rey in a compelling enough way, but nope. She got sad a bit and quit for like 2 seconds before returning to face Palps. Force Lightening is the epitome of DarkSide power, but she could 'accidentally' do it while overall still not a Darksided indvidual. In the end she some how becomes the host to all the Jedi that supposedly ever existed, maybe even their abilities as well their knowledge too? She also assimilated Kylo Ren as well.
Now, according to other info it wasn't just a spritual conversion, but he also gave her his DNA so on some metaphysical level she's a Palapatine, Skywalker, by blood along with the embodiment of all the Jedi atleast according to the movie, all this goes back to my former scenario.
Anakin is far from a Mary Sue/Gary Stu He is a tragic hero in fact one of if not the most tragic hero in all of Cinema!
Yeah, we don't need main heroes fighting Villains
We need main heroes becoming villains
Anakin commits mass murder on children. How in the hell can he be a Gary Stu?!!
How can anyone defend Rey by saying that Anakin was the one that was way overpowered and not her?? 🤔 Even if that's the case, Anakin was THE Chosen One, he is meant to be powered above anyone else or it defeats the point. He was conceived by the force itself. Rey is the daughter of a force-less clone of Palpatine, so in theory why should she be anywhere near as powerful as Ani??
If Anakin was a Mary Sue, he wouldn’t have lost his battle in Attack of the Clones and lost his arm and nearly lost his life if Yoda hadn’t intervened
If Anakin was a Mary Sue, his damn wife wouldn’t be dead and he would have been the perfect father to his twins Luke and Leia who would have been raised by he and Padme.
Anakin became Darth Vader. How anyone can claim he was a Mary Sue is baffling to me.
Still the Best SW channel
I second that!!!
Anakin's big mistake: betraying not only the jedi order, but falling to the dark side and becoming the right hand man to the Empire of Evil
Rey's big mistake: accidentally killing Chewie
O H W A I T J U S T K I D D I N G !
i would've liked that she killed chewie but i understand why they didn't do it. it would've caused outrage amongst the fans that a beloved character would die in a careless way with no emotional send off
@@charbelbarakat3620 although, arguably the bait and switch brought more outrage, but i don't know about the statistics.
He turns to the dark side loses his arm can’t let go and has to train 10 year despite being the chosen one. And slaughters all the sand people including children and women. Does this sound like a Gary Sue?
No. It doesn't.
No, it sounds like a well written and tragic character.
Not to mention that even with 13 years of training, he still lost to Obi-Wan and ended up limbless and burning alive with permanent lung damage causing him to suffer for the rest of his life.
@@Nin-Saber Plus even as Vader he was still a badass.
Anakin, Luke and Ben all trained despite having genetic advantages, Rey doesn't.
So even on that issue SHE'S STILL A mary sue.
At least she's been removed from the picture
Rey was made with an agenda in mind. Anakin was made with the story in mind
One of my favorite quotes from Avatar could be used to perfectly describe Anakin: "Even with all the power in the world, you are still weak." He's a Chosen One, yet despite having the literal implicit justification to be OP, he *never* achieves anything worthwhile or successfully accomplishes what he sets out to do. Time and time again we witness him fail or be beaten by those more experienced than him (in one movie alone he loses his lightsaber, fails to capture the assassin, fails to follow orders, fails to save his mom after disobeying those orders he failed to follow, fails to keep Padme safe, fails to save Obi-Wan, then gets completely STOMPED by Dooku not once but TWICE, and after having several years of hard Jedi training under his belt).
Luke repeats a similar pattern. Throughout the entire trilogy he constantly had to rely on the help of others to achieve his goals and still failed: needed Obi-Wan to help him escape Vader, needed Obi-Wan to help him destroy the Death Star, needed Han to save him on Hoth, didn't complete his training with Yoda and got STOMPED by Vader, failed to save Han, and finally needed Leia to save him from nearly dying for the *second* time within the same movie. Then in the third movie he gets nearly killed AGAIN and ultimately needs/begs his father to save him, and this comes AFTER he finally completed his training and became a Jedi Knight. Without his friends he would've gotten nowhere.
Bottom line: being "powerful" in the Force made neither Anakin nor Luke OP or perfect. They still experienced failures time and time again because they were weak, got beaten by people more experienced than them, and had to rely on the help of others to overcome certain obstacles. Rey does NONE of these things. The Force magically blesses her with convenient abilities and she's never beaten by anything or anyone because of them, never suffering any personal losses or experiencing any set-backs. Therefore, she's a Mary-Sue in the power department as well.
Ok before people go and say anakin is a Mary Sue in the phantom menace remember anakin has spent his whole life fixing stuff
True, a lot of people forget that.
Young Anakin is still the Chosen One. Being Force senstive, Anakin would of course have passively hyper-enhanced reaction times, even if he doesn't realize it. That's why Jedi and Sith have always made good pilots, no matter the instance.
And as you said, Anakin has always been established to be very adept at fixing things. Living in a future with droids and advanced tech being commonplace, and with nothing better to do, it's no surprise that Anakin is good at fixing things.
Then there was him blowing up the Lucrehulk in the Naboo fighter. As I said, Anakin's enhanced reactions and "luck" would make him a very skilled pilot despite being a little boy. So none of these instances make TPM Anakin a Gary Stu in any way. That's just how the Force works.
@@nutellaninja4667 All these facts explain why Rey is NOT a Mary Sue. Because she is also forced sensitive, so she would also have hyper-enhanced reaction times. She also spent most of her life scavenging wrecked star ships. So she would've learned how ships work as much as Anakin learned how to build droids by fixing them. he got lucky when he blew up the Lucrehulk. She got lucky when she thought against Kylo Ren. If enhanced reactions and luck don't make Anakin a Gary Stu because that's how the force works, then the same must be said for Rey and her abilities. Otherwise the whole argument against Rey is hypocritical.
@@HoshijiroTS336 Maybe. Perhaps it can be argued that she's not a Mary Sue. But I can still see why people don't like her character.
Beating Kylo in TFA, while it made sense, was a narratively stupid decision and rubbed many people the wrong way. Even if Kylo was so injured, he had a massive advantage in three key areas, making her victory feel very lame and undeserved. Imagine how dumb it would be if AOTC Anakin beat Dooku just like that.
So even if she isn't a Mary Sue, she is boring and one-dimensional, yet still worshipped by the story and all of the characters around her. It's irritating.
@@nutellaninja4667 I don't think she beat Kylo Ren. If it weren't for the ground conveniently opening up and separating then, Kylo would've recovered from that brief embarrassment and made an example of her. She would've been made, she would've been measured, and she would've been found wanting.
@@HoshijiroTS336 SHE SLICED UP HIS FACE WITH A PLASMA SWORD!
How does one recover from that?
He lost! He got cut up and he got disarmed in the process. Lightsaber wounds have been shown to make people lose consciousness (Finn, literally seconds earlier) or be completely unable to fight (Obi-wan vs Dooku)
Is it even a good argument to “ well anakins a Mary Sue too”
That’ does not make her better
Exactly. Rey defenders are pathetic.
Even if in some alternate universe, Anakin happens to be a Gary Stu...it does not change the fact that Rey is still one. Throwing shade at another character just because one is bad is a horrible argument, and does nothing to detract from the fact that Rey is still an unlikable character.
And of course, we all know that Anakin is definitely *not* a Gary Stu.
This logical fallacy is called whataboutism. It only works to show your opponents hypocrisy, but by using this argument you acknowledge your opponent is right.
Look at a picture of each of them at the end of each of their trilogies, the answer is obvious.
With Anakin we saw the downward spiral of a seemingly perfect character. With Rey she was perfect and never lost a fight.
Character development, internal flaws, failures, what’s that- said Rian Johnson and JJ Abrams.
Rey is flawless. She is overly compassionate relative to her situation in life on Jakku. she is beloved by all she meet. She is never anything other than kind and optimistic and hopeful, which is not true of any person anywere, ever and she is OP beyond anything in the Star Wars universe. Rey kicks a Siths ass the first time she holds a lightsaber. Anakin is a ragefilled, overly passionate edgelord who gets his hand cut off because he is overconfident and angry. Rey kicks a Siths ass the first time she holds a lightsaber. Nuff said
Indeed such is a debate, shame they feel the need to compare them when the comparison is inaccuratee.
the term comes from Star Trek
Heroes that lack flaws lack relatability.
That's ironically is why I've never been a Kenobi fan. He has almost no flaws.
You probably haven't seen clone wars
"Anakin is a Mary Sue"
The guy lost his mother, lost his apprentice, choked his own wife to death, and lost his all his limbs to his brother and master... to finish it all, he even lost many of his clone troopers which he loved like brothers. I mean, he essentially just lost the rights to his own children when he choked their mother.... He lost literally... every! dang! thing! What about that makes him a marry sue....?
He didn't actually choke his wife to death, but yeah to the rest of it. Even the medical droids said there was nothing medically wrong with her afterwards, which they would not have done if the Force choke was the cause of her death.
@@trevordavis6830 you forget he'd been racing for YEARS before that and always lost, was a slave in a slave family where they were all abused and literally had to learn machinery to be useful enough to not get his shit wrecked, fucks up piloting the starship until he can wrap his head around it to being similar to the pod racing which he at that point had YEARS of experience as one of if not the most gifted pilots in the universe. He's literally just a chosen one who's smart and has literally lost everything you can in life until the start of TPM where he finally starts winning, even then it still ends with his mom still a slave, him having to constantly try and try to get into the jedi order being refused, and the only guy in the world who had his back and was going to train him dies. He didn't single handedly change the war either he performed markedly worse piloting then he does later in the movies showing he had even more potential then shown. Sure it can be alot of strength to give early, but it has actual lore reasons and shit given to explain it other then ope she's able to do high level techniques because its funny. Hell chosen one anakin doesn't do one direct force related thing beyond it makes him a better pilot in the entire TPM which is an instinctual normal force sensitive thing to where force sensitive untrained people are usually ace pilots or master combatants. let alone one with the chosen one gimmick tacked on. It all has explanations and things i can go alright this lines up with how this universe works.
The fans didn't deserve a trilogy like this. Neither did any of the actors.
Yeah, by TLJ I was feeling sorry for the actors, many of whom were required contractually to finish out the speeder wreck.
Maddox MakesVideos the fans do deserve this trilogy. They hated on the prequel trilogy destroyed many actors lives for a trilogy which was really good and people just hated a couple lines
Nah the fans absolutely dont deserve good star wars movies or shows
This isn’t even a competition. Anakin was a very flawed character. That’s the key reason he fell to the dark side. He’s the furthest thing from a Mary Sue, discounting his role in episode 1
Blake Tyson You don’t think that child Anakin in episode 1 is a bit of a Mary Sue?
@@emberfist8347 yes, a mary sue would mean that he has an unrealistically broad skill set, everything the plot needs him to do he does it. He is only good at two things: flying and fixing stuff. In my book that can hardly be called a broad skill set.
Austin Johnsen his job in wattos shop is to fix things so no not really
Obiwan Kenobi I’m just saying that compared to episodes two and three Anakin this kid comes off as a perfect little angel.
Blake Tyson That’s true. I guess stuff like that does explain why he doesn’t follow authority very well.
I just realized something really sad. In the CW it’s explained that everyone except force ghosts lose their individuality after death. That means Padme and Anakin‘s mother are gone. So Anakin lost them forever. Does he like being a force ghosts without Padme
It isn't directly in a movie but I believe a novelization of Return of the Jedi explains that as Anakin was dying Obi-Wan came to him in the final moments to teach him how to be a force ghost. Based upon the training Qui-Gon gave to Yoda which is in another or the same book, to become a force ghost you have to accept the final cutting of your attachments before you can become the ghost. So that must mean Anakin in the end finally accepted that he lost Padme and his mother and Luke was the MAJOR reason why he was able to accept this. Through Luke, he was able to finally learn that lesson that he was never able to accept earlier and what made him fall to the Dark Side in the first place.
@@LDub01031994 I like that conclusion quite a lot
@@LDub01031994 Though obsessive attachment with Luke helped saved him. That's one of the central ironies.
3:20 Would you call Rambo a Gary Stue character? Sure he is strong and capable, but he also goes through immeasurable hardship and Suffering, and is far from understood or beloved by the people he is faced with.
I wouldn't. Rambo's just Over Powered due to being a literal one man Army. But at the same time he seems to suffer a lot outside being in his element that maybe you can argue he channels all his frustrations against those that wronged him in the first place.
3:21
Rambo: PTSD riddled mess haunted by the horrors of war.
Wong Fei Hung: gets drunk in order to fight and ends up shaming his family. Also gets brutally beaten and strung up by the gangsters.
Chuck Norris: I haven't seen this one. Sorry.
John McClane: Runs barefoot over broken glass, among other severe injuries. But this one stands out.
Sure, they may seem like your standard "Male Power Fantasy" characters, but they have a lot more depth than you give them credit for. They are fully formed characteres, each with their own faults, fears, aspirations, and even trials to overcome. And while they may be muscular, tough, and more durable than your average person, their victories do not come easy, and rarely without any personal loss or pain. Rey has no personal stake in her battles, nor does she even have any particular aspirations, fears, or even trials. It's one thing to be a Mary-Sue or a Power Fantasy Character, but Rey isn't even half-baked as a Character.
Remember that time when Rey came back to the gang and explained how she just killed a tribe of aliens, even the women and children when her parent figure died? Oh wait that was Anakin. Rey doesn’t do “struggles.”
Anakin's entire arc is that of loss:
He lost his mother, his wife and children, his mentor, his young apprentice, his limbs and thus his the chance of being the most powerful, his code and honor, and his innocence and chance of being viewed as good.
All this loss made Anakin Skywalker almost unrecognizable, at which all you see is the corrupted and broken version of the man he used to be in the form of the notorious Sith Lord Darth Vader until a grown up Luke came around.
Now, tell what exactly did Rey lose that changed her as a character in any profound or meaningfull way?! lol
Imho, a mary or gary sue are not just flawless characters who exceed in all they do never making a mistake, they are characters with out a wound (a lie a character tells themselves to protect themselves from a reality).
The 80's and 90's heroes often carried a wound that the love interest would challenge.
Anakin's wound was, with enough power he, "the chosen one," could save everyone.
Rey's wound? It should have been, the only being she can rely on is herself. But she had no wound, no lie she told herself to protect herself for the realities of her world.
"I THOUGHT YOU WERE THE CHOSEN ONE" kinda sums it up
Anakin is my childhood hero. I related to him in many ways. Excluding the lost limbs, burned alive and younglings slaughter part
My problem with Rey was never her parents needing to be the explanation for her abilities..... my problem is she randomly has knowledge with no explanation
Anakin was a character who was made with actual thinking, flawed, lost everything and a tragic story whereas Rey was made to boost an agenda and was flawless and they failed in doing so
Just want to make sure that we separate actors' performances from the evaluation/criticism of the written characters. ----> more
Daisy Ridley is not to blame for Rey's failings. She did the best she could with a shoddily-written, too powerful character with few real struggles.
Conversely, Anakin's character arc was written brilliantly, though Mr. Lucas did give him a few cringe-worthy lines.
Feeling sooo strongly about Anakin Skywalker, I feel compelled to comment on Hayden Christensen, whose performance as Anakin was AMAZING.Hayden never should have gotten the sh*t he did, nor should Jake Lloyd have been so mercilessly attacked, as he mostly did a great job and will always be sweet "Little Ani."
The Chosen One was, is, and always shall be Anakin Skywalker -- as portrayed by Hayden Christiansen --
irreplaceably and irrevocably. When Anakin killed Sidious, (and himself in the process), the Sith were no more. He fulfilled the Prophecy. Disney's retcon is nothing more than BAD fanfic.
Hayden/Anakin deserves new screentime written and directed ONLY by those who value Lucas's Legacy and The Chosen One Prophecy.
I'd far rather have cringeworthy lines than character arcs that get dropped right away like some crpg and sparkly powers pulled from decanonized resources.
This. People shit on the prequels because of Jar Jar and 3 bad lines without seeing the story behind it. Meanwhile they praise the sequels when they rely on pure spectacle CGI and shitty characters.
@@niche0boven agreed.
Rey never lost a limb, therefore she is not a true Star Wars MC
Anakin lost everything.
Rey slote everything.
Anakin is literally the definition of a fallen hero.
Ah yes, the quadrapalegic failure. My favorite Mary Sue. You notice the defense of Rey is just pointing out a different flaw, not defending her actual character
Anakin failed his mother
Ask yourself the question: “What trials and tribulations did Anakin have to go through to achieve his status of a character?” The answer(s) is well known at this point. Ask yourself the same question for Rey and you get: “None.” Simple.
I must disagree with many of those examples of Mary/Gary types. The likes of the Bride, Rambo, etc. are all powerful and defeat many impossible challenges. However, these characters did not do so without great effort and they suffered greatly for their ability to do these things. These characters are compelling not for their physical prowess and achievements, but the internal emotional turmoil that they go through.
Merely my opinion, but saying that a character is a mary sue is a big accusation, and requires a great deal of evidence to substantiate it. It just so happens that Rey does have that mountain of evidence.
@@emberfist8347 Yeah, Alice is. She's a self insert of the director's wife who is therefore great and perfect and upheaves every original main character's role in the series.
Rey became a Mary Sue the moment Leia walked straight past Chewie to hug a girl she had never met before.
Anakin took way too many loses to be a mary stue
Critical Drinker already did an excellent video on this topic, I hope you could do a collab together sometime.
Anakin is definetly NOT a Mary Sue - he fails often, gets hurt (physically and mentally) and manipulated, lots of people don`t like him. And Rey is... well, Rey. Nuff said.
There are people that consider Anakin a Gary Stue?? His story literally revolves around his flaws.
Short answer: yes. Rey is a Mary Sue, and no, Anakin isn't.
FAX
We got to see Anakin go from a child who was the chosen one, into a young adult who turns to the dark side and eventually becomes Darth Vader who redeems himself. But this didn't happen over 3 movies and he was never over powered like Rey.
Anakin the chosen one: trains for 15 years and loses to Dooku and years later beaten by Kenobi
Rey: picks up a lightsaber becomes OP without training
The thing is her power isn’t explained just by being related to someone. Anakin has the highest count even over yoda. Still trained for 10 years and lost to Dooku. Then trained for another 2/3 years in a war and lost to Obi-Wan.
Anakin trained and still constantly lost, Rey didn't train and constantly won.
The story of Anakin's rise, fall and redemption IS Star Wars.
Anakin: a slave until he's freed due to betting on a pod race with the help of a Jedi master, HAS to leave his mother, misses her after 24 hrs(he's a child so it makes sense), is thought to be dangerous by everybody except Qui-Gon, accidentally helps the republic beat the separatist droid ship above Naboo. Struggles with his training by Obi-Wan (who wasn't ready to become a Jedi master by the time Qui-Gon died), has forbidden feelings of love for Padme Amidala, loses his arm to Count Dooku/Darth Tyrannus, marries Padme in secret, loses his mother and kills the tuskin raiders (men women and children), kills Dooku, kills kids, is partly responsible for Palestine's rise to Emperor, helps carry out order 66(killing even younglings), loses arm and legs in a fight against his former master, murders the separatists, then kills an entire planet, cuts his own son's hand off, tortures his son's best friends and freezes him on carbonite, but then is redeemed by saving his son and killing the Emperor.(obviously some of this is outta order but you get the point).
Rey: abandoned by her parents at a young age, learned to live on a desert planet till she met a BB unit and then Finn. (Literally tried to think for about 5 minutes about any flaws after meeting Finn and I couldn't think of one [also about to go to work as of writing this out lol])
I think we can all figure out WHO the Mary Sue is outta the 2 characters
Was this even a debate? Anakin's numerous flaws (inexperience, impetuousness, arrogance, emotional instability, anger, etc.) consistently hold him back and/or result in him having to face significant consequences-ultimately culminating in his downfall and full migration to the dark side. This is in stark contrast to Rey, who without the benefit of training or experience is consistently superior at everything and has no personal flaws or failures to speak of.
Anakin isn't even remotely close to a mary sue, he loses pretty much all throughout the films as he grows up.
Maybe they could argue that if he remained Episode 1 kid anakin all the way through? but he didn't.
Gets his ass kicked by Dooku
fails to save his mom
fails to save his wife
gets his ass kicked by Hello There High Ground Man
is manipulated by *_THE SENATE_* for most of his screentime
loses his face, identity and standing
Is defeated by his son in the FINAL BATTLE
dies PERMANENTLY
Ok lets see what you lost
Luke: I lost a hand
Anakin: I lost a hand, 2 legs, hair, and the ability to breath on my own
Rey: I lost my parents
Luke&Anakin: And?...
Rey: A supposed to be Boyfriend
Luke&Anakin: And?...
Rey: Oh you mean body parts, no nothing, Im complete...
The fact that Rey uses force lightning, without no one training her while Anakin couldn't do even though he was a sith lord i think it's pretty self explanatory
ATTENTION DISNEY: you can make your main character a good person without making them completely flawless.