So this whole Rey Mary Sue thing just keeps twigging me (and not just because the whole bullshit, sexist concept of the Mary Sue knots my knickers like nothing else)
Because while this fuckboy opinion is probably motivated from dudes being, well, fuckboys, it may also be mired in them being MEN.
Because like, I and every single female friend I have walked out of Star Wars with absolutely zero doubts that Rey had earned every inch of her scrappy, badass survivor mantle. It wasnāt until dudes online started whinging about theĀ ābelievabilityā of it that I even contemplated the issue.
So now, three viewings in, the second two spent ACTIVELY SEARCHING for signs that Rey may have suffered New Powers as the Plot Demands I have this to say:
The moment the film opened on Rey - a young woman living and operating ALONE on a world in which literal survival depends on who can scavenge AND EXCHANGE the most goods for food rations, Iād wager every single woman in the audience went,Ā āHoly shit, this girl is capable as fuck.ā
We didnāt even need to see her owning the thugs trying to steal BB-8 to know she could handle herself physically. We looked at her environment, her position in that environment, and we knew that to be where she was - just to have lived as long as she had - she had to know how to fight like whoa.
Because hereās the thing: woman donāt walk through life the way men do. Just living in our world is dangerous enough for a woman - to grow up young, alone and female on a world that would brawl over scraps and sell anything that wasnāt pinned down? Thatās fucking terrifying.
Women look at Rey at the beginning of TFA and see every single hard-won year of survival. Every year of losing to fellow scavengers stealing her take before she could trade it. Every year she had to not become the very thing they were trading. Every year she was an easy target. And we see every year she had to fight to make sure she wasnāt one anymore.
That had to take guts, not to mentionĀ a healthy aptitude for combat and weapons training. The ability to pick up languages and social niceties on the fly would have been essential because my enemies enemy and all that.
Every singleĀ āunrealisticā ability these dudes are wanking on about was obvious as fuck to me within the first fifteen minutes of the movie.
So welcome to the party, boys - this is what it feels like to have to identify with someone outside of your own experience. And hey, who knows, if you take the time to ask why Rey was so capable instead of whining about it, you may just learn something.
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