A Mary Sue doesn’t cease to be a Mary Sue just 'cause she has ubermensch genes.
Yeah, but it helps. I guess it comes down to what one wishes to preserve most in the canon. Like I said, I hate the genetic thing and have hated it since the ridiculous Leia retcon in ROTJ. But I dislike the ‘no training required’ thing of the ST even more, because it takes away from Luke’s arc and struggles. I’d rather roll with a version of Force genetics (I find a Sith version of this at least mysterious enough to carry some weight) to justify Rey’s power levels than go with RJ’s random ‘X-Men Force powers’ thing.
Luke’s struggles are due to lack of faith and lack of concentration. Rey had heard of the Heroes of the OT. Rey knows what a Jedi can do from those stories. Then comes face to face with it in a way Luke never did (he didn’t see Vader do anything in canon until TESB during their duel and I don’t think he saw Ben do anything either). Ben gave him one lesson on the falcon and then he is able to make the shot that takes out the death star and then later is able to levitate his lightsaber before his second lesson with Yoda. Luke had doubts. Rey didn’t. Rey had belonging and abandonment issues, Luke never seemed to. He wanted to know more about his father, but he knew who he was and that was fine. Rey has plenty of struggles and failures in the films. More than Luke actually. No one powerful in the Force seems to have any problem using it once they see it used and Rey saw it used by Kylo many time. In fact, you could say that he activated the Dyad by trying to read her mind and that he basically taught her everything he knew and she just had to concentrate to draw on it. Snoke implied that he linked them, but I don’t think he realized what he was dealing with. They stayed linked after he died. So Mary Sue? Nope. She has too many flaws and failures to be one. Sure she picks up the force quickly, but that is not the only part of her character and she rarely does it right the first time.
Just because a character has flaws and failures doesn’t mean they’re not a Mary Sue. The original Mary Sue died at the end. Mary Sues usually have two qualities:
-An insane level of power and skill, without much struggle.
-The ability to make everyone they meet instantly like them.Rey has both qualities. She flies and repairs the Falcon better than Han, despite having never flown it before. As soon as Finn meets her, he loves her more than anything in the galaxy. She uses a Jedi mind-trick successfully after seeing Kylo use it once. As soon as Kylo meets her, he wants her to become his empress. She beats Kylo in a lightsaber duel, despite having never used a weapon of that type before. As soon as Han meets her, he wants her to become his copilot. When she taps into the Force for the first time, she nearly destroys Luke’s temple. She lifts a huge pile of rocks on Crait, despite having never used the Force to lift objects before. She heals people using the Force, an ability which no Jedi has used before, and she doesn’t seem any weaker because of it. Zorri agrees to help the Resistance purely because she likes Rey. The list goes on, but you get the idea. In my opinion, Rey fits the definition of a Mary Sue almost exactly.
Then so does Luke. Don’t confuse mythic hero and Mary Sue. A Mary Sue is a fan insert into a story. I’d like to know what fan Lucas and Abrams had in mind as the character was created and developed. It is a trick that most writers insert themselves into their stories in some way. Good writers do it in a way that you don’t see. Fan Fiction is often some of the first work of budding writers and is where you find the Mary Sue character - the all too obvious writer-as-character who does things too well. In the OT, Han Solo is the Lucas figure. I couldn’t say what Abrams was thinking. But it is pretty hard to have an actual Mary Sue in a mains stream production. Usually you get a point of view character or something to better relate.
And you missed about the rocks on Crait. She lifted the Anakin/Luke lightsaber in TFA. And as Yoda said, size matters not, so if you can lift a lightsaber, you can lift an X-Wing or a pile of rocks. As for the healing, as we see it drain Kylo to death, I think it is safe to say it from the most secret of Jedi texts that they did not share with just anyone. The inexperienced could easily spend themself healing and die. So not having seen it before is not really surprising. And as I said, it all started when Kylo tried to read her mind. Everything she does after that we can blame on that (for lack of a better word) mind-meld. Kylo has inadvertently been teaching her since they met. A true Mary Sue would know things only a fan would know and would inappropriately save the day… every time. Rey doesn’t do that. People who call Rey a Mary Sue don’t really know what a Mary Sue is. It is not just an overpowerd and successful character. Marvel would be full of those. We have three unlikely heroes in Star Wars, a slave boy, a farm boy, and a junk girl. Which one is the most over powered? Anakin at 9 is a pod racer, pilot, robot builder, and mechanic and saves the day with a lucky shot. He is far closer to a Mary Sue (though he isn’t one) than Rey ever was.