I have seen Episode 7 twice and the number one reaction I have seen on the web to this movie is people calling Rey a “Marry Sue” and saying that she is too perfect. I don’t think this charge against the movie is true and allow me to explain why.
Oh, Spoilers below.
I don’t see her as perfect, I never did. In Star Wars Luke is conflicted about being a Jedi and helping Obiwan because as much as he wants to leave he doesn’t want to be selfish and leave his uncle and aunt high and dry when they need his help. There is no easy answer to what is the right thing to do in this situation is, and you see that from Obiwan’s reaction, he just says “You must do what you feel is right of course.”
In episode 7 Rey is the one going through the Han Solo arc and who just wants to do her own thing and get back to her own personal problems and wait for her family to show up, even after it is clear she is neck deep in the situation. She has to be dragged into helping and it is only the fact that deep down she has a good heart that keeps her going. Also she can be kind of mean, The best example is that is when she gives Finn flak for holding her hand. First he was pulling her out of the way of an attack he didn’t see coming until the last second and second as far as she knows at that time Finn is a resistance fighter and from his view point she is just some random civilian, he didn’t have time to ask for her personal history, so of course he is going to assume she doesn’t have the skills need to survive in combat, that is what trained military personal always assume about civilians and yet she takes time out of their escape to yell at him? She clearly sometimes takes offense when none was meant and it is not the time or the place to do so. Also she wins by giving into her anger and really striking Ren with a look of pure rage on her face. Going back to the OT, Vader and the Emperor’s whole plan to turn Luke to the dark side was to get him to strike at Vader in rage and then see that anger was the key to victory in a fight and then he would be well on the path to the dark side. Luke was only able to shun that path by giving up his lightsaber and being willing to die in a fight, if anger was the only way to win. Rey doesn’t do this because she didn’t have a Yoda telling her “Wars not make one great.” Instead she gave in and she won, so I see her as being farther down the path to the dark side then Luke was.
The bottom line is I don’t see Rey as a Marry Sue, she has flaws if you know where to look for them, they are just flaws that you can only catch if you have seen the OT. In normal modern fiction there is nothing wrong with the hero getting angry if that leads to them doing a great good and saving people. Star Wars is about a journey of the spirit so people’s actions and their results are not as important as the motivations behind those actions, because those are what tell you about the state of the character’s souls and by the rules Star Wars plays by her soul is in danger. She could easily slip to the dark side despite her own best intentions and her being a good person deep down. She really is the character Anikin should have been in the prequels. She is thrown into a situation with very little training and without Yoda around telling her that being a Jedi really isn’t about a lightsaber or force powers, she is settling for what gets results, and the sad fact is that evil tends to get results quicker in the short term. In short I really like Rey’s character and think she is one of the best I have ever seen in a movie of this type, not because she is a woman who is able to beat people up, but because she has flaws and a lot of room to grow and that is what makes characters interesting. Characters who are not evil but can still end up doing bad things and have to watch themselves are the most interesting in my book, it’s what Luke was in the OT and it seems to be what Rey is.
That is another reason why I think it makes the most sense from a story stand point for her to be Luke’s daughter. She is dealing with the same issues every member of her family has had to deal with in the past, but neither Anikin or Luke’s solution will work for her. Anikin choose to fight and he turn to the dark side. Luke has had to either run away or give up in order to avoid turning to the dark side, she is going to have to find a third path that is the ultimate solution to the Skywalker family’s problems and that is going to be very interesting to see. I really hope the writers don’t screw things up by focusing too much on action scenes in the next two movies because Rey is a very interesting character and if she is handled right in the sequels her journey will feel like it was supposed to be part of the Star Wars saga all along and in the future people will not be able to imagine the story of Star Wars without her as a part of it. That is not only why I don’t think she is a Merry Sue but why I think her being anything other then Luke’s daughter would make no sense from a story or character standpoint. She is dealing with the problems of the Skywalker family so having her be part of some other random family would just feel wrong somehow.
Any way that is how I see it based on seeing the movie twice. I know others here have had the chance to see it more times and may have picked up on things I didn’t so feel free to disagree. 😃 That is just how I see it at the moment and how I would like the sequels to handle Rey and the situation she is in.