"Mary Sue would be more so somebody much less skilled at survival than she was."

As I stated, this is why the trope is seen as contextual. Special pleas like being much more skilled at survival isn't something that handwaves the trope away for most people. Check my 2nd comment below: it's not being highly skilled at SOMETHING in the movie but in EVERYTHING depicted in the film. This is the key point some are arguing is the writer's self-insert as a means of wish fulfillment.

Before I dive into the meat of this I want to preface this by saying I don't want this to sound response to sound condescending or rude in any way. You're a chill poster 100% I see you across the sites so I don't want this to carry any animosity. Anyways...

When you start dissecting my bulletpoints down to "would you rather she not have a dramatic story?" you've missed the point of my original post by a country mile. It's not that having some of those qualities listed are BAD from a storytelling p.o.v. The trajectory in my argument is in them stacked together, not split up. If you look at what a Mary Sue is on TV Tropes, you'll understand why I listed those key points (as well as some others) for which Rey could fall into.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/...

"So Anakin as a character must be canon breaking for you as well?"

-Oh, I certainly don't agree to the extent of Anakin's powers in Prequels either. As exhilarating as the Coruscant chase was in Ep. II, I found his long fall down to Zam's ship went too far in a powerful Jedi's extent of the Force. Falling near-terminal velocity directly on another speeding ship equals destroyed chest + arms ripped off.

Key word: practically. I mean...c'mon being stubborn against the WEALTH of other moments where she's just taking care of business does little to deflect against everything else:

-quality combatant to the point she beats up everyone in the movie she's up against (eventually)
-able to fly the Millenium Falcon (despite us never previously knowing she had intimate knowledge of being able to fly that ship)
-has expert technician skills and is able to fix Millenium Falcon in ways Han seemingly couldn't
-every key good character has either a romance or strong camaraderie with her
-Force powers just come to her amazingly quickly

Can you see where I'm coming from and how it's really not that reaching?

I see you brought up Anakin in Ep. 1 below but keep in mind that Naboo pilot showed him the bigger ship's similar architecture when they were flying back and he "catched on pretty quick." Now, is that really much compared to taking the wheel of a starfighter and dog-fighting? That's really up to personal preference (this all is, after all); however, this also reinforces my "practically flawless" point. Stack up Anakin's abilities in Ep. 1 to that of Rey's and you see what I mean.

Well honestly while I disagree,- I can see where you are coming from. I always enjoy a good discussion about SW especially with fellow fans. Its these groups that went to cause drama , want to crowbar their narrow minded views that bother me. Truth be told I never heard of this 'Mary sue' trope before today, OP is OP to me. C'est la vie I suppose...

Same here, Stringer. It's nice to have lively discussion on the series. I feel like I'm in a weird position here too b/c I am excited to see where Finn, Rey, + BB-8 go from here. At the same time, this is one of my most clearest points of why the 2nd half didn't captivate me quite like the 1st half.

"And Luke / Anakin weren't super talented?"

I'm not suggesting other characters like Anakin are entirely off the hook either. But Luke? Have we watched the same original trilogy? How many times did Luke NEED saving within the first movie alone?

-Tusken Raiders
-Cantina Bar where guy would've killed him
-Leia's smart thinking with trash compacter
-R2-D2 trash compacter

He clearly shows flaws of being way over his head, whether by curiosity or desperation, and we root for him BECAUSE of that. He feels like an average, flawed guy on his journey to become a stronger hero. This kind of cycle where he needs his friends to get through keeps going throughout the trilogy too.

"I hate to say it, but..."

*Oh no, he's gonna go THAT route isn't he?*

"...I think people are uncomfortable with there being a more self-determined female character in their films."

http://stream1.gifsoup.com/...

Yeah, thanks for busting out the psychoanalysis on me, even though I LITERALLY stated I'm a fan of this ragtag cast, Rey included, down below. Is it really that hard to discuss the positives/negatives of a female character and her implementation without getting grouped in with that stupid Return of King's "Mad Max: Feminist Road" crowd? It would be great to once--just once--have someone wanting to critically look at this type of subject not get some BS branding.

You can see what I'm getting at with my response to Stringerbell up above since some points there carry over.

"The idea of the voices was, we wanted the audience to feel - but not necessarily be presented right in your face - this idea that familiar, Force-strong voices were connecting with her. At least as well as they could"

~J.J. Abrams

She was essentially being guided and influenced by the Jedi such as Obi-Wan, hence why you hears his voice talking to her by name in the film.

Yup she was pretty much a Mary Sue. Grant it, I like the actress and for what was written for her character she did great. But the hand waving, and mary sue tropes I just couldn't take it no more. I couldn't wait for the movie to end...

@Lord_Sloth

Even then, it's still really stretching the canon to fan fiction territory. For over a decade now, fanboys have been carping on and on about midichlorians and how that stuff ruined The Force and here we have someone who conveniently understands some Force powers + lightsaber combat after only just hearing voices connect with her?

With that aside, even with taking that consideration that doesn't mean having an excuse within the movie means the Mary Sue trope just goes away.

For the sake of repeating: this all doesn't mean I hate Rey either.

I get that part of your argument is "why give her such a backstory that empowers her so completely? Why weren't aspects of her life written to be causes of weakness in her?" Yeah, she's made pretty unstoppable by the fact that her past was written in the way it was - she's probably a Skywalker / Kenobi, she learned to fight like a pro because of where she grew up, and so on. Why didn't they make her upbringing more cosy, you might ask? Then she mightn't have been able to whoop ass. They've written a backstory that logically would make a person pretty unstoppable in the SW universe - there's nothing unrealistic about her skills given that backstory and lineage - but then, why wouldn't they include some aspect that made her flawed in some way?

Well, I don't believe she's a flawless character anyway. She's probably a Skywalker, meaning she's susceptible to the dark side by nature (Anakin became Vader, Luke wavered a bit, and Kylo Ren, son of Leia, obviously became a psychopath). Being a Skywalker makes her inherently flawed, and maybe this will be explored in later films. Secondly, she's not exactly the friendliest person - she's pretty highly strung and aggro. Thirdly, she was in denial about her parents returning to Jakku - she was lying to herself, and she knew deep down that they wouldn't return. So, if you ask me, her backstory does indeed create weaknesses in her, rather than making her a flawless character.

On Finn (otherwise I agree with you on Rey).

Finn is a Stormtrooper, therefore he is well trained in combat, including melee combat. It's not just blasters and cool uniforms. The fact that he can wield the lightsaber is due to training, but I also think he has the force, though not as strongly as Rey.

The reason I believe this is because SPOILER:

During the mission we see him on, something hits him. He already is a seasoned trooper from youth as is told, but now, he feels the force as another trooper dies. Something isn't sitting well with him at all. And it isn't just the killing. He is feeling it through the force and that is why he switches so easily.

So his use of the saber in conjunction with his budding force makes him able to barely stand his ground against Ren.

But he is a seasoned Stormtrooper trained since birth. He should be able to fight (even if he is in sanitation.)

One thing I need to repeat over again in regards to Rey: "practically flawless."

I'm not saying that every story beat has her as some perfect being overcoming her emotions and all that. But if you were to look squarely at how the story progressed with her handling almost every situation on her own: fighting, flying, saving Finn from that monster through tech ingenuity, to Force powers against a stormtrooper + resistance to an almost Sith Lord, and so on. Even if I WERE to agree with you about Rey's connection to The Force, you can see that it really doesn't matter when considering (from a storytelling standpoint) the Mary Sue accusations do hold some ground--depending on the context as I've said before.

With that out of the way, I do agree with Finn's fight being less believable (and I thought both of his saber fights were really underwhelming in general). And while I do understand Rey's possible Skywalker history + stuff like that, the thing that bothers me is her acquired powers were possible with little earned KNOWLEDGE of The Force. And that may be the crux of my annoyance: those specific Jedi abilities in the past were sought out, through training and meditation, not randomly bestowed BY The Force.

And while I have these complaints with this character in particular, I don't want to give the impression that I'm some jackass who believes a badass female Jedi in the spotlight being a bad thing. In fact, I hate the hypocritical SW nerds carping about FINALLY having one and in their George Lucas-hating binge disregarding someone like Ahsoka Tano. Heck, I saw more "badassery" from her in the TV show: even when captured, she'd constantly demand to not let herself be used as a pawn and complete the mission.

Edit: I understand the advantages of a TV show and all the extra screen time she gets, but my point can still hold within specific 3-part episodes in that story too. She has some incredible moments in that show.