#i apologize in advance for any spelling or grammatical errors- writing on a bilingual machine is a b i t c h

[thesellamasaintloyal]

In defense of Rey

Alternatively titled, “There’s a shit ton of things wrong with the Star Wars Sequel trilogy but Rey being a so-called Mary Sue isn’t one of them, Jesus Christ guys it’s been four years can we not-“

((This was born thanks to a post which compared The Child aka Baby Yoda’s innate abilities to use the force despite being a literal toddler to Rey’s force abilities despite her ‘lack of training’, and the hypocrisy of the fandom in accepting one at face value and not the other. Obviously, I agreed, but when the fuck boys come out to play so do my twelve paragraphs lol fight me))

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People love to compare Rey to Luke and Anakin, and claim that she’s a Mary Sue because she naturally awoke to some of her Jedi abilities, such as her ability to fight, fly with expert ease, as well as her innate understanding of the force. What people love to forget is that the circumstances of their lifestyles naturally led to different development rates toward their innate abilities while using the force. I’d like to include Leia in this as well.

On the bottom rung of the “I can use my force powers right off the bat” we have Luke. Luke grew up as a farm boy in middle-of-nowhere Tatooine, who had little to no reason to use any of his force abilities beyond flying, where he developed his famed capacity to be a pilot. He was raised in a relatively safe environment, protected from the war and conflict that was happening throughout much of the galaxy, and his greatest grievances were simply not being allowed to join the rest of his friends at the academy because he had to keep farming. Out of all four characters he had the most ‘normal’ day to day upbringing, and thus many of a Jedi’s abilities were not developed in the slightest- meaning he had the most to train and the most to learn.

Not too far ahead on the rung is Leia. I’d like to examine her as well, because she had a similarly ‘protected’ upbringing as Luke (in some ways even more so, being a princess and all) and thus did not have the chance to develop many of her innate force skills until later in life. However, Leia was not any spoiled princess laying around in riches. Leia was exposed to politics and warfare and the rebel cause her ENTIRE life, watching her (adoptive) parents not only actively participate in the rebel alliance but practically lead it.

She clearly had some training with weapons, knowing enough to be able to handle several firearms throughout the series, and most importantly- she learned strategy, she learned tactical knowledge and leadership skills, she learned patience and focus, self-awareness, and most importantly the ability to think calmly in a desperate situation. The latter of these skills are all absolutely essential to a Jedi and absolutely form part of the training they undergo, which means all she needed to complete her training was the more physical aspect, and which is why historically in the original trilogy she had far more patience and resilience than Luke when things (invariably) went wrong.

Higher up on the rung is Anakin. Anakin was also raised on Tatooine, but his experience of the planet was far different from Luke’s. His Tatooine was a bustling trade center and full of crime- and he was born a slave in these conditions. Exposed to both mechanical knowledge and more hard labor (carrying parts, repairing parts and ships, and so forth) Anakin had the opportunity to build up some more core strength, and his infamous flying abilities (which honed his reflexes) were also given the opportunity to grow thanks to his exposure and participation in pod racing.

For all intents and purposes Anakin is the saga’s Jesus figure, the “one”, canonically conceived by Midichlorians and a singular entity in his strength and potential regarding the force. However, we don’t see his innate fighting abilities as a child because there is simply no reason to within the scope of the storytelling in the films, and no opportunity either. It also makes sense that Anakin would not NEED to worry too much about fighting or defending himself- as a slave he is property, and would not be touched unless the aggressor was ready to pay Watto for his loss of property, or be penalized for “breaking” what was not theirs.

The little we DO understand of Anakin’s personality is that as a slave, he was raised with an understandable self-constraint (in order to perform his duties well and not have himself or his mother punished) which may have also delayed some of his development; once the constraints of a slave were removed, we are shot forward 10 years and we met a nineteen year who is vastly changed and light years ahead in his use of the force and understanding of his own abilities, the same age his children were when coming into contact with the Force.

Obviously, Anakin is the most developed in terms of formal training by this point in time, as Luke, Leia and Rey were only just introduced to the concept of the Force, and had to, as Yoda said, “Unlearn what [they] have learned.” Nevertheless, narratively we are not given much of an opportunity to see his innate force abilities so much as we are told that they are singular and unique- enough to allow him to be trained at what was already considered an ‘old’ age for a Jedi.

Finally, Rey.

Rey is abandoned and orphaned at about the same age as Anakin was when found by Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan. Unfortunately for her, there was no salvation waiting- we are shown and told that she lived alone, practically enslaved in order to survive. This is a girl who learns to climb massive wrecks of spaceships and learns to not only identify the various complicated components but how to take them apart, clean them, repair them, and reassemble them- because doing so means a better meal and future opportunities to keep eating. This is a girl who is forced to learn how to defend herself, who actively fights for her life- because if she allows others to steal the parts she already risked her life to collect, then she risks starvation. Not to mention the obvious implications of young, attractive woman living by herself in a deserted, practically lawless land. Unlike the other three- Luke, Leía, and Anakin- Rey had no protections and no guarantees when it came to her safety, and thus had to learn to fight and defend herself; honing those natural force abilities from an early age in order to keep herself safe.

Furthermore, Rey is isolated. We see that she has no viable “friends” on Jakku, and keeps a pleasant but safe distance from others. That sort of solitude invites introspection- which can only help train the meditative aspects that form part of that famed Jedi calmness and mindfulness. I don’t find it hard to believe whatsoever that Rey may have been able to identify something within herself that was ‘different’ - just as Anakin, Leia, and Luke all claimed to have understood at various parts of their respective journeys.

What is also but briefly seen and not explored in the films, but IS explained in the supplementary novels is that Rey possessed an old flight simulator, as shown here:

“She’d jury-rigged a computer using pieces scavenged from several crashed fighters over the years, including a cracked but still-usable display from an old BTL-A4 Y-wing. There were no radio communications to speak of—no way to transmit or receive and, frankly, nobody she wanted to talk to anyway. On the wreckage of a Zephra-series hauler, though, she’d once found a stash of data chips, and after painstakingly going through each and every one of them, she’d discovered three with their programs intact; one of them, to her delight, had been a flight simulator.

So when she wasn’t sleeping or just sitting and listening to the storm or tinkering at her workbench, she flew. It was a good program, or at least she imagined it was. She could select any number of ships to fly, from small repulsor-driven atmospheric craft to a wide variety of fighters, all the way up to an array of stock freighters. She could set destinations, worlds she’d never visited and never imagined she would, and scenarios, from speed runs to obsta“cle courses to system failures.

At first, she’d been truly horrible at it, quite literally crashing a few seconds after takeoff every time. With nothing else to do, and with a perverse sense of determination that she would not allow herself to be beaten by a machine that she herself had put together with her own hands, she learned. She learned so much that there was little the program could throw her way that would challenge her now. She’d gotten to the point where she would, quite deliberately, do everything she could think of to make things hard on herself, just to see if she could get out of it. Full-throttle atmospheric reentry with repulsor-engine failure? No sweat. Multiple hull breach deep-space engine flameout? A walk in the park.”

Far beyond a nine year old instinctively knowing how to pilot a Jet Engine Chariot AND a space fighter (I’m looking at you, Anakin), we see that Rey has indeed received some training in flying, and that she has been diligently training all her youth to be as damn good as she is when we finally catch up to her in TFA. This, in addition to her fighting skills honed from a need to survive, and a meditative self-awareness from growing up practically isolated, means that Rey is uniquely prepared in a way not unlike the younglings were prepared to fully embrace and use her force abilities- once she becomes aware of what they actually are.

Rey is not a Mary Sue. Her abilities did not come out of the blue, but were honed during her entire childhood in order to survive in the ruthless circumstances in which she found herself. Her skills at fighting, flying, and understanding of the force all have a precedent- and once the final piece of the puzzle in the form of recognition that what she’s felt her whole life is The Force, combined with the legacy and legend that comes from knowing the exploits of Luke, Leia and Han, then there is no reason to doubt why she takes to it so naturally. Ultimately, We know that the force not only enhances abilities, but guides their users in how to access them and use them.