#Kylo Ren is a Mary Sue
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*drunkenly logs into tumblr* REY WASN’T A FUCKING MARY SUE! SHE WAS JUST HANDLED POORLY!
KYLO FUCKING REN WAS THE GODDAMN MARY SUE!
IN THIS ESSAY I WILL- *passes out in a drunken stupor*
#incorrect super smash bros#Star War#Sequel Series#thoughts#thought#idea#musing#writing#writing trope#tropes#writing thought#Rey#Kylor Ren#Ben Solo#Kylo Ren is a Mary Sue#Ben Swolo
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anyways so also i'm still thinking about that mary sue jackass on twitter whining about rey still bc the complaint is always 'rey beats kylo ren easily out of nowhere' and that is just fundamentally not what happens in that movie
-- one of the first things we see rey do is absolutely demolish a bunch of guys on jakku, so we know she can fight
-- one of the first things she does in the saber fight with kylo ren is echo her staff fighting motions and try to lunge at him, but she doesn't have the same range w the saber
-- so she holds her own defensively but is literally on the run and ends up pinned between ren and a sudden cliff edge as a crevasse opens up
-- she doesn't actually turn the battle against ren until she
wait for it
USES THE FORCE
(which is exactly what LUKE did!)
also that whole fight kylo ren is literally dying after being gut-shot, bc chewie blasted him with his fkn bowcaster, which is ALSO set-up earlier as being strong enough to send dudes FLYING after a hit
so kylo ren took a GRENADE to the stomach and STILL nearly won that fight!
just absolutely no reading comprehension at all, it's almost like they haven't seen the film more than once and remember it wrong, or are deliberately or unconsciously lying about to serve a reactionary agenda, and it doesn't matter how rey won but rather THAT she won, at all
the only actual mary sue in that movie is kylo ren
the only other mary sue in that movie is poe dameron
#star wars#tfa#rey#kylo ren#mary sue#seriously poe dameron is the mariest sue ever to mary sue#he was supposed to die in the crash but they cast oscar isaac so they just brought him back anyways#they never even explain it he's literally just 'i escaped somehow'#in the air battle over maz's castle he takes out like literally seven tie fighters in one shot#dude is CLEARLY FORCE SENSITIVE#SO IS FINN#give them both lightsabers in episode ten#resurrect ben solo and let him be zeta char#the team asshole who never takes off his sunglasses and tried to kill everyone else a few years ago but we have common goals now
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spoilers for the last episode of “kenobi” below but -
i’m posting one meme. ONE meme. and then i’m done posting about this forever i swear
#anti disney star wars#anti disney#anti kenobi series#my memes#anakin skywalker#darth vader#not even tagging the mary sue#mostly cause i don't want her stans to find me and call me a bigot#sorry but you KNOW she's actually got a worse arc than kylo ren and half the peoplecheering for her hated him
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Bo-katan haters continue to make me laugh.
Like what else do you want from this woman?
You hate her because she's a nepo baby? That's only one aspect of her character, but more than half of her life has been war and struggle and loss.
You hate her because she joined the wrong faction when she was very young? She admitted that a long time ago and continues to try and do right by her people.
Because she lost the saber? Well, now we know that one of those times she lost it to try and protect mandalore.
Why do you want to push the agenda of another woman dying to progress the male characters' story? And yeah, Dins has been kinda sidelined, but that's definitely not the characters fault.
You can't call her a Mary Sue. You can't say she's this horrible person when she continues to defy the "bad guy" plot you all thought was going to happen. She's saved Din multiple times, hasn't back-stabbed him once, and was mean to Boba-Fett once.
I swear the standards for women are set so high.
It doesn't matter how bad ass of a character she is or how much growth she does, it says everything to me that Kylo Ren got so much love after killing a whole bunch of people, including his own father and yet people screamed "Stop making character death part of their redemption!" (And I agreed.)
I'm probably yelling into a void 😮💨
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I feel like a lot of the issues people have with Rey stem from the presupposition that she's a Mary Sue, and thus that everything she does is meant to be portrayed as good, brilliant, amazing, etc by the narrative.
Like don't get me wrong, I don't entirely agree with the criticism that Rey is overpowered but I understand where people would get that idea. For example, I thought Rey defeating Kylo Ren in TFA wasn't the best call.
But I've seen people get mad the scene where Rey rips a faulty piece of equipment out of the Millennium Falcon and look all proud for yourself for it. As though this is meant to be some show of her brilliance and not a little comedic aside depicting a basic level of engineering.
You don't have to like Rey, but viewing everything she does through the perception of her being a Mary Sue isn't the way to go IMO.
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nothing confirms my doubt in the basic analytical skills of the average fanboy than their reactions to rey's being able to fight and defeat kylo ren. the first like 8 minutes of TFA sets up three key things about rey: she survived in the desert by learning how to fight with her staff, she knows about ship parts because she needed a way to survive in the desert, and scavenging gave her that means of survival--and she knows how to fly again, to keep herself entertained in the desert. she always played on that flight simulator to the point she was beating it regularly.
but there's caveats--rey can fight with a staff. she's used to the length and the mode of fighting with something that she can grab from any end, not a lightsaber. kylo ren was shot in his side, had little to no formal training, and thus was impeded by these things.
so they go up against each other. ren's attacks are limited by the fact that now he can't make like. half the moves he normally would since his side was wounded (idk if youve ever been it in the side really hard and been sore after, but try making fast movements--especially with your arms or bending over--and see how far you get). rey can fight but she's used to a staff! did people miss the part where she kept trying to stab him even though she didn't have the space? she was attacking with extra reach she didn't have because a lightsaber is shorter than a staff, and the handle is shorter, and the weapon isn't entirely grabable.
this is long for no reason but like its so stupid that people call rey a mary sue over like. frankly barely managing in a fight or otherwise being able to use her survival skills to continue to survive
#ch posts#please????#if 15 year old me could pick up on it in the theater on a first watch#i think these grown adults can too <3
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Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a great example of fandoms ruining their own movie experience. Often fandoms are right when they think a movie doesn’t deliver on their favorite franchise. But in The Last Jedi, the Star Wars fandom kind of proved that their heads are in a terrible place.
I will explain.
Movies are meant to reach in and grab your emotions. You’re supposed to get out of your own head, and the story is supposed to get under your mental defenses, so that you not only suspend disbelief, but suspend your inner film critic and enjoy an experience/learn what the movie is trying to tell you.
If a movie has terrible form and repellant content, like bad acting or a message like “cold-blooded murder is neat” then people generally don’t get to have that experience because the movie couldn’t reach in and grab your emotions.
The Last Jedi was not a bad movie. I know for a fact that it one hundred percent DID what it set out to do, in the theaters. What happened was, you Star Wars fans enjoyed the movie while you were watching it. Then you got home and got in your own heads and read what some other people thought and watched some Mark Hamill interviews and retroactively decided you actually didn’t like it.
I know you liked it because I was in the theaters with you. I saw TLJ on opening night, in a packed theater of dressed-up fans. Then I saw it three more times in theaters. I heard fans clap when Luke fought Kylo Ren and said “see you around, kid.” I heard them laugh when he threw the lightsaber over his shoulder. I heard them applaud when Snoke got cut in half. I heard no groans of disbelief during Holdo’s Hyperdrive ramming—you could’ve heard a pin drop, exactly as the filmmakers intended. I heard fans holding their breath or whispering, “please please please” when Rey said to Kylo Ren, “Please don’t go this way.” I heard, all four times, thunderous applause during the ending shot, when a kid with a broom is revealed to have the Force.
‘When the lights came on and everyone was leaving the theater, I heard NO ONE saying:
“I can’t believe they ruined Luke.”
“What was with Holdo? Hyperdrive doesn’t work like that.”
“I hate Rey, she’s a Mary-Sue.”
“What was with that casino planet scene, that was useless!”
I heard people excitedly talking about how awesome the film was. I heard them repeating the jokes to each other, or sharing their favorite parts. I heard them hoping Ben Solo would be redeemed for the next movie. The closest I ever got to anything even approaching negative was, “What was with the blue milk alien?” Which is fair. But my point is, even when the movie was over and we were leaving the theaters, the fans loved it. At the time. When the movie was all they had to base their opinion on.
I sat next to a young man who is now the loudest Internet Proclaimer of TLJ’s supposed failure, on opening night. But at the time, when the movie ended, he said, “that’s what The Force Awakens should’ve been! That was so great.”
Then he went home and watched EFAP and came back and said, “yeah I liked it at first but that’s because I was stupid and didn’t know any better. Now I know it’s terrible.”
What? No, you’re not stupid! It was a good movie. It said exactly what it wanted to say, and it had your attention and your emotions the whole time. It even set up the next film for great, new, unexpected success (regardless of how ROS squandered that opportunity.)
But this is how a lot of fans are.
They have pre-set expectations of what they want. Or they don’t have any expectations and they wait for their favorite influencer to tell them what to think. And then, even when a movie is good, they change their own minds about it later to line up with what they thought they wanted.
Not what made the most sense. Not what made the best story. Not what could be an enduring classic. Not what grabbed the emotions most effectively. Just “I want what I want.”
Guess what, at the end of Casablanca, the hero doesn’t get the girl. He loses her. But he becomes a man who takes risks and goes back to living life because of his experience, as sad as it may have been. If audiences back then could complain loudly enough on the internet and get what they want, Casablanca would have had a crappy sequel where the guy gets the girl, and the whole first movie is ruined. Or the filmmakers wouldn’t have been brave enough to do what the story needed in the first place.
TLJ is the perfect example of a good movie ruined by it’s own supposed fandom, who just want what they want, and can’t admit when a movie was good, or even that it moved them, because it’s not what they wanted, in hindsight.
#The last Jedi#I know nobody cares anymore#but I think it’s an interesting point about fandoms#they have the power to change Sonic’s design or ruin the next Star Wars movie#all because they want what they want instead of wanting what a story needs#state of the fandom#fandom#Star Wars#belief agency#Star Wars the last Jedi#Casablanca#meta#film analysis#writing
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Update on how many unique characters you’ve received?
As usual, super long list, so here we go!
These characters have two+ (2+) submissions, and are likely to be included.
Vriska Serkat
Eridan Ampora
Shiver
Kokichi Ouma
Haiji Towa
Minoru Mineta
Simon
Boston
Bill Cipher
John Gaius
Regal Farseer
Ayin
Kylo Ren
Mal
Jurgen Leitner
Merlin
Darkstalker
Kyubey
Ty Betteridge
Sasuke Uchiha
Dazai Osamu
Glenn Quagmire
Rose Quartz
Makima
c!Dream
Izzy Hands
Akio Ohtori
Katsuki Bakugo
Bramblestar
Michael
Don Quixote Doflamingo
Elias Bouchard/Jonah Magnus
Ansem the Wise
Kusaka Masato
Azula
The Metatron
Evan Hansen
Stella Goetia
Pierce Hawthorne
Le’garde
Lance Dubois
Santa Claus
Meenah Peixes / Her Imperious Condescension
Greg Heffley
Tony Stark
Donald Trump
Jace Herondale / Wayland / Lightwood / Morgenstern
Teddy / Kuma
Mr. Bungee
Julia Mazzone
Sentinel Prime
William Afton
Cullen Rutherford
Shou Tucker
Junko Enoshima
Ardyn Izunia
Sosuke Aizen
Happosai
Simon Laurent
Caillou
Ōchi Fukuchi
Jin Guanyao
Micah Bell
Cici
These characters have been submitted only once, and have a lower chance of being accepted.
Michael Scott
Detective Saracusa
Paul Von Oberstein
JJ
Box
Damian Wayne
Cersei Iannister
Shredder
Splinter
John ‘Jack’ Seward
Akane
Abyss Sibling
House
Nickel
Julie-Sue
Tim Drake
Xisuma
Dr. John ‘Jack’ Seward
Hisoka
Gra’ha Tia
Elias Ainsworth
Trishna
Erlina and Brugaves
Five Pebbles
The Entirety Of Homestuck
Willy Stampler
Miguel O’Hara
Medusa Gorgon
Gamzee Makara
Rohan Kishibe
Teruhashi Makoto
Gordon Blackwall
Rebecca Costwolds
Dio
Anakin Skywalker
Sigma Kilm
Caesar Clown
Shiki Tohno/Nanaya
Mori Ougai
Asuka
Marlon
Pencil
Touichiro Suzuki
Alexander Hamilton
Georg Weissmann
Dean Winchester
The Operator
Kromer
Scrappy Doo
Foreman Oyun
The Eleventh Doctor
Any Character From Welcome to Nightvale
Will Shuester
Marie
Silver Spoon
Jayne Cobb
Byakuya Togami
Prince Louis
Coco
Princess Daisy
Light Yagami
The Pale King
Yoshiharu Hisomu
Himiko Toga
Sebastian Mechaelias
Mystery Hunter (Jeremiah Hartley)
Muzan Kibutsuji
Clara Oswald
Ranpo Edogawa (Beast)
Heath cliff
Inspector Tobias Greyson
Roland
Huey Emmerich
Tom Wambsgans
Yuri Briar
Jacopo Bearzatti
Quiche
Alastor
Meredith Rodney McKay
Every Single Country In 1993
Cicero
Val Velocity
Jiren
Noor Pradesh
Blackbeard
Kristoph Gavin
Morris
Dan Moroboshi
Muu Kusunoki
Julia
Shen Jiu
April O’Neil (2012)
Johnny
Adam
Ronaldo
Makoto Itou
Ianthe Tridentarius
Disembodied Voice
Viren
Spamton
George Wickham
Floch
The New Ninja
Sakazuki Akainu
Petyr Baelish / Littlefinger
Childe
Wen Chao
Stormcaller
Chibiusa
Ashfur
Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd
James T. Kirk
Billy
Mikan Tsumuki
Teruteru
Orochi
Millions Knives
The Mage
Lotor
Otto Apocalypse
Sanji
Woodes Rogers
Zeke Jaeger
Dean Venture
Absalom
Aloise Trancey
Cynte
Akito Sohma
Pierre
Monokubs (Except Monodam)
Edelgard
Chrollo Lucifer
Chloe Bourgeois
Zhou Zishu
Wanderer/Scaramouche
Elon Musk
Il Dottore
Goeffry St. John
Nikola Tesla
Louie
Ogai Mori
Astarion
Mary Keay
Dr. Henry Miller
Booker
Voice In The Calm Ad On Spotify
Akechi Goro
Victor Frankenstein
Five
Riley Finn
Anyone From The Locked Tomb
Elias Ainsworth
Nefera DeNile
Angel Dust
Blitzo Buckzo
The Once-Ler
Moash
Zenos Galvus
Marvin Falsettos
Solf J. Kimblee
Father / Dwarf In The Glass
Henry the Eighth
Aranea Serkat
Bro-Strider
Caliborn / Lord English
Feferi Peixes
Skizzleman
Black Pete
Narumi
Cozy Glow
Holly Blue Agate
Every Genshin Impact Character Ever
Drew
Dio (Zero Escape)
Matou Shinji
Chris McClain
Thistleclaw
Rumpelstiltskin
Ruruka Ando
Sheldon Cooper
Buck Cluck
Valens Van Varro
Verstael Besithia
Kevin
France (Hetalia)
Tumblr Staff
Slayer
Volgin
Yumichika Ayasegawa
Roshi
Chibiusa
Akio Himemiya
Ali Lectric
Rafe Cameron
Raven Queen
Duke
Sandy
Everyone In Romeo And Juliet
Bella Swan
Haiji Senri
Tsumugi Aoba
Vivienne Medranno’s Impsona
Buzz McCallister
Eugene Coli
Live Action Buggy
Aizen Sosuke
Kyouichi Saionji
Ibara Saegusa
Yu Ziyuan
Mahiru Koizumi
The Little Palace Mistress
Eichi Tenshouin
The Old Palace Master
Rafal
Jonah Magnus
Queen Scarlet
Nanami Kiryuu
Hiyoko Saionji
God
Roger
Judo
Ken
Steven Universe
JD
#mod speaks#not a poll#most hated blorbo bracket#ask answered#I would cry#trying to tag all these characters
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With Avatar back in the news, I’ve come to the realization that the SJW Brigade does hate Mary Sues--they just call them Mighty Whiteys.
Here we have Jake Sully. As presented to us, he’s a skilled Marine veteran that undergoes three months of intensive training under the Na’vi (it’s mentioned in the narrative that he’s overworking himself and frequently almost at the point of burning out). By the end, he’s able to tame and ride Toruk, the most feared predator in the Na’vi biome, which makes him de facto leader of the united tribes. So, the criticism goes, he’s better at being a Na’vi than the Na’vi are. After all, the Na’vi train from birth to do Na’vi shit, so how could someone who only stepped foot on the planet three months ago possibly be more skilled at it than them?
This is Rey Somethingorother. She has never touched a lightsaber before, but within moments of picking one up, she’s able to defeat Kylo Ren, who has been trained in the Jedi arts (including lightsabering, obvs) pretty much since birth. Three days later, with no more training than listening to Luke Skywalker tell her the Jedi sucks, she’s again able to fight on par with Kylo Ren, defeating many of Snoke’s personal bodyguard, who you’d expect to somewhat know what they’re doing. She’s also able to lift a quarry’s worth of rocks; recall Luke struggled to lift an X-wing long after the point in his training where Rey was (namely, “Here’s what the Force is, since you’ve never even heard of it before.”)
So, you tell me: how is it unbelievable that after three months of training, Jake is pretty good at being a Na’vi, but Rey is a Jedi Knight in under five minutes and it’s sexist to find that credulous?
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It really frustrates me how little people*actually* pay attention to Rey in the sequels.
"She's a Mary Sue!" She flew once, against 2 ships, crashed into things, needed Finn's advice, couldn't turn on the shields and took enough damage to fuck up the turret.
She beat Kylo Ren, who was bleeding out, who had some difficulty with Finn, and who was very clearly not trying to kill her.
"She has no character development! No arc!"
She goes from wanting to go back to Jakku and running away from Anakin's saber to piloting alone to face off against the most powerful Sith in the galaxy. She goes from not wanting a place in the story and not wanting to take the burden, to wanting someone to tell her what her place is and ease/take the burden, to finding out she has *the* worst place in the story, to finally establishing her own place by taking the Skywalker name.
There's a lot of discussion to be had, but man, it seems like some people just tuned out during the sequels then acted like they're expert critics.
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Not that I want to attempt to do surgery on the sequel trilogy, but I think if they had rolled with Finn being the lead and not Rey, more story elements would have fallen into place organically:
Finn unknowingly being a Force-sensitive stormtrooper would have been the ultimate irony. The dude also had deep inner conflict from the get go just from being in that line of work (i.e. not pulling the trigger)
Rey already had a pretty good backstory, and having her be the Mary Sue Jedi almost undoes all that work. She could bond with Han Solo in being a gearhead, too, kind of in a father-daughter way, especially when you consider the tragedy of Ben.
Poe's alright. Like Maverick isn't much more than a hotshot pilot who gets the only girl in that sausage fest of a movie, and really Poe doesn't have to be much more than the ace pilot with some comic relief built in. Especially if you're in the "FinnPoe" camp, the Maverick parallels make it a perfect match.
This is controversial, but I will stand by the characterization of Kylo Ren. Where, a generation or so ago, people grew up with Vader being essentially the sci-fi version of Hitler's enforcer, Kylo serves as this generation's reminder that the master of the Knights of Ren has the same demeanor of a school shooter. And that is terrifying.
I could go on, but I don't want to. The movies as they exist are enough punishment.
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Apart from The Rise of Kylo Ren, I’ve noticed post TROS how many supplementary books and comics are depicting Rey as St Perfect and Kylo as an eeevillll one note bad guy.
Classic example; a comic released which shows Kylo killing a ‘brave Resistance hero’....who they chose to make not only female but black. In short, ‘look how racist and chauvinist Kylo is.’
Rey meanwhile nobly forgives a bounty hunter because ‘it’s not the Force I believe in.’
I’ve gone past anger now and instead find myself laughing at the idiots at DLF, who over three years post their ridiculous film, are still sore that cinemagoers preferred Adam’s tortured anti hero to Daisy’s tedious Mary Sue.
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So with all the talk about Aliana being a Mary Sue, and the one ask she got where she said Aliana would beat Luke easy in a fight, I have to wonder.
How do fights and fight scenes go in TSR? Like is there any tension? Are there moments were it looks like the protagonists are about to lose and are pushed to their limits? Any fights where someone takes a really huge blow and is put out of commission for a while? Or any fights where the opposition outright win?
This was inspired because I was watching show lately where this rules were VERY much in effect.
Oh boy, now that is a can of writing worms I haven't gotten to yet.
Basically, the fight scenes in TSR are... clinical, and have absolutely no stakes.
The very first fight of the story ends with Aliana and the narrator just clowning on Kylo Ren for a few paragraphed. Kylo doesn't even get a hit in.
It's basically:
Kylo Attacks, Aliana dodges and punches Kylo. Rince, repeat, end of scene.
I even noted how the scene felt like it was more about Kylo Ren being an underdog to an overwhelming power, then it was about Aliana meeting someone she can't afford to offend.
The scene then just kind of...ends with Aliana being all like "I'm not going to kill you, because... plot reasons." And she just GOES TO BED!
It's honestly the most flabbergasting conclusion to a fight I've seen, and just ruins everything in the future.
Aliana is stronger then Kylo Ren, and there is never a point in the story when she isn't.
While it is true that Aliana does get injured later, letting Kylo finally be victorious, it's doesn't have any weight to it.
She didn't lose because Kylo was stronger. She lost because Rey was about to be killed.
Her "weakness" is quite literally Rey, who, now that I think about it, is kind of treated like a damsel in distress a lot of the time.
But there isn't a single tense moment in TSR, not in the fighting scenes, and not in the relationship itself.
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After watching the video in this post, I decided to look up the script for Duel of the Fates, Colin Trevorrow and Derek Connolly’s first pass at Episode IX before Carrie Fisher’s passing rendered it unusable. While I stand by what I’ve said previously about how its ultimate message (how it’s good to be a “Gray Jedi” who uses both Light and Dark sides of the Force and thus every Jedi prior to Rey got it all wrong) pisses on Star Wars and its core philosophy of the Force and what “balance” means far more than anything J.J Abrams or Rian Johnson could ever put out, I want to bring up another flaw. See, Duel of the Fates is praised by people who loved The Last Jedi and hated The Rise of Skywalker for being a far more “natural continuation” to The Last Jedi. The question I now pose is...is it? Is it really?
I mean, in some respects it certainly is - it maintains the harsher tone, maintains certain beats like Rey having no special heritage and Rose being a central character, and isn’t afraid to risk fucking with sacred cows of the franchise’s mythos (even if they take it too far, in a way that lends a ton of credibility to every “Rey is a Mary Sue!” argument ever made, but I digress). However, look deeper and cracks begin to show to the notion that Duel of the Fates is an organic follow-up to The Last Jedi and would have satisfied everyone who loved that movie.
Yes, Rey would have stayed just a girl from nowhere with no special heritage, and one could argue that her Gray Jedi outcome fit with her trajectory in The Last Jedi where she’s basically perfect as is and doesn’t need to learn much of anything; in fact her “teachers” end up learning from her. However, the big “reveal” scene about her parents from The Last Jedi is still retconned. In The Rise of Skywalker, the retcon is that Kylo just saw what happened - Rey’s scavenger parents selling her - and assumed there was no deeper truth to it but then learns he was wrong about that. In Duel of the Fates, the retcon is that Kylo flat-out lied. He knew that Rey’s parents didn’t sell her for drinking money and were in fact hiding her...not from an assassin sent by Palpatine, but from an assassin sent by Snoke. Him. Kylo Ren. He himself killed Rey’s parents because they hid Rey from him and later lied to her that they just abandoned her. I have no idea how this works timeline-wise given that Kylo doesn’t seem that much older than Rey, but whatever. Also, Rey’s real name is “Rey Solana”. Yes, literally just “Solo” if the last “o” got taken out and the “ana” from “Organa” got put in. Um....poetry?
Speaking of Kylo Ren, The Last Jedi positioned him as the irredeemable Big Bad now that he’s Supreme Leader of the First Order. And Duel of the Fates kind of did and did not stick with that. Yes, he’s the Big Bad all the way to being the Final Boss (for a third film in a row), but his entire plotline is completely detached from the First Order he’s supposedly the Supreme Leader of. Rather than just being treated as irredeemable, damn near every good guy in the film is constantly trying to redeem him (above all Luke’s ghost, since “See you around, kid” was taken literally here instead of figuratively). And yet at the last minute, he kind of receives redemption anyway? He loses in lightsaber combat to Rey, then beats her anyway by killing her via his lifeforce-draining ability, only for Leia to contact him through the Force and tell him “Come back to the Light”....and despite everything he’s done up to this point where he has succeeded in his goal, this is somehow enough for him to immediately give his own lifeforce to Rey, resurrecting her and killing him. He did nothing good other than backtrack on something evil he’d literally just done, so I guess he isn’t redeemed, but then why does the script describe his passing as having light in his eyes and holding Rey’s hand while looking at her with love? How are we supposed to look at this? It’s beyond confusing! You can keep Kylo unredeemed or redeem him ala The Rise of Skywalker, but not both.
Finn, and Rose certainly get it better in Duel of the Fates than they do in The Rise of Skywalker, with Finn leading a massive Stormtrooper rebellion and Rose being one of the core characters instead of an extra. But there are three problems. Rose ends up largely contributing nothing beyond further social commentary and even gets captured and tortured, which doesn’t seem like it makes her starring role worth it. Finn and Rose are a romantic couple, and as it ended up John Boyega and Kelly Marie Tran had no romantic chemistry with each other. And funnily enough, The Last Jedi did not set Finn up for his Stormtrooper rebellion arc! It could have, but for some reason the version of his battle with Phasma that had build-up for this development wasn’t used in the finished film! So that’s a big whoopsie!
Poe’s arc in Duel of the Fates actively backtracks on his arc from The Last Jedi! Whereas in The Last Jedi it was positioned that his hot-headed recklessness was wrong and he had to grow as a leader by taking Leia’s example, Duel of the Fates has him in the right over Leia by pointing out “rebellion IS recklessness!” and that Leia has had her time and now she has to let Poe take charge even if she has some reservations about his gung-ho methods. Hux, meanwhile, who was positioned in The Last Jedi as scheming to betray Kylo Ren so that he can become the leader of the First Order...never does that in Duel of the Fates. He basically IS the First Order’s leader anyway since Kylo Ren is busy with his own shit, and the farthest extent his “treachery” goes is just hoping Rey and Kylo kill each other rather than take initiative himself in any way. Oh, and he’s also randomly obsessed with learning how to use the Force and collects lightsabers, one of which he commits seppuku with at the end. Yeah.
As for the other characters, there’s honestly not that much difference from what they do in The Rise of Skywalker. Luke keeps with his turnaround on how he views the Jedi and his place in the universe and assists Rey as a ghost, Leia still reaches through to her son via the Force in order to engineer his change of heart, Han is a vision that confronts his son (albeit one that fails in Duel of the Fates), Lando is reluctant to get involved but then ends up leading the cavalry in the final battle, the sidekicks are still the sidekicks and one of the droids even has their memory wiped but later restored (though it’s R2-D2 rather than C-3PO), and despite all the fan bitching there is no instrumental role played by the ghost of “Chosen One” Anakin. The only other big difference is that instead of Palpatine, a character established as a master long-term schemer with a fixation on finding a way to cheat death, returning, we have a confusing character named Tor Valum who is apparently master of ALL THE SITH which breaks the Rule of Two, hints that Darth Plagueis in his entirety was a lie, and exists as a plot device to make Kylo Ren a formidable Final Boss after having been made a joke of in the climax of the previous two films. I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather have Palpatine.
So there you have it. Not much else to say but...
#Star Wars#Duel of the Fates#The Last Jedi#The Rise of Skywalker#Opinion#Analysis#Comparison#Fandumb#Stupidity#What Could Have Been#Anti-DOTF#Anti-Duel of the Fates
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The funny part about Mary Sue is that it comes from a satirical S/tar T/rek fanfic, I think to my memory she's a fifteen year old girl who moves rapidly up the ranks and is given control of the bridge, and everybody is in love with her, and then eventually she comes down with a swift illness and dies and they name a day after her. It's actually very funny, I read it a while back, and it's not a commentary on female protagonists, it's a commentary on self-inserts... and frankly I think self-inserts can be kind of cute and silly when self-aware.
Obviously, when terms take on new meanings, you can't really control that, but I don't really like the way the term is used in the context of female protagonists... but then again I think the problem with Rey is that her wounds are emotional, her journey is emotional, it's the Heroine's Journey and that doesn't twig for audience members who are paying attention to power levels and not character development or idk, her relationship to the bad man (who is so obviously and laughably going to be redeemed, his grandaddy's redemption was the point of the OT, good fucking grief). Of course what I really don't get is how Rey being of an accepted and appropriate parentage would or could 'explain' her powers properly, because that is literally just self-inserting (I want to be the abandoned Skywalker baby who is loved by everyone!!!) and Rey not being immediately accepted by Luke or the caretakers of Ahch-To was somehow figured into the model that Rey is a Mary Sue lol. I don't know what narrative analysis is can someone help me please, btw what is a metaphor
I think what grinds my gears is that Rey is very straightforward. Rey wants her parents to be important and come back for her so she can stay a child forever -> Rey is no one and must become an adult. Rey wants an easy cause to rally behind so she doesn't confront her wounds -> Kylo Ren is whom they're fighting and he's not easy, he's half of her and he needs to come home and heal the Skywalker wound. Rey is told whomever she was waiting for on Jakku is never coming back for her, but there's someone who still can -> she immediately meets that someone in the next sequence, who even says: "Forget the droid. We have what we need." And he does
Anyway I'm going to go smash my head against a brick wall. Thanks.
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⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
I was gonna wait to write my review, but I don't wanna. I'm coming out of this fresh, and i'm livid that I didn't pick this up sooner. A few trusted reviewers slaughtered this book and seeing as they have close to the same taste as me-- I didn't read it.
Well, I'm here to tell you-- form your own opinions on things. Because I literally loved this book. Hated putting it down, thought about it when I did chores or had to work. Seriously, I loved it.
The writing isn't bad. To me Alex is solid. It reads like ya fantasy-- and that isn't bad. Grim is a kylo ren insert for me. Oro is Chris Evans, and isla is Ana De Armas.
Now let me clear up a few things-- a Starstick is just a teleportation tool. Some of the scathing reviews I've seen claim they never explain it-- they explain it and how it works multiple times in the story.
People also apparently need a map to understand where Lightlark is. Ummmmm in the middle of the surrounding other realms….
But anyway-- onto the characters. I loved them all. Honestly, they were so well written for me. I could see them all, I cried a few times, I was angry, I shouted, every visceral response you're supposed to have while reading a book-- I had. But not just that, I liked the world she created. Isla wasn't a Mary Sue, she was a badass and I loved her.
I'm so conflicted tho. Who do I love more?! It's like crimson peak. I can't pick between the good guy and the morally gray one. The only good thing about me waiting this long to read this, I only have to wait until November to read book two.
The cliffhanger wasn't terrible. We closed up main pieces of conflict before opening the door to another one. Honestly, my personal opinion, we should all read things and form our own thoughts. I personally loved this, and enjoyed every second of this high paced adventure.
#books & libraries#books and literature#booksarelife#bookshelves#booksofinstagram#book blog#book review#bookaholic#booklover#booklr#lightlark#alex aster#five star#fantasy#fantasybooktok
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