10 Reasons Rey Is Absolutely Not A Mary Sue

Summary Rey Skywalker has been accused of being a Mary Sue, a character who is overly powerful and skilled with little explanation.

There are several reasons why Rey can't be considered a Mary Sue, and Star Wars has done a good job of explaining how she became so powerful.

Rey also doesn't fit the Mary Sue criteria because she isn't a perfect hero: she has many flaws and faced several problems that she couldn't immediately solve.

Rey Skywalker received huge backlash for having unjustified power in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, but in reality, she couldn't be further from a "Mary Sue." Rey was one of the most powerful Jedi ever, and as such, she had a huge effect on the Star Wars movies. It seems her strength, and her importance to the franchise, will only continue to grow, considering she will be the main character of the upcoming New Jedi Order movie. While Rey is looking to the future, there's still some darkness in her past that needs to be addressed.

In literary terms, a Mary Sue is usually a female character who has several unearned or unjustified advantages due to their writing. Mary Sues are often skilled at everything they do, have incredible powers with no explanation, have no character flaws or weaknesses, are liked by everyone, and are generally perfect in every way. Several Star Wars viewers have accused Rey of being a Mary Sue due to her ability to quickly master the Force, defeat Kylo Ren, and save the galaxy. Despite the accusations, Rey's powers and journey are very well explained, and there are 10 major reasons she stands apart from the Mary Sue trope.

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10 Rey Has Huge Potential In The Force

She's the granddaughter of the most powerful Sith in the galaxy

A person's lineage plays a major role in Star Wars, and Rey's ancestry was similarly important to her character. It was revealed in The Rise of Skywalker that Rey's father descended from Palpatine, giving her an enormous legacy of power in the Force. Rey was the culmination of Project Necromancer, and the amount of potential she had to wield the Force was so great that she was the only person in the galaxy capable of containing Palpatine's essence. That legacy certainly set her up to have the power she displayed in the sequel trilogy.

The idea that a person's potential with the Force directly grants them power over it them is also not new to Star Wars; it's been a feature of the franchise since the beginning. Luke Skywalker benefited from his legacy as the son of Anakin, and that granted him tremendous powers, even before he began his training. Even Grogu was capable of fantastic Force feats from an extremely early age. Rey may be especially powerful, but the justification of her connection to the Force was not created specially for her.

9 Rey Was Very Inexperienced At First

Her first duel with Kylo Ren was sloppy, and she barely survived

Despite her Force potential, Rey didn't start out as a tremendous Jedi. In her first duel with Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens, he was a much more skilled duelist than her, which was clearly shown in the fight. Rey was retreating for almost the entire fight, and she was barely able to escape with her life. Her use of the lightsaber also showed her inexperience, as she swung it wildly and without the signs of training a Jedi normally had. Even her piloting skills were undeveloped, as she nearly crashed the Millennium Falcon the first time she flew it.

Contrary to the Mary Sue accusations, Rey did not simply have some impressive, inexplicable power in The Force Awakens. If her duel had gone on any longer, Rey likely would have died on Starkiller Base. The only reason she did survive was because of her connection to the Force, a part of her character that has a reasonable explanation. Her inexperience directly contradicts the part of the Mary Sue trope that says the main character is instantly good at everything they do.

8 Rey Had Plenty Of Character Flaws She Overcame

Rey experienced considerable growth over the course of the trilogy

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One of the hallmarks of a Mary Sue is that the character has no flaws, and therefore nothing to change or overcome. That, however, is blatantly untrue in Rey's case. From the very beginning, Rey was shown to have major character flaws. In The Force Awakens she was naive, gullible, over-enthusiastic, and wildly unsure of herself. By the time of The Rise of Skywalker, she had overcome many of those flaws, but she had to work very hard to do so.

Rey's character flaws directly oppose the Mary Sue trope. While they held her back in the earlier movies, they also painted her as a three-dimensional and well-developed character. Rather than simply being good at everything, the Star Wars sequel trilogy very clearly displayed how Rey struggled with many things, and those issues caused real consequences for her story.

7 Kylo Ren Was Never Going To Win Their First Duel

He had several disadvantages working against him and weakening him

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Kylo Ren's defeat was as much about his own weakness as it was about Rey's strength.

Another reason Kylo Ren didn't defeat Rey in their first duel is because he had the odds stacked against him from the very beginning. Kylo Ren had been shot, he was injured and bleeding, and while that injury did fuel his rage, it also weakened him just before the duel. He had also just killed his father, Han Solo, which clearly caused him emotional distress and clouded his mind. Additionally, Rey had several advantages over Kylo Ren, as he underestimated her, and she was fighting for her survival, while he was just trying to win.

Kylo Ren was never going to defeat Rey in The Force Awakens. Even Finn, a non-Force-sensitive person with no training, was able to defend himself for a considerable amount of time. If Kylo Ren couldn't even defeat Finn easily, then beating someone with an extremely strong connection to the Force would have been impossible. Kylo Ren's defeat was as much about his own weakness as it was about Rey's strength.

6 Rey Didn't Win Her First Duels Either

None of her early fights were decisive victories, they were mostly stalemates

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While Kylo Ren was defeated in his first duel with Rey, she also didn't emerge victorious. She did manage to wound Kylo Ren, but that was far from a triumph. All Rey truly won from her duel was her survival, and she still had a long way to go before she would become a skilled enough Jedi to find a decisive victory. Even her later duels in The Last Jedi could hardly be considered victories. The majority of them were small skirmishes between Rey and Kylo Ren, and were a far cry from a life or death battle.

A big reason Rey is accused of being a Mary Sue is because she beat Kylo Ren in her first time ever using a lightsaber. Rey barely beat him, though, and Kylo Ren was still able to come back and cause problems for the rest of the trilogy. That's hardly the type of victory a Mary Sue would be expected to achieve.

5 Rey Drew Power (& Knowledge) From The Force Dyad

The Force Dyad gave Rey power very few Jedi had ever possessed

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Another critique Rey faced was that there was seemingly no explanation for why she was so much more powerful than all the Jedi who came before her. Except, there was such an explanation, and the sequels very clearly detailed it. Rey was so powerful because she was part of a Force Dyad, a connection between the light and dark sides of the Force that strengthened both sides. She seemed different from other Jedi because she was different: she had access to both sides of the Force.

Through the Force Dyad, Rey had access to skills other Jedi only dreamed of, such as the ability to Force heal others. It also allowed her to gain knowledge from her connection to Kylo Ren, which only improved her skills. That part of the connection also gave her access to the dark side, which artificially increased her fighting prowess. The Force Dyad helped Rey along at every step of her journey, from her first fight with Kylo Ren to her last fight against Palpatine.

4 The Force Has Always Been Strange In Beginners

Every Skywalker has been extremely talented in the Force, even without training

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Since the very beginning of Star Wars, the Skywalkers have been performing miraculous Force feats with little to no training. In A New Hope, Luke used the Force, which he knew very little of, to nail a nearly impossible shot that more skilled pilots had missed and destroy the Death Star. In The Phantom Menace, Anakin used his Force-enhanced reflexes to win the pod race, something that was thought of as physically impossible for a human. Rey using the Force as a beginner to (barely) win a simple lightsaber duel pales in comparison.

Anakin and Luke's incredible Force feats weren't considered unrealistic, and Rey's shouldn't be either. Those accomplishments were a shorthand to display just how powerful each character was with the Force, and Rey's victory over Kylo Ren functioned in the same way. Showing a beginner that is incredibly gifted is not new to Star Wars, and it doesn't serve as evidence of Rey being a Mary Sue.

3 Rey Was Limited By Her Naïveté & Inexperience

Kylo Ren was easily able to trick and manipulate Rey

One of the biggest challenges Rey faced in the sequel trilogy came from within herself. For much of the trilogy, Rey was an extremely naive and insecure person, and her enemies used that to her detriment. In The Last Jedi, Kylo Ren capitalized on one of Rey's character flaws, her need to be somebody, and manipulated her by dangling the truth about her parents in front of her face. That caused Rey to act rashly on several occasions, and it brought her closer to joining him in the dark side than she had ever gotten before.

Unlike a Mary Sue, Rey faced several problems she couldn't immediately overcome. In addition to Kylo Ren's goading, Rey's insecurity also held her back from her true potential by keeping her from accepting the Skywalker legacy. The entire sequel trilogy was about Rey rising up to accept the legendary Skywalker name, and the only thing that kept her from doing that right away was her lack of confidence. A Mary Sue would never have had such a problem.

2 Rey Went Through Extensive Training

Much of the trilogy is dedicated to Rey's practice and training with skilled Jedi

One of Rey's best defenses against Mary Sue allegations is that she went through rigorous training to become as powerful as she was. She trained under Luke for a long stretch of time in The Last Jedi, and in The Rise of Skywalker, she spent the better part of a year learning from Leia. Even before her Jedi training, Rey was shown to have trained with her quarterstaff, which certainly helped her adapt to using a lightsaber. The accusation that her skill with lightsabers and the Force was unearned simply makes no sense, given her extensive training with some of the most powerful Jedi ever.

Rey's level of training serves as an even better justification for her power when compared to Luke's training. In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke had only trained with two people: Obi-Wan Kenobi and Yoda. His training with Obi-Wan lasted the duration of the flight to the Death Star, and his training with Yoda took place over the course of about a month. Despite how little guidance he received, Luke was never accused of being poorly written for being able to hold his own against Darth Vader.

1 Rey Had Help At Every Turn

She had some of the most talented people in the galaxy as her allies

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Rey would still be an inconsequential scrapper on Jakku if she didn't get some help along the way.

Another major reason Rey doesn't fit the criteria of a Mary Sue is because she never could have accomplished what she did without help. Throughout the trilogy, Rey enlisted the help of some of the most skilled people in the galaxy, including Jedi like Luke and Leia, pilots like Han and Poe, soldiers like Chewbacca and Finn, and even more unlikely allies like Kylo Ren and BB-8. Without Kylo Ren, for example, Rey could never have defeated Snoke or Palpatine. She wouldn't have even defeated Kylo Ren if Chewbacca and Finn hadn't first weakened him. All of Rey's major accomplishments wouldn't have been possible without their contributions.

Rey's dependence on her friends for help is antithetical to the Mary Sue trope. A true Mary Sue wouldn't need any help at all, as they would be so powerful and capable that they could do it all themselves. Rey, on the other hand, would still be an inconsequential scrapper on Jakku if she didn't get some help along the way. Rey is far from a Mary Sue, and the Star Wars sequel trilogy proves it outright.

Source: Lightspeed