[karajorma]

Now that I have time and a good net connection, it's time to deal with the Harrington issue. Firstly, I'm not going to argue whether or not she's a Mary Sue. The phrase has multiple meanings and since this isn't fan fiction, the original one can't be used for either her or Rey. As I said before, the issue is whether she is more powerful than someone with her backstory has a right to be. The issue is whether she eclipses other characters in the ensemble. Which is a rather silly argument for a universe known as the Honorverse.

Secondly, as Goober has pointed out, even if Honor is a Mary Sue (or whatever), that doesn't mean Rey isn't.

Honor Harrington's "bad temper" is an excellent example of an informed characteristic. I defy you to name one instance where she becomes angry beyond reason or out of proportion toward (which is, one might say, the defining attribute of a bad temper, otherwise it's just a normal temper) any protagonist character. The only times she's ever angry, the objects of her scorn have been deliberately set up in the narrative to be human ****stains that deserve everything coming to them. Seriously, if you can name one counter example I will be genuinely impressed.

Klaus Hauptman is actually later revealed to be a pretty decent human being himself. Sure, in the first book he seems to be a bad guy but the book is told from Honor's point of view. Honor actually threatens to kill him as he is leaving her ship despite McKeon having already resolved the issue that brought them into conflict.

That action causes significant problems for her later and she didn't have to do it.

I did not set the bar high when I mentioned Honor Harrington. Shall we inventory the character, for those who might not be familiar following the thread?

Exotically beautiful? Check. (The phrase 'almond-shaped eyes' is practically a trademark for David Weber; she is extraordinarily tall)
Similarly cool and exotic name? Her name is literally Honor.
She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas? This one deserves a list.

• Starship command/Tactics. This one is pretty necessary, so it gets a pass by itself.
• Fleet command/Strategy. Likewise pretty necessary, but I feel like special attention should be given to her repeated descriptions as one of the best to ever live on the subject.
• Martial arts. Still believable, but once more noteworthy for being one of the universe's foremost expert on her chosen style.
• Sword fighting. O....kay? Not just good at it, either, but truly exceptional. Once defeated a grand master as a novice in a deathmatch in one stroke. No, I'm not joking.
  
• Hang gliding. Okay, it's a hobby. She's damn good at it, but hobbies are allowed.
• Piloting. She set the academy record for... I forget exactly which record she set, but she did it in a "sailplane". Honorable mention for being one of the (if not the actual) top of her class at the academy, because of course she is. She was also roomates with the Queen's sister, because of course she was.
• Teaching. Speaking of the academy, she becomes one of its finest instructors.
  
• Governance. Still believable, but definitely starting to edge into "what can't she do?" territory. She's a Duchess in her state of birth, a Steadholder (basically a fancy name for a Duchess) in her adoptive state, before that she was a Count in her state of birth awarded for an entirely different act of valor and heroism.
• Politics. Mentioned here after Governance because they're definitely distinct, and also because it's the start of the descent into ridiculousness. For someone who really hated it to start the series, she ends up being one of the cleverest and most politically astute individuals in an entire empire of billions!
• Dueling. Edging into the "why is she so good at this?" category, Honor is also the best duelist ever to take the field, at one point killing a notorious and infamous dueling assassin before he was able to raise his gun because she shot perfectly from the hip. Which leads into...
• Ancient firearms. Honor is potentially the best (and fastest) sharpshooter in the setting with literally 2,000 year old gunpowder handguns because why the hell not?
• Treecats. Edging back into "this is understandable" territory for a bit, Honor is the setting's foremost expert on Treecats. Given her upbringing, this is not surprising, but it leads into...
• Telempathy. Honor is the first human telempath in a setting where they previously did not exist. She can determine without fail when someone is lying, and sense their emotions even without her also telempathic Treecat companion. Speaking of which...
• Treecat colonization. Honor is the catalyst and enabler of Treecats spreading to other planets, because why the hell not? Again.
• Instinctive navigation. Back away from the realm of the barely understood, Honor hates math and is bad at it. Except for the part where she can determine the optimal course for a hundred thousand ton warship threading between busy travel lanes, while disabling a potential threat with her ship's propulsion system all at the same time. Oh, and did I mention she does this faster than her ship's computer? Because she does.

Well, that's a hell of a list, isn't it? Perhaps I shouldn't mention her cybernetic arm and eye, which are of course better than normal people's body parts. Or maybe her polygamous marriage to her birth country's most senior admiral and also to its most famous entertainment star? No, certainly not necessary to the point.But maybe the part where she's a genetically engineered superhumanwho can eat whatever she wants and never gain weight? Or that her homeworld was extra high gravity so she grew up stronger than everyone else just because.

I'm actually rather surprised you would attempt to argue the issue in this way. Your list is incredibly biased and could be done for a large number of characters.

For instance, if you did Superman that way, you'd go on and on about he unreasonable number of superpowers and then at the end mention that "But maybe the part where he's an alien from another planet..." as if that were yet another example of the author giving him favours.

Superman's origin is the reason for his powers just as much as Honor's genetic engineering is the reason for why she's better than most people in the same universe. If you ignore that Superman is an alien, he instantly becomes a Gary Stu.

Once you consider the fact that she is genetically engineered in a universe where most people are not, most of your list becomes points that are easily explained away. Worse though, the list is flat out wrong about a great many things. For instance,

   * Sword fighting. O....kay? Not just good at it, either, but truly exceptional. Once defeated a grand master as a novice in a deathmatch in one stroke. No, I'm not joking.

is incredibly disingenuous.

1) Honor is a highly skilled martial artist and a lot of the skills transfer.
2) She is not a novice. She has been training for months before that duel. To the point where she can challenge (but not beat) her instructor.
3) She has been training with the best swordsman on the entire planet.
4) Honor is genetically engineered to have superior reactions.
5) The style the Graysons fight with is entirely descended from an old copy of The Seven Samurai (Those of you who haven't read the books, I kid you not). Honor has access to books on actual real life samurai fighting styles, an instructor who has been reading them and used them to come up with new moves and techniques which are unknown on Grayson, and time to learn those moves herself.
6) The book explicitly states that duels using the swords are almost always a single stroke. So Honor winning in a single stroke doesn't mean anything more than that she won. The list has deliberately twisted that so it sounds like she did something uncommon by fighting a duel that ends with a single stroke.

In fact the entire list is full of examples of that sort of deliberate misrepresentation. It claims that she is one of the universe's foremost experts in a martial art but fails to mention that on her ships alone there are at least two marines better than her. Presumably then there are hundreds, if not thousands of similarly well trained marines across the fleet.

But here's the biggest reason I have a problem with your Honor Harrington vs Rey comparison. You've compared Honor as a fully trained officer across 10 or so books against a completely untrained Rey from one film.

Do you honestly believe she won't get better?

Finn is a well trained soldier. He's probably going to improve some, but given how quickly Luke was trained, and how much he improved, Finn is going to be standing still compared to Rey. If people are already calling her a Mary Sue as an untrained force user, what would she be as a Jedi Knight? Why would there be any point in having other members on her team?

[Luis Dias]

I once saw a game trailer where a Sith would bring down a whole Star Destroyer to the ground. Perhaps we're about to see Rey doing that kind of Marvel **** too. I mean, why not? Turn Star Wars into Superman vs Galactus or whatever. Man, I'm sarcastic today.

[Dragon]

Superman, as a character, is actually one of the few examples of an overpowered character done right, so he's a bad example to bring up here. He can easily be a Gary Stu if written improperly, that he isn't is mostly thanks to equally overpowered rogue gallery and his secret identity. Remember that it's not only the character's own behavior that makes them a Gary Stu/Mary Sue, but how the others react to him/her. I think that you have missed that part of the definition, which is vital. In case of Superman, his secret identity makes it clear that people only admire him because of his actual deeds, not because some magical force makes him immediately loveable.

I don't know about Honor Harrington (she seems very highly regarded, but I didn't read the books), but Rey is certainly not instantly admired by everyone. She manages to impress a few people, sure, but she doesn't really get any sort of special treatment from anyone except Finn.

I once saw a game trailer where a Sith would bring down a whole Star Destroyer to the ground. Perhaps we're about to see Rey doing that kind of Marvel **** too. I mean, why not? Turn Star Wars into Superman vs Galactus or whatever. Man, I'm sarcastic today.

Well, considering how they upped the scale with Starkiller base in TFA, it's pretty likely that they'll want to show some absurd feats of The Force. So be careful with that sarcasm, you might turn out to be right... If it keeps escalating at this rate, the 3rd movie will have characters fight be Force-throwing planets at each other.

BTW, the game was The Force Unleashed and IIRC, you get to pull that ISD out of orbit in the actual gameplay. Probably one of the more awesome moments in the SW games.

[Scotty]

Snipped because quote chains are awful.

I said I'd be impressed if you found one; I am suitably impressed.  That said, after re-reading that chapter (the book is free online; On Basilisk Station.  I consider it a good read, whatever else I may think of the series as it progressed) Hauptman had decided Honor was an enemy of his long before she made her threat.  I'll concede it's a point where her anger gets the better of her, but I still think given the clear narrative decision that Hauptman had to be the Bad Guy for this scene that it wasn't out of proportion or reason after he'd threatened her family over it.

You're using "Mary Sue" in a hugely different way than I am, if the only criteria is "better than her backstory suggests".  You can justify anything with a little bit of background, and I find that criteria wanting.  I think a far better criteria for such judgement is to treat the character as if a fanfic main character.  That is to say, what if the author hadn't written this character, and the character was instead fan fiction?  Would it be justified, or would it be patently stupid?

Lady Dame Honor Stephanie Alexander-Hamilton, Steadholder Harrington, Duchess Harrington, Countess White Haven.  Brilliant strategist, tactician, politician, teacher, martial artists, swordswoman, marksman, record setting sailplane pilot, telempath.  Began her career by being so good she got the home fleet admiral pissed off at her for killing him in an exercise (this is literally on the back cover of the first book).  Banished to the boonies, where she uncovered and stopped a secret evil Haven attempt to subvert the system.  Next, she uncovered and stopped another secret evil Haven plot to subvert another system.  Then, she decisively crushed the first evil Haven attack against her home country.  After that, the best duelist in the kingdom killed her lover, so she out-dueled him and got revenge.  Disgraced, she was given command of a squadron of armed freighters and uncovered and stopped a secret evil Haven plot to subvert a series of systems.  She ended up next in her adoptive country, where she is also a major political figure, and uncovered and stopped a secret evil domestic plot to subvert the system, and then decisively crushed the evil Haven attack against her adoptive country.  Then she gets captured, oh no!  But it's okay, she engineers the largest prison break ever and decisively crushes the evil Haven counter-attack, then escapes back to her home country where she gets more medals and titles.  She was injured, but that doesn't matter because she got awesome new cybernetic parts that are better than the old ones.  Along the way she discovers she can read emotions, so no one can ever lie to her again without her knowing.

The quality of the prose might be there, book to book, but the quality of the character is not.  She is the best at whatever she chooses to do, reinforced by how everyone who could even be arguably better than her dies when it's her turn to come up (with the singular exception of SGM Babcock).  Her setbacks are never her fault (there might be a few, scattered across 14+ books), and when they're more than merely inconvenient they end up being blessings in disguise that further catapult her career and skills to preposterous heights.

Contrast to Rey.  No titles, no medals.  Grew up on a desert planet abandoned by her parent(s), scavenged parts and machinery in order to survive.  Encounters Finn and BB-8, hops into the Falcon's pilot seat, and proceeds to scrape it across the desert floor for five minutes () before she pulls a maneuver that would have gotten them all killed if Finn hadn't been Johnny-on-the-Spot with the turret.  They escape and Rey fixes a mechanical problem on the Falcon, but are picked up by Han Solo, who is immediately confronted by hostile gangs.  Rey immediately ****s everything up and nearly gets them all killed.  Fifteen minutes later, she wanders where she's not supposed to, and is frightened by spectral visions after touching Luke's lightsaber.  She flees the premises, and is captured with contemptuous ease by Kylo Ren when the First Order arrives.  She manages to resist Ren's force assisted interrogation, and we learn she's strong in the force (no one is surprised).  She mind-tricks one Stromtrooper (and nearly fails that, too) and escapes.  Later, after Ren has already been shot and stabbed on separate occasions in the last ten minutes, she picks up the lightsaber and fights him.  She sucks at it.  When he pushes her up against a cliff she calls on the force and dispatches Ren.

Granted, the exact source of Rey's strength in the force has not been explained, but neither do I think it needed to be in this movie.  Rey gets by in the entire movie by being just lucky enough and just skilled enough to not die.  It's not like she's pulling off impossible maneuvers in the Falcon, then landing to waltz down the ramp and gun down a dozen stormtroopers and beat Ren's ass in a lightsaber duel.

[Luis Dias]

I don't know this Harrington Sue, and I think it's meaningless to the point at hand. So what if there are countless other characters that we can say are a lot more of a Mary Sue than Rey? It's like saying the Sun isn't big because there are bigger stars. Come on.

[Scotty]

I think having a good example of an actual Mary Sue is a helpful comparison considering the considerable disparity in personally accepted definitions of "Mary Sue", as evidenced by Kara's criteria above.

[Mikes]

I don't know this Harrington Sue, and I think it's meaningless to the point at hand. So what if there are countless other characters that we can say are a lot more of a Mary Sue than Rey? It's like saying the Sun isn't big because there are bigger stars. Come on.

The worst part about Harrington imho is that Weber planned to let her die tragically in a completely nonheroic way that you didn't see coming... and then caved in to fans and didn't do it. lol.

No wait ... that doesn't top the barely half a page casual genocide of a planets native population through carpet bombing in order to move the plot forward. (You see the bad guys gave them (rather primitive) weapons and riled them up with lies, which made wiping them all out "ok", kaboom, done, problem ... "solved", on to the multiple page space battle lol.)

Those Primitives just shoulda known better than to wave rifles at the Royal Space Navy with it's assault gunships I guess ...  they totally deserved it! (DUH!).


Be that as it may ... I would say overall Honor Harrington definitely does have it's Mary Sue "moments", but she's not a complete Sue all the time. Definitely huge author projection however down to specific quirks she shares with Weber like that love for hot chocolate etc.

[Luis Dias]

I think having a good example of an actual Mary Sue is a helpful comparison considering the considerable disparity in personally accepted definitions of "Mary Sue", as evidenced by Kara's criteria above.

I disagree with your characterization and the value of the comparison itself. There's no "actual" Mary Sue, a Mary Sue is something we call to an overpowered character that does too many right things. I don't care that you can bring about some character from some novel and say "See, that one is a *real* Mary Sue, she does all these amazing things!", when what is being discussed is if this one counts as one of them or not.

IOW, the discussion is whether if Rey is a Mary Sue, *not* if she's the biggest one. No one ever did that latter assertion. So, no, the comparison is not apt. It's like saying that a guy from a regional league in soccer doesn't play football, because you just look at Lionel Messi and how much more of a player he is! I don't care. That wasn't the point. The point is that the way she's written is over the top in this manner in this context in these particular ways in the Star Wars universe.

[Scotty]

IOW, the discussion is whether if Rey is a Mary Sue, *not* if she's the biggest one. No one ever did that latter assertion. So, no, the comparison is not apt. It's like saying that a guy from a regional league in soccer doesn't play football, because you just look at Lionel Messi and how much more of a player he is! I don't care. That wasn't the point. The point is that the way she's written is over the top in this manner in this context in these particular ways in the Star Wars universe.

While the flow of the thread may not have gone the way I intended with that particular example, I still think the example and comparison are apt.  I really doubt Honor Harrington is the biggest Sue, either.  The point, as it pertains to this thread, is to give an example of a Sue and explain the ways in which Rey does not fit that definition.  It's a material point against Kara's usage, which I emphatically disagree with (especially since Rey's relative power compared to her background is not apparent given how much we still don't know about her).

When the discussion started, I was fully prepared to explain how Rey knowing how to do X, Y, and Z suspiciously well wasn't being a Sue.  Having watched the movie five or six times in the last week (the blu ray came out last week ), I quickly found my opinion of Rey changing from "She is justified in being good at X, Y, and Z" to "She's not really that great at X and Y, just good enough to not get killed."

[Luis Dias]

As I said, that's the incorrect approach. It's like saying Messi does hat tricks and runs 10km per game, etc., and then demand any other player meets that demand for us to call them "soccer players". It's not how it works in logical terms. IOW, by positing this example you're making a strawman and then use it to dethrone Rey from the definition.

I completely disagree with this argumentative approach.

[Scotty]

If someone tries to tell me a motorcycle is a car, I'm going to provide them with an example of a car and point out the differences and characteristics, not try to construct for them a correct picture of either a motorcycle or a car from the ground up.  Both of them fit the definition "internal combustion engine driven wheeled vehicle" but there's a significant difference between them.  Similarly, both Honor and Rey are certainly science fiction characters, but there's a significant difference involved.

It's also not the only thing I've been doing.  I haven't been putting all my argumentative eggs in one basket.

Edited to add clarity.

[Luis Dias]

No, that doesn't cut it, because you didn't do this. You picked a particular car, like say a McLaren and then used it to contrast with my Opel Corsa to prove that what I have is not a car. What if I have a Tesla? Is Tesla not a car? Well, according to your own made up definition, apparently it is not. See what I mean?

[Scotty]

Well, technically "internal combustion engine driven wheeled vehicle" does qualify as a valid descriptor for both of the things I mentioned, which was not intended to be 'car' at all.   But I do see your point.

Fortunately, it's still tangential to Rey.  She's an expert at fixing things, which is not extraordinary.  She managed to fly the Falcon while either crashing into buildings or dragging the fuselage against the ground no fewer than three times.  She demonstrated the worst blaster accuracy of any of the main characters (yes, seriously).  She has successfully mind tricked one (1) stormtrooper (and nearly failed), resisted Ren's force interrogation once, and she has successfully influenced the path of one (1) small cylindrical object with telekinesis (the direction of travel to both Rey and Ren was the same, so it's not particularly fair to call that a contested attempt).  She managed to defeat Ren with a lightsaber after he had been shot and stabbed, and while he was not trying to kill her.  While clearly a quick learner, this is still not a particularly impressive Jedi resume.  It's also something that has been deliberately set up to be explained in following movies.  Obviously so.  None of this adds up to "Mary Sue".

[Luis Dias]

Well I beg to differ, and let's agree to disagree.

[BrotherBryon]

I think I'll be content as long as there is no more hilariously stupid and impractical tech like buzz droids.

[karajorma]

I think having a good example of an actual Mary Sue is a helpful comparison considering the considerable disparity in personally accepted definitions of "Mary Sue", as evidenced by Kara's criteria above.

I have repeatedly said I'm not discussing whether or not Rey is a Mary Sue. What I am interested in discussing is whether she is overpowered.

I really don't know how to explain it more clearly than that.

Superman, as a character, is actually one of the few examples of an overpowered character done right, so he's a bad example to bring up here. He can easily be a Gary Stu if written improperly, that he isn't is mostly thanks to equally overpowered rogue gallery and his secret identity.

You've completely missed the point I was making Dragon. I didn't say that Superman was a Gary Stu. I said if you do a hatchet job of listing his powers (as was done with Harrington) you can also make him look like one.

[qwadtep]

And as we all know, flying a crop duster biplane does qualify you to hop into an F-16 and do precision bombing.

For what it's worth, it's explained somewhere or other in the massive tome of Star Wars fluff that the Skyhopper is far faster and more maneuverable than an atmospheric craft has any business being, and that Luke did in fact crash his which is why by ANH he can only sit around in the garage making pew-pew noises with a scale model. It works out though, since it's repeatedly if vaguely referenced in-film (It'll be just like Beggar's Canyon back home!)

TFA screwed up by not including any hints to Rey's flight simulator experience. Though that begs the question of how someone little better than a slave got her hands on a flight simulator sufficient to teach her to fly the Falcon. Maybe that Star Destroyer was carrying seized copies of Rogue Squadron?

[Det. Bullock]

And as we all know, flying a crop duster biplane does qualify you to hop into an F-16 and do precision bombing.

For what it's worth, it's explained somewhere or other in the massive tome of Star Wars fluff that the Skyhopper is far faster and more maneuverable than an atmospheric craft has any business being, and that Luke did in fact crash his which is why by ANH he can only sit around in the garage making pew-pew noises with a scale model. It works out though, since it's repeatedly if vaguely referenced in-film (It'll be just like Beggar's Canyon back home!)

TFA screwed up by not including any hints to Rey's flight simulator experience. Though that begs the question of how someone little better than a slave got her hands on a flight simulator sufficient to teach her to fly the Falcon. Maybe that Star Destroyer was carrying seized copies of Rogue Squadron?

Imperials had flight simulators too, she probably scavenged one from the destroyer and kept it for herself.
And besides that, Rogue Squadron isn't a simulator, X-wing vs Tie Fighter is more plausible.

[Luis Dias]

And as we all know, flying a crop duster biplane does qualify you to hop into an F-16 and do precision bombing.

For what it's worth, it's explained somewhere or other in the massive tome of Star Wars fluff that the Skyhopper is far faster and more maneuverable than an atmospheric craft has any business being, and that Luke did in fact crash his which is why by ANH he can only sit around in the garage making pew-pew noises with a scale model. It works out though, since it's repeatedly if vaguely referenced in-film (It'll be just like Beggar's Canyon back home!)

TFA screwed up by not including any hints to Rey's flight simulator experience. Though that begs the question of how someone little better than a slave got her hands on a flight simulator sufficient to teach her to fly the Falcon. Maybe that Star Destroyer was carrying seized copies of Rogue Squadron?

Also, we do have the knowledge of a deleted scene where Luke was discussing his piloting career with one of his friends at the start of the movie. He then finds his pilot friend at the rebel base and compliments him (that scene wasn't deleted, and a few people found it strange for the setup for it was deleted).

[The E]

I mentioned this in another thread on the topic, but to reiterate: IMHO, when it comes to establishing how good a pilot both Rey and Luke are, there is very little difference between the films (yes, I know the EU existed. I don't care, this is only about what's actually in the released versions of the films). In the entirety of ANH, there are 2 scenes establishing that Luke has an interest in piloting (him playing with that model, and a line of dialogue he has in the Falcon), and exactly one scene where a non-Luke character confirms that Luke actually has experience (IIRC, there's a scene with Darklighter to that effect shortly before they launch from Yavin).

I don't know. That's not a lot of establishing for what should be a fairly important plot point; it's actually only necessary in order to head off plausibility questions later (i.e. "Why exactly did they give that guy a starfighter?"). In TFA, yes, we do not have any exposition to that effect; what we do have is Rey making a beeline toward the Falcon and firing it up. In other words, we are shown, not told, that Rey knows how starships work. For me, that's enough; I do not require a detailed backstory for why Rey has "Starship Piloting" on her character sheet when she's clearly a Level 4 Scavenger.