Feminism

The Force Awakens, Mary Sue & Female Wish Fulfillment Tropes

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, I used to write a lot of pop culture meta. Before I was a science nerd I was a different sort of nerd, one created in the smashing together of advanced English Literature classes and pop culture genre storytelling. Then I was invited to guest host a podcast and the science obsession started to elbow out all the other stuff on my to do list.

But they say you never forget how to ride the bike, so let’s dust ‘er off and take her for a spin around Star Wars: The Force Awakens. You should consider this your official spoiler warning.

Female & Exceptional; or, Cue The Fucking “Mary Sue” Chorus

While Star Wars is an ensemble cast, the story focused primarily on one person’s journey, with the other characters’ arcs being secondary. In the original trilogy, the focus was Luke’s arc. In the prequels, the focus was Anakin’s.

It’s clear after watching The Force Awakens that the focus of the next trilogy will be Rey. Her story was the primary driver of this movie, and – if the pattern continues – should continue to be the driver of the next two in this trilogy. In our ensemble cast, she’s arguable our main character.

And so, it should come as literally no surprise when, as the hero of our piece, she follows the pattern the Star Wars universe has established in the previous two trilogies for their lead protagonist: an exceptional person who comes from humble origins, then rises to claim and wield great power.

But Rey is female, she is newly at the head of a major franchise beloved by many, and so she must be dismissed. And these days the cool, hip way to dismiss a female character you don’t like is by calling her a Mary Sue.

Oh. Fuck. Off.

The Star Wars universe canon is populated by a large number of exceptional people, who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, who have access to exceptional abilities, learning curves, and skills. Look at all the exceptionally people in the movies: Anakin, Obi-Wan, Qui Gon, Yoda, Leia, Han, Palpatine, Amidala, even R2D2 for god sakes. This doesn’t even include the animated series – which has even more stories of exceptional people – or the extended universe of books.

These stories have always been about exceptional people, so it stands to reason the main characters of the current movie are all going to be exceptional, especially the ones who have access to the Force. To point at this one character and say “no no, she’s TOO exceptional” given the established pattern is just absolute bullshit.

three-heros-of-star-wars

And let’s talk about the precise ways in which she is exceptional. She’s a great mechanic and exceptional pilot. You know who else was both of those things? Anakin Skywalker. And while I don’t know what Luke’s mechanic skills were, it was clear from the beginning he was an ace pilot. Rey speaks Wookie and Droid. So does Luke. Anakin spoke Droid and at least two other alien languages as a young boy on Tatoonie.

Rey is also a Force user with a seemingly super fast learning curve. You know who else had a ridiculous Force learning curve? Anakin Skywalker. This fact about him is more or less what the entire set of prequel trilogies is about. And let’s talk about Luke’s learning curve: he gets good enough to take on Anakin in just a couple of years, with only a little bit of training from Yoda compared to the years of formal, Jedi Academy and padawan training Anakin had.

If anything, what we may be seeing in Rey – especially if one of her parents is a Skywalker – is a deliberate compounding of Force ability through the generations. With every successive generation, the ability gets stronger and more innate.

cailey-flemingAlso, for what it’s worth, remember that Rey was dropped on Jakku as an 7 or 8 year old girl (who we see in flashback) and was likely memory-wiped, given she doesn’t remember her life before Jakku. We also know Luke Skywalker was training Jedi before he went AWOL. It is likely, given what we know, that Rey was one of the students under Luke’s tutelage. During the Force Awakens what we might have been seeing is Rey re-discovering an ability that has already had some training boosting it, and is accessing that training in the same way someone who hasn’t played a piano in years still has the muscle-memory in place to pull off a reasonable tune.

Fine, Let’s Talk About Mary Sue

First of all, the definition of what a Mary Sue is and isn’t has become one of the most widely contested and oft-returned to conversations of wider fandom. It may be the most well-discussed idea to have ever come out of fandom culture: there are hundreds of thousands of words dedicated to trying to understand Mary Sue. To pin her down, unfold her parts, and examine her existence, value, problems, and impact.

Many of these discussions are extremely nuanced and well-considered. More people interested in trying to understand the layers of cultural baggage, stereotyping, and tokenism of women in media could do a lot worse than diving into the surprising depths the Mary Sue conversation is trying to unravel.

And there’s a lot to unravel. The term “Mary Sue” was coined and gained traction because it describes a very specific and hugely common trope in fanfiction. The author inserts a female character designed to represent their perfect self into an established canon universe, and this character becomes the gravitational force in the story, drawing toward it all favoured canon characters and pushing away all disliked canon characters. This creates a new, optimized universe with the author’s stand in – this idealized, exceptionalized version of herself – as the new central figure the universe revolves around. And in this shiny new reorganized universe, our author insert gets to be the person she wishes she could be and do the things she wishes she could do: be the hero and get the guy.

This was and still is an extremely common genre of fanfiction. And that’s OK. We read this type of fanfiction for the exact same reason we read a trashy romance novel, watch a soap opera, or enjoy a chick flick. Fantasy is fun. It’s normal. It relies on cliches and tropes because they’re good, reliable shorthand ways to hand-wave off the setup stuff we’re not really there for so we can get to and enjoy the fantasies we signed on for.

One of the reasons girls and women write a lot of this type of fanfiction is because these fantasies are not well-served by mainstream media in the same way male wish-fulfillment fantasies are. If we’re looking for straight-up romance, then there’s a lot to choose from. But as soon as we start looking for hero narratives that star a female character, the well dries up pretty quickly.

There are plenty of wish-fulfillment stories out there for men, our culture is awash with them. We find them on television, in movies, in video games, and in books. Boys and men who come from an ordinary life, are swept up in adventure, are bestowed with superpowers, extreme abilities, or suddenly important talents, become the driving force of the story, take on the mantel of hero, and ultimately win the day. Often they get the girl. Sometimes multiple girls. Many of them aren’t particularly well-written, but sometimes quality isn’t the point. Their purpose is not to inspire as great literature, but to respond to a particular set of common desires and fantasies.

So called “Mary Sue” stories do the same thing. Some of the cliches within this trope reveal the particular ways this genre serves its targeted female audience. For example, Mary Sue is instantly liked by everyone she meets, except for those people she, herself, dislikes. This is a cliche that doesn’t appear nearly as often in male wish fulfillment stories, but is practically required in the female equivalent. It’s exposed here as an underlying value and desire of many girls and women: the desire to be liked. Female wish-fulfillment stories allow their readers to inhabit a character who is nearly universally well-liked and respected, but who can also control and wield great power unapologetically without sacrificing that status in her community. When you consider the tightrope women walk in real-life school and business contexts to be something between “confident” and “bitchy”, this mixture of narrative elements makes a lot more sense.

And One More Thing: Dismissing The Teenage Girl In The Room

The Mary Sue conversation, even in fannish contexts, isn’t without its own baggage. The term “Mary Sue” is inherently connected to frustrating over-use, to author-insertion, wish fulfillment, and – most importantly – to poor quality writing, both the act itself and to ignorance in the ability to recognize the writing is of poor quality. It is regularly used to negate and dismiss what is often the first creative writing attempts of the author, who may be writing and sharing writing with an audience for the first time, who is often young (usually between 10 – 16), and is a short hand to say “ignore this, it’s junk, it was written by a lonely teenage girl”.

Many fanfic pieces with similar character tropes and cliches written by older fanfic authors or male fanfic authors often isn’t dismissed this way. The subtext of the term implies that something written by young girls is valueless, hopeless, and should be made fun of. Never mind the same character tropes appear in mainstream “professional” narratives in male characters all the time, and that most people’s first forays into creative writing often include very similar cliches.

This dismissal should be familiar to you: it’s very similar to the way we dismiss soap operas, romance novels, and chick flicks. In many ways, the term Mary Sue is a double-dismissal: wielded by “popular” fan writers in these groups, it dismisses a sub-genre of a genre that is already judged as valueless by our wider culture. In many ways, the derogatory use of the term “Mary Sue” within female fandom is an example of how ingrained sexism is within our culture. Even in our “safe spaces” some people are more safe than others.

Rachelle Saunders

Rachelle is the producer and one of the hosts of "Science for the People", a syndicated radio show and podcast that broadcasts weekly across North America. It explores the connections between science, pop culture, history, and politics. By day she slings code as a web developer and listens to an astonishing number of podcasts.

Related Articles

7 Comments

  1. Rachelle Saunders,

    I have to admit the whole anger over a women in a fictional universe being strong and able to handle herself is really something.

    However, If you think the reaction from the “manosphere” to The Force Awakens was bad, just look at how upset the racist idiots were over Fin being black.

    White Power Morans: Jews Stoled Our American Star Wars And Gived It To The Blacks!
    http://wonkette.com/595107/white-power-morans-jews-stoled-our-american-star-wars-and-gived-it-to-the-blacks

  2. There are plenty of wish-fulfillment stories out there for men, our culture is awash with them.

    Excellent article. Love this point especially.

    The reality that many male heroes of mainstream, critically-acclaimed productions are Mary Sues seems to have escaped the notice of so many who scoff at Rey. It is so common, it goes without notice by most.

    The other bullshit (pardon me) argument that I’ve heard is that Rey will create an unrealistic belief in women that they can ever (ever, EVER) defeat a man in any type of combat. After Rey, apparently, young girls might be foolish enough to not be afraid. The lack of awareness in the people making these comments is mind-boggling.

    1. Let’s be honest here: Mary Sue is a trope. Tropes are not inherently bad or good. Tropes are storytelling tools, no more. Some tropes can be problematic because of their implications (Eugenics was a popular applied phlebotinum in the 20s and 30s, but for some reason, classical eugenics disappeared from science fiction in 1945…), and some tropes are discredited by advances in science (civilizations on Mars), technology (so many problems which could be solved by a cell phone…), or politics (anything about the Soviet Union set in this century). But at the end of the day, tropes are tools.

  3. On the topic of Mary Sue, are we forgetting this whole franchise was created by George Lucas? I mean, if we’re really going there, we might as well start with the iconic Sueish trait.

    Personally my biggest problem with the movie was Poe. Specifically his deus ex machina survival. Show, JJ, don’t tell.

  4. The issue with Star Wars the Force Awakens is not that the main character is a Female, it’s due to the fact that she is perfect at everything and that is the very definition of a ” Mary Sue”. If Rey was a Male, we would call him a ” Marty Stu”, it has nothing to do with gender, but bad script writing.

    One of the many things that draws people into a character is how relate able they are, and in order to have a relate able character, that character has to show some kind of weakness, and must have a story/progression arc that we the viewer follow them through. Rey has no story arc, Rey has no weaknesses, Rey is simply perfect at everything and what she doesn’t know she can perfect in a matter of minutes. Because of this, we the viewers feel that the main character, Rey, is in no immediate danger. This is why movies that have a Mary Sue or a Marty Stu don’t do well, who cares about the main protagonist if the main protagonist is immortal,perfect, and everyone loves them.

    Let’s compare Rey to a classic Star Wars Female character, Princess Leia. Leia is a more immersive character, and in my opinion a stronger, more believable character. Leia saves Luke and Han multiple times, kicks butt, takes control, yet she shows her humanity from time to time, she exhibits weakness. Above all else, when Leia gets knocked down, she picks herself up which is a great message to be sending to not only young girls, but to young boys as well. What message does Rey send to young Girls? Don’t accept help from anyone especially Men, you are perfect and flawless and you don’t need to work to perfect anything in your life. Also Rey sets a set of standards that is unrealistic for anyone.

    Leia is a very popular Star Wars character not because she donned the iconic slaver outfit, it’s because she was a strong, realistic, butt kicking, Female character that never gave up. One of my favorite scenes with Leia is when she got shot in the arm in episode 6 when she was defending the bunker against the Storm Troopers. Han notices she got shot, he runs over to help her, and at that moment a couple Storm Troopers gets behind them. Han looks at Leia, Leia shows him that she is holding out a blaster pistol. This reassures Han that she has the situation under control, Han says to Leia ” I love you”, and Leia replies, ” I know”, at that moment she pushed Han to the side and shoots the two Storm Troopers.

    Now let’s compare Rey to past main Jedi characters. Luke had many weaknesses, in fact throughout most of the original trilogy he gets his butt kicked. if not for Obi-Wan, Luke or Leia he probably would have died a hundred times over. We watched him progress, grow, and become stronger starting with episode 4, Luke knew nothing about the force, and it took him over two whole movies to learn the “Jedi Mind Trick”. Rey on the other hand was able to master it in under two minutes.

    Anakin Skywalker also had to learn, grow, and become more powerful. Anakin got his butt kicked plenty of times showing weakness, his limitations, and displayed his inexperience with the Force. An example of this is when in episode 2 Anakin gets his hand cut off and knocked unconscious by Count Dooku. Rey just knows everything, has no weaknesses, and even knows how to pilot and fix the Millennium Falcon better than Han Solo that has been piloting the Falcon for over 30 years. She was also able to defeat Kylo Ren, a Sith that has been practicing the dark Jedi arts for years, and has trained under Luke Skywalker, with no light saber combat or farce training at all.

    So, the outrage over Rey is not that she is a Woman, it’s the fact that she is a Mary Sue.

  5. No, Rey is not perfect. If she was, she wouldn’t have run away from Luke’s lightsaber, into the woods, and been captured by Kylo Ren. Why does she do this? In the book, she says to BB-8, “I thought I was strong enough, tough enough, but I’m not.” Did Mary Sue say that in A Trekkie’s Tale? Did Luke say that in A New Hope? Nope. Both of them would have boldly taken that lightsaber. And notice that both of them are the main heroes in their stories (Luke in ANH). Han, Chewie, Finn, Poe, and Leia were all more heroic than Rey. Rey is only heroic when a situation requires her to be. Luke eagerly rescues the princess and has no reservations about going up against the Death Star. So Rey is the reluctant hero who first runs from her destiny, but then must accept it. That’s progression.

    In the end of ANH, Luke, like Mary Sue, is given an award, and much adoration. Rey wasn’t similarly decorated. If you want to say Rey is a Sue, you have to acknowledge that Luke is one as well.

    Do you not realize that Rey was saved twice by Finn on Jakku, both the times when he grabbed her hand and ran with her? This is shown both in the movie and the book.

    Leia was great, but not the main protagonist Rey is. And no Leia had no moment like catching a lightsaber that got fans in theaters cheering. Yes, the fans in the theater where I first saw TFA cheered when she caught that lightsaber. It was an incredible, badass moment.

    A few minutes of instruction and Luke can deflect laser blasts while blindfolded. He then goes on to use the Force, which he hadn’t even heard of a week before, to save the galaxy. Little Ani had never even finished a pod race. A sentence from Qui Gon and the kid wins the race. Yep, using the Force. But hey, it’s okay for the two males to learn super fast, huh?

    Of course Rey can fix the Falcon better than Han can, she’s an expert mechanic because she’s been dealing with scavenging and fixing ship parts since she was dumped on Jakku. Han was never that good of a mechanic. Is she a better pilot than Han? Remember, the guy did approach Starkiller Base at lightspeed, which is pretty damn amazing. Also, Rey has been piloting all kinds of ships since she was little, says so in the book.

    Kylo Ren is not a Sith. He hasn’t even finished his training, which didn’t even start until he was about 23 (Bloodlines). He was badly injured and bleeding while fighting Rey, and he wasn’t even trying to kill her, just seduce her to the Dark Side. He could have easily killed her if that had been his goal.

    So no, the outrage isn’t about TFA having a Mary Sue as a main protagonist, it’s because she’s a woman.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top button