"Man is defined as a human being and a woman as
a female - whenever she behaves as a human being she is said to imitate the
male." - Simone de Beauvoir
The other big complaint I have seen about The
Force Awakens - though I have seen more people refuting the complaint - is
that Rey is a Mary Sue.
You can make good arguments for why she is not, but
then other people were arguing that the term should be done away with
completely. Having thought about the term at length previously, I couldn't agree
with that, but people are definitely applying the term in ways that are not
appropriate. I think I may have a great deal to say about Mary Sues and Strong
Female Characters at a later date, but for now, let's stick to this movie.
The complaint is that Rey is too good at too many
things, making her unrealistic, and then if you really hate that plus hate Finn
being black then the real problem is that this is a fan-servicing Social
Justice Warrior favoring movie, and how dare they pander like that?
Given that this type of complaint looks suspiciously
racist and sexist anyway, it's tempting to simply ignore it, but this stuff in
between, that people miss when they are looking for reasons to be offended, is
exactly what interests me, so I shall blog on, and there are going to be some
real spoilers here.
We see Rey being good at three things: mechanics,
piloting, and the Force. In some of those cases, "good" can be
relative. Also, we see that she is strong, smart, and scrappy - not terribly
surprising for someone who has been surviving as a scavenger.
The scavenging of mechanical parts makes her skill
with mechanical repair more plausible. I'm sure you can scavenge without
knowing a lot about parts, but knowing more will help, and there is something
else that we see when she is discussing the Falcon with Han Solo later: Rey
loves this stuff.
She could have grown up merely trying to understand
which parts would be most valuable, and probably many of her fellow scavengers
are more like that, but she likes this stuff, so she has learned more. I've
worked with computer geeks, and I have seen that light that goes on when there
is a new problem that requires unraveling. That doesn't happen for me when the
issue is a computer problem (for other things, yes). The majority of her waking
hours are spent crawling around on old vehicles; with the interest and
inclination she has in them, it's no shock that she gets to be good with them.
And they don't have to go together. Poe is
presumably a better pilot than Rey, because he is a better pilot than anyone,
but he probably is not a mechanic. I believe one of the reasons X-wing pilots
have droids with them is for diagnostics and repairs. That's okay. There are
probably also good mechanics that don't care much for vehicle operation.
Personally, I am good at more than one thing. Some
of them are things that I do because I have to - they are associated with a job
or some type of responsibility. Some things I am good at because I love them
and I pursue them even when I don't need to. However, my sisters and I share an
ability that is almost mystical, in that we are quite good with claw machines.
Other people don't understand it, they send us articles on how they are rigged,
but we just keep on accumulating prizes and then giving them to toy drives.
That "force" is strong in our family.
Before I get into Rey's quick adaptation to the
Force, I'm going to take a detour. Among the many storylines that I have
thought of occurring in the Star Wars universe, there was a planet where those
who followed the Force were not Jedi. They mainly used it for agriculture and
understanding the balance between man and nature. Some of that came from
Qui-Gon not disintegrating at death, when Obi-Wan and Yoda did. Like maybe they
learned if from the farmers, who took "dust-to-dust" a little more
literally. (Okay, I didn't like those movies, but I thought about them.)
My point with that is that if the force is always
there, the Jedi can be one discipline for understanding and harnessing it, but
not necessarily the only one. If the Force exists independent of the Jedi, and
some people can be inclined toward it before training, then it should be
possible to gain at least some traction with it without formal training.
So, in the process of being interrogated by Kylo
Ren, Rey learns how to resist and pulls something from him. It is only a
beginning, but it is a good beginning and plausible. Have you never been going
toe to toe with someone and things come out you didn't mean to? Didn't that
even happen with Harry Potter and Snape?
Practicing it, she is able to get a storm trooper to
obey her. It doesn't work on the first try, but she doesn't give up. Also,
storm troopers are conditioned for obedience, which probably doesn't hurt.
If Rey had defeated Ren on her own, that might be
hard to swallow, but there are a few key points there. Ren was injured, and I
hope there was some emotional toll going on there. And frankly, I'm glad we got
to see the injury because the way he dealt with it by hitting the injury, like
it was a nuisance instead of a serious medical problem, was super creepy and
really gave insight into him. (And he is not villain that Darth Vader was. He
doesn't have nearly the level of control, and while his training is not
complete yet, you have to wonder what his personality will allow.)
In addition, Rey and Finn tag-teamed him, and they
were both seriously injured. Rey was unconscious while Finn was fighting him.
Actually, another good thing about the fight is that the side flares on Ren's light
saber seemed foolish to me before, like you would be more likely to injure
yourself than your opponent, but okay, I saw their purpose during the combat.
Sorry about your shoulders, Finn.
Finally, it was not a definitive defeat. They kept
the fight up long enough to have a chance to get away, which was greatly helped
by the planet starting to fall apart.
Those are fascinating things for me: how we learn,
how we become the people we are, what gives the edge in a fight. You have to
ignore all of those mitigating factors if you want to declare that Rey is
unbelievable, but doing so also ignores that at least in the past it has been
common to have heroes who were good at everything and it wasn't questioned.
Those types of characters can be boring, and we don't see them as much now, but
did people find it implausible that James Bond was good at shooting and
gambling and mixing drinks and strategy, not to mention good with the ladies?
Oh well, I guess he had really good training.
I think it is reasonable for Rey to accomplish what
she does based on the resources she has available. Even if that does not make
her extraordinarily gifted, some human beings are, and some of these human
beings are women.
If that sounds too terrible to be accepted, I do
have one other quote from Simone de Beauvoir:
"No one is more arrogant toward women, more
aggressive or scornful, than the man who is anxious about his virility."
Really makes you think.
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