MovieChat Forums > Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) Discussion > Is Finn a Marty Stu?

Is Finn a Marty Stu?

posted 7 years ago by Frogarama (12942)
4 replies | jump to latest

Let's see...

-Despite being a rookie Stormtrooper who raises the ire of both Phasma and Kylo during his first assignment, and being ordered to submit his equipment for inspection, he somehow has unfettered access, alone, to the most valuable prisoner on Kylo's ship. Are there no security levels for Stormtroopers? Why are Phasma and Kylo turning a blind eye to him directly after his incident at the village? There is also apparently no oversight with Poe; the questionable troop and the valued prisoner are able to simply waltz to a TIE fighter and get inside (of course that's a Star Wars thing, it happens on the Death Star as well with Luke, Han and Chewie).

-He's not familiar with ships yet he becomes adept at being a gunner so quickly that he can transfer those skills into the Falcon. He handles the Falcon's cannon about as well as Han and Luke did in the original.

-Despite his previous job in sanitation at Starkiller during its construction, he knows intimate technical details about how the moon-sized station works. It's like a plumber at a nation-sized Army base who somehow knows how to take down their security systems, even though he had never wanted to before now.

-Handles a lightsaber pretty well despite having never used one. Rookie Stormtrooper who uses it toe-to-toe with a fellow trooper. Sure he was probably trained in usage of that baton-like weapon as well, just like how Rey already knows how to fight with a staff since she has defended herself on Jakku for years.

-Without saber training or Force sensitivity, is actually able to hold his own against Kylo Ren, grandson of Darth Vader, for a short time. He even lands a hit!

[–] Martoto (4142) 7 years ago

Lor San Tekka is an even bigger Marty Stu.

1. Old and so automatically sympathetic
2. Inexplicably has crucial information without any justification as to why he should have it or know about balance of the force. Who is he, Yoda? He's not even a Jedi.
3. Says all the right things about Royalty and stuff just to show that he's better than Poe in that respect.
4. Unrealistically says defiant things to the bad guy though he knows he'll be killed for it
5. Gets killed in state of grace therefore being nothing but an appealing character with no flaws or an arc or redemption in his story.

tut, tut, tut

[–] Frogarama (12942) 7 years ago

Well despite being sarcastic with this topic, Luke Skywalker's rise as a Jedi is definitely the biggest Marty Stu.

Far too old to be trained, learns to get in touch with the Force in ANH after nothing more than some taser ball practice. Then all it takes is a few days of jumping around with Yoda for Luke to become good enough with the saber to go up against Darth Vader, who has been fighting far longer than Luke has been alive.

Luke receives no further training before essentially becoming, in ROTJ, the best Jedi EVAR, and now he can defeat Vader.

Of course, the main thing that Rey-bashers do is they ignore or hand-wave away all of her actual character traits and all of her history in order to demand that she can't be capable of anything she does. They also have to pretend that she behaved flawlessly in the movie, which is completely contradicted onscreen. I know for a fact this wouldn't happen if she had been a male character.

[–] saviodium (500) 7 years ago

I know this is just a sarcastic attempt to make Rey Mary Sue critics look stupid (and all you 'criticisms' of finn can simply be chucked up to bad writing, which if that is your defense for why Rey is not a mary sue it is rather poor; like basically Saying 'TFA is just crap writing so Rey is not a Mary Sue'.) But I wanted to focus on one thing you said:

"just like how Rey already knows how to fight with a staff since she has defended herself on Jakku for years."

I have seen this argument for why Rey is hyper competent with weapon fighting and I fail to see where the movie actually showed this. I mean as far as I could tell Jakuu was far less dangerous than Tatooine. I did not see a lot of fighting going on until BB-8 showed up. In fact, though impoverished, it looked like the settlement was relatively peaceful. Now yes Rey cared around a staff must of the time. But that does not really mean anything. In a lot of African and middle east countries everyone cares around AK's and they can't shot for crap. We do see her fight the 2 thugs but really she does nothing more than smack at them with the staff. i did not really see anything to demonstrate hyper proficiency in weaponry. However when she picks up a pistol and a lightsaber that the film states she never used before she immediately becomes unbelievable proficient.

I get the sense that simply by caring the staff a lot of you just assumed that meant she could fight. This is a bad assumption and a failing on the film to give good backstory to the character. I wished they would have shown her in some fighting pit for food or money type deal; then I would accept her being a bad ass fighter; than combined with learning force powers I could even see her beating Kylo. But the film does not give this.

[–] TexasJack (12515) 7 years ago

TFA Rey is the very definition of a Mary Sue, which in turn is the very definition of crap writing. I love how defensive people get over the Mary Sue issue. OMG you're such a misogynist, you can't handle a strong female character, yap yap yap when the reality is that Rey being a Mary Sue is purely, 100% the fault of two lazy, hack male writers.