The idea that the "force shielded her and so she's a weak character" is perhaps the most hilarious thing I've read on the internet in quite some time.
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[SPOILERS] Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Thread #3) - That's Not How the Force Works
- Thread starter Bobby Roberts
- Start date
The idea that the "force shielded her and so she's a weak character" is perhaps the most hilarious thing I've read on the internet in quite some time.
Maybe that's why I don't view Leia as a particularly great character. She is initially framed as a distresssed damsel (and she is), and the fact that her rescuers shit the bed rescuing her, she doesn't necessarily save herself so much as they all work together to escape. And after that specific sequence, the guys take over the film again, where they pilot the fighter ships that destroy the death star while she just hangs back, and her last significant act is awarding them for their efforts, which unfortunately highlights that she didn't really do shit except deliver data. Where's her metal given to her by her people? And then the other two movies happen where she is sexually objectified and primarily treated as a romance quest for Han, and her only role of taking action by rescuing Han in a badass Bounty Hunter guise is immediately undercut by her being placed in a metal bikini.
I think Carrie Fisher honestly takes pride in the work she did as Leia and brought to her a characterization that has some dignity of personality, and that definitely counts for something, and the background of the setting always places her in a position of respect as a commander of the rebels. But the plot just really undermines her way too much for me to say she's a female character with a significant amount of story agency.
Someone once posted an image that pointed out that Leia lost her home planet, adoptive mother and adoptive father, friend (obiwan), husband, brother, son and she was never even tempted by the dark side. They meant it as a way of showing "Look how strong Leia's integrity is", but really, it just highlight to me that the story focused on other people so much that her lack of turmoil isn't so much because of her moral integrity and more that no one was paying enough attention to her to realize that they inadvertently had any major relationship she had wither and die. Even in TFA, the most we get is Leia looking ruefully at Han as they reminisce about their lives, when she should actually be the most bitter person in the whole damn galaxy. We don't actually get a sense with how she actually deals with the pain of all this loss.
Leia don't care about interpersonal relationships, she's married to her job. /s
I think Furiosa or Leia are better representative of feminism than Rey but whatever, I don't like to talk about crap like this, I think she's still better than the majority of women we can find on other media.
the thing is more about Finn, dude is useless and looks like the damsel in distress, his final shot make me laugh so much because it resumed what's happen to him during all the movie, dude need a rest at the end.
If we're talking about Mad Max, this movie has the best gender equality for years, you don't need to make the male useless to make the female shine and vice versa.
the thing is more about Finn, dude is useless and looks like the damsel in distress, his final shot make me laugh so much because it resumed what's happen to him during all the movie, dude need a rest at the end.
If we're talking about Mad Max, this movie has the best gender equality for years, you don't need to make the male useless to make the female shine and vice versa.
excelsiorlef
Member
Rey was more proactive in one film than Leia and Padme combined in the previous 6.
Leia watches the climax in ANH, does nothing in ESB, and gets her slave bikini in ROTJ and doesnt really do much else except kill Jabba.
"I don't like to talk about crap like this" > *proceeds to talk about crap like this*
Just talk about it, man, it's important. Write more here. Show us your thoughts.
I think I agree with you, but I'm fine with Finn being a damsel in distress. I can't think of another male protagonist in recent years who is written as a damsel in distress as consistently as a female character would be. He's just a pretty normal guy who's trained to fight but doesn't really have his soul in it.
Mad Max is the best, though, I agree. So great.
heliosRAzi
Banned
Yeah, after that, she just becomes a prop. She's pretty much removed from the entire story.
WadiumArcadium
Member
Finn has the balls to turn on the First Order, help save an innocent man's life and face down a powerful force user. I think he's great.
*Lets check out what they're talking about in the Star Wars thread today*
don't fight it
don't
hedge away
Messypandas
Member
Yeah threads a mess now.
The Librarian
Banned
Why?
Come on, before this we were listing Star Wars movies and trying to come up with any way to excuse ROTS cause some of us inexplicably like it.
... A mess of great discussion, opinion positing, and intelligent rhetoric?
Aint nobody got time for that, here's my revised order of best Star War non-canon Legends Books from 1980-1985:
*barfs onto his keyboard violently*
User 73706
Banned
guys I dont want politics in my star wars (thats why I only watched like 30 mins of a new hope!) so can we pls tone down the rational discussion on feminism and instead do something more not confusing to me, such as arguing over freezing light particles
Okay the laser blasters are obviously solid particles surrounded by some kind of energy. You can measure their velocity and they travel MUCH slower than light-speed.
Solid Mass Projectile.
excelsiorlef
Member
Lol apparently you do.
I'd love to hear you defend Leia because as great as Fisher is the character doesnt do anything after about the 3/4 mark of A New Hope. This includes watching the climax while the boys play the hero.
Her being an afterthought is no more prevalent than in the fact that they made her Luke's sister and Vader's daughter and then proceeded to do nothing with that in Jedi, because they basically just needed to use her to justify Yoda's There is Another and resolve the "love triangle" quickly.
I don't get it myself. He breaks Poe out, takes turret position in both Rey and Poe's escapes, provides an important role in taking down Starkiller's shield, and organizes the plan to save Rey from Starkiller.
Plus, he has the best character arc in the movie.
WadiumArcadium
Member
Leia should have flown an X-Wing. She kicked some ass in a Naboo Starfighter.
Yea he's fuckin' great. I wish I could be as useless as him.
Dubbedinenglish
Banned
I know. Did you not see how clean Starkiller was? Best janitor in the galaxy.
If he had a mop instead of a lightsaber he would have kicked Kylo Ren's ass.
Missed opportunity for "mopped the floor with him" joke.
I hope we see Finn get a medal or something later, get all formal and stuff, I bet he cleans up nice.
Dubbedinenglish
Banned
They should teach him to fly the Falcon. He can chauffeur the heros around and keep it real clean.
damnit
You fucked up Toxi.
But speaking of John Boyega and Finn, I'll just place this here:
http://m.ign.com/articles/2016/01/1...s-episode-8-is-much-darker-finn-more-physical
JOHN BOYEGA SAYS STAR WARS: EPISODE 8 IS 'MUCH DARKER', FINN 'MORE PHYSICAL'
Hopefully this means Finn won't be in a coma for long.
TheDinoman
Member
One of the reasons I don't want Rey to be revealed as Luke's daughter in Ep 8 is because I get the feeling they'd do a hamfisted callback to Empire Strikes Back by having Luke say "I am your father".
It's like poetry, it rhymes....
It's like poetry, it rhymes....
1) Finn was useless at a Storm Trooper standpoint.
2) His escaped is not a keypoint, it's just a plot device to save Poe.
3) Got ass kicked by everyone ( Rey, BB-8, the big pig when he was drinking, Chewie, the beast in Solo space ship, Kylo Ren etc... )
4) He's a bad fighter.
5 ) He's using humour to hide his weakness.
6 ) Everything could have been done without him beside saving Poe/evacuating from Jakku even if Rey could probably have save herself.
7) He was saved by Rey X times...
8) He almost died at the end.
I know some people will disagree but I won't change my mind on him much, I like the character and I think he has the potential to be everything in the series but for now, he's useless and not really what I was waiting for at character standpoint.
2) His escaped is not a keypoint, it's just a plot device to save Poe.
3) Got ass kicked by everyone ( Rey, BB-8, the big pig when he was drinking, Chewie, the beast in Solo space ship, Kylo Ren etc... )
4) He's a bad fighter.
5 ) He's using humour to hide his weakness.
6 ) Everything could have been done without him beside saving Poe/evacuating from Jakku even if Rey could probably have save herself.
7) He was saved by Rey X times...
8) He almost died at the end.
I know some people will disagree but I won't change my mind on him much, I like the character and I think he has the potential to be everything in the series but for now, he's useless and not really what I was waiting for at character standpoint.
Nah, it means they're going to Weekend at Bernies his ass. Flopping is physically hard on you.
He's more of a main character than Poe so if anything, it's the other way around.
Grover Cleveland
Member
Finn's been in the gym bulking up, training for his next encounter with TR8R
Imperfected
Member
Finn confirmed to not be Force Ghost/Hologram in Episode 8!
QuantumZebra
Member
Agreed - good post!
The only thing that would change if you made Rey a white male is there would be a lot fewer people on the internet screaming that shes a Mary Sue and is too strong. >_>
They couldn't get the shields down without him even if his plan did just boil down to the thinly plotted holding a gun to someone's head, it was still his thing.
I don't think we've fully plunged the depths of these janitorial based puns.
The resistance would have never gotten Starkiller base information without him.
heliosRAzi
Banned
-ImaginaryInsider
Member
I imagine there will be some kind of time jump, there usually is between Star Wars movies. It's better if everyone hits the ground running at the beginning of the movie. It would also allow Disney to sell tie-in material that tells the story of the between movie adventures.
ain't it "Hellllo what have we here?"
excelsiorlef
Member
And if he hadn't been there to risk his life Rey wouldn't have had time to recover from the force push into the tree.
What. WHAT?!
Imperfected
Member
He only did the thing because the writer decided he would do the thing.
It's kind of a running theme in this thread that people don't know what a 'plot device' is in colloquial use because apparently critical reading/viewing is not an important skill.
Yea, his turn and escape is one of the most important plot elements of the movie and it has little to do with Poe.
He brings insight and humanization to the First Order storm troopers in a way that we've never seen from the canon fodder badguys before (outside of the Clone Wars tv show).
heidern said:
I was referring to post TPM adult Anakin with training(I can't remember if he got any training in TPM though so that might be why the confusion). The sentence following that sentence you quoted gave the context.
Your definition of my framing is also incorrect, I guess I haven't communicated my framing clearly.
What I am saying is that empowerment is ultimately giving someone a choice or choices. If you give someone the right to vote, not only can they vote, they can choose to vote or not vote. If you learn to drive a car, not only can you drive a car but you can choose to drive a car or not drive it. You also get to choose where to drive and how to drive.
If however you give someone the right to vote but only if it's raining, then you are not empowering them, or you are empowering them less. The choice is now out of their control. To be empowered in something you have to have control of it. To display empowerment to have to actually control it.
Decision making is a skill. Being a skill it can be improved by training. So yes, it is an absolute fact that training can and does impact 'choice'.
What you have here is a situation where Rey was empowered to pilot the ship and empowered to get in the zone. She wasn't empowered to use the force and she wasn't empowered to win and save her life. The external intervention of the force that she had no knowledge of and no control over saved her. This is an example of disempowerment.
Truncating a sentence changes its meaning so your comment here is invalid. I said:
He used the force to help him aim the shot. Luke was empowerment to choose to take the shot and he was empowered to use the force to aim it. He was fully empowered in aiming the shot since the force had its hand in that. Once he'd taken the shot the force was no longer being used. When the shot struck no force being used and when the Death Star exploded the force wasn't being used. In other words the force didn't explode the Death Star. My statement, how I am using my statement is very precise, Luke didn't blow up the Death Star using the force. He used the force to aim the shot.
It doesn't matter, training is training. If he mastered the training in 30 seconds then that means maybe an impossible shot could be easy. The shot being impossible for Luke also doesn't mean it's difficult for the force. Blocking multiple laser blasts blindfolded is impossible. This was a reasonable progression.
I never said anything about how Kylo Ren was defeated. I referenced the fact that she had a potentially difficult choice on whether to kill him, but that choice was taken away from her by the chasm opening up.
Real-time training is a form of training. It's both instructions and training.
Obi Wan said "It was like millions of voices cried out". The force permeates everything. So it is possible the force reacts or is influenced in some ways by non force sensitive people. Leia also is force sensitive so she may have had an effect without realising it.
Again, you've inaccurately read my post. I said:
heidern said:
You yourself have said that you'd offer your opinions on such matters. If it's ok for you why isn't is ok for me or fathers or teachers or any other male?
Same here.
I can't remember too much of her in ESB(it's my least favourite of the OT) but she did some good stuff in RotJ. She killed Jabba and was involved in Endor. She's also not an active force user or pilot so she's at a disadvantage and there's a limit on what you'd expect from her in a world of force users and spaceships. Relative to her capabilities she performed well. Compare that to Rey who had so much strong characteristics but then needed lucky break after lucky break to get her by.
Anyway, that's my last word on the matter. I wanted to ask whether having the one black character in OT be a traitor and then the black character in TFA be a traitor was a good idea or insensitive, but I don't think that's a good idea. So I'll just say I think he was pretty good, but I'm sure I saw the whole tentacled monster that kills everything in sight chooses instead to grab him and run away with him giving him a chance to survive in TMNT TV show back in the 90s.