Daisy Ridley Says Rey Does Not Have Any Weaknesses and That's a Problem
To say that the new Star Wars trilogy is controversial is a bit of an understatement. The latest installment, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, has really divided fans. I personally have enjoyed the new trilogy and the new characters. One character has bugged me at times though, and that is our leading lady Rey.
I see Rey as our new Luke Skywalker and she wants to be interesting. She looks for the good in people and is a good-natured person herself. However, Rey tends to be a bit of a Mary Sue and this bothers me. She is good at pretty much everything that she tries. I know a lot of people just write it off as the Force, but I feel like it is something that should be addressed. What makes me even more concerned is something that Daisy Ridley has said about Rey: she has no weaknesses. In a recent Facebook Live Q&A, Ridley was asked about Rey’s weaknesses and here’s her response:
“I don’t really believe in weaknesses in people. Because I think you can’t decide what’s good and what’s bad in a person because everything makes the whole and the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, as we know. I for sure think people can work on themselves, with things like anger and jealousy, maybe things like that, but that’s workable, that’s not something that’s fixed that can’t be changed. You can work on that. And I don’t think she’s those things.”
Ok, so I have to disagree with Ridley on this. People have weaknesses. Weaknesses make people interesting. Weaknesses are those things that “people can work on themselves.” If those aren’t weaknesses, what are they? I understand that this is her own outlook on people and life, but it sounds like she does believe in weaknesses; she just refuses to call them that. Later on, she’s asked if Rey’s longing for her parents was a weakness and Ridley answers that it isn’t.
“I do not think that is a weakness. Great question, but I don’t think that is a weakness. I think longing for something, there’s usually a reason you’re longing for it. Even though she’s very hopeful about moving forward, there’s clearly some stuff that she needs to put to bed and that is all going to help her, moving forward. So I don’t think that’s a weakness. I think it’s a wonderful...again, sort of adds to the brilliant hopefulness that, what may have happened wasn’t so bad. Like, that she wasn’t just left there by these awful people. And, also, it leads her on this amazing journey. That’s part of the whole thing. She wouldn’t have gone. I think she wouldn’t have stayed if she didn’t really want that. She wouldn’t have had the moment with Luke and all of the other amazing stuff that happened.”
What Ridley gets wrong here is that by putting “some stuff to bed” to help Rey move forward, is overcoming a weakness. In The Force Awakens, Rey repeatedly wants to go back to Jakku to wait for her parents. In The Last Jedi, her obsession with finding out her parents weren’t awful people drives her into the hole of the dark side. While I don’t think the longing for one’s parents is inherently a weakness, Rey takes it to a level where it is a weakness. In fact, Kylo Ren sees this in The Last Jedi and tries to use it to turn her. It is when she finally accepts reality (or what we know to be real because it is possible that J.J. Abrams will change things in Episode IX) that she is able to let go of (or overcome) this weakness and finally move forward. In fact, this weakness is probably one of the best things about Rey because it makes her relatable. Rey doesn’t have a lot of relatable characteristics because she’s a freaking Mary Sue who can go from getting wrecked by an injured Kylo Ren to dominating him at every turn when he mentions the Force. No, she’s not the first Mary Sue in the galaxy far, far away; nor is she the biggest, that honor (dishonor?) belongs to Anakin. However, saying that she doesn’t have weaknesses and not showing her weaknesses does nothing but alienate her from us the audience.
A good protagonist will have weaknesses. A great protagonist takes you on a journey that turns those weaknesses into strengths. Let Rey be fallible. Let her have weaknesses and let those weaknesses take us on a journey. I would argue that we’ve seen one maybe two weaknesses that she has and I would rank her as an okay or good protagonist. She’s seemingly conquered one. Let’s acknowledge she has other weaknesses, and let’s roll with them. I know it’s probably too late since we’re already two films in, but maybe they can make her less of a Mary Sue in Episode IX.
You can watch the full Q&A below: