Daisy Ridley,
Star Wars: The Force Awakens and
Star Wars: The Last Jedi's lead, recently sat down for a Facebook Live Q&A. In it, she was asked many questions by the host and audience, one of which was in regards to her characters' weaknesses. This is most likely on account of accusations that her character, Rey is a 'Mary Sue' which is defined in the English Oxford Dictionary as "a type of female character who is depicted as unrealistically lacking in flaws or weaknesses."
Now despite in the past denying that Rey is a Mary Sue, Ridley answers the question asked of her regarding her characters weaknesses with the following statement:
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.
It seems Ridley's thoughts about weakness transcend thinking about it in terms of a character and rather serves as an outlook on her own personal life. Even Kylo Ren and his villainous nature is rooted in a warped sense of reality rather than a weakness per se.
Later in the Q&A one fan chimed in and implied that Rey's weakness was her longing for parents and desire to reconnect with them. Ridley then shot this down:
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 do you think about Ridley's statements? Do you agree with her belief that people simply don't have weaknesses? Do you think Rey's character is a Mary Sue? Here's the full Q&A stream: