It's a valid question. Did you worry about Shia taking over as much as you're worrying about a woman?
Ahhh yes! All of that “plot armour” certainly protected Rey from literally dying at the end of TROS after having so much of her force energy sucked out of her (and Ben) by Palptine to revive himself and then her being overwhelmed by his force lightning to the point of her no longer living and needing to be revived herself….By a man.
Is she dead? Ok, plot armor fully intact then.
Still died though
If you think one pic of Luke was the driving force of this, you are clueless. This pic was simply one tiny example of the overall feelings and plans at Lucasfilm imho. "Let the past die, kill it if you have to" was literally written into the script of the movie where a hero of generation was disrespectfully killed off as a deconstructed loser. Luke basically became the old alcoholic deadbeat uncle that everyone avoids at family get togethers.
parroting again!
A line uttered by the true villain of the film? The person the hero did not want to become and who she, like Luke with Vader, tried to redeem. And Rey didn't do that as evidence by saving the Jedi texts. Bringing Luke back was the quest for Rey, just as it was for the hero in Lucas treatment.
I just don’t see him as ruined.
The only possible way to fix Rey imho is to have her turn fully to the dark side. She becomes the villain of her ancestor's dreams. I think this could work, and she would be a great big bad going forward. I could see a really cool redemption arc for her in the end.
Luke had plenty of setbacks. He got his tail kicked often, lost his hand, had to be rescued, etc. Rey won her first ever fight with a powerful dark force user. She outmatched Kylo physically, mentally, and with force abilities despite not having one ounce of training. Kylo had been trained and molded by a multiple mentors for many years to hone his force and battle abilities, but was no match for the amazing wonder Rey.
Why does that not work when I am agreeing with an individual that makes a salient point against the oft-cited-on-here-of-it's-the-ladies-turn-step-aside strategy?
She didn't easily kick his rear. She was barely holding her own and was retreating away from him until he had her cornered. Then she let the Force in and had the power to fight back. She also seemed to be using anger (dark side) to win and not defense like Luke would've done. Her face and fighting style is completely angry. Given JJ's magic box resolution in ROS, perhaps that was the Palpatine portion in her all along.
What your describing is all stuff done after the backlash from Rian Johnson's streaming pile of poo. I have said many times I think JJ did as good a job as possible trying to make all the stupid things Johnson did make sense. It's also stuff written in books after the fact, trying to make that ignorant mess all make sense.
I have watched that fight 100 times+, now compare and contrast to Luke's first interaction with Vader. Night and day difference! Vader was toying with Luke and easily could have killed him in the first 10 seconds if he wanted to. Why, because Luke had a proper character arc with growth. Rey had the cheat codes installed from day one.
