This is the second part of a series on things to know before going to college. The first part dealt with some pretty broad topics. This part starts to deal with some more specific matters.

6. Rock that GPA!

Colleges often require that their students maintain a Grade Point Average (GPA) at or above a certain level in order to stay enrolled. Usually, the minimum GPA is something like 2.0. Therefore, the higher your GPA, the better off you are.

What’s more, colleges have a different standard for a passing grade. While high schools generally consider a D- (60%) a passing grade, colleges generally consider a C (72%) a passing grade. A C- would not be a passing grade!

Oftentimes, students start out the semester by taking it relatively easy, thinking that they don’t have to work really hard until later, or that they’ll make up for it later. Don’t fall into that trap!

Instead, the beginning of the semester is an excellent time to put in a lot of effort. This is because semesters usually begin with easier material in classes. This makes it much easier to get As on those assignments and tests earlier on. So go for those easy As and rock that GPA!

There is an added benefit in that the early material in classes is foundational material, an understanding of which would make it easier to succeed later in the semester. All the more reason to go for it early on.

7. Don’t game the system as a “career student”.

While I’ve seen the term “career student” used in different contexts, what I’m referring to here is also called a “perpetual student”. A career student is one who games the system and puts off graduation so they can kick it up as a student for as long as they can get away with it, effectively putting off having to make payments on a massive debt that they accumulate as time goes on.

Their objective is to hang around, eat the food, and not worry about rent. To this end, they usually withdraw from courses as the deadline approaches so they can re-enroll the next year.

These students are despised by pretty much everyone else. The professors don’t like them because they know what they’re doing, students don’t like them because they’re an insult to those of us who are out to better ourselves, and both groups don’t like them because the seat that they’re taking up could instead be used by someone who is serious about what they’re doing.

Eventually, their game catches up to them. In time, they’re going to have to graduate, at which point they’ll have a huge debt to deal with, and they’ll have to explain to curious potential employers why it took them 4 years to earn a 2 year degree.

Don’t let it be you.

8. Textbooks are ridiculously expensive.

There are numerous jokes about how expensive textbooks are. For example, here’s one:

Did you hear about the thief who made off with over $500 in merchandise from the book store? He stole a college textbook and a bottle of water.

Those jokes will seem less hyperbolic once you see the prices on these textbooks. They are ridiculous. And sometimes, I suspect that they are as pricey as they are because students pretty much have to buy them. Goes to show what can happen without a free market.

For my first semester in college, six textbooks were required. The least expensive one went for around $30, while the most expensive went for around $200. Altogether, the bill for books came to around $500. And from what I hear, that’s not even as bad as it gets.

For how expensive these books are, you might think that they are of paramount importance, and that we use them in nearly every class session. Not really. Some of my textbooks were barely opened at all.

As you go to school, it’s a good idea to find out what programs exist to help you afford your textbooks. Some colleges have programs that hook new students up with former students so they can buy the books directly from each other. There are also colleges that offer a program where the books can be rented, or even borrowed at no charge.

Some schools have their textbook in their libraries. Don’t count on them to allow you to continually borrow them to meet class requirements, however. My previous school discouraged this.

One time, someone stole my video games. Not all of them, just the ones they wanted. They could have stolen my textbooks and come away with a pretty penny, but they didn’t touch them, even though my books were the most expensive things I owned at the time. Perhaps the thief wasn’t so much interested in electronic engineering as they were in electronic consumerism.

9. Don’t neglect your health.

College is one place where you want your brain to behave optimally. In people who are physically healthy, the brain tends to have what it needs to work well. Therefore, don’t neglect your health when in college.

Generally, you’re better off making better dietary choices where possible. Not only that, it’s a pretty good idea to stay physically active.

It’s tempting to go for plenty of desserts just because they’re offered by the dining hall, and to load up your plate because they don’t limit your portion sizes. But it’s a good idea to mind what you eat. The dining hall offers fruits and vegetables, so it’s on you to choose to eat them. Also, the dining hall isn’t at fault for offering plenty of pudding, it’s on you to not have too much. Also, eat some meat and dairy products. The human body doesn’t synthesize B vitamins, and they’re not in vegan sources. Your brain needs that, so don’t ignore it.

Eating wrong results in stomachaches and other problems that make it hard to do things like sleep. Functioning optimally is better than being a human dumpster.

Also, go out for a walk from time to time. It’s actually a good study habit, as after about 20 minutes of focused studying, a person retains the information better if they spend about the same amount of time walking about trying to recall what they just studied. Not only will you be in better health, you’ll also be a better student. It’s win-win.

Here’s another story. One time, after a long day, I arrived back on campus, only to find that the dining hall was already closed. So I went to the dormitory lounge rooms and checked under cushions for the change needed to buy some instant ramen. Afterwards, I barely had enough to do it. So I bought it, cooked it in a microwave, and ate it. Afterwards, I felt sick to my stomach. That wasn’t what my body wanted. That night, I still felt hungry as I went to bed, and the dining hall wouldn’t open again until 10:30am the next day.

What did I learn? It’s a good idea to get a stash going that has something besides ramen. Or at least some emergency cash.

10. Don’t forget to bring what you need.

Before you go to college, you might want to make a checklist of things that you’ll need when you’re there. This is especially true if your college is located a substantial distance from home. After all, once you’re there, it might be really hard to procure what you forgot.

Colleges usually have a recommended list of items for students planning on moving into dormitories. If you can find and print out such a list, that makes a good starting point. They usually also mention a list of prohibited items, which can help to know.

Here is a list of items I recommend, based on my experience:

• Quarters – Find out whether you’ll need these to do laundry. If so, try to bring a lot of them. Those M&Ms Minis tubes are just the right size for storing them. Also, keep to yourself that you have them. Otherwise, you’ll see your collection diminish as people hit you up for them.
• A calendar – Helps you keep track of due dates and important dates, such as for tests.
• Laundry detergent and dryer sheets – You’ll likely have to bring your own.
• A locking filing cabinet – Sometimes, people try to steal stuff.
• A broom and dustpan – Keeps the dorm tidy.
• Power strip with surge protector – The few outlets you’re given don’t seem to be enough. Bring a power strip. Or two.
• Extra blankets – You’ll be glad you have these when it slips the staff’s mind that it gets cold during the weekend, and they forget to turn the heat up.
• Electric fan – Same principle as the blanket, except for when the weather is warmer.
• A mug – Coffee? Tea? It helps to have something to drink out of.
• Index cards – Super helpful for many reasons. They make great bookmarks. You can copy your schedule onto a couple and keep it on you for easy reference. You can also keep one on you to keep track of pending due dates. They can be used as flash cards for studying. It’s surprising how useful these things can be.
• Some tea or something – because water gets boring.
• A coat and warm clothes – It might be warm when you move in, but winter will come shortly.
• Paper towels – Accidents happen. Better safe than sorry.
• Posters or flags – Covers those boring walls. Besides, anime posters rock.
• A printer – This might appear on your recommended list anyway, but it’s so important that I decided to include it. You’ll have assignments to print up, so this serves you well. Also, remember to bring a stapler.

There might be more, but this is based on my experience. I left some common sense items off because you probably thought of them anyway, as well as items you’d find on a list of recommendations to begin with.

There’s a lot more to know about before going to college. More to come.

Part 1 of this series
Part 3 of this series
Part 4 of this series

College is a wonderful and daunting experience. There’s nothing quite like the freshman year, when things are new and you’re surrounded by numerous unfamiliar faces. Without some good advice, one can find themselves lost in their new environment.

Because of this, I’ve decided to make a list of things to know before going to college which may be helpful to those going for the first time. This list won’t be in any particular order, and it’ll flit about numerous topics and maintain a broad scope.

1. Be careful who you take advice from.

Before even setting foot on campus, you’ll likely be inundated with advice on college life. Much of the advice conflicts, and not all the advice is good. It can be taxing to consider so much advice at once, but it doesn’t need to be.

One principle that I’ve found helpful in determining the value of advice is to consider the qualification of the person who is offering the advice. This requires knowing something about them, but goes a long way in determining whether their advice is valid.

If a person is a school guidance counselor, their college advice is probably really good. After all, they have a position that makes them close to many college students, and in their experiences, they see what works and what doesn’t. Also, if a person has been to college, they’re likely to have insight that would help someone who hasn’t gone yet.

On the other hand, you might want to be a little leery of advice offered by those who have dropped out of school. After all, they didn’t succeed in making it work out, so whatever advice they have to give can be viewed in the light of how it worked out for them. The same goes for people working low-wage jobs. A college degree is intended to help a person’s career; if that person’s career is in the dumps, they might not have good advice to offer. That’s not to say that they can’t offer helpful college advice, but that’s a lot less likely to be the case when it’s coming from them.

You definitely want to be skeptical of advice offered by someone who doesn’t see the value of a college education and has no idea why anyone would go for such a thing. If they hold such an opinion, what would college success mean to them, whether for themselves or for you?

Not only that, there are a ton of “armchair experts” out there whose expertise with the college experience is limited solely to the fact that they know someone who went. Based on reasoning like theirs, a person can be an expert on Japanese culture because they know someone who speaks Japanese, or a person can be an expert on the Jewish religion because they work with a Jewish person. There’s a lot more to expertise than that.

When taking college advice, consider the qualification of the person giving it. That can help you get through the fog and go in the right direction. What about me? I’ve been to college before, and I’ve graduated, so I’m capable of giving some good advice. But if you’re unsure about some of the things you see in this list, it might be a good idea to bring them up with other people, so you get more insight. Taking helpful advice from one qualified source is good. Taking it from several good sources is even better.

2. Learn campus rules. Even if you don’t, they still apply to you!

When going to a new school, it’s a really good idea to learn the campus rules. I know that sounds like a preachy thing to say, but it’s a good policy on the reasoning that even if you don’t learn campus rules, they still apply to you.

I understand the principle of “just use good common sense” holds up pretty well in most places you go, but the excuse of “I just didn’t know” doesn’t hold up as well as people think. For that reason, it’s a really good idea to find out what the rules are. After all, when you know what the boundaries are, and make an effort to avoid crossing them, you’ll be far less likely to get in trouble.

On campuses, there’s usually a rule that smoking should only be done in designated areas. Are dorms designated areas? They usually aren’t. That’s helpful to know before smoking in a dorm, and it’s considered every student’s responsibility to know. If someone says something like “no one told me that rule”, what they’re saying is that they can’t be a responsible student, especially if it’s posted somewhere what the smoking areas are, and that dormitories are clearly not among them.

Schools also have strict no-weapons policies. So don’t bring those. There are places where it’s not clear whether pepper spray or Swiss Army knives are weapons. Play it safe and don’t bring those, either. For a rather severe example, a freshman at a school I went to once brought a katana with him, and carried it on his person. He apparently wanted to live some kind of Bushido fantasy. It didn’t take long for campus security to catch up with him, and he was quickly expelled. True story.

So yeah, learn what the rules are. If you do, you’ll be less likely to run afoul of them. It might be a good idea to reread them from time to time, like once a year. Play it safe.

3. It makes a difference what you go to school for.

This is a point that’s been made so many times by so many people that it’s difficult to say anything on this point that hasn’t already been said. But it belongs on a list like this, so I thought to include it. The point is, it matters what you go to college for, not just that you go to college.

Think about it: college’s purpose is to start you on your career path, or give it a solid boost. If what you go to school for doesn’t result in a fulfilling career, then you’re better off going to school for something else.

In this regard, English majors usually get picked on. It’s not that English majors don’t find fulfilling careers, but they do have a harder time of it than most other majors. Generally speaking, a person is better off not majoring in an elective, unless that elective is Math.

So, what does one go for? The best majors are usually ones that give a person skills to do a job or certain kind of job. And if the job pays better, that makes it a better choice (after all, there are student loans to repay).

A proper mentality is to think about what you want to do for a living. Would you want to be a doctor? A lawyer? An engineer? A programmer? Or something else? Then, once you’ve decided, you pick a major that does a good job of preparing you to do that. After all, college is intended to prepare you for your future job. If what you’re doing in college doesn’t do that for you, then maybe it’s time for you to rethink your approach.

4. Try to determine whether you may be buying into a false narrative regarding your future career prospects.

That point is a mouthful, but it’s important to think about. And it’s not always that someone is lying to students about job prospects; sometimes a student may be misguided about just what their degree does for them because they didn’t do their own research. Sometimes, people do fool themselves.

For one thing, it’s possible for a person to obtain a college degree without understanding the distinction between an undergraduate or a postgraduate, or between an associate’s degree or a bachelor’s degree, or how they can affect one’s job prospects.

I’ve heard of a student who obtained an associate’s degree in Electronic Engineering Technology who, after having graduated, believed that that made him qualified to be an electrical engineer. He even succeeded in finding a job as one. However, he was quickly overwhelmed with problems that he wasn’t prepared to find the solutions to! But, “Engineering” is in the name of the degree, right? Yeah, but an associate’s in that usually prepares one for industrial electrician jobs or working as electronic technicians in laboratory environments, which isn’t exactly the same.

As with the previous point, it’s better to know what you want to do, then determine the major that helps you achieve it. To understand what you want to go to school for and how it affects your career aspects are two points that are very closely related, so I put them on this list back-to-back.

5. Having a degree still makes a difference.

There are too many anecdotal stories out there that try to make the case that a college degree doesn’t make the difference it used to. As these stories are passed on, they have the effect of discouraging younger people from living up to their potential.

In reality, a college degree matters more than it ever has. It makes the difference between having a job that you’d love waking up in the morning to do, and barely getting by with a grocery, retail, or restaurant job wondering whether you’ll ever be promoted to management.

Not only that, a college degree makes a huge difference in one’s earning potential, even considering the increasing expense of student loans. Think about it, what seems like a better deal:

• Making $50,000+ a year (results vary, do your research), with a debt that one can pay off in only about 10 years, or
• Making $18,000 a year, possibly for life.

Your student loans go to an investment, not just an expense. While it’s true that student expenses are getting pretty crazy, it’s still a better choice than being broke your whole life.

Contributing to the problem are the stories thrown around, such as that Bill Gates became successful without a degree. Pointing to outliers only demonstrates that there are rare exceptions, and people who buy into them are apparently banking on becoming a rare exception, and in so doing making a terrible gambit.

It may be true that your granddad got by without a high school education, but he grew up in a time when high school educations weren’t needed to get a decent job. It may be true that your dad didn’t get a college education, but he was a child of a different time. Today, the job market is far more competitive than it ever has been, and if a person wants to afford a house, a car, and a family, that usually takes a job that requires a college degree.

You might have heard it said that a college degree doesn’t mean as much as it used to, but the fact is, it’s more important to have than it ever has been!

This is getting to be a bit lengthy, and there’s still a lot more ground to cover. So this is going to be the first of several parts. More to come.

Part 2 of this series
Part 3 of this series
Part 4 of this series

A Philly cheesesteak, easily mistaken for a dirty diaper. (Source: Pat’s King of Steaks)

The Art of Manliness did a piece on how you can make an authentic Philly cheesesteak at home. Being from Pennsylvania, I know that there will be some who take issue with this article. Mainly, with the very idea that an authentic Philly cheesesteak would be something that a person could make at home.

According to Pennsylvanians, the authentic Philly cheesesteak is something that a person can only find in Philadelphia. If the sandwich was assembled anywhere else, it’s not an authentic Philly cheesesteak.

It might seem petty to say that a sandwich is not authentic for having been made in a different location, even though it’s assembled with the same ingredients in exactly the same way, and that’s because it is. To understand this pettiness, one needs to understand the mystique surrounding the Philly cheesesteak.

To Pennsylvanians, there is no such thing as a bad Philly cheesesteak, and they hold the Philly cheesesteak as beyond reproach. If you don’t like the Philly cheesesteak sandwich, then it’s because you didn’t have an authentic one. As already mentioned, authentic Philly cheesesteaks are only made in Philadelphia. If you had one there, and still didn’t like it, then you went to the wrong place.

This provides ample opportunity for the Philly cheesesteak to escape criticism, because there are a number of restaurants in Philadelphia that claim to offer the authentic Philly cheesesteak, and in each case, there is dispute surrounding their claim of authenticity. So, you can’t criticize the sandwich unless you’ve had one from every possible establishment in town, otherwise, there’s at least one place for the fanboys to retreat to to defend their beloved sandwich.

For one thing, I don’t want to have to eat a couple dozen cheesesteak sandwiches before I decide I don’t like them. One should suffice. The fans can instead explain to me just what it is that each of these restaurants do that’s any different from one another, and explain just how that impacts the quality of the sandwich.

But what if you were to lose your mind and decide to go eat at every cheesesteak joint in Philadelphia? Upon completion of this task, do you finally have the right to criticize this sandwich?

Not quite.

There are different ways to order your cheesesteak. Not only that, you’re expected to order it with a proprietary cheesesteak lingo. For example, if you want a cheesesteak with onions, you’d say,

“Wiz wit”

And then you’d feel like a moron, because it’s impossible to talk like that without sounding like one. Decoded, what this means is “with Cheeze Whiz, with onions”.

And no, I’m not kidding. The Philly cheesesteak is made with Cheez Whiz. While you’re mulling over just what tragedy of thinking resulted in a major American city accepting a sandwich made with Cheez Whiz as its representative sandwich, here is the Cheez Whiz ingredients list:

Whey, canola oil, milk, milk protein concentrate, maltodextrin, sodium phosphate, contains less than 2% of whey protein concentrate, salt, lactic acid, sodium alginate, mustard flour, Worcestershire sauce (vinegar, molasses, corn syrup, water, salt, caramel color, garlic powder, sugar, spices, tamarind, natural flavor), sorbic acid as a preservative, milkfat, cheese culture, oleoresin paprika (color), annatto (color), natural flavor, enzymes.

I thought it was illegal to call something “cheese” unless it actually contained cheese, but to Kraft’s credit, they don’t technically do that. They call it “cheez”, which may sound identical, but is spelled differently enough to get around the law and still trick poor people.

Another way to sound like a moron while ordering a sandwich is to say:

“Wiz wit-out”

Which might have made your ears perk up a little, because even though it still sounds like toddler speak, it sounds as though there’s a variant without Cheez Whiz, and a sandwich made with steak and onions sounds pretty decent. The catch is, the “wit-out” part is referring to the onions, so you’d be ordering a steak and Cheez Whiz sandwich.

You can order the sandwich with provolone instead, but the catch is, you’re still going to come across those who will say that it’s not an “authentic” Philly cheesesteak unless the topping used is Cheez Whiz. And they might be right. The most famous cheesesteak stands in Philadelphia order huge containers of Cheez Whiz to slather all over their sandwiches.

The celebrated sandwich of Philadelphia, which you supposedly could not have had unless you made the long journey to that same city, is made with Cheez Whiz. This makes the Philly cheesesteak a paradox sandwich: even if it’s authentic, it’s still not authentic.

If you go to all this effort to have an authentic Philly cheesesteak for yourself, you finally get to say you don’t like it, right? Nope. Even if you’ve consumed every permutation of the set of cheesesteak in the city of Philadelphia and you still say you don’t like it, Pennsylvanians still insist that there is no problem with the Philly cheesesteak. Instead, they’ll say that the problem is with you.

And they’d probably be right. After all, you’d have had hundreds of Philly cheesesteaks just to say you don’t like them.

Don’t play their game. If a Philly cheesesteak fanboy starts going on about how their cheesesteak is great, have them tell you where you have to go to get the right sandwich. If another fanboy is in earshot, they’ll likely disagree about the choice of cheesesteak joint. You’d be surprised how likely this is, because even though not everyone has been to Philadelphia, you’ll find people who consider themselves experts on the Philly cheesesteak everywhere. These experts argue with each other at the drop of a hat, so they’ll be distracted with each other while you make your getaway!

If that doesn’t work, ask him how a Philly cheesesteak is made. You can have fun with this by seeing just how long it takes for the guy to admit that his  sandwich of choice is made with an imitation cheese product. In some cases, they’ll know what you’re getting at, so they’ll try to avoid it for as long as it takes before you drop the fact-bomb yourself. Then you’ll have humiliated his favorite sandwich, and him.

Then you can tell him that you can make the exact same sandwich at home. You just choose not to.

“She’s not a superhero. She’s a normal girl thrust into extraordinary circumstances, so it’s very relatable.”
-Daisy Ridley, presumably talking about Rey

Oh really?

There have been complaints that Rey from Star Wars is a Mary Sue character. While these complaints have been around for some time, they have been gaining traction lately. Is this the case? Let’s look at the evidence.

It should be noted that just because a work of fiction has a Mary Sue character doesn’t mean it’s bad, though it is universally considered a sign of poor writing. While it’s true that there’s no exact agreed-upon criteria for what is considered a Mary Sue character, there are some signs to look out for when considering whether it may be the case.

Usually, a Mary Sue character is one that meets a significant amount of the following criteria:

• Mary Sues are often self-inserts who vicariously act out the author’s fantasies.
• The character is overpowered or has extraordinary abilities or skills that aren’t properly explained in the narrative.
• The character’s experiences come off as wish-fulfillment or power fantasy.
• The character is relatively flawless, or what flaws they have can be made to benefit the character in some way (such as making them more endearing).
• The character quickly makes strong personal connections with all the major characters of an established work, especially among the protagonists. Even antagonists may have a difficult time denying their goodness. This point especially applies to fan fiction.
• The character possesses ideal beauty or high intelligence, and often finds a comparably fantastic love interest.

Also of note is that Mary Sues are usually the main characters of their stories, or are at least major pivotal characters.

Considering all this, there are many examples in the Star Wars films that show that Rey meets almost all of this criteria. The following are a few examples:

• Rey is the main character of the Star Wars sequel trilogy, beginning with Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
• Teedo found BB-8 first, so he had more right to the droid than Rey. However, Teedo releases the droid just because she demanded he do so.
• When Rey is ambushed by a couple thugs intending to abscond with BB-8, she quickly defeats both assailants before Finn, a trained Stormtrooper, could so much as make it to her.
• There’s more. After BB-8 fingers Finn for stealing Poe’s jacket, she cuts in front of him before he could get away with incredible speed, and beats him up, too. She did this to a Stormtrooper that’s been trained for decades in spite of having no formal combat training of her own.
• Rey expertly pilots the Millennium Falcon in spite of the fact that the ship hadn’t flown in years, and she had presumably never piloted a starship before.
• That last point not implausible enough? She, along with Finn, successfully evade two First Order pilots in this craft they had never commandeered before, destroying both First Order assailants in the process.
• Her technical knowledge of the Millennium Falcon is just a little too impressive. She identified the problem with putting a compressor on the ignition, just as Han did, which clearly impressed him. In the original trilogy, Han and Chewbacca still stumbled on various repairs to the craft, even though they personally operated it for years at that point.
• It gets better. Rey bypassed the compressor while the Falcon was in operation, enabling the group’s escape, impressing Han again. As an aside, any skilled electrician can tell you what a terrible idea it is to perform electrical work on a machine that’s powered on.
• When Finn is being dragged about by a rathtar (and being protected by plot-armor instead of being instantly killed), Rey knew just what door to shut on the rathtar’s tentacles and at what precise moment, even though the event was occurring outside her line of sight. Even Jedi rarely exhibit that kind of intuition.
• Luke’s lightsaber called out to Rey while they both were in Maz Kanata’s castle. Why Rey? We still have no explanation.
• When Kylo Ren force-probed Rey’s mind, he was at first successful at identifying her thoughts. Moments later, she turned his own technique back on him and told him his greatest insecurity. This is in spite of the fact that Ren was a skilled user of the technique and had years of training as a particularly gifted Jedi and as a dark side user under Snoke. Rey had no force training whatsoever.
• Minutes later, Rey succeeded in using a Jedi mind trick on a Stormtrooper to get him to release her. Apparently, she didn’t need any training to use that technique either. For that matter, how could it have occurred to her that she could use that technique at that time?
• For the climactic lightsaber duel of The Force Awakens, the big bad is a former Jedi of exceptional potential and extensive training in lightsaber battle versus a junk dealer who never trained in using the force or even used a lightsaber before. Though Rey stood a rabbit’s chance in a tiger pen, she defeated her opponent in convincing fashion. (As this was happening, a pilot in a tiny craft dealt the finishing blow to a battle station with an embedded superweapon that also happened to be a planet, and blew the whole thing up. Because Star Wars.)
• The mission of retrieving Luke Skywalker is among the most important in the history of the Resistance, so it stands to reason that Leah would send someone she knew and trusted to do the job. Either Poe Dameron or Admiral Ackbar would have been ideal for the job. Better yet, Leah could have gone and talked to her brother herself. Instead she sends Rey, who she only just met not long prior. Of course, we know if Rey went to Luke, she could train under him, as though Rey wasn’t strong enough as she was.
• Rey captained the Millennium Falcon on her mission to retrieve Luke, even though Chewbacca had years more experience with the craft and was the first mate to its previous captain. What does Chewbacca have to do for some respect?
• Rey’s idealism is easy enough to portray as a positive trait, but it looks so much better when contrasted with Luke’s cynicism. Let that sink in: the Luke Skywalker was brought down to bring Rey up.
• Once Rey is brought before Snoke, his only criticisms of her are mere stereotypical bad guy taunts. He even says that she “has the heart of a true Jedi”, so even the big bad of the movie acknowledged her virtue.
• Rey displayed as much skill as Kylo Ren in dispatching the Praetorian Guards, even helping him out with the last one as it had him in a neck hold. This in spite of having no lightsaber training, unless you count swinging a lightsaber around while Luke is looking on with no involvement as “training”.
• After the Praetorian Guards are defeated, Ren offers Rey to join him, showing that even her greatest adversary would prefer to have her as an ally.
• Kylo Ren informed Rey that her parents were mere junk traders, and no one of consequence. While it’s interesting to see characters in Star Wars don’t have to be related to other major characters to become someone of significance, it makes Rey’s exceptional abilities even more of an anomaly that we now have even less of an explanation for.
• By the end of The Last Jedi, the only skilled force users in the galaxy were Rey and Kylo Ren, and the Knights of Ren, of which we know Kylo to be the leader. As we’ve already seen, Rey could beat Ren in spite of Ren’s extensive training and Rey’s lack thereof. This makes Rey the strongest force user in Star Wars.

Considering this, is Rey a Mary Sue character? YES. No doubt about it. In fact, she’s so Mary Sue it’s surprising to see a character of her sort in a professional work, let alone in such a huge IP as Star Wars.

Not only is Rey an obvious Mary Sue character, she may very well be the most Mary Sue character I’ve ever seen outside of fan fiction. I kid you not, while researching this article, I looked up “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” to determine whether Rey would be just the character that someone with the condition would prefer to see themselves as.

Perhaps the greatest irony here is that the very namesake of Mary Sue comes from Star Trek fandom, Star Trek being a competing IP. At this point, the term “Mary Sue” can be shortened to “Rey”, as Star Wars has once again denied Star Trek what little cultural significance it has left.

Aside from all that, Daisy Ridley and J.J. Abrams made quite a relatable character.