Uh oh
Uh oh
Not. Even. Close.
That said, I despise the Sequel Trilogy for other reasons, and do not care enough to defend Rey from your misrepresentations.
OkayJust because people have historically used a word wrong doesn't mean the word's real meaning is lost. The problem with your 'modern' use of Mary Sue is that it has been stretched and over applied to cover so many characters as to have lost all meaning entirely, much like the word 'problematic' or 'awesome', becoming merely an empty buzzword.
So, there's this girl. She's tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects them all because she dedicated to what is Pure and Good. She has genius level intellect, Olympic-athelete level athletic ability and incredible good looks. She is consumed by terrible angst, but this only makes guys want her more. She has no superhuman abilities, yet she is more competent than her superhuman friends and defeats superhumans with ease. She has unshakably loyal friends and allies, despite the fact she treats them pretty badly. They fear and respect her, and defer to her orders. Everyone is obsessed with her, even her enemies are attracted to her. She can plan ahead for anything and she's generally right with any conclusion she makes. People who defy her are inevitably wrong.
God, what a Mary Sue.
I just described Batman.
I think the best response I've seen to 'what is a Mary Sue' is that no one ever really hates them and everyone adores and thinks the world of them. Everyone is always impressed by whatever they do. Even if someone else can do far more.This is my favorite essay on the term:
Mary Sue, what are you? or why the concept of Sue is sexist (LINK)
It does seem like people jump on female characters a lot just for being competent, wish-fulfillment characters and not getting metaphorically or literally shit upon every other minute by the plot. And, hell, sometimes, they get called Mary Sues even when the plot goes out of its way to shit on them. A perfect example of this is Blackjack from Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons. Is she really pretty and does she have a nice, flowery, likable personality? No, neither. She's a violent, foul-mouthed, self-righteous, narcissistic, alcoholic murderhobo. Her only real skill is killing people. She doesn't have friends, she has a roving band of sycophants who are afraid of her. She also got shit on worse than any fictional character I have ever seen. She was shot, stabbed, shot again, blown up, struck by lasers, struck by lightning, shot some more, got mega-cancer and had one of her eyes turn into a tumorous tentacle, blinded by shrapnel, nearly drowned more than once, gang-raped, became a quadruple amputee, and all sorts of other horrible things, and there are people - a lot of people, actually - who will insist that she's a Mary Sue.
Really, if you dare to have a female action protagonist in your story who's depicted exactly the same way as John Wick, you're going to have a bunch of critics who will insist that she's too central, too important to the plot, or that she's some sort of vile reality-warper who doesn't deserve all this attention.
When I hear Mary Sue, these days, my mind just kinda automatically replaces it with the word "witch", because it has pretty much exactly the same meaning and intentions behind it.
I disagree. It's just as easy or easier to have a mary sue in modern settings. What matters is how the setting reacts to them, not the nature of the settingBasically, more supernatural or fantasy elements story have, or more unrealistically it handles things, more likely it is your character is going to be called Mary Sue.
There are easiest way to get Mary Sue label: Self-inserts, universally. Original characters added into pre-established setting too, even if they aren't explicitly self-inserts.I disagree. It's just as easy or easier to have a mary sue in modern settings. What matters is how the setting reacts to them, not the nature of the setting