Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't forget Wesley Crusher. I don't know why people pretend that the male version isn't also disliked, but I don't think it's a rational stance. People don't like either.
Other characters on the show find Wesley obnoxious, and he nearly washes out of Starfleet Academy after covering up a stunt that killed one of his friends. I don't see him as a wish-fulfillment character at all.
Top suspect in 2015 Ashley Madison hack committed suicide in 2014
151–160 of 164 posts
Re: Top suspect in 2015 Ashley Madison hack committed suicide in 2014
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, then they're called a Gary Stu, Marty Stu, Marty Sam or Tom Sue and they exist too. They too are annoying and numerous, but less common. Harry Potter, Scott Pilgrim, James Bond, any character Vin Diesel plays, etc. Mary Sues are called out rightly because they're a shitty trope used by lazy writers. Nobody (with any intelligence or credibility) ever said that George Lucas was a particularly great writer. It's pop…
Come back when any of those characters you listed are called Mary Sue. Let’s use Star Wars for an example. A teenager with little education, grows up on a backwater desert planet immediately uses the Force and flies an advanced space craft into battle, becoming the focus of attention of a galaxy spanning fascist military, and a hero in an under resourced underground partisan movement. You’re hard pressed to find anyo…
That's because Luke took a long time to get good, including impulsively running off to fight and losing his arm, and was a whiny so and so, and was only good at certain things.
Rey is a classic MS because she's good at everything from the start; she wins every fight, including against the scariest Sith baddie around; flies spaceships perfectly despite having not done it before; fixes the Millennium Falcon in a way that Han Solo, its owner, didn't understand; was an expert boat navigator across a stormy sea that the locals wouldn't sail across, despite having grown up on a desert planet; everyone likes her (e.g. after Han dies Leia, who's met Rey once before, emotionally hugs Rey and not Chewie); she has random helpful encounters out of nowhere; etc etc.
I get some characters are unfairly characterised as [MG]ary S(ue|tu), or unfairly not as, but this doesn't seem one of those cases. You might say it's because Disney exec leadership and directing of episodes 7-9 were terrible and fragmented, and you'd be right, but the above still stands.
Re: Top suspect in 2015 Ashley Madison hack committed suicide in 2014
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Indiana Jones franchise exists because of the Indiana Jones character. People that go to one of those movies want to see him. If you setup a Mary Sue that treats him like an useless geriatric waste of a man, and finish the movie by having this Mary Sue knock him out, you're basically pissing in your own franchise. And since Harrison Ford won't be able to do another one, this is how the franchise ended, with a sou…
> And since Harrison Ford won't be able to do another one I don't know, maybe ask Holo-Reagan or Holo-Tupac what he thinks about that? Or we've got holo-leia or holo-tarkin even within the star wars universe already. You just have to face it, death isn't the obstacle it used to be. There's lots of dead actors out there living kickass lives.
Actors are the same. Those are not the real artists, just what some corporate shill thought those actors would do. If you enjoy that, understand that it's not different at all from watching an animated movie.
Re: Top suspect in 2015 Ashley Madison hack committed suicide in 2014
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
"James was totally cool, but when I found out he used an Android phone, I was so over him..." -some girl to her girlfriends, somewhere, probably...
You jest, but it happens. The mystery to me is why a guy's reaction to it would be "damn I wish I had an iPhone so that girl would like me" and not "I'm glad I don't have an iPhone so I can weed out these nutjobs".
And just like hiring where there are great employers with silly hiring practices there are great partners with silly filtering rules. And you can cut yourself off from a large part of the market or play the game.
Unlike the potential employer or partner I'm not going to use a silly filter as my filter.
Re: Top suspect in 2015 Ashley Madison hack committed suicide in 2014
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
You jest, but it happens. The mystery to me is why a guy's reaction to it would be "damn I wish I had an iPhone so that girl would like me" and not "I'm glad I don't have an iPhone so I can weed out these nutjobs".
Because the dating scene is like the hiring scene. There are 100 applicants for every position and in that situation it makes sense to use very noisy low value signals that are cheap. And just like hiring where there are great employers with silly hiring practices there are great partners with silly filtering rules. And you can cut yourself off from a large part of the market or play the game. Unlike the potential em…
But that aside, your entire analogy is based on the idea that you need to "win" iPhone Girl. What makes her worth winning, and why doesn't she need to win you?
You're allowed to have criteria too. One of mine is that I won't be with someone who has poor judgement. It's the reason I don't date women who are into astrology, or choose their partners based on the brand of their phone.
To use your analogy, iPhone Girl is a job that pays $30K a year while demanding 70 hours per week. That's not good enough for me, I don't care how nice her campus is.
Re: Top suspect in 2015 Ashley Madison hack committed suicide in 2014
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Horses on a space ship? Give me Wrath of Khan in the nebula any day.
Horses?
Re: Top suspect in 2015 Ashley Madison hack committed suicide in 2014
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Indiana Jones franchise exists because of the Indiana Jones character. People that go to one of those movies want to see him. If you setup a Mary Sue that treats him like an useless geriatric waste of a man, and finish the movie by having this Mary Sue knock him out, you're basically pissing in your own franchise. And since Harrison Ford won't be able to do another one, this is how the franchise ended, with a sou…
And yet the audience reaction to that has been largely positive - both in aggregate and in the theater I was in - it's the critics that have been more sour compared to how they reacted to Crystal Skull (while the audience disliked that one much more). If you wanna say "don't make a movie about an old version of that character," fine. But give it a fucking break with the idea that the filmmakers are attacking you by s…
I'm not sure that's true. It doesn't seem to have done particularly well at the box office?
Re: Top suspect in 2015 Ashley Madison hack committed suicide in 2014
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm no exception to your rule, but are you really so confident that all of humanity shares the same appetite for status signalling? I'm not a particularly social person, but even I can think of some counterexamples in my personal life. Obviously, we can also consider most of the extremely wealthy (Zuckerberg, Bezos, etc) as well.
My income has recently 5x'd and I already was making over 6 figs. I'm doing the opposite of status signaling. I'm hiding my wealth. I don't need people to know I just bought an expensive computer or 3D printer. Heck, that makes me a target. It also alienates friends who are insecure. I already ran into this when I graduated college, got a real job, and my blue collar high school friends got weird about it. Heck, I kn…
Re: Top suspect in 2015 Ashley Madison hack committed suicide in 2014
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, then they're called a Gary Stu, Marty Stu, Marty Sam or Tom Sue and they exist too. They too are annoying and numerous, but less common. Harry Potter, Scott Pilgrim, James Bond, any character Vin Diesel plays, etc. Mary Sues are called out rightly because they're a shitty trope used by lazy writers. Nobody (with any intelligence or credibility) ever said that George Lucas was a particularly great writer. It's pop…
Come back when any of those characters you listed are called Mary Sue. Let’s use Star Wars for an example. A teenager with little education, grows up on a backwater desert planet immediately uses the Force and flies an advanced space craft into battle, becoming the focus of attention of a galaxy spanning fascist military, and a hero in an under resourced underground partisan movement. You’re hard pressed to find anyo…
Leia seems to think he's a bit useless at times during the escape, Han thinks he's a backwater rube, but these characters grow close over the course of the story.
I admit that a lot of people do leave off the "is treated as super important and great by everyone immediately" bit when they define a Sue a lot, but I think it is a significant part of the definition and I also think it is a big part of what people don't like even if they often fail to articulate it. There's a "look at how cool and perfect our character is!" feeling you get when sequels introduce new characters into an existing setting and all the old characters fawn over them immediately that just isn't fun to watch.
Lastly characterizing Luke as "immediately using the Force" is bullshit I am sick of seeing. Firstly, we do see him practicing and failing at it on the trip to the Death Star, secondly he only uses it in incredibly vague terms to blow up the Death Star in a way that is way closer to "having faith" than "using a super power" in the context of the story. Luke sees Obi-Wan do a mind trick in the first half of New Hope and we don't see Luke even attempt it until Return of the Jedi. The first time we see Luke use a force ability outside of the Death Star run, which again in terms of how it is presented isn't really the same as other times the force is used, is to move his light sabre on Hoth. This is months after New Hope and he still really struggles to do it. But even if I cede the blowing up of the Death Star as Luke using the force instead of trusting in the force, we still see him actually practice trying to still his mind and use it before it happens, which isn't something we get for Rey.
Re: Top suspect in 2015 Ashley Madison hack committed suicide in 2014
#160Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its one of the primal needs. Its why some companies are so effective at selling Veblen goods to status seekers. When I was growing up, I got abercrombie/american eagle because it was cool to girls. Today teens get Apple/Nike products. Not that any of these actually change your status, but the marketers were able to sell that idea/feeling. As an adult, you see people buying/leasing Tesla's or more expensive cars to do…
I have a pet theory that all humans spend roughly 30% of their disposable income on status products. And that there's no way to escape this. No matter how hard you try. If you escape spending at LVMH you'll spend it on cars, indie brands or ascetic holidays. Keep going and your money will go towards pseudo-educational leisure activities that make a social statement like submarine exploration or building web apps in O…
Your pet hypothesis, has yet to be confirmed only after that, will it be a theory.