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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026

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Umm... Luke got his friends tortured and lost his arm and Anakin literally fell into evil (and lava)

Luke got his friends tortured and lost his arm

Yes, but it wasn't only that. At the beginning, he's portrayed as kind of a whiny brat. And immediately encounters men (Ben and Han) who are superior to him in various ways. Even at the end of the movie, Luke needs Han's help to blow up the Death Star. At the beginning of the next movie, Han rescues Luke who has been stranded in the middle of nowhere on the ice planet. Probably there are other examples as well.

Feminists don't only object to female characters being flawed, they object to female characters being seriously harmed; defeated; outsmarted; humiliated; made to look immature; and so on.

So that's how you end up with really annoying Mary Sue type characters. It's not only that they have little or nothing in the way of flaws. They are also annoyingly superior to everyone around them. They undermine the opportunities of other characters to shine.

I was just thinking of the sequels (Ray). I guess I should have said that explicitly.