I do think Mary Sue might be a little harsh. Even outside of the fact that we don't know her whole backstory, she certainly has legitimate reasons to be more competent than Farmboy Luke was, she had a very different upbringing. We've also yet to see her entire character arc. She definitely pales in comparison to the ultimate Mary Sue, little Ani "born of the force" Skywalker.
Yeah, I'd only call her a Mary Sue if there
isn'ta reveal later that she's actually had training and thus has legitimate reasons for those skills. I think given the clues we are bound to see that she has indeed has training (As everyone here pointed out). If that's the case then no, she's not a Mary Sue. She just appears to be one right now because we're all in the dark still, we're seeing the result, with no explanation.
Overall, her character was fine if she had that background. My only issue was really the movie not explaining it, which made act 3's show down less than stellar for all the reasons brought up there. The final act show down would have been a lot better, in my opinion, if we had learned through the course of events within the film that she was a padawan who had gotten the same level of training as Kylo, and they had a shared history they had both forgotten (Keep the personal aspects of it secret sure, but show the training). I feel like the entire final act would have then CLEARLY made sense, rather than what we got (Which was a lot of conjecture and reading between the lines, which will hopefully be explained in the next film).
Someone else said it before, but explanations for events in the
currentfilm, shouldn't be pushed onto the next film in my opinion (You can have clues and quirks that develop later, but not major conflicts). That just makes a weaker "current" film, what you're currently watching needs to have a strong internal logic to maintain that suspension of disbelief. But overall, yes, I think her back story will have most of this make sense, and by then, when in the context of the overall trilogy, that final duel will make sense. (Which still means the first movie has an issue, I think. But Rey as a character, and Kylo, and the overall story of the trilogy will be solid.)
I see you are extremely threatened by a strong independent woman, Lithose. That's sad.
The whole time I was asking my wife why she wasn't in the kitchen making Han Solo sandwiches.
