Writer's Block Magazine

“The Kadats of America, Chicago’s most loved young Black drill team, shown performing…” by John H. White

Conflict is the engine of history. Necessity is not the mother of invention; spite, disagreement and ambition are. Stormless seas carry no ships and calm waters lack the beauty of ripples. In fiction it is much the same. Conflict is the driving force of all narrative. The reaction to this sunless strife is as central as the discord itself. If all characters are too adept at tackling the teapotted tempests before them, no film would exceed five minutes and they would have fewer viewers still. Yet, these faultless figures do populate many of our frames and pages. And with the exception of messianic figures such as Buddha, Jesus, and Superman, they are all painfully boring.

There is a name for this overly perfect, overly competent type of character: a Mary Sue. In Paula Smith’s 1973 short story “A Trekkie Tale” this moniker was born. Paula poked fun at the libraries of pre-teen-produced texts featuring characters that are overtly and innately talented, skillful, loveable, attractive, saintly, and spotless in all regards. An overarching characteristic of these figures is how they serve wish fulfillment. Fans wished to see themselves in the Star Trek universe, and see themselves solve every issue without issue. Ian Flemming wished to transcend the profound mundanity of the intelligence service. He wished to be more than a deskbound spy, so he created the suave, sexy, unbeatable, irresistible Mary Sue James Bond. E.L. James wanted to be loved utterly and unwaveringly, so Anastasia Steele and her encounters with the fifty shaded breadth of fairly vanilla human depravity were born. Paula Smith’s original protagonist, spotlessly pretty Mary Sue, satirically inhabited this trope beautifully. Every conflict ended amicably and painlessly, every character but the villains adored this angelic, effortless cherub. There was no sail to catch the conflict’s storm and no shore to add meaning to her waves. Stories with Mare Sues are boring.

Still, a Mary Sue character isn’t some chimera killing all the fiction it touches. It is just a trope. And a trope can be used poorly and it can be used well. The no-nonsense cop and the girl-shy hacker can be moving characters in the right film. But how does one use a trope that inherently undermines what makes fiction engaging? And how does one do more than subvert it?

Jeremy Saulnier’s 2024 action-thriller Rebel Ridge answers these questions. Its protagonist, Terry Richmond, is so flawless he is nearly infuriating to watch. He is almost superhumanly beautiful. Broad-shouldered but summer warm. Towering over everyone with a posture chiropractors envy. His eyes glow brighter than the clear skies roofing him, being a color of gray so astonishing you forget it is the color of bunkers and bathrooms, smog and cement. In the opening scene police steal the money he needs to save his brother’s life, but he is calm, considerate, deferent even, carefully measuring and planning a solution. Then, the audience sees him alone, finally, in a forest. He sleeps among the trees with the peace of a monk. He catches his breakfast from the brook with a single hand. He holds the bait between two fingers and then snaps forward. No excess movement. His hand rises from the water holding a fish. He sets on his task. Saving his brother. Soon we learn he was in the army. Not on the front-lines, where he might have become a less than perfect man through what one does and is done-to in war. Neither is he a coward. He was so innately skillful he became an instructor straight out of the academy. Richmond is a brilliant tactician, an immediate problem solver, adept with literally every weapon and vehicle known to man, sternly standing his ground while being so polite it makes people shy. He is untiring, realistic, fair, kind, patient, driven, perfect, perfect, perfect. We all wish to be more like him. A Mary Sue in all but name.

What is the conflict that is foolish enough to stand in the way of this elevated being? And why is the film so good despite having a protagonist so non-conducive to narrative?

Terry Richmond is black. The villainous police force is white and corrupt. But the question is not whether or not he can defeat these cops. Of course he can. They are no Mary Sues. They’re small town hicks with guns, badges, sawdust for neurons. He could kill them all without breaking a sweat, blinking an eye, or sullying one of his cramp-tight t-shirts. The question is whether this perfect being can stop them without resorting to violence. Is the perfect man perfect enough to amicably and painlessly tackle the American Justice system? Can Mary Sue beat institutional corruption and systemic racism through lawful means?

While the action-packed trailers and the silhouetted-shotgun-posters of the film suggested Richmond’s first instinct would be to grab a gun and get justice the old rootin’ tootin’ Wild West way, the opposite occurs. He tries relentlessly to save his brother through legal means. Any means but violence. All resorts before the last resort. He tries negotiating, loopholes, lawyers, asking for help from friends, strangers, anyone who will listen. Slowly, the infectious cruelty of his situation outpaces him. The law dictates his brother must remain incarcerated. A privatized prison system demands flesh. Sweeping pardons for low-level crimes involving marijuana only started in 2022. They have certainly not swept across all of America. The law dictates his brother must be sent to a new prison where he’ll be killed. America’s prison population is so large it cannot, does not, account for individuals. The law dictates the bail money that could save Terry’s brother can be taken from him without cause and kept by the police to fund their cars and coffee-machines. This law is called “civil forfeiture” and is currently practiced. No one inside the police force is willing to come forward where a culture of complacency and fear rules.

It is only well into the movie that the last resort is the only one left. It becomes clear. The perfect man cannot compete with this reality, barbaric and Kafkaesque in equal measure. Even Mary Sue, the fairest of them all, is too weak for the cruelty of the American Justice system. A trope astoundingly used.

In the end, all means are exhausted but the physical. A half-victory of sorts is won. Richmond manages to expose the corruption and stop the evil cops without killing a single one, using carefully considered and executed martial arts, smoke grenades, evasive tactics, and the occasional punch in the face. A middle ground between Malcom and King, perhaps. 

Interestingly, the movie seems unshy of its recommendation of direct action where diplomacy fails. This commendation explains both the central character’s name and the title of the film itself. Richmond’s last name comes from Richmond, Virginia. The Capitol of the American Confederacy. The beating heart of an evil that could only be met with a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel, as the old song goes. The title of the movie, Rebel Ridge, refers to a location barely present in the film. Visible for only a few shots and mentioned by name but once, it seems to be old bricked battlements. Given the film’s location, Louisiana, this has to be a remnant of the Civil War. Where blood was traded for freedom when diplomacy failed. Terry must do much the same.

I do not believe this film is calling for a new civil war. Nor do I believe it comes out in favor of violence. However, it is a declaration nonetheless. If a messiah cannot survive your system without bloodshed, how is the everyman supposed to? The machine must change if it can do nothing but eat its own cogs.

Tropes are much maligned within writing. If they are used consciously, the only response they ever warrant is subversion. The Mary Sue superman is subverted and destroyed in every dark and edgy superhero parody like The Boys. The no-nonsense cop is made human, fragile, real, in modern police series like Luther. The girl-shy hacker is made a sexy hunk in Bad Boys for Life. But one can do much more with tropes than dismantle them. Rebel Ridge did nothing to disperse the Mary Sue-status of its protagonist. Rather, it embraces it fully and is richer for it.