Prey’s Heroine Naru Is The Complete Opposite Of A Mary Sue In Every Way

Games Prey’s Heroine Naru Is The Complete Opposite Of A Mary Sue In Every Way Paul Tassi Senior Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. News and opinion about video games, television, movies and the internet. New! Follow this author to stay notified about their latest stories.

Got it! Aug 9, 2022, 09:14am EDT | New! Click on the conversation bubble to join the conversation Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Prey Hulu This week in Very Stupid Internet Debates, we have the usual collection of outrage-based YouTubers trying to take down Prey , Hulu’s Predator prequel that is racking up a lot of love for its cast and execution, and is being called the best since the original. But since the film stars an indigenous actress, Amber Midthunder, and not the muscle-bound Arnold Schwarzenegger, the film is being accused of making her a “Mary Sue,” the catch-all term for a woman who is too perfect, talented and skills, and lacks flaws. She does not “earn” the outcomes she receives.

This was brought up most frequently with Rey in the new Star Wars movies with the same crowd accusing her of being too good at fighting and force-wielding and not having “earned” her skill or power. I’m not going to re-litigate Rey here, but Prey’s Naru? Get outta here. This is actually the perfect example of a character to show just how hollow and horrible these arguments are as they try to dismiss female characters in media.

Naru is actually the total opposite of a Mary Sue in every way, and cuts counter to all the usual critiques leveled at characters like this. How? Where to begin: To start, while Naru wants to be a hunter among her tribe, it clearly does not come easy to her. During the first part of the film, she’s shown failing to hunt even rabbits successfully, until she modifies her tools and is able to learn from her mistakes to start racking up some kills.

A key moment of the film is Naru’s early failure to successfully hunt the mountain lion that has terrorized her tribe. She’s knocked unconscious during the fight and has to be saved by her brother, who then goes out and he’s the one who takes down the lion. Though he admits he did so using her strategy.

Prey Hulu MORE FOR YOU ‘Demon Slayer’ Season 2 Finally Has An Actual 2021 Release Date Netflix’s ‘Squid Game’ Season 2 Not A Sure Thing, Says Director ‘Genshin Impact’ Still Refuses To Increase Anniversary Rewards, Despite Fan Outcry Naru spends the vast majority of the film learning about the Predator, how it hunts, how it hides itself, what attracts or disinterests it. She’s the only one who does this in the whole movie, so it stands to reason she would be at an advantage over everyone else when going to take it on. The film also makes it clear, if you’re paying attention, that this is an “unbloodied” Predator during its first ever hunt, not a seasoned veteran, which may make it a somewhat less tough foe than past iterations of the monster.

Even when Naru ultimately kills the Predator, ahead of that, she still had significant help from her brother, Taabe, who ends up being killed, but not before he himself does significant damage to the Predator. In short, Naru spends the entire film failing, running away and learning from her mistakes before she is finally ready to face the somewhat unexperienced Predator, and even then, she still has a little help. Absolutely nothing about this falls into the Mary Sue trope, which has been so warped at this point it literally doesn’t mean anything.

It’s easy to imagine how if Terminator or Alien would have come out today, we’d be hearing Sarah Connor and Ripley called Mary Sues. This is nonsense. Please stop it.

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