Ever since TFA people have been talking about Rey's use of the force in the movie, either attacking it as something impossible or defending it as being reasonable. Both sides usually show lots of in universe reasons and rationale for why Rey's use of the force is either reasonable or makes her into a so called "mary sue".

And while its easy to dismiss one side as just being misogynist or another as just defending some questionable directing choices at the base of it is something deeper, something that ties into the theme of the ST. And that is how we view the force.

Both sides feel they are right because they are booth looking at the force though two very different lenses. One in which the force is a progression tree and another where the force is a giant ocean. It is a argument that has been around for a while in fantasy. "Should the magic system be more like that of Tolkien or should it be more like that of Sanderson?"

This gets us to the base of the argument and past saying "Well in the book X happened" or "It took Luke X years to learn this" and it also saves us from having to make excuses for why the character is able to do something like saying "Well in the novelization their is a barrier in her head blocking her powers" or "she reverse mind read kylo and learned her stuff from him."

So what are these two ways of looking at them? Well one is based on rules, that magic has a certain set of rules it must follow and a certain path of progression. Also known as "Magic A is Magic A" http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MagicAIsMagicA

Works heavy on speculative elements, such as Science Fiction and Fantasy, often have an assortment of fantastic intangibles we cannot even dream of encountering in Real Life — yet act in a completely consistent way, as if governed by imaginary rules of physics.

Or at least, they do if the writer knows what he's doing. No matter how fantastic the events in a piece of fiction, their Internal Consistency is what makes or breaks the Willing Suspension of Disbelief. You can have the tech guy of La Résistance explain in oblique terms involving the word "nano" why the Evil Empire's fairy dust superweapon needs an hour to recharge after activation, and the audience will nod its collective head and smile; but if you later have that superweapon fire twice in succession, you just made a Plot Hole and they'll all be at your throat.

Those who follow this train of thought want internal consistency. They see something happen in a movie or a book and think it should always be like that. That while it may come a bit quicker to some than others their are still limits on what should be expected of a person at a certain level of experience.

Its not that they hate women or are mad she isn't a skywalker (she is btw) its because her powers don't seem to be following the rules. Its why both sides can use the podracing scene and be equal correct in their minds.

It may be that people who see the force this way are more used to the games where its set up in this fashion or the RPG guides or just that they like their magic system more when its more solid.

And this form of thoughts has its basis in the lore and the movies. Or at least in the more recent stuff which might have something to do with how they view it as well. I grew up with the essential guides and Jedi academy games and books so to me the force seemed very formulaic. And the PT as well as TCW for the most part seem to follow that path. Padawans are taught certain things at certain times while its in the OT where we see Obi-Wan and Yoda being more esoteric and vauge about instruction.

So to them seeing her pull a saber (something it took luke four years/1movie to do) to her, mind trick a guard (five years/2 movies), expertly fly a plane she has never been in (Luke and Anakin both had on screen experience and explanations for why they were already good pilots), And go toe to toe with a dark lord (their argument being that sith/darksiders use pain to fuel them so the blaster shot wasn't as debilitating as people think) all break the rules that the universe is supposed to follow. And remember this is just going by what we see in TFA and not things from the movie guidebook or novelization.

TLDR for this section: Rey breaks the rules the force is supposed to follow

This brings us to the second group, the group that sees the force as an ocean. This is the High Fantasy group http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HighFantasy

Now someone might automatically say "Well Space Opera is the sci-fi version of High Fantasy there for Star Wars follows that rule on how magic works." And they would be right......at least as far as the OT. Before I mentioned age and how the age of the viewer or which trilogy they saw first may affect their view on the force. The OT does fall more inline with how magic works in High Fantasy, a large unkown force that grants the user what they need but doesn't really have any hard and fast rules to it beyond good guys use magic 1 and bad guys magic 2.

Obi-wan and Yoda both talk more about opening the force and letting it flow though luke, letting it guide him and not the other way around. They don't teach him specific things like push or pull but how to access the force to do what ever he needs to do in that situation.

This is the idea behind High Fantasy. That the magic user is more a conduit. A newbie could cast a earth shattering spell to destroy a meteor if that was what was needed. Or in this case Rey because she is open to the force can do all of these wondrous things even though she just picked up a saber for possibly her first time.

To them Rey isn't breaking any rules because the force only has one rule. That rule is to be open to it and listen to its will. That by acting with the force instead of controlling it a Jedi can do whatever is necessary.

TLDR:High Fantasy people see everything as being possible at once if one listens to the force.

Now who is right? Well this is where I put my two cents in. I honestly think both groups are right.

At its core Star Wars is High Fantasy. Thats how it started, that was Lucas' vision and why we have Yoda and Obi-Wan being so non specific in the OT. The idea was that while Jedi got training it was more about opening their-self to the force and that once that connection was made meditation would enlighten them on how to use the force. And the ST (Being ANH 2.0) tried to recapture that sense of the unknown, of this force (pun intended) that guides us and is beyond all comprehension. We also have things like Rebels or the Mortis Arc (however that was all only as real as a force vision so millage may very) trying to bring back the more mystical side of the force.

But something came between those two trilogies, 40 years of books and comics and games. High fantasy is fine but people expect a sense of internal consistency to their stories. Also training and showing how our heroes learned to pull an object (by practicing on a bowl of space ramen smh) is a great way to move along character growth and add depth to the universe.

So we have 40 years of people adding more and more rules to how the force should work, how the jedi should learn. We gain a sense of how the force should work, of what people should be learning and how they should be achomplished. Sure we have the special cases (of which Rey is one) but for 99.9% of force users the force acts in a specific way.

So what I think we have ended up with is a base of High Fantasy were in the most dire of straits, when the Hero is at their limit and truly open to the force they are able to act above and beyond what they would be expected to. And above that we have a system of rule based magic where we can expect a force user to follow certain steps in their journey and be able to estimate where they are based on experience.

And I feel this is backed up by TLJ. If the first movie was all about being open, connecting to the ocean that is the force. Then TLJ is about directing that ocean, about imparting a set of rules to the tide to controls it instead of just being washed around.

TLDR: We have a system that uses both and what we saw in the movie was the main character being open to the force and doing the impossible becasue of faith not training.

So next time you get in an argument about Rey's powers think about how they may be viewing the force vs how you view it. Is it something with rules and restrictions or a ocean of possibilities?

Edit: wow what a difference between here and r/starwars when it comes to voting on this.