So, what I am proposing instead is that the force be viewed from the lens of how it informs the story. That's how it was actually originally used in the first place anyway. In ANH, Luke wanted to learn about the force because his father was a jedi knight, so the force, as a storytelling device, was him becoming his own man by taking the role his father left. In ESB, the force became somewhat hostile to towards Luke, plaguing him with nightmare visions, informing the audience not just in terms of foreshadowing of Luke's true lineage, but a manifest representation that the last films idealization of Luke stepping into his idealized father's shoes crumbles in the horrible truth of his father being the monster he was trying to destroy.
Do you see the difference? The force isn't best explained by pedantry of who can do what by how much training. It's about how this magical system represents the inner character of the force user. As such, Rey's ability to out-mindbend Kylo Ren and then use the force mind trick is better explained by her survivor background, intelligence, and intuition than any "she's the chosen one!" nonsense.
Which is also why the Force is such a boring feature of the prequel trilogy. There, it actually is a neutral tool that's used by whoever has the proper training for it. It's like a policeman's gun. It's standard issue, everyone has one, and there is no personal attachment. It's so utilitarian and bland that it never actually informs anything about the character using it. The closest we get is that evil dudes use force lightning while good guys don't and....that's it I think.
I absolutely agree with your perception of the force and its application. This may simply be an impasse, but the stumbling block we keep running into, I think, is your thesis in so far as it relates to justifying Rey's accomplishments. I don't view much appreciable difference between, say, The Force, and... Han Solo, when it comes the elements in a story being in service to a grand narrative.
Because of that I may have a less romantic view than yourself and a lower tolerance for 'transgressions' that to my mind break verisimilitude. To give you an idea, tTo my mind there is still an overall consistency to a discrete element that is, by design, lacking exacting definition or consistency.
By design, is this 'inconsistency' consistently inconsistent enough? Does it truly lack of necessary reason and rhythm to serve its purpose? That's the way I approach even the unknowable in the fiction I create and consume. I have exacting standards.
I'm having a hard time bridging the gap between the Force as a, if you would allow me, 'romantic' element and the degree to which (not how) it justifies the the way the stories have gone as they have with Rey. I absolutely agree that Rey SHOULD be able to accomplish the things that she does in the ST... let me back up for a second and start a tangent.
You describe her in terms I agree with 'survivor' 'intelligent' 'intuition'. The issue being that, not only to I NOT see those qualities reflected in her character throughout the films (despite her being set up with these elements!), I see the worst execution of these concepts when appraising the beats of her character. I see a powerhouse that just 'does things with no idea how she did them (by her own admission at times). Because, for instance, in the mind-bending sequence, I don't see HOW she learns or adapts to Kylo, I don't see the 'survivor', nor the intellect, I don't see HOW she was 'clever' in figuring something out, she just comes across as a savant powerhouse. Which is the opposite of her setup as a character, so it's doubly damaging in my eyes.
This is why I wanted Kylo to be even more visibly injured during their duel than he was, I also wanted to see her fight dirty during the fight, emphasizing the classist contrast between them. I, in fact, would have preferred that she won the fight, not by remembering balance, but by combining her natural aptitude w the force in unconventional ways that harken to her out of the box thinking, and her scavenger background. Only for the nearly dead Kylo to comment that she will make an excellent apprentice. Not to say that she would have beaten him by the skin of her teeth, I think it would have been better had she injured him just as much in the forest as she had prior, just in ways that better highlights her qualities as a character.
To me, that combination of him displaying a ting of arrogance even in defeat, while being more gravely injured, would better preserve him as a villain for her in subsequent films, and her not going 'stock Jedi' to defeat him, would have reinforced her character traits. In a way, the traditional image of the Jedi, and Kylo, are very closely aligned when looked at in terms of a classist lens. Rey would have defeated him by virtue of her self, and it would have doubled as a step on her journey to accepting that her parents were never coming back (as she only said they would, as a coping mechanism, and never truly seemed to accept the reality of the world she lived on, or herself as she was defined by it). But in this telling, she'd be able to (symbolically) found the virtues of it, thereby the self that she had spent her life denying.
It's late and I'm very tired, as well as rambling and repeating myself, so I'll call it here for now. My issue is that, and we agree upon this being the question to ask, 'a wizard is doing something', what they have done thus far comes up far short. The very fact that they had to more blatantly spell out her chosen one status (by means of addressing, not as a justification in and of itself) in TLJ, or spend minus recounting that Kylo was deeply fractured in the finale of TFA, is not to me them pounding the 'dumb audience' over the head, but rather an admission that they did not stick the lander in properly conveying the narrative of those elements. Had they done so, there would have been little need for further clarification that took the step beyond simply recapping events of TFA.
I have to disagree about demeaning Luke.
I don't feel that Rey demeans him at all, while they are two different people, they do still learn from each other.
Oh, I meant how some people on the internet often reinterpret Luke as a near idiot redneck to pacify concerns of Reys feats. Not in the film itself.