If no one knew it could work then why did the entire First Order shit their pants immediately when the Resistance ship juiced up? And let say you're right and this was an original idea by Purple Head. Why the hell is she of all people the one to get the glory? Why not Ackbar or even Leia?
As far as courage...the entire Rebellion pretty much knew they would die in the attempt to blow up the Death Star. And in Rogue One we saw that people for sure were willing to die too.
It's just bad writing man. Believe me, I was like whoa...cool when watching that scene during the movie. But after thinking about it, it makes no sense.
The message was clear: no men will save any women in this film.
- RJ set up a whole complicated plot line (including bombs that fall in space) in order to have Leah deride Poe-- the "wreckless flyboy",
- the hero of the bombing mission was a woman, who nobly dropped the bombs
- RJ went out of his way again to humiliate Poe when they show him being disappointed that he doesn't get put in charge,
- Then they make his call purple lady's competency into question and yell at her
- Then they create a whole sub-mission, including a mutiny, that ends up getting half of the resistance killed, just to show again that Poe was wrong and that Purple Lady was right,
- Then they have here make the ultimate sacrifice with the ship.
Also...
- Luke was constantly being taught by Ray, not the other way around (How did she have perfect martial arts form without any training at all?)
- Ray is in the process of saving Kylo
- Rose saves Poe, the hero of the rebellion, and teaches him what true heroism is
- Leah teaches us about the heart of any rebellion: hope
- Ray saves the entire rebellion, she is their hope
But then they took it up a notch. It's not enough to have strong women. They wanted a
normal woman prove to be braver and more noble than any man. Purple lady's costume and hair were ridiculous for a military appointed given command in the middle of a battle, but anything less it would have allowed us to box her in as just a stereo-typical Hollywood strong women.
On the other hand:
- Poe blows some stuff up, but gets tons of people killed
- Finn wanders aimlessly, accomplishing nothing
- Kylo Ren has trust issues, and is a mass murderer
- Luke can't get his act together, until he is finally inspired by his female student
- New Order is led by a bunch of male maniacs
- The one New Order exception is Phasma, who RJ has kick Finn's butt--only to be killed when he gets saved by an unexpected CGI elevator.
It was feminism, but taken up two meta-notches from what we are used to.