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[excelsiorlef]

Not really you don't hear people calling storm, mera, Wonder Woman, or Jean Grey Mary sues it's used mostly on op teen males.

I can find plenty of exampled of people calling Jean Grey a Mary Sue

 

[gutter_trash]

 

[shoreu]

He's not even the strongest Skywalker. A fully limbed Jedi anakin would have wrecked him.

 

[heliosRAzi]

I can find plenty of exampled of people calling Jean Grey a Mary Sue

A never had a problem with her. But I've only seen the cartoon and movies.

 

[excelsiorlef]

A never had a problem with her. But I've only seen the cartoon and movies.

I don't think she is but it's not hsrd to find those who do.

 

[DrForester]

Poster boy for the Mary Sue trope.

 

[shoreu]

I can find plenty of exampled of people calling Jean Grey a Mary Sue

I believe you lol but it's her power She still has to struggle with control

A never had a problem with her. But I've only seen the cartoon and movies.

She's extremely powerful lol.

 

[quesalupa]

https://m.facebook.com/marysuemilliken/

 

[UnemployedVillain]

I don't think she is but it's not hsrd to find those who do.

It's not hard to find that claim about any powerful character. The point is that it's not disproportionately applied to female characters nor is the bar "lower" for them to be considered one

 

[shoreu]

It's not hard to find that claim about any powerful character. The point is it's that it's not disproportionately applied to female characters nor is the bar "lower" for them to be considered one

This is the real point though.

 

[heliosRAzi]

I don't think she is but it's not hsrd to find those who do.

you can find anything if you look hard enough.

[

 

[tokkun]

I thought kvothe is an unreliable narrator so everything he says outside of explaining the truth was less interesting than the myth is to be taken with a grain of salt.

That may be the case, but does it really make that much of a difference? Maybe it makes the world of the frame story seem more believable, but as a reader you still had to spend a couple thousand pages with Mary Sue version of the character before you get there.

It's sort of like the back end of Bravely Default. Ultimately there was a purpose for the game becoming incredibly repetitive, but that didn't retroactively delete my feelings of frustration when I was experiencing the repetitiveness. Even though there was some payoff in the end, it wasn't worth it.

 

[Haly]

That may be the case, but does it really make that much of a difference? Maybe it makes the world of the frame story seem more believable, but as a reader you still had to spend a couple thousand pages with Mary Sue version of the character before you get there.

It's sort of like the back end of Bravely Default. Ultimately there was a purpose for the game becoming incredibly repetitive, but that didn't retroactively delete my feelings of frustration when I was experiencing the repetitiveness. Even though there was some payoff in the end, it wasn't worth it.

Don't really have anything more to add than this:

During my early years writing, I mixed a lot with other aspiring fantasy novelists. A great number of us had grown up reading the Tolkien- reaction books. Brooks, Eddings, Williams, Jordan. You might call us of the rising generation Tolkien’s grandchildren. (Some of you may have heard me call him, affectionately, “Grandpa Tolkien” when I talk about him, which is an affectation I think I got from a David Eddings interview I once read.) A lot of my generation of writers, then, were ready for the next stage of fantasy epics. The “new wave,” so to speak.

I think I have a better read on it now. It has to do with a particular explanation one writer gave when talking about his story. It went something like this: “Well, it starts out like every other ‘farmboy saves the world’ fantasy novel. You know, the plucky sidekick rogue, the gang of unlikely woodsmen who go on a quest to find the magic sword. But it’s not going to end like that. I’m going to twist it about, make it my own! At the three-quarter mark, the book becomes something else entirely, and I’ll play off all those expectations! The reader will realize it’s not just another Tolkienesque fantasy. It’s something new and original.”

There’s a problem in there. Can you spot it?

Here’s the way I see it. That book is going to disappoint almost everyone. The crowd who is searching for something more innovative will pick up the book, read the beginning, and grow bored because of how familiar the book seems. They’ll never get to the part where you’re new and original because of how strongly the book is relying upon the thing it is (supposedly) denying. And yet, the people who pick up your book and like it for its resonant, classical feel have a strong probability of growing upset with the novel when it breaks so solidly out of its mold at the end. In a way, that breaks the promise of the first three-quarters of the book.

In short, you’re either going to bore people with the bulk of the book or you’re going to make them hate your ending.

 

[iamblades]

It was a parody of Star Trek fanfiction, made by an editor who had seen too much of it.

http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/243/205

And then in the letter columns, we started seeing the writers react: "What's so wrong with my story? I'm just telling a story that I think is great." And we would fire back: "Yeah, but the problem is, the presence of the Mary Sue warped all the other characters in the story away from their known characterization." Because in fan fiction, you aren't writing stories about an unknown universe, and readers expect certain characterizations.

The bolded is the key part IMO. Rey isn't a Mary Sue because she doesn't really change the characterization of any of the characters around her.

Whereas Bella Swan is able to make vampires and werewolves fall in love with her instead of eating her because reasons.

Rey may be overpowered, but it's hard to say even that much in a universe where the force exists.

 

[Laughing Banana]

Katniss kind of is. She's an evolution of the Bella Swan character sure, and more involved than Swan, but she's firmly rooted in that tradition. Case in point, every other female character around her is either treacherous or suffering from some kind of psychosis that they depend on her almost utterly.

She's not an egregious example of the trope though. What's worse are the copy-cats that merely ape the most shallow aspects of Hunger Games: dystopian future, Significant Capital Letters, 1 female lead 2 male leads, non-traditional combat style the lead is The Best At, government revolution as an allegory for coming-of-age.

(Have read both Twilight and all three Hunger Games books and worse.)

Katniss is a Mary Sue? Hardly. The fact that in the grand sense of things she's basically just a figurehead who can't really do anything is in fact a big central point to Mockingjay, after all, and even in the Catching Fire; there's a reason why they concocted all those plans without saying anything to her, after all. Even in the 1st book she is shown to be capable of being manipulative towards Peeta in order to survive. She is impulsive, petty, brash, reckless, etc etc... I think the books have done a rather good job in showing the flaws of her character.

 

[Usobuko]

Don't stress too much amount it, it seems to be the new hot word to use around here.

It's kinda common in forums / sites that have an interest in 'evaluating' works. Like TVtropes for example.

 

[SixMachine]

The Kirito comparison is hilarious because it works. The funny thing is Kirito is literally an author insert. He has stated that he always wished he was good at video games but didn't have the time to put in stuff like MMOs, so he literally made a character who is too godlike and make all the chicks drooling all over him because of his gaming skills. It also doesn't help that it seems that he doesn't have a good grasp on how a lot of MMOs work, Log Horizon at least does a fine job trying to manage things like buffs, debuss, aggro, and the holy trinity for being the same concept.

Also I can't believe we came this far without this guy.

I think the people in this thread who think this term is derived from sexism with the release of TFA are lucky. They sound like they have not experienced the badness (if it isn't a word, it is now used to describe these characters) instilled in some characters over the years.

 

[Napoleonthechimp]

I'm getting tired of all these SW threads, ffs. Where are the mods?

This.

I've had my fill of Star Wars for a life time.

 

[not psycho]

To me, Mary Sue implies a falseness in the way people react to a character, or in the character's position in the world.

False positive reaction: characters are very interested/charmed/impressed by a character who hasn't displayed anywhere near enough reason for them to be so. I haven't read Twilight, but Bella is often accused of being this.

False negative reaction: characters implausibly underestimate a character who has done incredible things and/or has an impressive background. Natsu from Fairy Tail is this: he has an implausibly varied, top of the world pedigree, a great winning record, yet was too often underestimated. Hermione approaches this, as she is by far the most competent of her peers in general, has some very impressive individual feats, and doesn't get enough recognition for it.

False position: This may be a character who is inserted into a world, designed to have connections to all the popular characters, to have skill/power that breaks longstanding rules of the world, and to have a wider range of knowledge/skills than should be possible. It's just outright hard to believe such a convenient character could appear. Wesley Crusher probably fits in this.


If it doesn't ring false in these ways, I don't like the term. It may be hard to make a good character like that, but there is nothing inherently wrong with a flawless character, an absurdly powerful character (even without explanation), or a character everyone else revolves around.

 

[Staccat0]

Your broader point is right OP, but it mostly just applies to geeks on the internet. We live in an age where every peice of art has to be rated and ranked against another. Someone on the AV Club recently used the phrase "Film Criticism as math" which is a nice way to put it. This idea that there is a "right" way to make art is mostly harmless right now, but it bums me out to think what stories might look like in the future.

Basically, it wraps back around to something I bitch about all the time which is that people often think art has an obligation to be entertainment. However the two things are not mutually exclusive. As soon as you start treating every bit of media like a fucking product you start turning into boring turd who hates something because "the main character is unlikable" or "a mary sue" or... ugh... "The story doesn't have a proper protagonist/antagonist" or... fuck me... "wasn't realistic"

People act like they are are being "objective" but they are discussing a thing that is not meant to be taken that way. So in the end they sound like they are discussing a can of soda or a car.

 

[Boss Doggie]

Wesley Crusher is basically an idealized version of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in his youth. Gene Roddenberry's birth name is Eugene Wesley Roddenberry and they named Wesley after him. It is generally known that Gene Roddenberry was the reason why this character was so prominent in the show during season one, as the character was designed to fulfill Gene's fantasy of seeing a young (and flawless) version of himself get free rein to do what he wants on the Enterprise. Wesley is the perfect example of a Mary Sue.

As soon as Gene became unable to work on the show as a producer, the character Wesley was sidelined.

But Wesley Crusher wasn't the only Mary Sue on Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lwaxana Troi was another one as well. The character was played by Gene Roddenberry's wife, Majel Barrett. Lwaxana could do anything that she wanted on the Enterprise D and nobody had any power to stop her. Not even Picard.

So that explains with how "Shut up Wesley" became a thing post S1 then? Also I'm surprised no one made a joke about how Troi "resembled" Chapel.

Batman has jobber aura he's not a Gary stue (Mary sue lol) . He's he's actually earned his power, and doesn't exist as a walking plot device.

Pretty sure he is a sue by virtue of making everyone else dumb around him when normally they should be smarter than him. Rather than working with the plot, the plot is twisted for his benefit. Like I said though, I am talking to crossover Batman, which almost always has this problem.

I'm fine with your last point.

The OP does not present a strong enough argument why it isn't sexism. It simply states, "no it isn't sexism." Not acceptable argument.

I get it. Many men take issue with strong female characters, particularly in genre entertainment, and for reasons I can't really relate to, feel a need to minimize or rationalize them. And that leads to threads like this.

Because it isn't. There's nothing more to say. I've seen plenty of strong female characters that aren't sues. Why is there a need to present a "strong" case when there is no problem to begin with? And I made this thread not because of "mary sue is sexist", but I want to know how people perceive the term since it has some YMMV effect on people.

This is like when people misuse the term deus ex machina with regards to Attack on Titan when

Spoiler

Eren instead of dying becomes a titan and saves Mikasa

No, that's a major turning point that the entire plot revolves from then on. It's a premise. That's what the show is now about.

Wait, why do people think that's DEM if it happens early on and is a requisite of the plot

 

[Tinfoilhatsron]

This is from anecdotal observation over my life. I don't have links.

Rey is a mighty fine example though.

I mean just looking up Katniss on googke and I found that there were people asking if she's a Mary Sue. It sure as hell comes up more often around women.

This is absolutely true, but to me it seems like the bar for being accused of being a Mary Sue is a lot lower for female characters.

The idea that Rey is even part of the discussion is ridiculous, for example.

I disagree. The shoenen genre is filled with overpowered self inserts (for the fans) who happen to be boys or men, almost exclusively. Maybe the problem is that it isn't highlighted enough.

But most (sane) people's problem of Kirito from SAO is just a flat out Gary Stu, called back halfway through the first season. Would the harem genre also be Gary Stu in romances??

Either that or people's definition of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu are wildly different. I guess mine would clash with the the OP.

 

[DrForester]

So that explains with how "Shut up Wesley" became a thing post S1 then? Also I'm surprised no one made a joke about how Troi "resembled" Chapel.

Post S1 Wesley became a lot more tolerable. They stopped with the stupid "Wesley saves the ship" plots. He was even better in S3 once they got him into a real uniform, and while it was after Wheaton left as a regular, "The First Duty" is one of the better episodes of the series.

 

[Boss Doggie]

What was their plot excuse of Wesley not appearing frequently?

Either that or people's definition of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu are wildly different. I guess mine would clash with the the OP.

What is yours, out of curiosity?

 

[DrForester]

What was their plot excuse of Wesley not appearing frequently?

He still appeared regularly in S2 and S3, it just wasn't in the Wunderkind capacity he was in S1.

 

[Alcoremortis]

To me, Mary Sue implies a falseness in the way people react to a character, or in the character's position in the world.

False positive reaction: characters are very interested/charmed/impressed by a character who hasn't displayed anywhere near enough reason for them to be so. I haven't read Twilight, but Bella is often accused of being this.

False negative reaction: characters implausibly underestimate a character who has done incredible things and/or has an impressive background. Natsu from Fairy Tail is this: he has an implausibly varied, top of the world pedigree, a great winning record, yet was too often underestimated. Hermione approaches this, as she is by far the most competent of her peers in general, has some very impressive individual feats, and doesn't get enough recognition for it.

False position: This may be a character who is inserted into a world, designed to have connections to all the popular characters, to have skill/power that breaks longstanding rules of the world, and to have a wider range of knowledge/skills than should be possible. It's just outright hard to believe such a convenient character could appear. Wesley Crusher probably fits in this.


If it doesn't ring false in these ways, I don't like the term. It may be hard to make a good character like that, but there is nothing inherently wrong with a flawless character, an absurdly powerful character (even without explanation), or a character everyone else revolves around.

I think this pretty much sums it up.

Though, as in all things, there's probably exceptions where if done correctly a story could still be entertaining with those flaws. Though, it would probably be a parody of some sort.

 

[Htown]

What was their plot excuse of Wesley not appearing frequently?

Eventually he went to go study at Starfleet Academy on Earth.

Then at some point he came back and went to explore reality with the Traveler or something.

 

[Krejlooc]

Eventually he went to go study at Starfleet Academy on Earth.

Then at some point he came back and went to explore reality with the Traveler or something.

Then, according to the movies, at some point he abandons the traveler and goes back to starfleet academy.

 

[Admiral Woofington]

Don't really have anything more to add than this:

Speaking of Rothfuss I swear that most people wouldn't have issues with the second novel if it wasn't for the sex chapters.

I mean even the chapter dealing with learning the best martial arts from brutes (but it's ok because he isn't as good as them) wouldn't be as highly criticized IMHO.

Still it deserves it, it's just that most people grew tired of Kvothe with the sex.

 

[Boss Doggie]

He still appeared regularly in S2 and S3, it just wasn't in the Wunderkind capacity he was in S1.

Ahh I see. I guess he's toned down too.

Eventually he went to go study at Starfleet Academy on Earth.

Then at some point he came back and went to explore reality with the Traveler or something.

So that's why he wasn't around in the movies, then?

 

[Stinkles]

The explosion of use of the term I suspect in part comes from mildly sexist nerds trying to deal with a female superhero they never asked for.

 

[kmag]

I always though a Mary Sue was an obvious attempt at self insertion as character who is an idealised analogue of the author. Since the term came to prominence in fanfiction this was normally a character who an desirable established character fell madly in love/lust/all of the above. Essentially fantasy wish fulfilment for the author.

 

[shoreu]

Pretty sure he is a sue by virtue of making everyone else dumb around him when normally they should be smarter than him. Rather than working with the plot, the plot is twisted for his benefit. Like I said though, I am talking to crossover Batman, which almost always has this problem.

That's actually what jobber aura means. Characters like Deathstroke, Batman, Solidsnake have it. Hell Slade's daughter actually has it almost as an actual power.

 

[Tinfoilhatsron]

What was their plot excuse of Wesley not appearing frequently?



What is yours, out of curiosity?

Any over powered self-insert whose only weakness is either superficial or that he or she isn't strong enough. Though you would have to take each case by itself and examine context. Pretty broad though.

Sorry for the late response.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

Speaking of Rothfuss I swear that most people wouldn't have issues with the second novel if it wasn't for the sex chapters.

I mean even the chapter dealing with learning the best martial arts from brutes (but it's ok because he isn't as good as them) wouldn't be as highly criticized IMHO.

Still it deserves it, it's just that most people grew tired of Kvothe with the sex.

Thanks for reminding me of the nympho sex goddess bullshit

 

[shoreu]

The explosion of use of the term I suspect in part comes from mildly sexist nerds trying to deal with a female superhero they never asked for.

What do you mean by It's explosion? Like as in recently?

 

[UnemployedVillain]

What do you mean by It's explosion? Like as in recently?

I'd say the explosion of people getting defensive over it came about recently...as in after TFA where many people are now trying to revise history to claim it's been mostly applied to female characters

 

[shoreu]

I'd say the explosion of people getting defensive over it came about recently...as in after TFA where many people are now trying to revise history to claim it's been mostly applied to female characters

That's why I asked Frank is knowledgeable on most of this stuff so I think he means something else. But, it does seem like wayy to many people have been exposed to the term incorrectly.

 

[tokkun]

The explosion of use of the term I suspect in part comes from mildly sexist nerds trying to deal with a female superhero they never asked for.

I suspect that the Internet has simply given people much more awareness of literary tropes and archetypes. Particularly with the rise of TVTropes there has been a lot of interest in literary deconstruction in normal conversation. For example, you also frequently see people pointing out instances of the hero's journey.

 

[Stinkles]

What do you mean by It's explosion? Like as in recently?

Yep. It's usage has SKYROCKETED since Star Wars.

 

[Haly]

Wow he's right.

https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=mary sue

lmao

 

[harriet the spy]

The explosion of use of the term I suspect in part comes from mildly sexist nerds trying to deal with a female superhero they never asked for.

Bingo. you never hear of people repeatedly whining about their favorite characters being Mary Sue/Gary stu, yet nearly-perfect characters who ace everything they do are all over the place in videogames. Persona 4's MC and Yakuza's Kazuma Kiryu come to mind, but there are countless others.

 

[Neoweee]

To me, Mary Sue implies a falseness in the way people react to a character, or in the character's position in the world.

False positive reaction: characters are very interested/charmed/impressed by a character who hasn't displayed anywhere near enough reason for them to be so. I haven't read Twilight, but Bella is often accused of being this.

False negative reaction: characters implausibly underestimate a character who has done incredible things and/or has an impressive background. Natsu from Fairy Tail is this: he has an implausibly varied, top of the world pedigree, a great winning record, yet was too often underestimated. Hermione approaches this, as she is by far the most competent of her peers in general, has some very impressive individual feats, and doesn't get enough recognition for it.

False position: This may be a character who is inserted into a world, designed to have connections to all the popular characters, to have skill/power that breaks longstanding rules of the world, and to have a wider range of knowledge/skills than should be possible. It's just outright hard to believe such a convenient character could appear. Wesley Crusher probably fits in this.


If it doesn't ring false in these ways, I don't like the term. It may be hard to make a good character like that, but there is nothing inherently wrong with a flawless character, an absurdly powerful character (even without explanation), or a character everyone else revolves around.

I really like this.

Too many people are hung up on the original definitions of MS/GS in regards to character insertion & fan fiction, etc., but those don't get at the core of why the characters are considered problematic.

It's actually not that hard. For example John McClane in the Die Hard movies. 1-3 hero and badass. 4-5 Gary Stu. Why do you think people hated those movies so much.

For reference, the characters that Landis used to discuss MS/GS or generally OP protagonists before Rey were...

John McClane (only from Die Hard 4 & 5)
Superman (most of the time)
John Cena
Batman
Jurassic World protagonist (hero of JP1 was an archeologist, JP2 had a mathematician, and JW has... an ex-marine who trains dinosaurs in his retirement)

Video games have a different logic, there are no Mary Sue or Gary Stu characters, because you play them, you control if they can master the challenge. I think Max Landis explained that as well.

Yeah, the rules are different for games. Hundreds of Game Overs aren't canon, but they are part of the struggle and the experience and the story-telling as experience by the player. It can be very interesting when a game plays with the trope, like Souls or Bioshock Infinite, where your deaths and "revival" have a canon explanation, but for the most part games are so far out of the norm that traditional criteria can be hard to judge.

However, there are some instances, like what the above poster mentioned regarding some plot heavy games like P4 where they break "False Positive Reaction" flagrantly.

If you count him as a genuine character rather than an annoying plot device, then he has a ton of GS points.

 

[UnemployedVillain]

Bingo. you never hear of people repeatedly whining about their favorite characters being Mary Sue/Gary stu, yet nearly-perfect characters who ace everything they do are all over the place in videogames. Persona 4's MC and Yakuza's Kazuma Kiryu come to mind, but there are countless others.

I don't think you can really compare videogames to completely passive mediums such as novels or film. Player agency/ability affect how playable characters are viewed in them versus in other mediums where your entire perspective of a character is how they're presented and it's out of your hands.

I mean the fact that Nathan Drake, when taking the players actions into consideration is a mass murderer vs a lovable Indy clone when only taking cutscenes into consideration shows how videogames are just no comparable

 

[heliosRAzi]

Wow he's right.

https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=mary sue


lmao

Maybe it's because there was/is so much controversy around it.

And people have called male characters mary sues all of the time.

 

[Pops Maellard]

Wow he's right.

https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=mary sue


lmao

Yup. I hadn't heard the term until the first GAF thread about Rey.

Incidentally, having read enough of this insanity to form an opinion, Rey isn't.

 

[DrForester]

Wow he's right.

https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=mary sue


lmao

There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?

 

[Cyan]

Wow he's right.

https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=mary sue


lmao

Yikes. And it was already way overused. Guess it's only going to get worse.

 

[Haly]

There has been an awakening. Have you felt it?

Fan Wars: The Tropes Awaken

 

[Chococat]

The main character of Ready Player One is a strong example of a Stu IMO.

How so?