Fair enough, I guess. I just always had a hard time getting my head around what made him so untouchable. Frankly, though, the Wizard ministry was nearly as evil as Voldemort's.
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The worst possible examples of a Mary Sue character
- Thread starter Nekofrog
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Fair enough, I guess. I just always had a hard time getting my head around what made him so untouchable. Frankly, though, the Wizard ministry was nearly as evil as Voldemort's.
FO-totality
Poet Centuriate
Weren't they sorta corrupted by him/acting as an extension of himself?
XANDER CAGE
Member
It's definitely Moffat, for me at least. It isn't so much that Sherlock is a Mary Sue, per se, it's just that I think Moffat will always err on writing whichever is funniest/cheekiest, regardless of whether or not it's in character. Moffat characters aren't characters, they're punchline deliverers.
Remember the season 1 episode that starts with Sherlock being incredibly pedantic about a criminal's minor-detail grammar mistakes and mocking him for making grade-school mistakes? In the next scene after that, Sherlock mistakenly says the sun revolves around the Earth, complete with Watson rolling his eyes and doing his general huffy Watson faces. It's been a while since I saw the episode so I could've missed some later scenes that point out that this is more of an obtuse character flaw, but from what I remember it just felt like two separate jokes that say different things about the character.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Yeah and then Sherlock makes out like the sun revolving around the earth is some minor detail and he has to make room in his brain for the important stuff. My eyes were rolling out the back of my head at that scene.
SpacedCadette
Member
I'm suprised that Ahsoka chick from the Clone Wars series hasnt been mentioned. She always gave me Mary Sue vibes.
This was straight from A Study in Scarlet actually. He goes on to compare the brain to an attic that most people stuff full of useless junk. Since it can't expand to fit new information forever he chooses to fill his attic with only tools that are useful to him.
I was rolling my eyes too but that's been part of his character from the beginning.
The bit about him mocking a criminal's grammar, though, I'm not familiar with. Could have been from one of the books I didn't read, I suppose.
Yes, but I meant even without him they were bad news. The Ministry monitored the use of magic in an incredibly invasive way, approved of the slavery of House Elves, deemed it legal and expedient to use a spell on muggles which has, in some cases, caused brain damage, held its prisoners in a prison so horrific and cruel that it made the villains put in it seem kind by comparison, and ultimately treated the muggle government as if it were beneath them.
And that's WITHOUT going into the hypocritical superiority of Wizards and the hilarious way they revered Merlin who, by all accounts, spent his time in the service of a muggle king. The Wizards, at least the British Wizards were such a travesty that Voldemort's policies were barely sweeping at all.
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
I haven't read anything after Speaker for the Dead, since I didn't like it all that much. I'm referring to him as he's presented in that particular book.
Blood Diamonds
Banned
"When I walked into Samus' ship, she had a mesmerizing look on her face, her pale, white skin looked beautiful along with her blonde hair looking perfect in that ponytail. Her baby blue spandex suit looked as delicate as her as it revealed itself along with a flawless body that she had kept over the years of hunting the dreadful Metroids, I got closer to her and she looked as innocent as ever, it was like you could never even tell she had hunted down an entire race of creatures, I got closer to her pale face and whispered "Are you ready?" She bit her lip and said "I'm not that easy" She turned around and walked away from me. I was heartbroken as I began to follow after her, she then started whispering something... Something that I could not make out when she first started whispering... But as I got closer I realized what she was saying "The baby the baby the baby the baby the baby the baby the baby the baby" I stood there confused, shocked by her thoughts going wild, I got closer to her and hugged her, she was so perfect, like the curve of a flower with torns in them with babies and flashbacks and badly written monologues, but it did not matter, I held her tight. She then said "Am I authorized?" And I gave her a thumbs down in a sign of approval that does not make any sense, we began to undress...."
I feel like you have to draw a pretty stark line between the idea of an idealized hero and a mary sue. I understand why people let them blend into each other, but I think it does a disservice to the fanfic-originating trope to lump it in with what is, let's be honest, an extremely common (and accepted) literary device.
I'm not going to say that a mary sue has to be a self-insert (but it helps), but I think the key to a true mary sue is a large degree of fourth-wall breaking unlikeliness. Like the person came from outside the story and holds a narrative warping power. A reality distortion field, if you will. People in the story like the character for no other reason than because they are there and they have some kind of gravitational pull.
To that, I think you could say Bella Swan is one. And if you wanted to go back to some older fantasy literature then I think you could make a case for Gandalf, particularly in the Hobbit and early in LotR. But I don't think Alice in RE counts. She's got super powers of questionable origin, but she still progresses through a fairly normal narrative arc free from "because I'm just that awesome" logic. At least in the first one. The sequels are so riddled with nonsense I think they defy analysis.
In case anyone hasn't actually read the origin of the term, it's this satirical fanfic for Star Trek. Or you can hear a dramatic reading of it on youtube.
I'm not going to say that a mary sue has to be a self-insert (but it helps), but I think the key to a true mary sue is a large degree of fourth-wall breaking unlikeliness. Like the person came from outside the story and holds a narrative warping power. A reality distortion field, if you will. People in the story like the character for no other reason than because they are there and they have some kind of gravitational pull.
To that, I think you could say Bella Swan is one. And if you wanted to go back to some older fantasy literature then I think you could make a case for Gandalf, particularly in the Hobbit and early in LotR. But I don't think Alice in RE counts. She's got super powers of questionable origin, but she still progresses through a fairly normal narrative arc free from "because I'm just that awesome" logic. At least in the first one. The sequels are so riddled with nonsense I think they defy analysis.
In case anyone hasn't actually read the origin of the term, it's this satirical fanfic for Star Trek. Or you can hear a dramatic reading of it on youtube.
Femmeworth
Banned
Alice aka Milla Jovovich totally counts because she is married to the director.
Well I don't disagree with you. Ender was pretty perfect until Xenocide and Children of the Mind took him apart bit by bit.
He isn't even aware of said 'devotion' because he doesn't even think he's in love with her. It's not a conscious choice he's making to try and get with her, he's just trying to not lose this weird friendship they have by going too far and asking her out. Even if it is the right approach to getting her heart, he is still basically using the other girls, knowing they will want a full relationship that he isn't going to give them. It's cruel, in a way.
That's irrelevant. The point is that Kvothe is a jackass to him as well, and thus a flaw. You don't have the right to be a jerk to people just because you don't like them
You are never 'right' to be arrogant. It may be more difficult to argue that flaw if you are right, but it is never a virtue to have your head up your own ass.
And I honestly don't remember any case of when people kept him down because they were not talented enough. He strives to be alone in his pursuits for the most part. The one instance I can recall that he had to work with others was in the woods, and all of his partners were more skilled at tracking the bandits than he was. And when people don't recognize his abilities, they are quick to promote him accordingly. The only time that doesn't work is when there are outside factors involved, like Ambrose buying off all other Taverns in the area. But that's not a lack of recognition for his talents.
I consider a Mary Sue to be author wish-fulfillment. It originally came from fan fics in which the author made the main character a perfect version of themself who saves the day and the cannon protagonist falls in love with.
People keep bringing this up, but it's an incredibly poor definition. For one, nearly all characters in fiction are wishfulfillment in some way. I'm sure Orson Wells wished he was as influencial and wealthy as Charles Kane. There are millions of people who wished they were Don Carleone, despite his terrible life. To avoid this trap, an author would have to write a fictional story that has nothing that appeals to them or the audience. No one does that for obvious reasons. Second, in the case of kvothe, I listed several of his flaws, people just keep ignoring them or writing them off as insignificant even though they are a severe detriment to himself and the people around him.
By this definition, so is Tyrion Lannister. GRRM often said how he wished that he was as smart and witty as he is, and they both like to use their brains to prove their worth, etc. Honestly, have you never heard of 'write what you know'? Pretty much all writers put pieces of themselves within their characters.
Also, sympathy duels aren't martial arts. When he actually does learn martial arts, he sucks the most out of anyone in the school. And, regarding sympathy duels, he actually was defeated, soundly and embarrassingly, by Devi and the only reason he's alive is because of her mercy.
What about them? All they feel is that Kvothe may have some fae blood in him, justifying their changing shade.
He's probably just sick of people disregarding the numerous flaws he gave his character and crying Mary Sue with a poor definition of it. I can sympathize.
Kennedy and Riley? Kennedy probably qualifies, but I don't really think Riley does. His character flaws nearly got him killed.
Hermione is better than Harry at just about everything, but in a straight-up duel, she couldn't win. Harry has legitimate Defense Against the Dark Arts talent that she can't match. I also strongly suspect that Harry has the quicker draw and superior combat intuition.
Parallax
best seen in the classic "Shadow of the Beast"
He's on the quidditch team. He avoids death constantly with that shit. Combine that with all the dangerous shit he has to roll solo(dragons, basilisks, multitudes of evil wizards of varying degrees), and yeah hermione can't touch him. He's got far more experience.
The_Hitcher89
Member
It came as a bit of a revelation to me when the Death Eaters mention how Harry is basically lucky more than he is skilled, and I realised that they were completely right
SquiddyCracker
Banned
I was going to go with Takeshi Kovacs, but he gets a pass because of his Envoy-conditioning. Just a couple of things in the second and third books that makes him into that bigger of a badass, eve despite his "weaknesses", that everyone gravitate towards.
Then again, Kovacs is too real of a character to be a mary sue - so nevermind.
Then again, Kovacs is too real of a character to be a mary sue - so nevermind.
Tyrion Lannister would be a Mary Sue if GRRM didn't make him an amoral dwarf, as well as spending a lot of time contrasting him with Jaime.
He was very aware of the pitfalls of self inserts so he set gave Tyrion a pretty severe flaw, and the character is much better for it. Kvothe, in the context of Kingkiller Chronicles, is like if Tyrion had the body of Jaime.
Speaking of ASOIAF, I'd argue that Jon is pretty Sueish at times.
We have to keep the author's intentions in mind. A Mary Sue is everything the author wishes himself to be. If the author wishes he were a super-awesome arrogant prick, that's a Mary Sue. You may have a problem with that, but that's irrelevant.
Again, like my point above, your view on what's right is irrelevant to a Mary Sue. It has to be viewed in-universe as presented by the story. Is his arrogance portrayed negatively? Maybe you could argue for sometimes, but overwhelmingly he's shown to be right, and his problems are from others not understanding or not keeping up.
A Mary Sue is EVERYTHING an author wants to be, in a given setting. It's not a Mary Sue if it's just a part of the author. It's the totality of it that's the problem, and how this warps all other elements of the story: no inner struggle to overcome, no character development other than becoming more awesome, no other characters with depth outside of their relationship with the protagonist, etc.
Again, this idea comes from fan fics because it's simple, bad writing. "My guy's going to be, like, the most strongest, and he'll beat everyone up, and everyone will love him."
You can argue it all you want, but he personally said he wishes he were a polymath. And people have been complaining that Kvothe is a polymath since way before Rothfuss said that. And you have to adjust skills for setting and story: magic duels for martial arts where appropriate, and music playing for writing.
But don't you think the frame story is more interesting? The Kvothe there at least has an inner struggle to get over: he doesn't believe in himself. I'm way more interested to find out what happens in the frame story than the main story. Yeah yeah, so young Kvothe will go kick some more ass somewhere else, whatever; but how is adult Kvothe going to get over his self-doubt? Will he learn to enjoy life again? That's interesting to me.
SiegfriedFM
Member
I think the story is interesting because we know that even though Kvothe is all that, he's still going to fail rather spectacularly eventually. As long as the reason isn't "stuff was unfair", it's gonna be worth the trip.
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
Neitehr is very Sue-ish.
Tyrion, beside the things you mention, is also
subjected to a ton of humiliation is the latest book, from drinking.vomiting nonstop, being transported in barrels, being a slave and living in disgusting condistions.
Jon is at best the recipient of some uneraned fortune, but he *is* the son a of nobleman (bastard or not) and
he also fucks up his command to the point of getting himself killed over it. Even if it doesn't stick. And with his likely true backstory, it all probably fits with the standard tropes of fantasy, too.
At this point, I think it's a bit premature to conclude anything about Kvothe's mary-sueness. But I enjoy unadulterated brilliance as much as broken failure so it doesn't much bother me anyway.
Ah, thanks for this. I haven't read any speculation about the Kingkiller chronicles and I didn't put that together myself, though I remember wondering about the significance of those things separately.
Ah, thanks for this. I haven't read any speculation about the Kingkiller chronicles and I didn't put that together myself, though I remember wondering about the significance of those things separately.
Thats because he's a homage to superman. Though isn't the reason Goku always won, because the fans at the time wrote angry letters when they thought he was going to lose, making toriyama have Goku win more then he would have liked?
She fails too often to really qualify, although it varies by writer/episode. Plenty of times she's been naive or arrogant and gotten others hurt or killed. Mainly clonetroopers, but still. She's an audience stand-in, but she learns lessons as often as she saves the day. If anyone in Star Wars is a Mary Sue, it's Artoo.
NeonZ
Member
Goku didn't "always" win though. Especially in DBZ, he often got taken out of the play and wasn't the one to ultimately defeat villains. The only places where he always won in the end were the movies and Dragonball GT, and in those cases it's just a case of bad writers attempting to go with the "popular" character and handling things sloppily...
MisterHero
Super Member
I want to say Geoff Johns and his work for Hal Jordan, Bart Allen, and Connor Kent.
If you don't like his writing for those characters, you share properties with his clever caricature for disapproving readers, Superboy-Prime
.
If you don't like his writing for those characters, you share properties with his clever caricature for disapproving readers, Superboy-Prime
me
Ignatz Mouse
Banned
Hal Jordan, really?
He made him into a meathead, and more recently turned him into a guy who cannot run his own life.
John BlakeRobin(ugh)
Gary Stu of The Dark Knight Rises
- Works out Bruce is Batman because his parents were offed also and recognises he has the same sad and angry face. Srsly.
- All of his hunches are correct, of course faces adversity because of this.
- He's doing this for the orphans!!
- Inherits mantle of Batman and all equipment because ?????????
Sort of expect Nolan's next film to be JGL in a brightly lit featureless white room masturbating for 2 hours to a dramatic Hans Zimmer soundtrack.
Sounds great.
MisterHero
Super Member
He's not an aloof meathead if he's Ryan Reynolds.
Using the reboot to make him younger is confusing because Kyle's supposed to be the young guy. I'm enjoying Sinestro as a protagonist much more.
Fair enough though; with the reboot so far there's not as much to worry/complain about.
I am guilty of this, and that is my main problem with the movies, I know the movies are an ok sometimes funny action flick with zombies but I can't stop thinking of the games while watching so I decided to skip them (its not you, its me XD)
Yeah, its on purpose and there's not much else to the character, but Belldandy is also the very end of the spectrum when it comes to Mary Sues, so I think it's worth mentioning.
I take it your not caught up with the most recent chapters.
MetaCircular
Member
If you play right, the Persona 3/4 MC is a Mary Sue. Perfect at academics, sports, cooking, women. You name it. And everyone loves him. I wish I could be rewarded for playing those games as a lazy misanthrope.
Considering that Gandalf is later revealed to be a demigod, he is remarkably ineffectual, verging on incompetent. In the Hobbit, he nearly gets the group killed multiple times by simple goblins. Almost all the significant adventuring happens when he is away. In early LotR he is completely duped by Saruman, overpowered, and imprisoned, needing to be rescued by an eagle. He completely bungles the handling of the ring, allowing the Ringwraiths to nearly capture it several times. He is defeated by Sarumon again when they try to cross the mountains and ends up leading them into Moria where they are promptly ambushed.
And yet, everyone loves and admires him.
I think Gandalf is spared by owning up to his failings, though. I mean, he's one guy who pretty much has to keep the entire continent from falling into the power of another guy who is equal-to-higher power than him. The other Wizards flat out desert him.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
I'd say a difference with Gandalf is that in the end, he's not the go-to character to solve all the problems. That's something I attribute to a Mary Sue. He saved the Fellowship once, but everyone else played a part in their survival at one point or another. Gandalf doesn't serve as a wish-fulfillment character to live vicariously through.
FO-totality
Poet Centuriate
NCIS has some horrible ones. Some actually have struggles or significant flaws, but none are more Mary Sue-like than Abby.
Here only "flaws" is that she's a "quirky, goth girl" and maybe OCD, but that's it. She doesn't struggle, she's perfect at every laboratory technique, and every one just loves the living snot out of her. Even the hard nosed, former Marine team leader Gibbs lets her dress and attutide fly because she's basically just so good at what she does. She's there to basically just let fans get their rocks off.
So very Mary Sue in my eyes. The only thing I could see again her classification in my eyes is that she isn't the lead/protagonist, but she's so fan loved, she might as well be.
Here only "flaws" is that she's a "quirky, goth girl" and maybe OCD, but that's it. She doesn't struggle, she's perfect at every laboratory technique, and every one just loves the living snot out of her. Even the hard nosed, former Marine team leader Gibbs lets her dress and attutide fly because she's basically just so good at what she does. She's there to basically just let fans get their rocks off.
So very Mary Sue in my eyes. The only thing I could see again her classification in my eyes is that she isn't the lead/protagonist, but she's so fan loved, she might as well be.
NCIS has some horrible ones. Some actually have struggles or significant flaws, but none are more Mary Sue-like than Abby.
Here only "flaws" is that she's a "quirky, goth girl" and maybe OCD, but that's it. She doesn't struggles, she's perfect at every laboratory technique, and every one just loves the snot out of her. Even the hard nosed, former Marine team leader Gibbs lets her dress and attutide fly because she's basically just so good at what she does. She's there to basically just let fans get their rocks off.
So very Mary Sue in my eyes. The only thing I could see again her classification in my eyes is that she isn't the lead/protagonist, but she's so fan loved, she might as well be.
The writers actually joke about her doing the job of 20 different professions.
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
NCIS has some horrible ones. Some actually have struggles or significant flaws, but none are more Mary Sue-like than Abby.
Here only "flaws" is that she's a "quirky, goth girl" and maybe OCD, but that's it. She doesn't struggle, she's perfect at every laboratory technique, and every one just loves the living snot out of her. Even the hard nosed, former Marine team leader Gibbs lets her dress and attutide fly because she's basically just so good at what she does. She's there to basically just let fans get their rocks off.
So very Mary Sue in my eyes. The only thing I could see again her classification in my eyes is that she isn't the lead/protagonist, but she's so fan loved, she might as well be.
Pretty much every tech worker in police dramas are like that though. They only want to hire one, so the focus is on the people in the field (or in some cases hire two, even NCIS has Ducky).
FO-totality
Poet Centuriate
I think Ducky less so, I mean he deals with death and growing old. Not big struggles, but he has some.
And other shows, let's look at CSI Vegas. Grissom and Warwik and the lot seem a lot more fleshed out have have more flaws than Abby. Grissom, maybe, is similar, but at least the writing doesn't make him unbearable.
By this logic, if the author wishes to be a fully realized character with plenty of flaws and limitations, interacting realistically with everyone in a cast and by all means a normal person within the universe, then it's still a mary sue.
And I don't think we have a right to think that Kvothe is EVERYTHING Pat Rothfuss wishes to be, like a murderer.
His arrogance is ALWAYS portrayed as wrong, even when he's right. Being right about something doesn't give you the privileged of acting like a wrongly about it. Just look at how Kilvin is constantly on his ass about adhering to morals in making artifacts even if he finds the artifacts brilliant. The morals come first, a lecture about how wrong he was to do something, a punishment for it, THEN he accepts the artifact. Nobody likes him when he's "Aw, yeah, check out how awesome I am", which is why he mostly keeps it to himself.
If that's the definition your going with, then Kvothe is definitely not a mary sue.
Inner struggle? The best one I can think of offhand is how he is horrified by how own murderous urges as when he tortured the false Edema Ruh. There are others scattered throughout the book.
Kvothe changes over the course of the story, in subtle ways like how he finds his strive to be a hero, and other more obvious ways, like how his older self resents his youthful idiocy.
And Simmon has a good depth to him for how little he is in the story. He is a genuinely good person, but he hails from a very politically charged family, where he is somewhat of a black sheep for wanting to study things like poetry. Then his relationship with woman is to wear a mask of joviality, but people just consider him an idiot for it and disregard him, leading him to have major problems self esteem problems. When people take the time to know him and his most serious side and rather dark place of origin, where they used to torture people for medical information, not unlike the Nazi Josef Mengele, it's kind of a miracle that he came out as such a genuinely altruistic person. Perhaps that's why he came out that way. Elodin is good too, with his secret past. Also the mysterious storyteller in the first book the one that took care of him in Tarbean.
You just said that the mark of a mary sue is that he has to want to be Kvothe in his totality. This would have to include having his parents horrifically slaughtered (Note that this is a guy whose book came out right after his mother had died from cancer and he was so shaken up about it that he cries even now) murdering, being the start of a terrible war that is getting a ton of people killed, and several other unfortunate things. For Kvothe to be a mary sue by your logic, he's have to want the his parents dead and the blood of hundreds on his hands.
What is interesting doesn't matter, either to you or me. It's irrelevant to the discussion. But you are factually wrong to say that Kvothe doesn't have inner struggles or is just there being effortlessly awesome with no problems or flaws to speak of. Really, it's to the point where I want to suggest you go back, reread the book and focus on why kvothe's problems exist in the first place, or how the Elodin regards him as an idiot not because he's an eccentric old man but because kvothe actually does stupid things in front of him, or how he wouldn't solve a good portion of atleast 2 major problems without Wilhelm and Simmon exhausting themselves covering his ass with kvothe fully acknowledging how they are much better friends than he deserves and owes them so much.
It doesn't matter. By the wishfulfillment logic, if GRRM wants to be as smart as tyrion, then despite his flaws, he is a mary sue because it's wishfulfillment. Hell, even the amorality can be seen as a virtue, if your subscribe that GRRM wishes he could be a dick without repercussions. But if having flaws means that a character isn't a mary sue despite wishfulfillment, then just read through my posts here outlining Kvothe's numerous flaws because I'm tired of retyping them over and over for people who ignore them.
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
You are right, it's been years.
Hot Coldman
Banned
That's fair. I think The Doctor is a way bigger example of the "John McClane" trope than anything else.
Well that's why I originally said that, if a Mary Sue, The Doctor is an extremely well done one. He's definitely Space MacGyver, though, what with basically only his wits as a weapon against an increasingly hostile universe. Which is interesting because, even without any conventional weapon, both The Doctor and his enemies realize that he has the potential to do a great deal of damage to anyone who crosses his path.
HamPster PamPster
Member
On a more serious note, Tenchi and anime characters like him:
are awful Mary Sue characters and I find them to be insulting and unwatchable.
I wonder if you could even have a harem anime without a mary sue main character. I find Tenchi to be the least offensive of the bunch. The main character from Campione this season is especially terrible in this regard
But his back hurts for half a book! ... and then he gets magically transformed into a handsome super-human, ugh.
An alternative question for this thread: what do you consider a best possible example of an anti-Mary Sue?
DrForester
Kills Photobucket
Guy in Love Hina wasn't bad. He was generally despised and didn't have everyone instantly head over heels over him. He had to work to build a relationship with the man female protagonist.
Guy really is an insufferable asshole.
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