When does talented and skilled become Mary Sue?

So I've been writing for a very long time. I think I wrote my first story, as misspelled and illogical as it was, around age eight, and have continued to partake in the hobby, but even now with over a decade of practice I find myself questioning if my characters are just too perfect. It definitely is not my intention, but in my writing I find myself often creating character who are rather good at what they do. So when does talented and skilled become a Mary Sue? (*ding* roll credits).

But seriously I have, in recent years, begun to focus in on people more towards the upper middle of their "life paths". Ex. in a current story I am writing about a special kind of pokemon Ranger which I have broken up into 10 ranks. oak, bronze, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, expert, elite, master, legend. Now of those ranks Diamond is the usual highest. Its what most leaders of the rangers will achieve. The character I'm writing is a gold ranger. He's above average while the majority stay in silver and bronze.

By that he clearly shouldn't be too amazing. Better than some, but not Mary Sue, but as I've bean writing I've been questioning just how to balance his abilities so that they don't add up to make him a Mary Sue. On the other hand I need to really figure out what average should be.

I think pokemon makes it quite hard to gauge average as many of us have completed the pokedex and steamrolled pokemon leagues with no issue so we don't get a chance to feel the real struggle.

TL:DR What do you feel is a solid place to put as average in the pokemon world? How much victory is too much victory/ how difficult does a victory have to be for it to be deserved?

I don't expect anyone to have this perfect formula to make a story, but I could really use the input right now.

In general, a Mary Sue is just when a character has no flaws which contribute to interesting conflict. That's not to say you can't have a flawed Mary Sue, but if you did the flaw would either be so minor as to be insignificant or be so useful such that it would lead to easy (read:boring) conflict resolution.

As it relates to Pokemon training specifically, though, I think that changes on a headcanon to headcanon basis. You have to take into account how difficult the league challenge is in your world really? How long do trainers spend on the open road to accomplish their goals? What do you count as a trainer in your world? And all sorts of other variables.

From there, you're going to want to establish a metric based on concrete references to skill. Your "ranks" idea is a start, but that only tells us how good trainers are relative to each other. What you would want is a metric that has a near absolute (but not too specific of course) way to tell what rank a trainer might be at a glance. For instance, in a recent fic of mine, I had this little aside where I mentioned that a prodigy trainer might finish the league challenge in a year while most finish it in five years. So a not-quite-prodigy-not-quite-average trainer might do it in three years.

Or perhaps you might have a world where the League challenge is insanely hard. Using the game version rather than the anime version, we might conclude that only true masters can be League Champions.

From there you have a reference to skill which you can derive everything else from.

In any case, I think the main point about Mary Sues still stands. It really doesn't matter if your character is able to beat the E4 or if they win every single battle they face. What's most important is that they doing so is significantly difficult for them such that it tells an interesting story. For example, a lot of Shounen protagonists do literally win every single battle and yet they still remain somewhat interesting. I would say it's hard to gauge how much difficulty is enough from the outset, but I think for the most part you just have to come to a point where it feels right. Where a battle doesn't feel like a cop-out because the protagonist is way too skilled.

Another good question to ask in regards to whether a character is a Mary Sue is, "Am I using this character as wish-fulfillment?" You can have a character who is head-and-shoulders above almost everyone else ability-wise but has other qualities that keep them from being a Mary Sue. A good example would be Ender from Ender's Game, who is a child prodigy but whose character isn't defined by his ability so much as by the decisions he makes in situations of terrible consequence. His flaws are specifically designed to pose difficult moral questions to the reader rather than just seem "cool" or just be there to even things out.

Emotional complexity and genuine character drama is as key as ability-balancing in my opinion if you're worried about Mary Sues. That's what makes the difference between a Wesley Crusher and an Ender Wiggin.

Miz en Scène said:

In general, a Mary Sue is just when a character has no flaws which contribute to interesting conflict. That's not to say you can't have a flawed Mary Sue, but if you did the flaw would either be so minor as to be insignificant or be so useful such that it would lead to easy (read:boring) conflict resolution.

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icomeanon6 said:

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Emotional complexity and genuine character drama is as key as ability-balancing in my opinion if you're worried about Mary Sues. That's what makes the difference between a Wesley Crusher and an Ender Wiggin.

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First and foremost thanks for weighing in. Looking at it now it seems to have just been my pessimism getting in the way. While I'd certainly wish to be in this characters shoes it isn't that godly kind of power fantasy wish fufilment. its the more, yeah I'd love to be this guy just minus all of the terrible stuff and the pain and the difficult questions he has to answer. Its the reason we love the characters we love. I wish i could be Indiana Jones, but that doesn't mean he's a wish fulfillment character. Put him under the lens and you see he's a crass drinker with some serious family issues and the inability to just settle down so he keeps chasing attractive women.

The sheer fact that the character has just come so close to death twice now. Once he was able to get over it, figuring that was the one time he'd deal with something so dangerous, but now having another near death experience with something far less dangerous than the first he's internally panicking. He's had his metal tested and it bent. He's terrified not only for himself, but for his pokemon. In this world he is very much on the front lines too, but they still are slightly ahead of him as the bulk and offense while he's the tactical lead. And again he handled loss before, not death, but his best friend went from the top ranger, besides commanding officers, to a cripple. In the last fight he nearly lost his Kabuto when it blocked a giant fearow's drill peak (and when i say giant I mean like 20-30 feet tall).

He did win that fight and his kabuto survived, but it came off as luck. In a kind of half parody of the anime I had the Kabuto evolve into Kabutops. Partially because it did feel a bit right that his kabuto who is one of his oldest pokemon would evolve rather late (level forty in game). Since his other pokemon are around that level (His sceptile starter probably around 45) it makes sense that his kabuto could evolve now given the moment that it needed to happen. The other side is to show that he won't always have a "get out of jail free card." Both he and his friend who were fighting did that fight with six or seven pokemon total (I could look it up, but thats not the point). They threw everything they had at it and scraped by.

I looking over it all now I feel a little bit like the character thought of himself as a mary sue and they just realized they weren't. They weren't nearly as amazing as they thought. They weren't anywhere near the top. That there is a whole journey ahead of them.