[Discussion] "Mary Sues"

I hate this term.

What is your opinion on it, though? Do you feel like you've ever written a Mary Sue?

I honestly despise this term and the "qualifications for a Mary Sue" like why is a character having Heterochromia "mary sue-ish" That's stupid, and dumb.

I have a... complicated relationship with this term. On one hand I do think there are too-perfect, overpowered characters, of all genders, that might deserve this qualification. On the other hand, the term has been thrown around so often, and so damn lightly, to disqualify hated characters and even entire types of otherwise decently-written characters, that I no longer believe in it. At this point, I have gone from accidentally creating Mary Sue/Marty Stu characters out of my frantic efforts to avoid tropes associated with it, to deliberately leaning into the trope just for the hell of it.

(An example: I had made my Pokeverse avatar as different from myself as possible and she ended up being a textbook Mary Sue. However, when I made her an outright self-insert - the bane of Mary Sue-dom - she ironically became more well-rounded because she incorporated my own flaws.)

Just do your thing, write your characters at least somewhat convincingly, and you'll be fine.

I too have a complicated relationship with this term.

I generally hate Stu/Sue/Whatever we want to call them characters. They are almost always an example of poor writing and frankly they're incredibly boring. There is nothing interesting about a character who is good at everything, has no personality flaws and the universe revolves around them. It's even difficult to make them enjoyable in parody.

That being said, the term is definitely bandied about way too lightly. Simply being skilled or talented is not enough to qualify a character as a Mary Sue and the term is misappropriated far too often by a very specific demographic of shitty people who can't handle a powerful or skilled female lead because it somehow threatens their delicate masculinity. Overly Sarcastic Productions has a really good Trope Talk video on this subject and while I don't agree with every opinion expressed in it, I'd definitely recommend it.

To answer that last question of yours though, heterochromia is widely viewed as an indicator of "Sueness" because it is a very clear and easy marker of a character being "different" than others (and therefor special) without actually imposing any disadvantages on them. It isn't a guarantee of a character being a Sue, but it comes up a lot.

I think the term Mary Sue these days is just used on characters people hate, but I do think it is a legitimate criticism in some cases. But like, honestly, I think it's misconstrued like person with power = Mary Sue. People with animal traits = Mary Sue. The Tv Tropes page on this really pisses me off.

Honestly, for the Heterochromia thing, I just think that's really annoying. My main character has heterochromia due to a major trauma and wasn't done to force uniqueness for him. Until recently, I didn't know it was viewed as "Mary Sue trait". But, for mine, that's not my intention at all.

I just think people use it as a way to to discredit women in fiction.

& Whether I've written a Mary Sue before, I'm sure I have in the past. I'm sure everyone has, at least once.

Many people use the term without really understanding what it honestly means. The attributes that make a Mary Sue are not simply the individual aspects, but the sum of them all in manners that warp the plot around the character. Ways that conflict with the reasonable logic and that drag down other characters.

There's characters that are well liked, good at almost everything, and have little flaws that can work in very compelling ways if they are handled in a manner that provides some form of tension or engagement. The problem is when writers don't counter balance the pros on the character be it flaws of the character or tensions built in the conflict. After all, even a seemingly perfect character can have tension against a seemingly perfect foil antagonist (Sherlock and Moriarty).

I think a big sort of frustration and popularism of Mary Sues is due to how in current media it seems a lot of the characters written now due hold traits of Mary Sues without really much to counter the negatives that come with a character so perfect or so unable to be challenged by an equal antagonist. When judging what is and isn't a Mary Sue, I try and look at it in the scope of the work itself and base my judgements on how often these traits of a Mary Sue pop up in the character and how much of a good opponent the character's enemies play as well as flow and logical consistency. After all, if a Mary Sue is something that warps plot and characters to the Mary Sue's own benefit, you'd have to judge not just the character to determine that, no?

But essentially, it's a writing problem many have that can be mitigated in various ways.

Sorry in advance for the incoming avalanche of text.

As someone who was really in the avoid-Mary-Sue-at-all-costs-camp many years ago and feverishly researched countless hours on sites like Springhole to make sure that my characters wouldn't fall into that dreaded label, I have come to despise it.

Because on one hand, there are characters that absolutely deserves criticism. Characters who zero flaws that actually matter who bends the plot over backwards to make themselves the center of attention regardless of the situation and treats the other characters like shit unless they become apart of her yesman-club. Characters who makes the stories they star in difficult to continue engaging with as they suck out any intrigue or fun in favour of stroking their own ego.

But this term is so mis-used that it has lost it's meaning, and not just when it comes to the general media-circus either.
This term gets frequently and agressively stamped on OCs created by young authors/artists who are still learning how to write and just wants to see themselves in their favorite stories, which there is nothing wrong with.
I am 26 years old and working a full-time job, yet I still love writing self-insert-fanfiction!
And it is important to remember that they will get better as they become more aware of themselves and the world around them. Everyone has written a Mary Sue at some point, it is a part of developing your craft and I would argue a rite of passage as a writer. And even a blatant self-insert or Mary Sue can still be an interesting character when combined with a degree of selfawareness that often comes later in life as they grow up.
But by reading them the riot-act for daring to take the step to put pen to paper, let alone publish it wihich is an act of bravery onto itself, with a result that doesn't hold up to their rigid standards of what a 'good character' is supposed to be, you discourage them from ever getting better and is just going to snuff out their creative spark.

With that said, there are some Mary Sues that are easier to tolerate than others. It much easier to overlook a Mary Sue's overly perfect finish when it comes from a place of love, when the character is pleasant to be around and actually give a damn about what is going on around them.
Edgy Sues who is constantly shitting on the canon characters (sometimes for things they never even did) and refuses to take anything seriously are much harder to stomach unless you happen to share their exact opinion on every character that shows up and it makes it hard to care when every conflict and potential threat is treated like an annoyance at best.