Mary Sue's- what are they?

Mary Sues

This is a term that's been thrown around alot around me for the last few years and how terrible they are. I thought today that I'd google it, and I found this 'Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test'  , and thought I'd try it with my characters. The test kind of shocked me

1- if you have an ugly average character, they can't be a Mary Sue.

2- If they're beatuiful, they have to be door mats to not be Sues

3- If they're beautiful and a lead character, they're guarranteed Sues.

...

Now, My three top leads are Arkillian Dragon men- they're defenders of a world and command the use of magic and sword play to protect the world from invaders for a very good reson. I also have a very good reason that they're attractive. It also happened that Alex has the same colour hair and eyes I was born with.

It's a family of Sues apparently.

Now- people. Tell me. Is this totally crazy? I always thought Mary Sues were the writer idealising themselves into a character that had everything, in which case, may character Julia is a Sue- but she is so NOT

Oh, and Bryan being a prince with exotic eyes and an angsty background is so far Sue that he needs a rewrite.

Lets be real about his- your honest opnion.

What is a Mary Sue to you?

And are they bad? I think People are moaning and whimpering about bad fiction but is it really that bad?

I've never heard that name used like that before in my life. This is totally new to me.

I''ve heard of the term and your first definition is the same that I heard.

In one instance I heard of a fan-fic in witch the 'Mary-Sue' character tried to get Legolas to become christian because she somehow new better than he about the ways of the universe and all that. 

I don't think your characters are 'mary-sue' ish.  Did someone tell you that?  They're wrong.  I thought the term described some 'self-righteous' heroine that could do no wrong.

Even if you created a character after yourself - how could anyone know it is a foil of you?  I really thought this applied to fan-fics only.

*Edit* I mean one of my male characters is suppoed to be a lecherous seducer with perfect looks, body and witty personality. It's his nature to be attractive and aticulate.  How the hell does that make him a  'marysue' ish character. 

 I think you're right about the whiners.  I make my stories about moderaley attractive and interesting people.  When they're not human I make them ideal to their species.  There's nothing wrong with that.  It's kinda a universal thing.

*2nd Edit*

I read a bit of this test for 'all characters'  Some of the things mentioned tend to be things I avoid in stories.  Not because it's nessessarily bad ( Japanese names for non-Japanese characters is a pet peeve of mine) But because of my taste in fantasy liturature I find some of the mentioned things ( Common names spelled different, characters who in my opinion are flat and boring but are sooo beautiful the author won't shut-up about it) are just boring.

Some of my characters would be considered very beautiful, but they're not human.  And some - it's their nature to be ideal by human standards.  But my human characters are fair by comparison, but no less interesting.

I incorporate my political and religious (or lack thereof) position in all my work.  I try to work those ideals in and spread them out in my cast.  I don't think there is anything wrong with that.  I read a book ages ago by a lesbian author 'Gossamer Axe'and one line explaned her feelings on homosexuality.  The setting is pre-christian british isle's and one of her characters points out 'two men or two women loving each other wasn't a sin until christians said it was' . Another called book series 'Mystic Rebel' offered up a scene in withc a tibetan Llama is making a speech in modern day America about how over sterilization and medicating is killing modern man. These authors may be expressing their ideals - and I don't think they're 'mary-sue' ish.

I also think a lot of what is mentioned in this so-called quiz are merely 'cliche' and over-used plot points that many readers are tired of seeing.  And using some of those aspects can be tricky with such a fickle audience.  Once again it's not 'bad' but it can be repetative and boring.

And if I have read this quiz correctly there are some very well accomplished and published authors who break these so called rules over and over.

So in conlcusion some of the things mentioned are just annoying (in my personal opinion) while other points made in the quiz I think are total bullshit.

here you go...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

Thanks Silverbane Being a domanently fanf fic thing makes alot of sence- to me, if an origanal character can justify something, then it's ok (although stupid justifications suck bad) and I can see where it comes from which is why I worry. Alot of the questions are stuff that when poorly played irks me- I guess you need to play it right if you have a Mary Sue

Lily- I had a look at that origanally. It's how I found out abotu the test. The wikipedia definition is very wishy washy after taking the test- like it's incomplete. Mary Sues feels very subjective to me.

All my characters are somewhat broader line mary-sue if you go strict on the standers of what one is. Oh, and male is "Gary Stu". Let's not forget that.

They're all "I save the day" and all that. What a Sue is ,is it's a PERFECT character. There are different verison of it too. Pergnate all the time, beautiful with no flaws, all that good stuff. I don't agree with the Sue always having bliud hair and blue eyes, however. In a roleplay ,fanfic or whatever any character can have that via the creator's choose. That doesn't make it a Sue without a doubt.

The perfect character that's the head of the story all the time ,is the Sue, regraudless or colors.

I always figured that the term "Mary Sue" referred to someone who's not very interesting at all and is just there and overlooked a lot. Apparently I was wrong

Ok, I tried to take that quiz thing ,and as i thought, i can't. I havw 23 (or more bby now) characters, and they all have at least 5 things that whole quiz. Some of my characters are human and some of them aren't, so some of them have special traits and all.

Pfff, what is a Mary Sue to me?

A character that is supposed to be gorgeous, perfect and gets all the guys. Yep, that quite sums it all up for me. She's either the one who saves the day or the damsel in distress, it can go both ways.

I'm always afraid my original characters turn out to be Mary Sue's, but when it comes to the main character in my cyberpunk story I don't think she is. I suppose you'll have to read the story for yourself to form an opinion on that.

A Mary-Sue, or Gary-Stu, is more for fanfiction but the same philosophy can be transferred to original fiction as well. Personally, I thought that Eragon's protagonist was a Gary-Stu, the average boy who lives on a farm discovers something incredible and then people die and he has to eventually save the world.

While I haven't used the test you showed, I think I'll look at it later. I typically use this test. It's more of a guideline really, it can point out things that may take away from your character's appeal to the reader. Some characters can be a Mary-Sue or Gary-Stu and people won't mind at all, it's made up for with a good plot and is just well written in general. A character that is not considered a Mary-Sue may annoy everyone because of a bad plot and how poorly its written. It can go both ways.

To me a Mary-Sue is a cliche character. Their appearance doesn't matter as much to me as their personality. If they're 'average,' seemingly normal then they're well on their way to Sue-dom. Your classic hero or heroine's personality basically annoys me.

On Aug 20, 2007 7:44 pm, Monochromatic Nymph said:

I saw that one- it applied more later on I believe to certain genres and turned out really inaccurate, or it missed out a heap of stuff I thought was important. It's all good though. I think my characters are too well thought out to be Marys/Garys. The only Sue I will admit to I think is ok cause she has a role only a Mary Sue could do- reminding one of the characters of the joy and beauty of life. Everythign about her is Sue ish, but she needs to be to have a youthfull optomistic veiw of the world. The fantasy lover ^^ She's innocent, and everyone loves her, but she works cause she's not a lead character

Blaze dident too too bad, but all my characters are constantly evolving.

You know, I think that is also what sets the good characters apart from the Sues. That they're evolving throughout the story and I think that is the best thing about a character.

Lol... that's really freaky. I knew nothing about this...

I'm kind of ashamed to have used a Mary Sue in my story now. True, she's a tough take-no-shit black chick, which might set her apart from others. Meh.

On Sep 6, 2007 7:18 am, Project_Xii said:

If she's not a lead character then don't worry. This applies mostly to leads or supportive leads. If she is a lead, then if she's justified, then don't worry. If shes take no shit for no reason, give her background a reason pronto, cause not  everyone raised by the hood is 100% gangsta material

Setting apart from the rest is ok- it has flavour.  A Sue from the looks of things is the writer going "I wanna be this character!!" And writing a blah story cause all they want is to be awesome. And fail. Um- yeah. Mary Sues aren't all bad too. I have one in my story. Possibly two if Bryan can be considered one (he's angsty enough)

The original Mary Sue was a character from a Star Trek parody fanfic called '"A Trekker's Tale", by Paula Smith. Mary Sue was an officer on the starship at an impossibly young age, beautiful and multitalented and charming enough that everyone fell in love with her, she saved the heroes' lives multiple times, and finally died surrounded by weeping officers after saving the entire ship. 

This was a parody of what the author felt was a common theme in Trekfic at the time -- female authors creating their own ideal heroines to insert into this fantastic universe where they can have adventures and fall in love with (Kirk, Spock, Sulu, or insert favourite Trek hottie guy here).

People who write litmus tests try to pile together a list of traits, but invariably they fall flat -- there are always Sue-ish characters who don't fit the standard profile, and there are characters who do fit the profile but who are somehow better than Sues. The spirit of the original, when you step back from the "perfection" aspect of it, is that the author is custom-designing a perfect heroine for herself, and writing it down without really bothering with whether the story is readable or meaningful to anyone else.

These days, it seems like the most common self-insert theme is of a heroine (or hero) who is not perfect, who is nominally ugly or weak or sickly or emotionally unstable, but who still finds love and friendship anyways (and gets to fulfill author fantasies of swooning and collapsing in some cute guy's arms, or screaming and bitching and throwing tantrums and having someone say: I don't care if you're like that, I still love you).

Don't feel like you have to tone down your character to keep them from being a Sue -- there are plenty of characters who are strong and smart and attractive (or unconfident and untalented and pitiful) who are still interesting, and who have meaningful stories that will grab other readers (as opposed to just stroking the author's inner desires).

 (Good grief, my typing is horrible tonight.)

On Sep 21, 2007 10:10 pm, Indefatigable42 said:

Wow...tonight ,i have EDUCATED!

On Jul 8, 2007 4:21 pm, arkillian said:

I'd say that to me, a Mary Sue/Marty Stu is a character that is too perfect. They are the ones with magic in a non-magic setting (like modern day New York) for no apparent reason. But it isn't the florid descriptions that mark a character as a Sue; if everyone gets two paragraphs about their hair, it's diarrhea of the keyboard but not necessarily a Sue.  If one of the main plot points is why someone who shouldn't have magic does, it's probably not a Sue. Even if it a character who is vastly, incredibly powerful, if the character changes and evolves, it's probably not a Sue.

The real thing that makes a Stu/Sue for me is that they cannot evolve except superficially; there can be no character growth because s/he is, indeed, perfect. I've read characters who were textbook sues, even the story line was 'Sue', yet it was very enjoyable. What do you Say to a Naked Elf being a perfect example of a Sue-that-Isn't. A real Sue/Stu is boring or even annoying because they cannot change and their beauty or ability to kick butt is supposed to stand in for a plot. In fact, it IS the plot.

I think there's a lot of whining out there but just as many legitimate complaints. I hear it mainly from people complaining about RP partners they've had.

my two cents:

i think a mary-sue is supposed to mean just a really predictable, unoriginal, and otherwise "perfect" character. i say "perfect in terms of looks and just generally how the character acts (or tries to act) around others. a depressed and angsty character can still be "perfect."