God Mode Sue Discussion - Television Tropes & Idioms

If God Mode Sue is thought of as a bad trope that is highly subjective, used only to bash characters you don't like, how about removing examples from the page? That way the fanboys will not see the object of their desire as being villified and trolls cannot post here to get their hate on.

If no one objects then I will go ahead and delete the examples, given how claiming someone a God Mode Sue leads to flame\edit warz.

Decided to try and nip this problem in the bud and delete the examples. Please raise it here first if you want them back.

Can something be done about the edit Nazi who keeps coming in and wiping stuff they don't like?

Peteman: I agree with the "edit Nazi". People need to explain why "X" is a God Mode Sue.

Even when you put up solid examples the bwaaing starts up over it not being good enough and the work's deleted.

Unknown Troper: As I'm apparently the "edit nazi" here, let me explain myself. Mary Sue is a Bad Writing Trope. As such, it is perilously easy and perilously tempting to add a character you don't like. Combine this with the fact that "Mary Sue" had been flanderized so horribly, and there's little to stop anyone from coming in and just listing a character they don't like. Therefore, sufficient justification should be required, especially since we're dealing with a trope that can be so readily used to bash characters. TV Tropes is not a place to bash characters, and requiring a strong justification keeps pointless bashing to a minimum.
- I would contest i's a bad thing for a character to be regarded as a Sue. Case in point with Kim Possible...I am a huge Kim Possible fan, seriouly. Yet er characteristics scream Sue. In no way am I bashing the character in doing this. In point of fact I would counterclaim that caling a character you do not like a Sue is a bad writing trope rather than the trope itself.
  - Unknown Troper: the issue here is, again, Mary Sue is considered Bad Writing. So long as this trope is considered such, any character added to any Mary Sue article will have an underlying Sub Text saying "this is a badly-written character."
Also, again, Mary Sue is a Subjective Trope. People are free to contest and remove a character being added here, if they provide sufficient reasoning. that's what the discussion page is for.
- IF they provide sufficient reasoning. Sure, but examples have been deleted without any such justification. If you have sufficint reasoning to have an entry removed, aside from 'baaaaaaw a character I like is on here, I need a waaaaaahbulance' then give such justification. To do any less is unprofessional and lazy
  - Black King: I was the one who removed the Lara Croft and Kim possible Examples. Just because Kim possible knowns a lot of Kung-Fu does not mean she's a god mode sue, going by that logic, Batman is a G Od mode sue. Also, just because Laracroft is powerful, does not mean she's a god mode sue. She's a visdoe game character, so her having super-human abilities is expected. Mary-sue is not a subjective trope, there are a list of clear traits that define a mary-sue but a lot of people misinterperted those listed traits and add examples that don't fit. If being a mary-sie was subjective, then having these pages would be unneccessay and I could put any superpowered fictional character on this page.
  - Something a few people don't realise is that God Mode Sue is not a bad trope, it's a writing tool. Used badly, as it infamously is in Star Trek fics, then yes it is a bad trope. However Kim Possible uses this as the RuleofCool, given that she is portrayed as a positive role model her running in god mode is the point.

Batman does have Sue type qualities however in this case much of it is justified...as billionare Bruce Wayne he can afford all the shiny gadgets. Especially when not portrayed as running Waynecorp Batman trains like an olympian, if you went through the same intensity of training you could become Batman. Kim on the other hand, between school, cheerleading and a social life exactly where does she find the time to learn 16 styles of kung fu competently enough to save the world on a weekly basis?

Blackking:How does Batman master every style of martial arts by the time he was in his 20's when it takes years to master one style? Anyway, a god mode sue is not supposed to be a writing tool, I Ts bad writing trope. Ti doesn't have the word sue in it for no reason. Did you even read the title page description?

Don't be rude. It makes you look childish.

"God Mode Sue exists purely to show up how pathetically weak the rest of the world is, and how badly they need his or her help. If there's anybody else that is even capable of standing up for themselves, they may lose their abilities for some reason when the character comes into the equation, or become incompetent boobs, or both. They'll probably get captured or find something that they just can't handle. Then the God Mode Sue shows up, saves the day on his or her own at least twice as easily as they usually do when working as a team, and doesn't get his or her ass kicked at all. Then he or she stands around and wallows in their praise a bit.

God Mode Sue is so powerful because he or she often gets New Powers As The Plot Demands, and without any explanation or any of the normal limitations that a good writer will insert. In most balanced fiction, we generally know the hero's going to win, Downer Ending aside (Status Quo Is God, after all), but their abilities may fail them (or something like that) and so we watch to find out HOW they do it. God Mode Sue's powers never fail, nor is there any point where you think, "I KNOW the hero's gotta win, but how are they going to get out of this mess?" The plot and the fight is so blatantly biased towards the God Mod Sue that it becomes rather boring (and sometimes insulting).

[B]It's worthy to note that there is a correlation between Bad Ass and this trope. A proper Bad Ass will frequently break the Willing Suspension Of Disbelief, but they generally sell it through either Refuge In Audacity or just generally being convincing as something that could naturally come up with the character. However, they are still treated as normal characters by the plot and have to face potential repercussions to their actions like anybody else. God Mode Sue... doesn't. [/B]

God Mode Sue can overlap with pretty much anything, but generally doesn't overlap with Purity Sue (whose overwhelming specialness is its own superpower) or Sympathetic Sue. It can overlap with a Possession Sue if a writer wants to show what (they feel) a canon character can really do. If it overlaps with Villain Sue, then our heroes had better hope that he or she has a Heel Face Turn coming up, or else face Peril Rollover. "

That there bloded perfectly describes what kim actually is, a badass normal. Ti even justified why she can easily defeat most of her enemies in combat, because they're incompetent morons. Hell, some enemies are actually strong enough to take her on or defeat. She-go is a good example. Kim couldn't even take on Warmonga without the help of wade to outsmart her. She was even nearly defeated in the second movie and was defeated in the first one. She wasn't even the one to save the day in the grand finale. If she was a real god mode sue, she could have rapestomped the Lorwardian assault and make them look like a bunch of morons which they were anyway but they could easily defeat her if she took them on alone.

Okay, you give a solid reason to delete the entry. To just delete it without providing a cause on the other hand comes across as a fanboy who cannot stand their precious character being included as a trope that is flanderised as bad.

Your description doesn't even fit the definition of a god mode sue on the page. If a god mode sue is well written ,then it ain't a sue. There's a difference between a competent, powerful character and a god mode sue.

The problem with the mary sue pages isn't that people are addng characters they don't like , its that people are misunderstanding what an actual sue and flanderizating the concept of a mary sue. It was the same problem with the Mary Sue exemption page.

I'm not evening a kim possible fan, I'm just trying to make sure this page does not get flanderized.

Removed Saint of Killers - entry stated that he was there as he warped the rules of the Preacher universe by never running out of bullets and never missing. However, the Saint has the powers of the Angel of Death, and his guns are forged from said Angel's sword; he is explicitly said within the text to have these powers, so they don't warp the universe 'rules'. He's certainly hideously powerful, and even a god-moder, but he's more of a deus ex machina than a god-mode sue.

Ecliptor Calrissian: I was the one who put the Jenny entry back, but I didn't know there was discussion on it at the time. Rather than doing it again, I'll ask the rest of the tropers to make a decision on this (and ask Robert to abide by it if general consensus is - as it seems to be from what I've seen of the rest of the Doctor Who fandom - that Jenny is a Sue. If the community decides she's not so Sue, I'll abide by it as well.)

I didn't read about the episode before seeing it - not being a fan of spoilers, I never do. I consider her a Sue not as a pre-viewing judgment, but for the on-screen elements within the episode that are discussed in the entry. The text of the entry, minus the natter, is as follows:

Jenny from the Doctor Who episode "The Doctor's Daughter." Previously unknown daughter of main character? Check (created on the spot, though.) Ultra-competent, far above and beyond the rest of the cast? Check (there are even other characters of a similar origin, and they're nowhere near as good.) Heroic Sacrifice? Check, and insanely contrived (another character, deciding to shoot the Doctor with a flimsy motivation for doing so, stands there like an idiot just long enough for Jenny to walk around the Doctor and stand in front of him to Take The Bullet. The writer doesn't bother to come up with any reason for her to not simply regenerate.) Gets better without the side-effects of regeneration? Check. (Theoretically, because her creation plays by the same rules as regeneration, and so she effectively has a Healing Factor for a few hours.) In the end, she steals a spaceship out from under everyone's nose to travel the universe on her own.

It is because of these things, not the mere fact that she is the titular Doctor's Daughter, that every fandom discussion of her that I've seen calls her a card-carrying Mary Sue at the least vehement.

And as for her origin... many a Mary Sue in fanfiction is the Long Lost Awesomer Relative Of Awesome Character X. Whether long-lost or just created, the point is her appearance from left field. Sues tend to be surprise relatives of heroes, mentors, Ensemble Darkhorses, what-have-you. And many a Mary Sue has an origin that's a lot shinier than others... and being a clone with inborn mad fight skillz is certainly shinier than that of any member of the main cast. Jenny is a combination of the Surprise Relative Origin and the Shiny Origin, and that makes her more Sue, not less, in my opinion. Though admittedly, all the Redshirts from this episode were also clones with inborn mad fight skillz. (Just not as mad as hers.)

So, the million dollar question: Is Jenny from The Doctor's Daughter a Sue or not?

Robert: For convenience, I'll quote my rebuttal from below. Note too, I'm not the only person to have removed Jenny from this trope.

"Created on the spot is distinctly different from previously unknown. Ultra-competent, compared with the Doctor? Not even close (and aby clone of the Doctor's should be competent, by human standards) Heroic sacrifice? Commonplace for people inspired by the Doctor. Gets better without side-effects? Considering the three-way interaction of cloning, regeneration, and the terraforming device this is perfectly defensible. Stealing a spaceship which probably wasn't even guarded - pretty plausible.

The key point is the comparison with the Doctor. To be a god-mode sue in his universe, you have to outdo him, and that's no easy feat. If Jenny could shrug off death rays, permanently kill both the Master and Davros, time travel at will, or bring back Gallifrey, then she'd be a god-mode sue. As it is, she doesn't come close."

Further, Sues are not normally created on the spot, and all the non-regulars on Doctor Who come from out of left field. Jenny is better than the other clones because she's not human, but next to the Doctor she's nothing special, just another one-episode wonder. Many fans don't like the idea of the Doctor having a daughter (though is granddaughter is canon) so they determined to shoehorn her into the Mary Sue box, but she simply doesn't fit there.

Danel:

The title character of Dominic Deegan : Oracle for Hire starts out as just a seer with only precognition as his power. Fine. But over time, his precognitive abilities start to develop into him being such a master of the Xanatos Roulette that it gets a little hard to believe. This is ignoring other seemingly random abilities he has picked up as well, basically mutating him from a simple seer to some sort of godlike figure with an Omniscient Morality License. Worst part is that most of his friends get shades of this as well. "Super Greg", indeed...

This is weak and kind of vague. What "other seemingly random abilities"? And how does his friends also gaining comparable levels of power make it even worse? Wouldn't the main character being miles beyond everyone else be the worst thing?

DieHard: The whole "champion of balance" bit, plus a lot vaguely defined sorcery. To be fair, I stopped reading the webcomic around the "Urban Eddie" plot, but it did seem as though for a simple seer, he sure did have a lot of magical plot powers unrelated to precognition.

Rebochan: Pulled this one:

It may be different in the comics, but the 2008 film Iron Man Tony Stark qualifies. Fabulously wealthy, a genius, effortlessly charms everyone he meets, sleeps with whoever he wants, has Gwyneth Paltrow as his smitten assistant, and has an awesome robot superhero suit. Considering the way he treats his friends and employees, may be a bit of a Jerkass Stu as well.

Because the "plot bias" factor is missing. He isn't able to do things just because he's the main character, and a lot of bad things happen to him because of his Jerkass qualities. Then there's the fact that he has to keep his heart hooked up to a battery because he was more interested in designing things that blow up and getting laid than keeping watch over his weapons stockpiles.

Shay Guy: Just how old was the author of My Inner Life when she wrote her dream-diary-whatsit? And how long ago was that? I've been wondering since I started reading an MST

if she hasn't since acknowledged that, yes, bad prose is still bad prose, along with the essential narcissism of the premise, and the fact that anything marked as a story should be judged on its merits as such. I can easily imagine LQ growing out of her Link-crush, finding some other interests, maybe reading some good Zelda fanfic...then, years later, stumbling across it again and realizing for the first time just how objectively bad her "story" is.

Then again, maybe I'm just an irrepressible optimist. :/

Kalle: When I first heard about it in 2002, it was said that she was twenty-three. I could be wrong, however...

Anonymous Mc Cartneyfan: Cut this and moved it here. This looks more Jerkass Stu than God Mode Sue: God Mode Sue requires demonstration of greater ability, not just greater ego.

Danny Chase from the Teen Titans was a Teen Superspy with telekinetic abilities who was too cool for a costume or a codename who never tired of telling the older (and more popular) characters how brilliant he was (or how stupid they were having costumes and codenames). He quickly became The Wesley of the team.

Jim: I'm calling this into question: Battlestar Galactica: Starbuck almost exemplifies one of these. The greatest pilot in the fleet. Trained in interrogation (this came out of nowhere). Has a “Special Destiny”, according to a Cylon. Is loved or lusted after by every major male character on the show. Her husband knows she’s cheating on him, but still loves her. Threatens the President and gets away with it. Let’s replace “Mary Sue” with “Kara Thrace” and be done with it..

Needlessly snarky. Factually incorrect, in that of the huge cast, she's caught between two guys. Ignores the fact that canonically, Starbuck is a massively flawed, broken character, who fights because she's good for nothing else, and has admitted as much herself, while still being seemingly helpless to stop herself doing really awful shit, a mark of serious depression and personality disorder.

Also, whoever added it had that pointed out to them by several other tropers, and simply erased those qualifications on the entry. I disapprove of editing without dialogue, especially in such a high-handed manner.

Ninjacrat: Uh, I erased the 'pointing out' because it was a pretty huge Conversation In The Main Page. I didn't alter the example because I haven't watched Battlestar Galactica, but if it's entirely inaccurate then you should just delete it yourself.

Anonymous Mc Cartneyfan: Kara Thrace's continued existence indicates she's probably some sort of Sue, but she didn't appear to be this kind. Moved her to Tsundere Sue for the time being, as that variety allows for her being psychologically messed up.

I pulled the example of River Tam, as she doesn't fit the description of the God Mode Sue at the top of the page. There's only a few instances of her actually kicking ass, and its generally in a believable, well-explained manner. She doesn't dominate the plot or overshadow the characters in the series, and she only plays the primary supporting role in the movie. Plus, her insanity is a pretty major flaw that kind of kills Sue-ness.

Rebochan: Pulled Jenny from The Doctor's Daughter. Someone is determined to make her into a Sue despite the fact that her only possible Sue trait is being a female and a relative of the Doctor. She *doesn't* have skills that make her far and above the best character and far more powerful than everyone else, because she's constantly relying on the Doctor and Donna. The story is not focused on her, but focused on the Doctor and the concept of suddenly having a Time Lord clone tagging along with him and his incredibly complicated emotions surrounding Time Lords in general. She isn't even instantly adored and worshipped by everyone in the cast - the Doctor is practically repulsed by her because she's not really a Time Lord and he knows she's just a genetic clone. Donna is just willing to give anyone a chance and she is always looking for ways to get the Doctor past all his emotional baggage. Plus, she died from a perfectly ordinary bullet and they still spent more time focusing on the Doctor himself than on Jenny's death. He *always* takes the deaths of innocents personally when he deems himself in charge of their welfare.

I'm only so annoyed with this character always being shoe-horned into Sue tropes because from the second the episode title came out, she was declared a Sue because people wanted to hate her preemptively.

Pulled it again. Plus it was gathering a hell of a lot of natter.

Robert: Pulled Jenny again. Entry was:

Jenny from the Doctor Who episode "The Doctor's Daughter." Previously unknown daughter of main character? Check (created on the spot, though.) Ultra-competent, far above and beyond the rest of the cast? Check (there are even other characters of a similar origin, and they're nowhere near as good.) Heroic Sacrifice? Check, and insanely contrived (another character, deciding to shoot the Doctor with a flimsy motivation for doing so, stands there like an idiot just long enough for Jenny to walk around the Doctor and stand in front of him to Take The Bullet. The writer doesn't bother to come up with any reason for her to not simply regenerate.) Gets better without the side-effects of regeneration? Check. (Theoretically, because her creation plays by the same rules as regeneration, and so she effectively has a Healing Factor for a few hours.) In the end, she steals a spaceship out from under everyone's nose to travel the universe on her own. This troper wonders if the writer didn't accidentally grab his daughter's Self Insert Fic instead of his own script on the way to work that day.

Created on the spot is distinctly different from previously unknown. Ultra-competent, compared with the Doctor? Not even close (and aby clone of the Doctor's should be competent, by human standards) Heroic sacrifice? Commonplace for people inspired by the Doctor. Gets better without side-effects? Considering the three-way interaction of cloning, regeneration, and the terraforming device this is perfectly defensible. Stealing a spaceship which probably wasn't even guarded - pretty plausible.

Sir Psycho Sexy:

I think we should remove Naruto. If he's a Gary Stu, than every other Shounen protagonist is one too. Anyone agree with me before I make the edit?

Drow Lord: If you don't remove it soon, I will.

Anonymous Mc Cartneyfan: I put it there—I'll take it out. Here, in case someone changes his mind:

Naruto Uzumaki: Redeems half a dozen angsty bad guys just by beating them up, and sometimes not even doing that? Check. Was supposedly hated by the entire village his entire life, but they seem to forget about it as soon as the story starts? That too. Gains new powers or upgrades to an old power at the drop of a hat? Yup. Wins all the time except for the one time he needed to lose in order to keep the manga going? Got that too. Constantly spouts the themes of the series? You bet. As far as the plot and his general speshulness go, Naruto's up there.
- Ah, but at least he's kept in line by his cluelessness. Sasuke, however...

Rebochan: And I pulled the natter-tastic and horrifically inaccurate submission of Alouette, who is again not a Mary Sue because she is portrayed as having flaws that make her border on Knight Templar - and she's called on it. Also, just because a character is, say, the avatar of a God, does not immediately upgrade them to Sue-status and thus turn their entire personality into a list of Sue traits.

I realize this split of Mary Sue tropes was supposed to make it easier to manage, but it seems to have the opposite effect of creating a Sueplosion - every single character or series that someone doesn't like is now going to be declared a Sue/Stu without regards to whether it even fits the trope.

Ethereal Mutation: This is what the Canon Sue article used to be like, but due to there being a really vague, subjective definition, it was less of an objective argument so much as it was just an argument over Popularity Power. At least now, you have to "sell it" (so to speak) within a (relatively) objective definition. The sad reality is that no matter what, people are going to bring in their complaints no matter what and the best that can be done is to just kill off bad examples as they pop up.

Cassius335: Pulled Doggie Krueger: The man's been fighting for decades, if not centuries, of course he's that good. Nor is he unbeatable.

Nornagest: Can someone more familiar with the novels than me revise the Drizzt example? He's definitely a God Mode Sue from what I remember, but doing a bunch of over-the-top things isn't enough to prove it; we need to show that there's enough blatant Author Favoritism going on to break the suspension of disbelief. Out of the story's context, disconnected examples prove nothing.

Ethereal Mutation: Tek Jansen is already in Parody Sue where he belongs. Please stop adding him.

Ethereal Mutation: Merged the Shirayuki Berii into the Purity Sue entry. To my understanding, everybody hates her more because she derailed the other characters, not because she's powerful to the point of distraction.

Jisu: Nope, it's both. Put her back and left her in Purity Sue too.

Ethereal Mutation: The whole reason that there's a one character per type limit is because without it, everybody would try to Entry Pimp the hell out of the characters they hate ("I hate Dominic Deegan. Everybody not Obviously Evil™ loves him for no reason... Purity Sue. He can kill trained seer assassins and is the Champion of Balance... God Mode Sue. He's kind of a dick... Jerkass Stu. He whines a lot about being Cursed With Awesome... Sympathetic Sue. He's obviously an Author Stand In for a relationship with his perfect girlfriend, Luna... Relationship Sue. He has some flaws that don't really matter... Anti Sue. He fixes everything around him effortlessly... Fixer Sue. He's kind of mean at times... Villain Sue. He's been the butt of the joke a few times... Parody Sue, but I'll make it sound bad. What else... I guess he's a bit of a Tsundere, so he's obviously a rare male exception for Tsundere Sue in spite of the presence of the Jerkass Stu article.")

Rebochan: Pulled Orlandu. He's not a Sue because plotwise, he's not nearly as powerful as his actual Game Breaker abilities and stats are. For crying out loud, you have to save him from being executed. All the while the player is wondering why he's not just grinding everything into pulp around him.

Nerem: Pulled Kira, as it was full of anti-fanwank with a good deal of inaccuracies and misunderstandings. Such as calling him by his title of 'Ultimate Coordinator' as a sign of suedom, despite it being the term for a Coordinator who was born without any defects and is of the exact specification that was requested of his DNA. Also, the example of him being 20 ZAFT soldiers in minutes is not only not unusual to him, but to pretty much every main character in SEED Destiny. Not to mention he just got an extremely powerful new Mobile Suit, and just seconds earlier, he got totally trashed in the weaker one he was using. His 'spotlight stealing' was a result of executive meddling pulling him OUT of the spotlight that he was intended, and putting his villainous rival in his place as a marketing scheme to draw in younger kids, with the rationale that they need a fresh young face for it. It didn't work.

Charred Knight: What the fuck are you talking about? Shinn was supposed to be an exploration of what it means to have power, and whether or not could he overcome his rage over his parents. When Kira was shoehorned back in due to the fact that he was more popular, they derailed Shinn completely, from an angsty child soldier, to a psychotic nutcase who hears voices in his head.

karpad: while I suck and am relatively new at editing here (as in I genuinely have no idea how to upload images to the wiki), I feel that the image on this page needs some attending. see here: Golgo bio

◊ How is that NOT possibly the best fucking example one could imagine? I enjoy the hell out of Golgo 13, but goddamn if every story isn't "introduce new, impossibly badass Sue, only to have him outshined by the Hax skills of Suier Sue, Duke Togo."

Ethereal Mutation: Waaaaaaaaay too large. I went ahead and changed it to a link to fix the page.

Ethereal Mutation: I changed the picture. The old one was rather large and low quality. If somebody can find a better quality picture of it, they can change it back. Here's the old picture.

◊

Redkun: Is that

◊ better?

Ethereal Mutation: Quite a bit better. Not sure if the stuff around the midsection are compression artifacts or if the costume is really just that bad, but this is a lot less blurry and works better with the article.

Redkun: It's an insanely shiny costume.

Bob: Would John Galt of Atlas Shrugged fame count as a God Mode Stu? Quick Recap: Created as Ayn Rands vision of the perfect man, basically objectivism incarnate, creates a Lost World in the middle of a valley in Colorado powered by his super-engine... wins over the probable Author Avatar Mary Sue, and brings down civilization with a single, three hour, 50 page long, uninterupted radio address. Yay or Nay?

Ethereal Mutation: He's currently listed under Relationship Sue, since outside of his usage as Rand's mouthpiece and plot enabler (most likely due to her assumption that men are taken more seriously), he pretty much exists to just be the perfect beloved of Rand's blatant Author Avatar Purity Sue of Dagny.

Vampire Buddha wishes it to become known that he hates natter:

** Ahem...you must use her full title. Her Royal Highness Lieutenant Marrissa Amber Flores Picard Gordan, Princess and Heir to the throne of Essex, Chief of Security USS Enterprise, Fighter Commander, and Coordinating Officer for all Kids Crews in Starfleet.
** Of course, it bears mentioning that her actual appearance in the show (Season 5 episode "Disaster") was as a painfully shy kid who gained some confidence through her experiences. Somehow, in transition to fanfiction, the effects became amplified...
** Actually, this troper even enjoyed the un-MSTed version, under the So Bad Its Good category. Of course, this troper isn't really a Trekkie...

*** This troper thought Shinji was pretty well treated in Neon Exodus Evangelion... once he finally showed up. Then again, this troper liked Neon Exodus.
*** And the only one to, I hope. Though that doesn't forgive his initial appearance one bit.

** It's just as easy for a bad writer to make him a Knight Templar, though. Yeah, not a lot of writers get Superman...
*** It's actually pretty easy to understand Superman. Y'see, all you need to know is that he's from the streets.

**Unlikely. He predates fanfiction terms. He just is that badass. In fact, a Canadian blogger rates characters on a Rex the Wonderdog scale. 1 rex is the maximum. Only Rex earns it.

** You spoke too soon. She's just saved the entire world in Giant-Sized Astonishing X-Men #1, with a Heroic Sacrifice.
*** Which ups the score to one time in six years, with the caveat that she won't be doing it again any time in the foreseeable future (though this being Marvel, she'll be back.)

Twice if you count Danger. Or possibly three times. And Ord was, effectively, beaten by her minions after beating everyone except her.
** Come to think of it, this accusation is leveled at female characters written by Chris Claremont quite frequently. Aside from Shadowcat, the most commonly accused are Storm and Sage, but Claremazon is a fairly common term of derision in several circles.

** Yeah, being married to the guy making movies about your character will do this kind of stuff for you. When you tell a guy he's not getting a "mouth hug" if you don't get to kill the Big Bad, some guys will indeed head to the word processor and justify a lead pipe killing something a crater-bomb was needed for previously.

*** 'Never failed at all'? Were it not for the intervention of John Clark, there are at least three separate instances where Jack Ryan's career would have died in flames. One instance also would have taken his marriage and probable sanity with it.
*** ...Which leads to the uncomfortable realisation that one Self-insert was required to save another Self-insert on multiple occasions, but I digress. Besides, "would have", not "did".
*** So, if he's a God Mode Sue when he triumphs by himself, and also is one when he needs the help of his friends just to survive... then what protagonist isn't a Sue by that definition? There's also that y'all are claiming that two characters who are literally complete opposites in almost every respect are both self-inserts for the same author, which would require him to have been born mirror twins.

*** This Troper was never aware that he was Roddenberry's Author Avatar, but the fact that Wil hated the role is somewhat legendary in trek fandom. In fact, he was screwed by the producers a few times — for example, asking to be let go to do a movie, only to be forced to cancel the movie deal under the impression that he was going to get a bigger part on the show and then written out of the show out of spite.
** What about Captain James Tiberius Kirk in Star Trek The Original Series? He can beat any man in a fist fight (except Spock, but including Super Soldier Khan), and bed any Green Skinned Space Babe. After Spock tells him what he should logically do, and Bones tells him what human compassion requires, it's always Captain Kirk who decides to Take A Third Option. Even though Spock is clearly competent enough to be a starship captain, he's content to be Kirk's assistant.
*** Episode "The Galileo Seven" explored the idea of Spock in command. His logic-over-psychology approach makes him a distinctly uninspiring, critical leader.

Well, having a bridge officer be more competent than the captain is common enough in Trekdom, the primary example being Riker.
*** This troper would argue that Picard was by far the more competent officer, but Riker, being flawed, got the better character episodes. (Think about it. Aside from "Best Of Both Worlds", what does Riker do, aside from "Shields up!", "Red Alert!", straighten his uniform, and attempt to glower menacingly.)
*** Well he had a really bitchin' beard. This troper grew up with TNG, and remembers thinking, "Dude, I want a beard like that when I grow up."

**It's implied, however, that he drowned himself.
*** Like hell it is. They Never Found The Body.

** Rule of thumb for Sixth Rangers: their power is inversely proportional to the number of episodes since their debut. Just give it time and the Go-Ongers will soon overtake them.
***Yeah, just ask Magi Shine/Solaris Knight how that goes.

** As a kid watching this I picked up that this incarnation of Sonic is basically a speedster Bugs Bunny, complete with the knack for ridiculous disguises and (I think) occasional cross-dressing.

Also, a couple of other things...

* If Drizzt Do'Urden isn't a God Mode Sue, he's close. He has: defeated a being with all the experience and ferocity of the best warrior in the Underdark and the toughness of being undead; gone toe-to-toe with the chosen of a god and won; and killed a six-armed demon general in a straight fight.
** Uh, in the first instance, he didn't win; said undead supreme warrior was his father who Drizzt was ~~handily~~ able to hold off, unwilling strike harder, until his own soul reasserted itself and then committed suicide. In the second case, he won only because of the mechanations of Lolth and Errtu and the timely use of an antimagic crystal. In the third case, he won because Bruenor flanked the marilith and made an opening for him.
*** Wrong chosen of a god. I was talking about Obould.
***Yeah, that? He went "toe-to-toe" with him at the end of "The Two Swords" for as long as it took to realize that Obould was, in fact, effectively invincible. Said fight ended with Drizzt running the hell away, and Obould dusting himself off after falling into a chasm. Then casually biting the throat out of a Drow priestess who'd got him into the mess in the first place.
** Drizzt while very competent has nothing on other characters in Forgotten Realms. Including Jarlaxle of the same series who always one-ups everyone, has a seemingly infinite number of tricks, and generally frolics through the chaos he creates with nary a scratch. Oh yeah and he can maybe fight as well as if not better then Drizzt and Entreri.
*** Then there's Cadderly in Passage to Dawn casually summoning up major demons, and treating them rather like his personal bitches.
*** Does it strike anyone as curious that all these characters are created and/or written by RA Salvatore?

There's a whole lot of natter here, but the main reason I pulled it is because I have no idea who this Drizzt fellow is. If somebody more knowledgeable wants to put him back in and say what work of fiction he's from, go ahead.

* Since the game itself isn't out yet and this troper hasn't read the novelization, this is merely speculation, but Darth Vader's apprentice in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed seems to qualify based on the available information. He's supposedly only an "apprentice", yet his feats of Force mastery are far beyond anything that has been shown in the movies or most of the Expanded Universe. Even Yoda and Mace Windu in the notably over-the-top "Clone Wars" cartoon never came close to this guy. In the teaser trailer for the game, he's shown Force-pulling a Star Destroyer to the ground.

Only actual examples, please.

Joysweeper: Sure, it's Natter. But I really liked this bit, and it finally got me to start watching these, so I'd like to keep it here. Does Marvel/DC have a page yet?

It's just as easy for a bad writer to make him a Knight Templar, though. Yeah, not a lot of writers get Superman...
- I'd say Marvel: After Hours got the explanation right.
  Lex Luthor: ... you're an overpowered, unrelatable demigod that no one believes in.
  Pause as his words sink in.
  Spiderman: I believe in you.
  Massive show of support from other heroes. Stan Lee steps up.
  Stan Lee: ...Everyone, hero or not, would love to be able to do more, be better, to always know right from wrong, and have the strength to make sure that right always wins. ...The reason my characters are so relatable is that they're all trying to be like you.

Ethereal Mutation: I put the James Bond example back. Villain Balls, Idiot Plots, and incredibly convenient Chekhovs Guns are the hallmark of the Mary Sue. They represent obvious authorial intrusion in order to facilitate the plot in favor of the character. Just because it's external to the character doesn't mean that they aren't definite Mary Sue qualifiers.

Tal9922: This-

Krasus and Rhonin from Richard Knaak's Warcraft books. When he was commissioned to write a trilogy on an important historical event, he turned the story into a time travel mess-up just so he could have his two favourite characters in there, witnessing it. When Knaak got to write the manga, he made Krasus a mentor character to the heroes, even though the events had absolutely nothing to do with him.

Am I the only one that likes Knaak's books and characters? The world was nearly destroyed because Krasus and Rhonin got dragged there, which added to the thrill of waiting to see what happened in the end, seeing as things were no longer set in stone. Not to mention that even if the time travel plot was as messy as you claim (which I firmly enforce it wasn't), Rhonin and Krasus were hardly "God Mode" there. Heck, Krasus was downright useless, fighting-wise, for long periods of time there. Rhonin, while indeed becoming stronger, was off the spotlight for far, far, too long to be considered a Sue of any kind. Regarding the Manga, Krasus was hardly the Mentor, but he did mastermind some of the events there. If anything, that made him cooler in my eyes. Removing it.

Rebochan: I seriously question the inclusion of both the Elder Scrolls and Persona3's main characters. In the case of the Elder Scrolls, its an example of giving you hundreds upon hundreds of options, leaving your character a blank slate to mold into whatever they want, and giving the player the choice of being able to take all of them if they're good enough. The entry really just reads like a list of Sue traits without any explanation of why it makes the player a Sue, but any protagonist in an open-ended RPG with hundreds of choices and open-ended options will have those traits (see Fallout, Fable, etc.) and will be able to do things like become the Hero of (Insert Country Here), save the world, ascend to a higher plane of existence, etc. Also, wouldn't the fact that you have to level up and learn how to actually do any of these things defeat the God Mode Sue aspects? Plus the fact the enemies level with you so they're supposed to always be challenging. It's not a cakewalk to Godhood. And at the end of the day, no matter how great a hero/god you are, setting townspeople on fire will still get you arrested, so there goes another Sue trait. And really, having people sing your praises because you, say, built up your reputation by doing hundreds of good deeds or a few significant events already disqualifies one from Mary Sue hood because you had to A) work up to that and B) Actually earn their respect. Even the natter called this out. So did a few entries on the topic of Western RPGs that are all repeating the same thing. Actually, open-ended games like that hand you a blank slate character and then require that you level up, build your reputation, and actually have to work for everything you get. A God Mode Sue does not need to work for this, he's already awesome in a can. And assuming you actually reach a point where you can stomp over everything, its not because you're just that awesome, its because you spent hours upon hours building a character that could do that (unless there's a Gamebreaker in there that ruins the fun). Going from Level 1 to being capable of defeating the most powerful boss in the game is the entire point of an RPG (western and JRPG, actually).

As for Persona3, the Main Character's abilities are based on how strong his relationships are with other people, so its mandatory that he be able to make as many friends as possible. And as noted in the natter, it is nearly impossible to link up to every single person in the game without a guide. In the case of Aigis, while the Hero is the person she cares about the most, her humanity is not entirely the Hero's - everyone at the dorm worked to make her fit in with humans and encourage her emotions. You can't say that was entirely because of a godlike Sue hero. Switching Personas does not make the other party members useless and I seriously question whether the person who said that actually played the game for very long, because planning your party is the difference between life and death. Does every single game with an automated party also need to be added to this list because the main character will always be the strongest by default? Also, the main character collecting Personas is a holdover from the earlier games where all of your characters could do this. It only makes sense that if the system was switched over to one that automated the other party members that the Main Character would have to be flexible because otherwise you could get stuck with a party with a huge elemental weakness and no ability to defend against them. In a game where you can and *will* die if your opponent can start chaining spells against you. Finally, for Messiah, so what? Should we start copying down every character from The Messiah page and adding them here? What pushes that particular hero into ridiculous Sue status? And don't forget that it's also meant to be an obvious contrast between the self-sacrificing Hero and the selfish, murderous Takaya, who has been passing himself off as a messiah for the final few hours of the game. Also, his ultimate power sacrifices his soul to protect humanity from itself. And it would appear that nobody outside the party (including any friends or girlfriends) even remembers the main character as a result, so its not like your hero ends the game with a harem of beautiful women at his beck and call and the adoration of millions. Heroic Sacrifice yes, but we are not listing every single person from that page either, are we? And I don't know where the "man crushes" comment came from. Apparently social links with anyone is romantic to that troper, because that's the only justification.

And its not like he even inherently has that power - all of the character's Persona abilities and that one in particular all stem from something Aigis did to him. If she'd done it to any other Persona user, that person would have the same abilities as well.

Oh yes, and the Battle with the Ultimate Opponent? It's an optional boss and it is the hardest fight in the game. The biggest reason its hard as hell is because you have to fight by yourself with no one supporting you, which means you have to make sure you can actually support yourself one turn at a time. Presumably a God Mode Sue would just steamroll the boss in one or two rounds?

TL;DR - I'm pulling these entries for not fitting the trope and because they're still gathering justified natter and will keep doing so because they're not examples of this trope.

Rebochan: Since when are mythological characters Mary Sues? Or for that matter, the stars of epic poems, who by the nature of the genre always had ridiculous power levels, legions of fans and adoration, and unbelievabley flat characterizations?

Rebochan: Took out the Bible example, listed as a subversion. The example given is in fact an Averted Trope, but the lack of God Mode Sues isn't generally something worth noting on this page in the first place.

Nornagest: Cut from the John Galt entry —

...can get a woman to love him by raping her...

Galt's first night with Dagny Taggart was a little bizarre for unrelated reasons, but obviously consensual. You're thinking of Howard Roark from The Fountainhead. As far as that goes, Word Of God on Roark is that "if it was rape, it was rape by engraved invitation"; I'm not inclined to believe Ms. Rand on that one, but it does point to some rather squicky Author Appeal on her part.

Unknown Troper: Axed the entry for the Ultramarines Chapter Master. Not only does it not include any examples befitting God Mode Sue-ness, it also overlapped with Purity Sue and contained inappropriate language. Besides, calling anyone in 40K a Sue is really stretching it.

Be: Read the new Codex then tell me that with a straight face. And this isn't the Other Wiki, inappropriate language isn't grounds for termination.

Unknown Troper: Actually, it is.

Prfnoff: Beginning a general purge of Canon Sue examples. Here are the ones from God Mode Sue:

Canon

Stuff

Anime

Ryoma Echizen, the main character of The Prince Of Tennis manga is a 12-year-old prodigy whose tennis skills are unmatched by all and unreasonably powerful. His bad behavior adds to the image as well, making him a borderline Jerkass Stu in the manga, saved only by his occasional Pet The Dog moments.
- While Echizen is easily the biggest example, every player who gets the spotlight is painted with the God Mode Sue brush at one point or another. Especially Tezuka, Atobe and Yukimura; the latter two have the added bonus have the fangirls twisting them into flawless, gorgeous, can-do-no-wrong Draco In Leather Pants... and then they use these prettified versions of their selves to bash Ryoma for his Stuness. Fan Dumb, much.
- Echizen in the anime is, however, not this kind of Stu. He's more socially awkward and dense than arrogant, more childlike, shows some more emotions towards his friends and sempais, actually loses matches and pays the consequences, has people call him out on a more regular basis, and gets some of his Jerk Ass moments softened and humanized.
Kicker from Transformers: Energon is given Energon-detecting powers by the Transformer god Primus, and wears a super-suit created by his scientist father. Despite his bad attitude, he goes on to have pretty much all the good ideas and order the Autobots around almost as much as Optimus Prime. His girlfriend's also pretty hot in a geeky way.
Alucard of Hellsing certainly flirts with this considering how many different ways he seems to be "dead" before going on unstoppable rampages of destruction. Your Mileage May Vary.
- There's a grand total of two reasons that he gets "dead". One, he likes to test Seras and see if she's living up to his expectations. Two, he likes being a dick to Mooks and give them Hope Spots.
The title character of Sonic X. Every episode will typically lead up to the Monster Of The Week attacking, while the other characters try to fight it. Their attacks typically have no effect whatsoever, and the robot of the week seems unbeatable, until Sonic comes along, gets hopped up on a Power Ring if necessary, and takes it out with one hit. That he actually couldn't do this to the robot in the first season finale was itself a bit of a twist.
- This means that when Shadow easily defeats sonic and the rest of the main characters in the metarex ark he is being very Badass and infact also stealing Sonic's God Mode Sue abilities.
Valencia Tachibana from the OVAs of Blue Seed. Every power she has is an increased version of anything the other characters ever had, culminating with the golden mitama she has in the chest.
Johan/Jesse in Season 3 of Yu-Gi-Oh GX: a dueling pro who uses cards Pegasus himself gave him (because he was The Chosen One), prone to Big Damn Heroes moments, a Bishonen, and makes a Heroic Sacrifice. Not surprising, since he's an Expy of the show's Ace.
- To a lesser extent, Judai/Jaden himself, but in his case, it's not pretty.
Li Xingke from Code Geass walked the wire between this and The Ace in his first apparitions, but after the China arc he went Out Of Focus for quite a while so the God Mode Sue conversion process was stopped.
Kira Yamato became this in the Gundam SEED Destiny series, particularly once he got his new and improved Strike Freedom Gundam.
Amaterasu of The Five Star Stories actually IS a god. Fortunately, Mamoru Nagano is a good enough writer that this usually doesn't hinder the story too much. To a lesser extent, all of the Headdliners & Fatimas qualify, as it's stated to be flat out impossible for a normal person to beat them in a fight, at least one on one, but there's enough of them fighting on opposite sides that this doesn't hurt the drama of the stories much.
Many consider Sasuke of Naruto has recently become one. While being at least as strong as the main character is a requisit of being The Rival, he has single-handedly killed the Orochimaru (sorta) and killed two Akatsuki members himself, the latter a feat that only one other character has managed to do even once on their own, and even then only through an elaborate Xanatos Gambit. Despite the fact that he lost a major source of power after killing said Big Bad, he still has a large array of powerful techniques at his disposal (several of which he is one of the only capable of using).
- Judging by the fact that he recently decided he wants to destory the Leaf Village and kill everyone in it, it seems all of this is to set him up as a major villain. Though whether or not that matters is also up for debated. He also most recently got his ass kicked (twice) by the eight-tailed host, who he eventually defeated but that was exactly what he wanted as said host turned out to have thrown the match as part of his Xanatos Gambit to escape Akatsuki and his village.

Comics

Superman, depending on era and writer, lapses into this pretty often. He originally started out with a fairly believable set of powers, but each issue saw fit to give him a new one or enhance one of his existing ones. He ended up becoming so overpowered and the divide between him and his enemies was so great, they had to introduce a Diabolus Ex Machina in the form of Kryptonite to make the stories actually interesting instead of just "use powers, win". Over time, he's had some of his more ridiculous powers limited, the divide between him and other characters has become significantly smaller, and a great many drawbacks to his powers have been explored, but it still seems rather dubious how he's just so much more powerful than the rest of the Justice League. He's generally accepted because of the Grandfather Clause (it just wouldn't be Superman without flight, super speed, super strength, laser vision, a devotion to Lawful Good that puts most paladins to shame, etc.).
- It doesn't help that his personality is bland and vague enough that the writers can and will use him as a lectern from which to preach their own beliefs and ideals, such as Christopher Reeve's anti-war soapboxing in the fourth movie.
A combination of Popularity Power, Crazy Preparedness and Badass Normality can see Batman fall into this trap at times. Care especially needs to be taken in situations where the writers have him administering smackdowns (either physical or moral) to characters who should theoretically be able to render him a smear on the wall before he, as a mere Badass Normal human, can actually do anything, much less put into action his latest contingency plan. Although this can be justified with fellow heroes as them being restrained enough to hold back when dealing with him (although the sheer amount of times he's outwitted and beaten-down characters such as Superman, who theoretically should still be able to harmlessly defeat him very quickly, can weaken this justification with regards to this trope), when it comes to him easily putting down super-powered villains who have no such restraints this can, at times, become slightly questionable.
Rex the Wonder Dog from DC Comics is quite possibly the first and only instance of this being applied to a non-talking, non-anthropomorphic dog. Rex can and has literally done everything and anything. He can drive boats and cars. (?) He's a great fisherman. He can ski. He can rope cattle. And he once killed a Tyrannosaurus rex using an atomic bomb. (?!) All without opposable thumbs. Did we mention that he's a lauded investigative reporter and camera man? And that nobody seems to find any of this the slightest bit strange? One only hopes that this was just meant as a huge satire of the God Mode Sue concept - assuming the writers at DC Comics were aware of that concept.
Tintin. Apart from his day job (which we practically never see him doing), he's got fantastic deductive skills, knows many languages, can successfully beat up men three times his size, is a master of disguise, can drive any vehicle with little or no practice, picks up virtually any skill in no time at all ... Indeed, he's so perfect he verges on annoying.
- And God is on his side. He has been saved countless times by a Deus Ex Machina. One of the most egregious examples is in Tintin in America, where he is Chained To A Railway and is saved Just In Time from an oncoming train because a passenger pulls the emergency brake for a completely frivolous reason. The story rightfully calls this a "MIRACULOUS ESCAPE!" (of course, "Tintin in America" can perhaps be described best as "one Deus Ex Machina after another")
Sodam Yat, the new Ion, was introduced by having every character talk about how clever he was and how brave he was and oh, he's just a rookie but he fights like a veteran! Then he arrived on Earth, where the yellow sun gave him Superman-esque powers (Daxamites such as he evolved on par with Kryptonians). Then, as if that wasn't enough, he was given the power of Ion, largely so he could surpass the torch-bearer, Kyle Rayner. He became more sympathetic as better writers got hold of him, but there is something inherently suspect about a Superman-level superhero with a Green Lantern Ring and power to exceed even the most powerful Lanterns.
- Sodam Yat has beaten some kind of record by being named the "Ultimate Green Lantern" twenty years before he was introduced as a character.

Film

James Bond, depending on the film, is often a near-omniscient godlike figure that just simply cannot lose. In spite of getting captured at least once nearly every movie, he always seems to come up against villains lenient enough to let him live and Q Branch appears to employ psychics because he always seems to get a convenient gadget for whatever particular situation he gets thrown into (the most egregious were probably the razor watch in Live And Let Die, which they didn't even bother to explain, but the omnidirectional glass shattering ring and the Aston Martin "Vanish" in Die Another Day may be worthy of mention). Again, this largely depends on which film you watch (for example, On Her Majestys Secret Service's most improbable moment was him surviving an avalanche and he ultimately lost in the end). This often gets a pass depending on the actor because he's charismatic enough to make it Bad Ass (only Bond could get away with getting thrown out of an airplane without a parachute and wrestling one way from somebody else in midair).
- The recent Re Boot starting with Casino Royale has gone a long way towards pushing him away from this trope. The most advanced gadget he has was a glove-compartment defibrillator, he only bedded two women, and his fight scenes were a tossup on whether he'd win or lose. He was also portrayed as flawed and making serious mistakes that he had to answer for. Even the critics noticed the difference - the film was widely praised for making Bond a fallible human being again. The next film, Quantum of Solace, is to be made with the same mentality.
  - Quantum of Solace actually followed through, showing a Bond that, despite being extremely skilled, still made significant mistakes and seemed to succeed as much through luck as anything else. In addition, it showed that he's entirely capable of lying to himself, along with other people, and that his motivation is no longer as simple as "Queen and Country", but that it's something he has to make for himself. Overall, a much more interesting and believable Bond seems to be the hallmark of the Daniel Craig era.
  - But then it's not James Bond. It's Jason Bourne. Hate to tell you this, but James Bond has always been a spoof (which makes a lot of Bond spoofs actually a spoof of a spoof.) Honestly, a plot about water theft in Bolivia? A Bond girl named Strawberry Fields whose name is never uttered during the film? No villain trying to take over the world?
Almost every character played by Steven Seagal. Stoic, practically invincible, always right, and gets away with doing far worse things than the bad guys in his films.
Alice from the Resident Evil films, particularly the second and third sequels. Originally a perfectly normal (albeit conveniently amnesiac) woman trapped in a ~~death trap~~ abandoned Mansion with a group of similarly confused ~~canon fodder~~ companions, she possessed a wholly believable and appropriate level of skill in martial arts owing to her true role of A member of the Umbrella security force for The Hive. However, starting from the second film's opening credits she spontaneously morphed into an unstoppable badass who was somehow infused with the powers of the Zombie-making T-Virus, while not turning her into a slobbering puss-filled eye-covered monstrosity like all the other people who've had the bright idea to juice themselves up with this stuff. This alone might not be enough to raise the Sue alarm, however subsequent plot points have Alice being placed beside canon character Jill Valentine (who after a 30 second reign of awesome right at the movie's beginning, instantly becomes useless and stupid throughout the rest of the movie) and makes her and all other characters in the movie incidental, then culminates in Alice fighting and winning in hand-to-hand combat with the freakin' Nemesis (for perspective, this is a creature which in the games could take two shots of the Rocket Launcher to "kill", while all other enemies, including other bosses, were OHKO'd. Furthermore, after repeatedly shrugging off the rockets as soon as you left the room he later has his head burned off with acid, is set on fire, dropped into a disposal tank presumably containing highly-caustic materials, takes a direct hit from the "Parcellus' Sword" particle cannon, and still has the oomph to crawl after Jill until she unloads an entire clip of Magnum rounds into his head... then has a ~~nuke~~ conventional bomb dropped on him from above, reducing Raccoon City and everything in it to a sandy crater. Conversely, in the movie he is impaled and killed... by a lead pipe). Add to this, the revelation that Alice is apparently getting psychic powers, and the hijacking of Jill's love interest Carlos in the third movie (admitedly, this Troper has not even bothered to watch the third one), and it seems clear that Alice was in fact Suetiful All Along.
Ator from ''Cave Dwellers'. Oh my god is he so. One of the reasons the movie is one of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Literature

Anita Blake started out as a much more reasonable character, being a professional zombie animator and vampire hunter. Balancing this are variations on the classic problems of a romance heroine: Loads of Catholic guilt about sex and the supernatural causing endless problems for her in her relationships with the super-hot werewolf chieftain and (literal) boy scout boyfriend, and the equally hot master vampire who lusts after her. If you stop and think about the implications of that being reasonable in comparison to what she later becomes, you know why she's listed here. Over the course of the series, however, she has become (possibly) the most powerful necromancer in centuries, possessed of vampire and lycanthrope powers without the need for sunscreen or flea powder, and found herself surrounded by (certainly it wasn't her idea) a harem of fawningly devoted male strippers, shape-shifter leaders and vampire lords. Many of whom are male strippers. Did I forget to mention that most of her magic is activated by sex? And that having sex with her is an almost guaranteed way for a minor character to level up? Oh, and the very mother of all vampires wants to either seduce/possess/kill her.
- She also has strong elements of the Tsundere Sue, being able to treat some of her Harem quite horribly without consequences, including calling Nathaniel a freak for being a maschoist, even if he just simply requested for his hair to be yanked, and poor Richard is now a neutered dog on a leash and he never even considers leaving her because she's just better.
Havenite secret agent Victor Cachat, who's simply too awesome to not to be included here. The man is a walking Crowning Moment Of Awesome, and is basically an Author Avatar for Eric Flint, the second main Honorverse author. While he is an amusing and well-executed fellow characterwise, his plot-bending skills are so ridiculously exaggerated that it's sometimes detrimental to Willing Suspension Of Disbelief. Luckily, he's so badass that most readers let it slip.
Ayla, from Jean M. Auel's Earth's Children novels, starts out as a misfit and reject within her adopted tribe. As the series progresses, she metamorphoses into a neolithic Bad Ass and Action Girl who ends up inventing several things that we now take for granted, eventually becoming everyone's heroine and the subject of mass adoration. (Any character who dislikes her is portrayed as blatantly unsympathetic.) To ice the cake, a powerful spiritual leader is impressed with her to the point of being intimidated... but all that Ayla wants to do is settle down with her nearly-as-disgustingly-perfect love interest and raise their daughter.
- In addition she is an amazing medic who just "senses" what is wrong with people and can fix, or at least diagnose, medical problems that she would have little to no realistical way of treating given her physique and the tools available to her. She also figures out how reproduction works all on her own, but has birth control available to her (which comes in handy given all the sex she has). Furthermore she can immitate a truckload of animals well enough for them to believe she is one of their species (I don't care how long you live in nature, you won't be able to immitate a horse's whinnie or a bird's song well enough to fool any animals). In fact, I think the only think Ayle can't do is sing. But hey, even perfection comes with flaws...
Eragon from the Inheritance Cycle is incredibly Stu-ish, gaining magical abilities beyond that of the other main characters in an implausible amount of time, and seemingly being able to do anything as the story calls for it. They still look up to him as a chosen figure, even though he treats them like dirt throughout the first two books (and The Film Of The First Book).
- Let's put it another way. He can kill you from two miles away by sensing your brain and then snapping his fingers. Doesn't matter who or what you are, if you aren't magically protected, you die.
  - Any high-level spellcaster can do that. For some reason, Eragon just... never met any bad guys who could (or were willing to) before he learned how to do/counter it.
The wizard Elminster in the Forgotten Realms setting of Dungeons And Dragons, who also happens to act as writer Ed Greenwood's alter ego when presenting the setting (including performances in character at gaming conventions). Disgust with the absurd degree of canonical detail about his apparent general-purpose awesomeness (power, wisdom, mighty deeds, hawt girlfriends)—and he has in fact gone To Hell And Back—has led in some forums to contests being held to propose the most plausible and sadistically satisfying way of actually bumping Elminster off. Ed Greenwood's own statement in an interview (Dragon Magazine #335) that Elminster is "beyond munchkinism" is the final nail in this coffin.
- Another Forgotten Realms thread on RPGnet contained this disclaimer from the originator:
  'Fuck you if you think I'm somehow cheating by not having Elminster come in and solve every fucking thing under the sun. Wait, no, double fuck you, I will put an Elminster section in every adventure seed detailing exactly why Elminster is not involved. Just for the double fuck you. This will be marked "2FYEW", standing for "Double Fuck You, Elminster Whiners".'
- The Seven Suesters, seven quasi-divine sisters created by Greenwood. All are immortal, ageless, variously beautiful, immensely powerful (being infused with the power of the Goddess Mystra and each one litterally The Chosen), but especially The Simbul (a Queen who frequently singlehandedly dispatches armies of supposedly powerful wizards and all their minions without breaking a sweat and is, of course, is Elminster's bedmate), beloved of everyone (except bad guys - the working definition of evil in any fiction involving them, even as minor or cameo characters, is "someone who doesn't like one or more of the Sisters, or who is disliked by one or more of the Sisters"). Any assertion that Greenwood came up with these Sisters while dreaming If You Know What I Mean is entirely speculative, but they're basically a menage a sept.
- In fairness, they may not be immortal, since Qilue the dark elf, while the chaotic good dark elven goddess Eilistraee was possessing her body, was beheaded with the Crescent Blade.
  - But that just raises the question of how she can be a dark elf when all of her sisters are humans...
- In D&D 3rd Edition, Elminster canonically has a higher Challenge Rating than Cthulhu gets in the D20 version of Call Of Cthulhu.
  - On the other hand, in D&D 4th Edition, Elminster has been severely de-powered thanks to the demise of Mystra. He's still a powerful wizard, but no more so than any of the other powerful wizards in the Realms. Also, he may be scared to use the magic he still has. Apparently Wizards Of The Coast decided they'd had enough.
- Note that Greenwood openly admits that Mirt the Moneylender, a fat, jolly rogue who predates Elminster and was the hero of the first story Greenwood ever wrote, is his Canon Sue. Then again, as of 3.5, he wasn't nearly as broken statistically as Elminster, in fact having almost a third of Elminster's CL. (Which in turn may simply highlight how much moreso Elminister is.)
A good many Redwall protagonists are bad in this respect, but the one that really sticks out is Tiria of High Rhulain. A flawless, beloved-by-all, "spunky" teenager who is skilled at everything and would be the leader of her people, only women can't hold that position (which is a huge Asspull given that women can hold every other position with no problem). Despite no combat training, beats up experienced fighters using a loaded sling by hitting them with it (which would be charitably described as "suicidal" against multiple, sword-bearing opponents), because using ranged weapons at range is for suckers. Despite having had a professional chef all her life, instantly becomes flawless at cooking when nobody else is around to do it. The entirety of the B-plot centers around the entire supporting cast finding out she is the long-lost queen of a long-lost island and getting her long-lost crown to her when she goes there. Which she does, rallies La Resistance and kills the Big Bad in one shot with a spiky metal ball loaded into a sling. Some epic confrontation. Bonus points include the Big Bad being well out of range of Muggles, the projectile not being remotely aerodynamic, the projectile not being all that lethal and the fatal shot being fired with zero interaction between the two.
Captain Kirk in the Star Trek novels (ghost-)written by (for) William Shatner. This editor remembers him beating Spock in a logical argument, out-wrestling Worf, out-doctoring McCoy, single-handedly defeating the Borg and romancing a Mirror Universe Katheryn Janeway (who's a beautiful resistance fighter). To say nothing of him cold-cocking Picard at the end of one of them. And this isn't even getting started on Mirror Kirk...
- Fortunately, if you can get past Kirk, the novels themselves are actually quite good and play off some interesting ideas (the conceptual Borg in "The Return" for example, beat any representation this troper's yet seen of them, canonical or no). Shatner got some top-tier writers for his Marty Stu magnum opus.
Arguably several of Timothy Zahn's characters in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Mara and Karrde, in particular, are portrayed as hyper-competent and universally loved. This is another one that depends on who's writing them, as the two are well-loved characters when written well and annoying when they're not. It doesn't help that bad writers tend to gloss over their more human aspects.
The Mandalorians from Star Wars, as portrayed by Karen Traviss, fit this trope perfectly. Their history is suddenly changed, casting them in a far more positive light, and they're given ridiculous weapons that overpower everything seen elsewhere. Add to that Traviss' insistence on comparing them favorably to the Jedi, and you get a whopping mess of a society of Mary Sues.
- The Clone Troopers as portrayed by Karen Traviss tend to fall into this as well, not helped by the fact that Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale and she proposes a number of Clone Troopers such that apparently only a handful are necessary to keep control of an entire planet. Admittedly an earlier author proposed an even smaller number first, but actually setting and publicizing the number as three million might not have been a good idea. It's also odd considering how easily the clones die under other authors.
- To give an idea of how insanely small the "three million clones" number is, it's about (if I recall) the same as WWII-era Germany's army...an army incapable of fully conquering and subjugating a relatively small area of a single world in a time when lasers, magic powers, energy swords, spaceships, giant robots and multimegaton nuclear weapons were to say the least uncommon. If you took any sane person, especially a military commander, and asked them how many men they would need to take thousands of worlds of a similar size and population to Earth the number would realistically be astronomical by any objective standard—probably several hundred billion at a minimum. And this is assuming perfect success, almost no losses, and very little resistence afterwards from the locals and discounting the fact that the enemy can literally mass produce soldiers at will in any amount they desire. It doesn't help that Traviss also tries to paint the Jedi as, quote, "spoonbenders" (i.e., hoaxes, con men) and goes out of her way to antagonize those who critique her by calling them "Talifans" and threatening to tear their throats out. I only wish I was making that up.
Stackpole's character Corran Horn, from the X-wing novels and I, Jedi, fits next to Mara Jade as a character whose Stu-ishness varies. Certainly, a lot of Mary Sue traits apply(more Mary Sue than Marty Stu, oddly enough) but under the right authors he's exactly as cool as they hoped.
- Weirdly enough, Corran's most Sueish moments in I, Jedi are almost completely superfluous towards resolving the main plot of the book, saving his wife. He ends up relying more heavily on far more mundane abilities that basically justify his choice of being in Rogue Squadron.
- For that matter, most of the rest of Rogue Squadron is nearly as bad as Corran for Sueish tendencies. While they lack his force sensitivity, almost all of them display skills and abilities far beyond what would be expected of an elite fighter squadron.
Mina from the Dragonlance War of Souls trilogy, and an unfinished second trilogy just about her. Last this troper heard, she was revealed to be an actual goddess (she's not aware of this).
- This troper hasn't read the second trilogy, but her role in War of Souls is something of a subversion: She at first appears to be a saintly, near-perfect character representing the return of true divinity, but is in fact merely the dupe of the Goddess of Evil, and the one character who never calls her on her more questionable decisions is as delusionally obsessed with her as she is with her goddess.
Professor John Kenner of the Michael Crichton novel State Of Fear: graduated from an MIT engineering course and a Harvard Law course both at higher than average speed, became a professor at MIT at 25 and still manages to be a hot shot federal agent. Oh, and he is apparently able to quote geological surveys from memory. The only thing keeping him from being absolutely perfect is him at one point confessing he isn't good at languages and a major What An Idiot moment.
Colleen McCullough's acclaimed Masters of Rome series about the fall of the Roman Republic is largely excellent, but her treatment of Julius Caesar verges on hagiographical. While other main characters have flaws, such the complex, brilliant but deeply damaged Sulla or the calm, "unfeeling pillar of ice" that is Octavian, Caesar himself is a polymath, a superb soldier, compassionate statesmen, incredibly handsome and amazing in the bedroom. While the real life Caesar was certainly a very impressive individual, McCullough seems almost to be in love with him and his perfection. It even spreads to his enemies; she spitefully renders Marcus Brutus in the least sympathetic light this troper has ever seen.
Jack Reacher, from Lee Child's series of books, is a massive example of this. Literally. He's 6'5" tall, and an ex-military policeman (which, in the books context, makes him some sort of Super-Duper Special Forces soldier). Oh, and he's never, ever wrong. Basically, every other character in the novels exist to raise alternate viewpoints for Reacher to disprove.
- He also gains new savant abilities with each new book. For instance, the ability to do any type of math in his head, the ability to always know what time it is without wearing a watch, and the ability to instantly calculate the distance between two points by eyeballing it, which comes in handy because he's the best sniper in the world.
- Oh, and he also meets a new gorgeous, buxom girl in each novel, and sleeps with practically all of them (one of whom was happily engaged at the time, but won over by Reacher's manly charm). Just read the list of "Acquaintances" at the Other Wiki, and try and guess which are the ones he sleeps with. Go on, try it. It's fun.
Rhapsody from the Symphony of Ages series is the God Mode Sue cranked up to eleven, hitting just about every point on the Common Mary Sue Traits (Kaleidoscope Eyes, tragic past, improbable powers, nearly equally perfect lover, New Powers As The Plot Demands...we could go on).
Herzer Herrick from John Ringo's Council War series. Beginning the story with debilitating physical deformities, he's fixed via Applied Phlebotinum the day before the big crash. From there, he begins outdoing everyone with improbable physical feats, each greater than the last, with a great deal of page-time devoted to this. His one flaw, something I'd never seen in any other story, namely unexpected arousal at fembots basically created for users to abuse sexually leading to his fearing he'd eventually submit to temptation to harm someone, upon further review of Ringo's other works, is actually Author Appeal for him, or perhaps a reflection of his own temptations, making Herzer an Author Avatar.
Peter from Steven King's The Eyes of the Dragon is beloved by all, tall, handsome, and clever, and has beat up people twice his size. He is good at everything. In fact, he's such an anoying Gary Stu that readers were actually rooting for Flagg!
Subverted in a manner most awesome in the Tom Clancy novel Teeth of the Tiger. Enter Jack Ryan Jr. He is rich, he is good looking, and he is going places. He shows up at The Campus with his resume looking for a job. Said resume includes training in covert espionage from John Clark and two former directors of the CIA, criminal investigation from the head of the FBI, shooting from a top Secret Service agent, politics from a former White House Chief of Staff, and last but not least, business and diplomacy from his former U.S. President father. Sure enough, the Campus director looks through said resume and decides that he has the perfect place for him. ''In Accounting!'' (Reason: Notice how the above resume doesn't include experience?)
- This is arguably played straight Tom Clancy's lead characters - most notably Jack Ryan Sr., who solves innumerable national/international crises in the course of his rise from stockbroker to President of the United States, and as far as this troper can recall, never fails at all. It doesn't help that both Jack Ryan and John Clark are cast from the same mold, which raises additional suspicions of Gary Stu-ism.
  - There are entire categories of activities that Jack Ryan fails at, and has survived only because he is able to attract and retain equally competent allies who can deal with such things. The crowning example is when it took the willing collusion of John Clark and his wife Catherine to save him from being driven into a nervous breakdown by a combination of both a) his poor work habits and b) a political intrigue directed against him by a Washington rival that was, really, amateurishly pathetic — and yet schooling his ass anyway.
- This troper hesitates to call any character who can't quit smoking a Gary Stu of any sort. About the worst accusation that can be leveled at President Ryan is that he is a Strawman Political who gets a mild case of Author Appeal once he starts explaining his policies (national flat tax, elimination of capital gain taxes, revamping of government procurement procedures, strict Constitutionalist court appointments, etc.) which are for the most part heavily conservative. However, the fact that he was reelected with an almost unanimous Electoral College tally, described as the most overwhelming plurality since George Washington, over his objections that he just wants to be an ordinary guy may be an indication of being Suetiful All Along.
  - Its also a function of his having inherited an exceptionally competent White House Chief of Staff and campaign manager from President Durling, who VP Ryan succeeded in office upon Durling's death. Without Arnie van Damm to steer him away from several really elementary political mistakes, Jack's re-election campaign would have not so much flown as plummeted. Not to mention, by that point the political scene in the Clancyverse does not even remotely resemble that of the current real-world United States, as in the real-world we are not attempting to restore the US government virtually from scratch after the prior President, every member of the Cabinet save the two designated survivors, the heads of the FBI, CIA, etc, etc., and 99+% of Congress all having been simultaneously blown up in the same terrorist attack on the Capitol. (Where was Jack Ryan during all this, one might ask? Answer: Next door in the Senate Office Building.)
Karsa Orlong from Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen deserves a mention. He gets beaten and captured a few times in the beginning of his career, but quickly takes several levels in Badass, and since then he's been a living hurricane of ass-kicking. Even Ascendants like Anomander Rake and Silchas Ruin lose a fight every now and then. But Karsa? Hell no.
Anne Robillard's Emerald Knights series contain both a Marty Stu and a Mary Sue featuring as main characters - to the great horror of this troper who felt like reading a bad fanfiction. Without going overly into detail, the main character and Chief-of-the-Mighty-Reformed-Ancestral-Order-of-World-Defender-Magic-Wielding-Knights, Wellan, is simply the best fighter, every girl in the knights swoons over him (secretly or not), all guys admire him, Kings need his guidance, his only flaw is that he gets angry at times (but mostly for good reasons!) and he gets a love relashionship with the Gorgeous and Kind and Perfect Queen of a magical country. But sadly, she gets horribly raped, her kingdom destroyed by the Big Bad (who's also an anthropomorphic insectoid monster king) and then dies. Causing much Wangst to Wellan the Great. Buuuuut that's not it! No, because the terrible [[Squick insect-on-fae-rape]] produced an offspring whose Mary Sue-ism score in The Universal Mary-Sue Litmus Test hit 151 points (and only with this troper's knowledge of the character from the first 4/12 tomes). Basically Princess Kira is a half insect/fae/human (yeah I know) BUT unlike the atrociously ugly creature you might imagine it would sum to, she actually looks like a purple-skinned elf girl with cat-like features. She is also the Child of the Prophecy, the villain's Evil Wizard tries to capture her, she got magical powers, strange physical powers, grows uncanningly fast, and got into the Emerald Knights order at a very young age (15 years old or something >_>). This troper is certain it doesn't get better in the rest of the series, but she has definitely given up reading it for good.
Richard Rahl from The Sword of Truth defines this trope. The only man with access to an "instinctive" magic that means he never has study it. He can fight and kill 30 expert warriors at the same time. He's the only one who can resist the Mind Control magic of the Big Bad, including the people whose deal is turning magic against its wielder. And he's the only one who can protect others from him, but they have to literally bow down and pray to him. He's the only character who can survive being zapped by super-love magic, because he already has super love, and is thus the only man living who can bang the leader of the all-female Confessors, who of course happens to also be the most beautiful woman in the world. Morality is defined by him, as in, anybody who agrees with him is good, and anybody who disagrees with him is evil. At the end he actually creates a new world.
The Volsunga Saga of myths and legends worships the ground the titular family walks on. Some notable entries include the superchild that results of an incestuous relationship (twice the Volsung, twice the strength!). More prominently sue-ified by the characters and narrative is the story's primary character, Sigurd the Dragonslayer, who, in an excellent example of his own badassery, dies bragging to his wife how he would have kicked the ass of everyone who conspired to kill him if he had just been on his feet when they stabbed him.
Subverted in Dearly Devoted Dexter in typically vicious fashion. When a Mad Doctor inflicts terrible revenge on one of his former Special Forces coworkers, the feds send in Agent Kyle Chutsky. He's an Adonis, physically fit, expert at most everything, swiftly gets into a Slap Slap Kiss relationship with Dexter's sister Deborah, and has a personal history with the villain. So is our Villain Protagonist about to be pushed out of the book? Not quite. Remember that personal history? The mad doctor grabs Chutsky, and by the time Dexter finds him he's lost two of his limbs and all of his composure.
The King Arthur mythology has been accused of picking up a few of these during retellings in lands outside England - most notably Lancelot, a French knight who rises to become Arthur's Lancer, even while having a blatant affair with Queen Guenevere.
"His strength is as the strength of ten, because his heart is pure..."
Arn Magnusson from Jan Guillou's Knight Templar series. He's an ambidexterous super soldier who was raised by monks (and therefore embodies every positive Christian trait there is), has an angelic singing voice, is wise beyond his years, loves animals and seems to be able to talk to them, revoulutionises his entire home land in terms if warfare, technology and acceptance of other cultures, speaks numerous languages... And he has a love story including 20 years of chaste adoration from afar.
Ender Wiggin of Enders Game. Going into any fight he wins no matter what the odds. No matter what the odds are, he beats the hell out of the enemy, and never loss a single game in Battle School, except for one, where his straw man leader told him not to do anything. Speaking of his enemies, anybody who doesn't instantly fall in love with Ender is either a bully, or somebody equally wrong.
- In all fairness, it does come at a price. Later in the book he is explicitly said to be loosing his grip on reality from the stress of keeping his team from dying, and has committed genocide against an alien race, albeit unintentionally. Later in the series, he really messes up some of his most important relationships thanks to his sense of priorities ("Sorry sis, but I can't stay until you've had the baby. I'm needed elsewhere.") The guy has flaws.
John Galt from Atlas Shrugged never gets anything wrong, destroys our corrupt modern society by convincing all the smartest and best people to join him in internal exile, invents a physically-impossible motor, and completely agrees with his author in every particular and all.
Just about any of Robert A. Heinlein's later heroes or heroines, but especially Lazarus Long, is nearly completely omnicompetent and is in near-total disagreement with the author (they disagree in that Heinlein believed in a paleoconservative government, because without it it's hard to have the Navy he loved so, whereas his heroes tend to be anarchist).

Live Action TV

Wesley Crusher from Star Trek The Next Generation, created by (Eu)gene Wesley Roddenberry. It's a little hard to believe that a young kid is able to save the ship (and, by extension, the whole universe) with more regularity than much of the main crew. It was pretty much the distillation of this trope in that almost all of his "solutions" were basically just cue cards handed to him by the writers. It didn't help that all the grown-ups were singing their praises of him for most of his screentime and he even had a Sufficiently Advanced Alien that constantly reminded us that he's just so special.
- Note that even Wil Wheaton, the actor who played Wesley, noticed he was a Marty Stu and told that to the writers.
Suzee, from the second season of Space Cases: She's the only one who's ever crossed over from another dimension, she's the smartest member of the crew (especially in engineering), has immense telepathic abilities, the ability to breathe in any atmosphere, and both of the male leads instantly fall in love with her. Jeez.
Captain Dylan Hunt, played by Kevin Sorbo on the TV show Andromeda. From the middle of the second season on, all other characters were reduced to pale before his awesomeness, regardless of however competent or courageous they had been before. Also, episodes came to focus on him more and more, to the point where no other member of the cast could get on camera unless their scene was also relevant in some manner to Captain Hunt's personal story arc. Sorbo's growing influence over the show is related to the departure of the original executive producer, Robert Wolfe, halfway during the second season.
Robin Williams's character, Merrit Rook, in the "Authority" episode of Law and Order Special Victims Unit is the ultimate crime drama God Mode Sue. Representing himself in court despite having no legal training or court-appointed advisor, Rook dismantles the A.D.A.'s case, destroys an expert witness on cross-examination, and handily wins over the jury with the his understated humor and forceful personality. His anarchist beliefs win him the fawning adoration of the entire city including Sergeant Munch, who attends a Central Park rally in his honor, while his sympathetic backstory (his Asshole Victim was the Dr Jerk who killed his adored wife and their stillborn baby through medical negligence) allows him to chew the scenery and monopolize the camera with emotional soliloquies. When a squadron of New York's Finest attempt to arrest Rook on a second charge, while he is unarmed and in a crowded public space, he manages to not only slip away but to disarm and kidnap Stabler's partner and best friend, veteran detective and local Action Girl Olivia Benson, in the process. After playing borderline Mind Rape-level psychological mind games with Stabler that border on Nightmare Fuel, Rook releases Olivia, dramatically escapes from custody and vanishes, seemingly into thin air. It's implied that he drowned himself, but they Never Found The Body
- Note that he, without any medical training whatsoever was able to tell that his wife/baby was dieing, even though the highly trained doctor couldn't.
Cordell Walker in Walker Texas Ranger. None of the other good guys on the show matter, because it's always Walker who saves the day. The only episodes in which Walker doesn't beat the main bad guy to a pulp are the ones where Walker shoots him. Not only is Walker the best Texas Ranger ever, he's also a Magical Native American! This character was probably one of the inspirations for the tongue-in-cheek Chuck Norris "facts".
Where would Power Rangers be without Dr. Tommy Oliver, the most Suetacular Ranger of them all? As a Villain Sue, he singlehandedly decimated the Rangers, wrought havoc on the Command Center, got hot chick Kimberly to fall in love with him (and used it to manipulate her), and even knew their secret identities. When he did his Heel Face Turn, he actually avoided most of Good Is Dumb by still being the best fighter out of the team, even going so far as to beat The Dragon of the Big Bad Goldar in one-on-one combat without morphing, regaining his failing powers, performing a Heroic Sacrifice with his powers to thwart the baddies' plans...and that's just while he was the Green Ranger. Then he became the White Ranger, and then Zeo Ranger 5, and then the Red Turbo Ranger...and even far into the future of the series, he is still a Marty Stu badass as the Black Dino Thunder Ranger with a PhD in ~~awesome~~ paleontology. Hell, he's even been called the greatest Power Ranger of all time in the series' continuity itself. This is one guy where God Mode Sue is met with Power Incontinence.
The Go-on Wings from Go-onger. Take a new Big Bad with a name something like Hirakikamedes who can beat up the original 5 heroes without trying, then debut the Aloof Ally pair who can beat him easily. True, they're supposed to have had training, but they outclass the Go-onger so badly it isn't funny.
- Interestingly subverted when said villain assumes One Winged Angel status—his new, Chaotic Evil personality makes it impossible for the master tactician Hiroto to beat him, while Sosuke is able to kill him by fighting random with random.
Kenji from Madan Senki Ryukendo. Even for a titular protagonist, the sheer amount of power and attention that the plot heaps on him is utterly ridiculous. Despite the fact that there are two other heroes in the show- Ryugunou and Ryujinou- expect Kenji to always save the day, even if the episode was focusing on another character up to that point. If there's ever a new power to be gained- even if its the other characters who put the work into attaining it- it will always go to Kenji. He could best be summed up by the fact that he gains a Mid Season Upgrade that is actually called God Ryukendo, and that's not even his most powerful form.

Music

The Alice Cooper song "You're A Movie" is about an overconfident soldier who embodies this trope.
"Bullets repel off my medals
And my men are in awe when I speak
All chaos my strategy settles
My mere presence gives strength to the weak
For me it seems really alarming
I'm really just only a man
With five million sheep in this army
I seem to be the only one fit to command"

Other

This trope was not seen as a bad thing in ancient epic poetry. In fact, the God Mode Sue used to exemplify everything a hero was supposed to be. Some examples:
- Achilles in The Odyssey, when he isn't sulking in his tent is portrayed as untouchable, at one point killing several Trojans just by yelling really loudly. His final confrontation with Hector is basically a Curb Stomp Battle, which starts with Hector panicing and being chased around the walls three times before being defeated handily.
- All the Christian characters in The Song of Roland fit this trope, but special mention goes to the titular Roland, who defeats every named character he goes up against and slaughters countless mooks without getting so much as a scratch. Since he was fighting a battle that he historically LOST, the poet couldn't have him survive, but instead of being killed by a filthy pagan, he kills himself from the strain of blowing his horn to warn Charlemagne's army of the invading horde.
- Beowulf, at one point, swims into the ocean wearing full armor and carrying a sword, and stays there for five days, killing eight sea monsters in the process... and that's just to settle a bet with a rival, before he even MEETS Grendel.
- The Epic Of Gilgamesh has the titular hero beat up not one but two beings designed by the gods specifically to bring him down.

Real Life

Biographies of L. Ron Hubbard that are written and published by Scientology (which he founded) like to portray him as one of these. Amongst other things, Hubbard was a descendant of several distinguished naval officers and a French count, grew up on his wealthy grandfather's ranch which took up 1/4th of the state of Montana, was a protegé and blood brother of the Blackfeet tribe at the age of 4, was the youngest Eagle Scout ever at age 13, was a decorated naval officer during World War 2, and was an accomplished and celebrated nuclear physicist, explorer, philosopher, songwriter, artist, and author. Not to mention that he was the first and only person to discover the way to save the universe from the evil grip of psychiatry and the legacy of Lord Xenu.
Grandmaster Robert Heinlein describes his friend and colleague, Grandmaster E.E. "Doc" Smith as being hypercompetent in a bewilderingly wide range of disciplines, and sterling character traits besides. The full description is given as a eulogy for "Doc" Smith, published under the inevitable title "Larger Than Life" and most easily available in his "Expanded Universe" anthology. Heinlein repeatedly emphasizes, if Smith's characters seemed too competent to be real, it is because Smith himself was the same. This troper opines that Smith is far more deserving of a movie based on his life than millionaire nutbar Howard Hughes.
Similar terms have been applied to Grandmaster Heinlein himself by Spider Robinson in the non-fiction piece "Rah, Rah, R.A.H.!" In the Grandmaster's defense, he invented the ''water bed''.
God. He's either this or Likeable Sue.

Tabletop Games

The Necrons in Warhammer 40000 are just taken to ridiculous levels of power. They are literally almost indestructible due to their living metal armor, and the weapons on their most basic soldiers are powerful enough to destroy another faction's most powerful units in a single shot. Lets not even get to the parts where they have faster than light travel that doesn't rely on the Warp, can almost instantly repair damage, can teleport anywhere they wish, and in the odd case that they actually start losing, they simply just teleport away leaving nothing behind, not even bodies to analyze. Plus, they have at least two Star Gods who are actively playing the other factions against each other, and the only Necron forces operating right now are small raiding parties. They're basically dancing circles around every civilized race in the galaxy and their entire army hasn't even been mobilized yet.
- It should be noted that the recent release of the 5th edition rule book is trying to curb this a bit, revealing numerous flaws in their design and "programming."

Video Games

KOS-MOS from Xenosaga. Even though she's a robot, she's ludicrously overpowered and just keeps escalating her powers over time. A lot of her abilities involve asspulls, where there's just no physical way she could have a particular capability installed. As if her status as a walking Deus Ex Machina isn't enough, she's still given an overly idealized appearance, outfit, and "emotional depth" even though she's a robot being built for military purposes (with seemingly unlimited features).
- Isn't KOS-MOS actually a vessel for the power of the Anima? Its not like they actually manufactured a cosmic-powered robot, it just that their war robot somehow got possessed by a primal force of the universe.
  - Dude? KOS-MOS IS MARY FREAKIN' MAGDALENE.
  - KOS-MOS being possessed by Mary Magdalene, the Animus, was part of Wilhelm's Xanatos Roulette. KOS-MOS' body/frame was only meant to be a placeholder for Mary's soul, doomed to be absorbed by T-elos (who's created from Mary's preserved body). If Mary completely awakened in T-elos' body, she would be fully obedient to Wilhelm, and allow him to reset the universe for the umpteenth time. The major point of the 3rd game was to basically say nuts to that.
Galen "Starkiller" Marek of The Force Unleashed, the apprentice of Darth Vader. Trained to hone his force powers to the max, he can pretty much Force Grab/Throw anything he sees and is generally a Person Of Mass Destruction capable of beating Palpatine. He is however a Villain Protagonist who fights against the Jedi initially and his actions are generally considered constant Crowning Moments of Awesome, so plenty of people don't really care.
- He's still way too powerful for just an apprentice Jedi, even if Darth Vader was teaching him from babyhood. He's forgiven because everybody has always wanted to toss around Stormtroopers with reckless abandon and this is the first game that lets you. Oh, and taking the good ending actually makes him the inspiration for the rebellion that kicked off the entire franchise. Hello Sue!
  - And this was even after George Lucas stepped in to try and tone down the character's Sueness. Starkiller was supposed to have Princess Leia as a love interest, which Lucas vetoed. The developers also originally planned for Qui Gon Jin to be Starkiller's mentor, but even they realized that was too much and created a new character instead.
- This troper disagrees. Yes, Starkiller is awesomely powerful, but so are all Force-users in this game. Also, he never truly defeated Palpatine - judging by the cutscenes, he failed to do as much as singe Emperor's clothing even by sacrificing himself. Also, doesn't being manipulated for most of the game, screwing up more than once and dying automatically disqualify him as God Mode Sue?
- When you consider that he's essentially a reverse Expy of Luke Skywalker (even taking his original last name as his code name), it makes sense.
How long has this page been up without a mention of Lord British of the Ultima fame? A blatant self insert of Richard Garriott, Lord British can kill anyone instantly, resurect anyone instantly, is pretty much unkillable, teleport himself and others, and call the Avatar from Earth.

Webcomics

Kimiko of Dresden Codak has gotten a few of the same accusations, only with technophilia instead of sorcery. The whole "being batshit insane" thing would do better to redress this if it weren't heading toward making her a nigh-omnipotent (but virtuous and misunderstood) nano-being.
Dave Anez has admitted (and lampshaded) the fact that Bob is Bob And George's Marty Stu. He dresses like Proto Man (easily the coolest Mega Man character), he's able to beat the main cast in combat and able to out-program Dr. Wily. He's the mastermind behind the events of Mega Man 5 and Mega Man 6 parodies, and a demi-god to boot. Since Bob And George was a Gag Series, he ends up as the butt of jokes a bit more often that your average Marty Stu. Given the often ridiculously exaggerated things he's done (like killing a ghost/hologram), he may even qualify as The Ace.
Gregory Deegan in Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire starts out as a physically handicapped, emotional frail person that was made that way due to the bullying of older brother Jacob. Eventually, this aspect just gets overturned and Gregory is turned into a near-invincible supermage capable of doing pretty much whatever the plot demands of him. The plot goes to great lengths to make sure the audience knows just how special he is, with the other characters always using a tone of awe. All this culminates into SuperGreg, which isn't just infamous for being incredibly out of place but also for the fact that it portrayed him as literally invincible and for the asspull of being able to randomly nullify SnowSong's spell that turned her to ice around Greg without killing her. Of course, everybody that isn't Obviously Evil™ loves him unconditionally, too.

Web Original

Adonis Zorba of Survival Of The Fittest version 3. It is mentioned in his profile that he boxes at a regional level - something matched only by Bobby Jacks who spent literally his entire teenage years training for his prowess. Added to the three other martial arts he knows, and this is a far greater level of proficiency than any teenager could ever have.
(Profile excerpt)Hobbies and Interests: Martial Arts (Hapkido, Judo, Kenpo), Boxing, Island Music (reggae, ska, raggamuffin), theatre, and juggling.
- Did we mention he is also incredbily good looking and intelligent to boot?
- Adonis' Profile
- Is this making you ill? Not to worry, he dies in a comedic (and idiotic) fashion.
- Don't forget post-handler adoption Liam Black, who uses what has become known as "superlogic" to discover a well-hidden kidnapping plot using practially nothing at all to base his discovery on, as well as deducing that the lack of announcements meant that the terrorist's computer systems were down (they were, having been messed up by the return of the Jack O'Conner virus). He also catches another player running at him with a flag, deduced that she was going to try and choke him with it (she was, but is that really the first thing that comes to mind when somebody rushes you wielding a flag?), and then proceeded to drop onto his back, get back up, and get a garroting wire around her neck, all supposedly before she could react to it. Fortunately, all this is offset by most of the characters around him not taking him seriously.

Western Animation

Sonic in Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog. Seemingly all knowing, always knows the moral of the story, every female important to the episode plot falls in love with him, and on top of it all, he's apparently only 16. And did we mention how much attitude he has? Slammin'!
- One particularly irritating example: one of the "Sonic Sez" segments features Tails getting angry at a computer which he can't work properly, followed by Sonic telling him to patiently learn how to use it instead of just attacking it. This is annoying because it completely inverts their personalities from the games, in which Sonic is the impatient speedster and Tails is the tech expert, so that Sonic can be the one delivering the lesson. Almost justified, since this was made when the characters were just in the starting stages of these distinct personalities (with it being made official with Sonic Adventure).
- Actually, Tails' solo adventure Game Gear game predates this, and was the start of his tech-loving cute fox thing personality traits.
Omni from Team Galaxy is a really blatant example of this. In the season two finale, "Predator Plants From Outer Space" (sadly, nothing to do with Little Shop of Horrors), he is not only incredibly smart (more so than the smart guy on the team), but nice, sociable and heroic, an accomplished fighter and has Psychic Powers to boot. And now it looks like he is becoming a regular on the show.
Brian from Family Guy represents this trope. Seth Mac Farlane is a noted liberal, and he uses Brian to push his liberal beliefs on the show's characters. Whenever a political issue is "handled" on the show and the Republican point of view is introduced in a negative light, Brian will step in to speak his mind and bluntily explain- to the viewers more than anyone on the actual show- how those Republican views are ridiculous and inappropriate. Aside from being the holy voice of reason on the show, Brian is also quite witty and has an exquisite taste in culture. In fact, his flaws are either fueled by the fact that he is a dog (misbehaving the way dogs do), or the fact that he is so smart and refined he cannot relate to the simply folk in his cartoonish world. His dog flaws do not reflect his real-life correspondant Seth Mac Farlane, and his inability to find a good friend is caused by positive qualities.

Close Stuff

Be: Do I have to be the one to fight you on this? Are you bloody insane? What the hell are you doing this for? Does anybody but you want it done? Will I ever get an answer for these questions? The answer to that last one is "probably not". Stop poncing about with the Sue examples, it is so pointless even my hair is hurting from it.

Rebochan: Good, I'm not the only person wondering what the hell is going on here. There's been no discussion on this topic whatsoever, so you don't get to remove all of that content with no consensus.

Rebochan: I have restored all of the Canon Sue examples because they were removed without warning or discussion. Please discuss this topic on the Canon Sue Discussion page so there will be consensus.

Decide the fate of the examples here

Rebochan: The fate of the examples has been decided - they are staying but with much stricter standards. As part of the cleanup process, I pulled any entries that had started gathering justifying edits, and a few that seemed questionable. If you want a contested Sue entry included on the page, justify why here so there can be consensus. If you think a Sue entry on the page now should not be there, cut it, put on discussion, and we'll debate it. End of edit wars. Anyone that only becomes a Sue with a bad writer is pulled - if there's debate about that, discuss it here as well.

I also cut a few that are describing the wrong trope and they have since been exported to the correct trope pages.

Also, if you only put someone's name and nothing else...your entry gets pulled. This isn't a list. You have to Justify Your Sue.

First Culling

Ryoma Echizen, the main character of The Prince Of Tennis manga is a 12-year-old prodigy whose tennis skills are unmatched by all and unreasonably powerful. His bad behavior adds to the image as well, making him a borderline Jerkass Stu in the manga, saved only by his occasional Pet The Dog moments.
- While Echizen is easily the biggest example, every player who gets the spotlight is painted with the God Mode Sue brush at one point or another. Especially Tezuka, Atobe and Yukimura; the latter two have the added bonus have the fangirls twisting them into flawless, gorgeous, can-do-no-wrong Draco In Leather Pants... and then they use these prettified versions of their selves to bash Ryoma for his Stuness. Fan Dumb, much.
- Echizen in the anime is, however, not this kind of Stu. He's more socially awkward and dense than arrogant, more childlike, shows some more emotions towards his friends and sempais, actually loses matches and pays the consequences, has people call him out on a more regular basis, and gets some of his Jerk Ass moments softened and humanized.
Alucard of Hellsing certainly flirts with this considering how many different ways he seems to be "dead" before going on unstoppable rampages of destruction. Your Mileage May Vary.
- There's a grand total of two reasons that he gets "dead". One, he likes to test Seras and see if she's living up to his expectations. Two, he likes being a dick to Mooks and give them Hope Spots.
- To a lesser extent, Judai/Jaden himself, but in his case, it's not pretty.
Many consider Sasuke of Naruto has recently become one. While being at least as strong as the main character is a requisit of being The Rival, he has single-handedly killed the Orochimaru (sorta) and killed two Akatsuki members himself, the latter a feat that only one other character has managed to do even once on their own, and even then only through an elaborate Xanatos Gambit. Despite the fact that he lost a major source of power after killing said Big Bad, he still has a large array of powerful techniques at his disposal (several of which he is one of the only capable of using).
- Judging by the fact that he recently decided he wants to destory the Leaf Village and kill everyone in it, it seems all of this is to set him up as a major villain. Though whether or not that matters is also up for debated. He also most recently got his ass kicked (twice) by the eight-tailed host, who he eventually defeated but that was exactly what he wanted as said host turned out to have thrown the match as part of his Xanatos Gambit to escape Akatsuki and his village.
HOW DID WE MISS AIZEN???
- Because of his zanpakuto, that's why.
Superman, depending on era and writer, lapses into this pretty often. He originally started out with a fairly believable set of powers, but each issue saw fit to give him a new one or enhance one of his existing ones. He ended up becoming so overpowered and the divide between him and his enemies was so great, they had to introduce a Diabolus Ex Machina in the form of Kryptonite to make the stories actually interesting instead of just "use powers, win". Over time, he's had some of his more ridiculous powers limited, the divide between him and other characters has become significantly smaller, and a great many drawbacks to his powers have been explored, but it still seems rather dubious how he's just so much more powerful than the rest of the Justice League. He's generally accepted because of the Grandfather Clause (it just wouldn't be Superman without flight, super speed, super strength, laser vision, a devotion to Lawful Good that puts most paladins to shame, etc.).
- It doesn't help that his personality is bland and vague enough that the writers can and will use him as a lectern from which to preach their own beliefs and ideals, such as Christopher Reeve's anti-war soapboxing in the fourth movie.
A combination of Popularity Power, Crazy Preparedness and Badass Normality can see Batman fall into this trap at times. Care especially needs to be taken in situations where the writers have him administering smackdowns (either physical or moral) to characters who should theoretically be able to render him a smear on the wall before he, as a mere Badass Normal human, can actually do anything, much less put into action his latest contingency plan. Although this can be justified with fellow heroes as them being restrained enough to hold back when dealing with him (although the sheer amount of times he's outwitted and beaten-down characters such as Superman, who theoretically should still be able to harmlessly defeat him very quickly, can weaken this justification with regards to this trope), when it comes to him easily putting down super-powered villains who have no such restraints this can, at times, become slightly questionable.
Sodam Yat, the new Ion, was introduced by having every character talk about how clever he was and how brave he was and oh, he's just a rookie but he fights like a veteran! Then he arrived on Earth, where the yellow sun gave him Superman-esque powers (Daxamites such as he evolved on par with Kryptonians). Then, as if that wasn't enough, he was given the power of Ion, largely so he could surpass the torch-bearer, Kyle Rayner. He became more sympathetic as better writers got hold of him, but there is something inherently suspect about a Superman-level superhero with a Green Lantern Ring and power to exceed even the most powerful Lanterns.
- Sodam Yat has beaten some kind of record by being named the "Ultimate Green Lantern" twenty years before he was introduced as a character.
  - Despite his buildup, Sodam Yat's now been trounced so regularly that despite his vast power he's now the Butt Monkey of the GLC. Of course, that's just so that Hal Jordan can put in his own bid for inclusion into this trope, given that without his ring he's been KO'ing bad guys that Sodam Yat couldn't even escape the restraints of, let alone lay a fist on. After all, if they say Sodam Yat is so awesome, and then he repeatedly fails while Hal saves the day, surely that makes Hal EVEN MORE AWESOME OMG.
James Bond, depending on the film, is often a near-omniscient godlike figure that just simply cannot lose. In spite of getting captured at least once nearly every movie, he always seems to come up against villains lenient enough to let him live and Q Branch appears to employ psychics because he always seems to get a convenient gadget for whatever particular situation he gets thrown into (the most egregious were probably the razor watch in Live And Let Die, which they didn't even bother to explain, but the omnidirectional glass shattering ring and the Aston Martin "Vanish" in Die Another Day may be worthy of mention). Again, this largely depends on which film you watch (for example, On Her Majestys Secret Service's most improbable moment was him surviving an avalanche and he ultimately lost in the end). This often gets a pass depending on the actor because he's charismatic enough to make it Bad Ass (only Bond could get away with getting thrown out of an airplane without a parachute and wrestling one way from somebody else in midair).
- The recent Re Boot starting with Casino Royale has gone a long way towards pushing him away from this trope. The most advanced gadget he has was a glove-compartment defibrillator, he only bedded two women, and his fight scenes were a tossup on whether he'd win or lose. He was also portrayed as flawed and making serious mistakes that he had to answer for. Even the critics noticed the difference - the film was widely praised for making Bond a fallible human being again. The next film, Quantum of Solace, is to be made with the same mentality.
  - Quantum of Solace actually followed through, showing a Bond that, despite being extremely skilled, still made significant mistakes and seemed to succeed as much through luck as anything else. In addition, it showed that he's entirely capable of lying to himself, along with other people, and that his motivation is no longer as simple as "Queen and Country", but that it's something he has to make for himself. Overall, a much more interesting and believable Bond seems to be the hallmark of the Daniel Craig era.
  - But then it's not James Bond. It's Jason Bourne. Hate to tell you this, but James Bond has always been a spoof (which makes a lot of Bond spoofs actually a spoof of a spoof.)
  - The Roger Moore movies were unquestionably spoofs, but most if not all of the Connery movies were quite serious. Likewise the one Lazenby, most of Dalton's, and even the first Brosnan. The novels likewise were thrillers, not comedies.
Arguably several of Timothy Zahn's characters in the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Mara and Karrde, in particular, are portrayed as hyper-competent and universally loved. This is another one that depends on who's writing them, as the two are well-loved characters when written well and annoying when they're not. It doesn't help that bad writers tend to gloss over their more human aspects.
The Mandalorians from Star Wars, as portrayed by Karen Traviss, fit this trope perfectly. Their history is suddenly changed, casting them in a far more positive light, and they're given ridiculous weapons that overpower everything seen elsewhere. Add to that Traviss' insistence on comparing them favorably to the Jedi, and you get a whopping mess of a society of Mary Sues.
- The Clone Troopers as portrayed by Karen Traviss tend to fall into this as well, not helped by the fact that Sci Fi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale and she proposes a number of Clone Troopers such that apparently only a handful are necessary to keep control of an entire planet. Admittedly an earlier author proposed an even smaller number first, but actually setting and publicizing the number as three million might not have been a good idea. It's also odd considering how easily the clones die under other authors.
- To give an idea of how insanely small the "three million clones" number is, it's about (if I recall) the same as WWII-era Germany's army...an army incapable of fully conquering and subjugating a relatively small area of a single world in a time when lasers, magic powers, energy swords, spaceships, giant robots and multimegaton nuclear weapons were to say the least uncommon. If you took any sane person, especially a military commander, and asked them how many men they would need to take thousands of worlds of a similar size and population to Earth the number would realistically be astronomical by any objective standard—probably several hundred billion at a minimum. And this is assuming perfect success, almost no losses, and very little resistence afterwards from the locals and discounting the fact that the enemy can literally mass produce soldiers at will in any amount they desire. It doesn't help that Traviss also tries to paint the Jedi as, quote, "spoonbenders" (i.e., hoaxes, con men) and goes out of her way to antagonize those who critique her by calling them "Talifans" and threatening to tear their throats out. I only wish I was making that up.
Stackpole's character Corran Horn, from the X-wing novels and I, Jedi, fits next to Mara Jade as a character whose Stu-ishness varies. Certainly, a lot of Mary Sue traits apply(more Mary Sue than Marty Stu, oddly enough) but under the right authors he's exactly as cool as they hoped.
- Weirdly enough, Corran's most Sueish moments in I, Jedi are almost completely superfluous towards resolving the main plot of the book, saving his wife. He ends up relying more heavily on far more mundane abilities that basically justify his choice of being in Rogue Squadron.
- For that matter, most of the rest of Rogue Squadron is nearly as bad as Corran for Sueish tendencies. While they lack his force sensitivity, almost all of them display skills and abilities far beyond what would be expected of an elite fighter squadron.
Rhapsody from the Symphony of Ages series is the God Mode Sue cranked up to eleven, hitting just about every point on the Common Mary Sue Traits (Kaleidoscope Eyes, tragic past, improbable powers, nearly equally perfect lover, New Powers As The Plot Demands...we could go on).
Peter from Steven King's The Eyes of the Dragon is beloved by all, tall, handsome, and clever, and has beat up people twice his size. He is good at everything. In fact, he's such an anoying Gary Stu that readers were actually rooting for Flagg!
Subverted in a manner most awesome in the Tom Clancy novel Teeth of the Tiger. Enter Jack Ryan Jr. He is rich, he is good looking, and he is going places. He shows up at The Campus with his resume looking for a job. Said resume includes training in covert espionage from John Clark and two former directors of the CIA, criminal investigation from the head of the FBI, shooting from a top Secret Service agent, politics from a former White House Chief of Staff, and last but not least, business and diplomacy from his former U.S. President father. Sure enough, the Campus director looks through said resume and decides that he has the perfect place for him. ''In Accounting!'' (Reason: Notice how the above resume doesn't include experience?)
- This is arguably played straight Tom Clancy's lead characters - most notably Jack Ryan Sr., who solves innumerable national/international crises in the course of his rise from stockbroker to President of the United States, and as far as this troper can recall, never fails at all. It doesn't help that both Jack Ryan and John Clark are cast from the same mold, which raises additional suspicions of Gary Stu-ism.
  - There are entire categories of activities that Jack Ryan fails at, and has survived only because he is able to attract and retain equally competent allies who can deal with such things. The crowning example is when it took the willing collusion of John Clark and his wife Catherine to save him from being driven into a nervous breakdown by a combination of both a) his poor work habits and b) a political intrigue directed against him by a Washington rival that was, really, amateurishly pathetic — and yet schooling his ass anyway.
- This troper hesitates to call any character who can't quit smoking a Gary Stu of any sort. About the worst accusation that can be leveled at President Ryan is that he is a Strawman Political who gets a mild case of Author Appeal once he starts explaining his policies (national flat tax, elimination of capital gain taxes, revamping of government procurement procedures, strict Constitutionalist court appointments, etc.) which are for the most part heavily conservative. However, the fact that he was reelected with an almost unanimous Electoral College tally, described as the most overwhelming plurality since George Washington, over his objections that he just wants to be an ordinary guy may be an indication of being Suetiful All Along.
  - Its also a function of his having inherited an exceptionally competent White House Chief of Staff and campaign manager from President Durling, who VP Ryan succeeded in office upon Durling's death. Without Arnie van Damm to steer him away from several really elementary political mistakes, Jack's re-election campaign would have not so much flown as plummeted. Not to mention, by that point the political scene in the Clancyverse does not even remotely resemble that of the current real-world United States, as in the real-world we are not attempting to restore the US government virtually from scratch after the prior President, every member of the Cabinet save the two designated survivors, the heads of the FBI, CIA, etc, etc., and 99+% of Congress all having been simultaneously blown up in the same terrorist attack on the Capitol. (Where was Jack Ryan during all this, one might ask? Answer: Next door in the Senate Office Building.)
The Volsunga Saga of myths and legends worships the ground the titular family walks on. Some notable entries include the superchild that results of an incestuous relationship (twice the Volsung, twice the strength!). More prominently sue-ified by the characters and narrative is the story's primary character, Sigurd the Dragonslayer, who, in an excellent example of his own badassery, dies bragging to his wife how he would have kicked the ass of everyone who conspired to kill him if he had just been on his feet when they stabbed him.
The King Arthur mythology has been accused of picking up a few of these during retellings in lands outside England - most notably Lancelot, a French knight who rises to become Arthur's Lancer, even while having a blatant affair with Queen Guenevere.
"His strength is as the strength of ten, because his heart is pure..."
Ender Wiggin of Enders Game. Going into any fight he wins no matter what the odds. No matter what the odds are, he beats the hell out of the enemy, and never loss a single game in Battle School, except for one, where his straw man leader told him not to do anything. Speaking of his enemies, anybody who doesn't instantly fall in love with Ender is either a bully, or somebody equally wrong.
- In all fairness, it does come at a price. Later in the book he is explicitly said to be loosing his grip on reality from the stress of keeping his team from dying, and has committed genocide against an alien race, albeit unintentionally. Later in the series, he really messes up some of his most important relationships thanks to his sense of priorities ("Sorry sis, but I can't stay until you've had the baby. I'm needed elsewhere.") The guy has flaws.

Other

This trope was not seen as a bad thing in ancient epic poetry. In fact, the God Mode Sue used to exemplify everything a hero was supposed to be. Some examples:
- Achilles in The Iliad, when he isn't sulking in his tent is portrayed as untouchable, at one point killing several Trojans just by yelling really loudly. His final confrontation with Hector is basically a Curb Stomp Battle, which starts with Hector panicing and being chased around the walls three times before being defeated handily.
- All the Christian characters in The Song of Roland fit this trope, but special mention goes to the titular Roland, who defeats every named character he goes up against and slaughters countless mooks without getting so much as a scratch. Since he was fighting a battle that he historically LOST, the poet couldn't have him survive, but instead of being killed by a filthy pagan, he kills himself from the strain of blowing his horn to warn Charlemagne's army of the invading horde.
- Beowulf, at one point, swims into the ocean wearing full armor and carrying a sword, and stays there for five days, killing eight sea monsters in the process... and that's just to settle a bet with a rival, before he even MEETS Grendel.
- The Epic Of Gilgamesh has the titular hero beat up not one but two beings designed by the gods specifically to bring him down.

Video Games

KOS-MOS from Xenosaga. Even though she's a robot, she's ludicrously overpowered and just keeps escalating her powers over time. A lot of her abilities involve asspulls, where there's just no physical way she could have a particular capability installed. As if her status as a walking Deus Ex Machina isn't enough, she's still given an overly idealized appearance, outfit, and "emotional depth" even though she's a robot being built for military purposes (with seemingly unlimited features).
- Isn't KOS-MOS actually a vessel for the power of the Anima? Its not like they actually manufactured a cosmic-powered robot, it just that their war robot somehow got possessed by a primal force of the universe.
  - Dude? KOS-MOS IS MARY FREAKIN' MAGDALENE.
  - KOS-MOS being possessed by Mary Magdalene, the Animus, was part of Wilhelm's Xanatos Roulette. KOS-MOS' body/frame was only meant to be a placeholder for Mary's soul, doomed to be absorbed by T-elos (who's created from Mary's preserved body). If Mary completely awakened in T-elos' body, she would be fully obedient to Wilhelm, and allow him to reset the universe for the umpteenth time. The major point of the 3rd game was to basically say nuts to that.
Galen "Starkiller" Marek of The Force Unleashed, the apprentice of Darth Vader. Trained to hone his force powers to the max, he can pretty much Force Grab/Throw anything he sees and is generally a Person Of Mass Destruction capable of beating Palpatine. He is however a Villain Protagonist who fights against the Jedi initially and his actions are generally considered constant Crowning Moments of Awesome, so plenty of people don't really care.
- He's still way too powerful for just an apprentice Jedi, even if Darth Vader was teaching him from babyhood. He's forgiven because everybody has always wanted to toss around Stormtroopers with reckless abandon and this is the first game that lets you. Oh, and taking the good ending actually makes him the inspiration for the rebellion that kicked off the entire franchise. Hello Sue!
  - And this was even after George Lucas stepped in to try and tone down the character's Sueness. Starkiller was supposed to have Princess Leia as a love interest, which Lucas vetoed. The developers also originally planned for Qui Gon Jin to be Starkiller's mentor, but even they realized that was too much and created a new character instead.
- This troper disagrees. Yes, Starkiller is awesomely powerful, but so are all Force-users in this game. Also, he never truly defeated Palpatine - judging by the cutscenes, he failed to do as much as singe Emperor's clothing even by sacrificing himself. Also, doesn't being manipulated for most of the game, screwing up more than once and dying automatically disqualify him as God Mode Sue?
- When you consider that he's essentially a reverse Expy of Luke Skywalker (even taking his original last name as his code name), it makes sense.
How long has this page been up without a mention of Lord British of the Ultima fame? A blatant self insert of Richard Garriott, Lord British can kill anyone instantly, resurect anyone instantly, is pretty much unkillable, teleport himself and others, and call the Avatar from Earth.
The player character of Escape Velocity: Nova falls into this if he takes the Polaris storyline, and possibly the Vell-Os storyline does this as well. Sure, in every storyline, your character is insanely good, but in the Polaris storyline you essentially become God (of course, Gameplay And Story Segregation is in effect. Gameplay-wise, once you've finished that storyline, you're no more powerful than a character that has finished any other line).

Finally, I pulled this entry so that all of the natter gets pulled out - it's a fine tapestry of possibly Sue tropes, justifying edits, and randomness.

The wizard Elminster in the Forgotten Realms setting of Dungeons And Dragons, who also happens to act as writer Ed Greenwood's alter ego when presenting the setting (including performances in character at gaming conventions). Disgust with the absurd degree of canonical detail about his apparent general-purpose awesomeness (power, wisdom, mighty deeds, hawt girlfriends)—and he has in fact gone To Hell And Back—has led in some forums to contests being held to propose the most plausible and sadistically satisfying way of actually bumping Elminster off. Ed Greenwood's own statement in an interview (Dragon Magazine #335) that Elminster is "beyond munchkinism" is the final nail in this coffin.
- Another Forgotten Realms thread on RPGnet contained this disclaimer from the originator:
  'Fuck you if you think I'm somehow cheating by not having Elminster come in and solve every fucking thing under the sun. Wait, no, double fuck you, I will put an Elminster section in every adventure seed detailing exactly why Elminster is not involved. Just for the double fuck you. This will be marked "2FYEW", standing for "Double Fuck You, Elminster Whiners".'
- The Seven Suesters, seven quasi-divine sisters created by Greenwood. All are immortal, ageless, variously beautiful, immensely powerful (being infused with the power of the Goddess Mystra and each one litterally The Chosen), but especially The Simbul (a Queen who frequently singlehandedly dispatches armies of supposedly powerful wizards and all their minions without breaking a sweat and is, of course, is Elminster's bedmate), beloved of everyone (except bad guys - the working definition of evil in any fiction involving them, even as minor or cameo characters, is "someone who doesn't like one or more of the Sisters, or who is disliked by one or more of the Sisters"). Any assertion that Greenwood came up with these Sisters while dreaming If You Know What I Mean is entirely speculative, but they're basically a menage a sept.
- In fairness, they may not be immortal, since Qilue the dark elf, while the chaotic good dark elven goddess Eilistraee was possessing her body, was beheaded with the Crescent Blade.
  - But that just raises the question of how she can be a dark elf when all of her sisters are humans...
  - You sure you want to know? The Seven Sisters are mortal, not demigods, because Mystra arranged for a human ranger and sorceress to be the parents. Mystra was involved by possessing the mother, using her for a host body, during the pregnancies. (In her defense, the mother was a willing subject.) But the sorceress started dying when Qilue, the youngest of the Seven, was still in the womb. Meanwhile, a high priestess of the Chaotic Good drow goddess Elliastree, also pregnant, had just had her unborn child die in her womb, and while still healthy (for the moment) was going to be slowly killed by the dead fetus rotting in there. To save the life of both Mystra's unborn Chosen and Elliastree's priestess, the two goddesses cooperated and swapped the still-living unborn baby into the not-dying dark elven mother. Apparently, changing said swapped unborn baby into a dark elf was part of Elliastree's price for her cooperation, not to mention that a human child being born of a dark elven mother would itself have been shocking to all involved.
  - Also, the Chosen of Mystra are immortal in the sense that they do not ever age or die of natural causes, and generally resilient (in addition to being epic-level adventurers, usually of arcane spellcasting classes). But they're not immortal in the sense of never being able to die ever, as both Sylune and Khelben have proven (in 3rd edition continuity, no less) as well as Qilue.
- In D&D 3rd Edition, Elminster canonically has a higher Challenge Rating than Cthulhu gets in the D20 version of Call Of Cthulhu.
  - On the other hand, in D&D 4th Edition, Elminster has been severely de-powered thanks to the demise of Mystra. He's still a powerful wizard, but no more so than any of the other powerful wizards in the Realms. Also, he may be scared to use the magic he still has. Apparently Wizards Of The Coast decided they'd had enough.
- Note that Greenwood openly admits that Mirt the Moneylender, a fat, jolly rogue who predates Elminster and was the hero of the first story Greenwood ever wrote, is his Canon Sue. Then again, as of 3.5, he wasn't nearly as broken statistically as Elminster, in fact having almost a third of Elminster's CL. (Which in turn may simply highlight how much moreso Elminister is.)
  - It should be noted that Elminster's CL is not the doing of Ed Greenwood. The blame for statting the Chosen as completely broken in game terms lies solely at the feet of TSR/Wizards of the Coast.
  - Factually Incorrect. Elminster's first AD&D game stats: Dragon Magazine, in an article by Ed Greenwood. First mention of the concept of 'Chosen of Mystra' at all (prior to, Elminster was just a very powerful but 'normal' archmage): "Code of the Harpers", an AD&D 2e supplement written by Ed Greenwood. First mechanical writeup for the Chosen of Mystra template and stats for the Seven Sisters, the "Seven Sisters" AD&D 2e supplement, written by, yup, Ed Greenwood again. Even as late as Elminster's original 3e stats, in the 3e Forgotten Realms Campaign Sourcebook, you have Ed Greenwood as one of the names listed with a "game design" credit for the book.

Close First Culling

Rebochan: More clean up. Debated examples are below, and this time with my reasoning process. Please feel free to argue if you feel they should remain on the page.

The Second Culling

The title character of Sonic X. Every episode will typically lead up to the Monster Of The Week attacking, while the other characters try to fight it. Their attacks typically have no effect whatsoever, and the robot of the week seems unbeatable, until Sonic comes along, gets hopped up on a Power Ring if necessary, and takes it out with one hit. That he actually couldn't do this to the robot in the first season finale was itself a bit of a twist.
- This means that when Shadow easily defeats sonic and the rest of the main characters in the metarex ark he is being very Badass and infact also stealing Sonic's God Mode Sue abilities.

I should have pulled this in the last cull, because all it sounds like is "Sonic is more powerful than his supporting cast". He's the main character in a series of game where he is the hero. Winning against the Monster Of The Week should be par for the course. It also sounds like if he has to do something like acquire a power-up to do his job, he's still being limited. And if he's still running into opponents that wipe the floor with him, that's another limit right there. This is another example from a series I'm not familiar with - if there's more context here that I'm missing, we should rework the example to make it more apparent why this pushes this incarnation of Sonic in Sueland.

Amaterasu of The Five Star Stories actually IS a god. Fortunately, Mamoru Nagano is a good enough writer that this usually doesn't hinder the story too much. To a lesser extent, all of the Headdliners & Fatimas qualify, as it's stated to be flat out impossible for a normal person to beat them in a fight, at least one on one, but there's enough of them fighting on opposite sides that this doesn't hurt the drama of the stories much.

Being a god does not make one a Sue. Balanced, established power levels also don't make one a Sue. Furthermore, if the story is described as well written and well balanced, they're definitely not Sues because Sues are by definition badly written and unbalanced.

Lina Inverse of Slayers arguably qualifies. At their base, all main arcs of the various seasons cam be summed up as fighting some enemy on changing grounds for a time, until such a point when the heroes realise that only Lina's ridiculously overpowered last resort spells are up to the job. Even though the Giga Slave has a risk of destroying the whole damn world every time it's used, it invariably gets used anyway at some point, and the Ragna Blade tends to be the only thing that can destroy a major villain. If it's not those two, the Dragon Slave spells she tosses right and left and are usually effective, even if the supposedly "at least as powerful" Ra Tilt of shamanistic magic, used by Zelgadis, fails to do anything. Combined with the fact that all of her 'normal' spells can apparently be used without any kind of limit as often as she wants, that makes her pretty damn overpowered.

If she only "arguably" qualifies, she doesn't qualify. More to the point, she also gets the crap kicked out of her a lot and she *does* have limits to her magic. She *did* lose* control of a Giga Slave and wiped herself out of existence - it was by sheer dumb luck that casting the spell created a side effect that saved the world instead of destroyed it and the whim of a chaotic higher being that decided to create her again. None of which had to do with how special she was. She's also not the only one that casts Dragon Slave, or the only one that could use Ragna Blade or Dragon Slave. All of those spells are simply related to the division of magic that Lina practices, and any inequalities between that and Shamanic magic are not simply related to being the kind of magic Lina practices. Simply put, it's Lina's actual skills and a bit of luck that lets her eventually win, not because she has power levels out of sync with what other characters in the series can accomplish.

Mina from the Dragonlance War of Souls trilogy and the Dark Disciple trilogy, which is just about her. She was eventually revealed to be an actual goddess (she's not initially aware of this).
- This troper hasn't read the second trilogy, but her role in War of Souls is something of a subversion: She at first appears to be a saintly, near-perfect character representing the return of true divinity, but is in fact merely the dupe of the Goddess of Evil, and the one character who never calls her on her more questionable decisions is as delusionally obsessed with her as she is with her goddess.

Not a sue and the example doesn't even say why she should be a Sue at all besides "She's a goddess" and "She has her own series".

Close The Second Culling

I also pulled the entire Real Life section because real people cannot by Mary Sues...because they actually exist. If they're claiming things they haven't done, they're a great fit for Small Name Big Ego, but this page is only for fictional characters.

Rebochan: Culled this:

The titular character of Detective Conan. Conan/Shinichi a spoiled rich kid and a super genius capable of solving several hundred manga chapters' worth of murders all on his lonesome. He has super-shoes, super suspenders, a rocket-powered skateboard, a voice-changer bow tie, radio tracker glasses, and whatever other toys are convenient to the story. He can drive a speedboat, pilot a plane, pilot a helicopter, is a crack shot, a soccer star, is multilingual, and plays the violin spectacularly. Whatever other skills he manifests over the course of the series, you can be sure he learned them quickly and easily — in Hawaii.

It doesn't sound like a Sue, just a main character. A main character on a show that had to stay fresh for over a decade.

Rebochan: Culled the following:

Son Goku. Super Saiya 1, Super Saiya 2, Super Saiya 3, Super Saiya Insert Number Here Even Though It Was Supposed To Be Impossible. Even when someone else (e.g. Piccolo) kills the Big Bad, it's because Goku lent him power. Even when he's dead, it's his spirit that spurs on whoever is taking up the role of ass-kicker to victory.

I'm not a huge fan of DBZ, but I am aware of a lot of the plot simply through cultural osmosis. And that is that everybody's power level fluctuates to whatever they need it to be to forward the plot. And Goku still died at the hands of someone stronger than him and someone else had to finish the job. I'm also really wary of including examples of main characters from a major franchise with a large Hatedom on principle.

Cassy: I think Son Goku fits in spite of this, as he's ridiculously, ridiculously overpowered and always ends up winning at the end of the day (well, or his "mini-me" Son Gohan does -he's even more ridiculously overpowered but not as interested in fighting). And he's mainly remembered by fans and non-fans alike for being a virtuoso ass-kicker of Superman-like proportions. At the very least, I think it should be put back with the qualification "Many view Son Goku as this because..." (and yes, I've actually watched the show.)

TurkishDelight: Added back in Darth Revan in the video game section. I'm not really trying for an edit war, but if you don't think the guy belongs there, at least have the decency to explain why here before you delete it.

Unknown Troper: Revan was removed because the description of him does nothing to define him as a Sue beyond basically calling him a badass and charismatic character. In a setting with Luke Skywalker, Thrawn, Palpatine, and Mace frickin' Windu, Revan only stands out because he is that time-frame's equivilant of these characters. Yes, the characters all remark about him in reverence or fear; they do the same thing for Exar Kun in the same timeframe, and later for Palpatine, for Thrawn, and for Luke Skywalker. Larger-than-life historical figures tend to have that effect, especially in a setting that regularly delivers superhuman demigods that play the role of epic heroes. Having reverence or fear for a powerful individual who shakes an entire galaxy in recent memory is entirely reasonable, unless you want to call actual historical figures in the real world who had equivilant levels of effect on the real world Mary Sues, too. Following the logic that everyone being afraid of or reverent toward an individual means that they're a Mary Sue means that Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and, yes, Adolf Hitler were all Mary Sues.

The Sasuke example in Canon seems much more like a bashing rant from a hater then a real example. Tell me, who nearly got killed twice by KillerBee, had to be bailed out by his team, and is slowly going blind? Plus, the timeskip? I clearly remember something about Jiraiya wanting to protect him from the Akatsuki... I would reword it to be, y'know, accurate, but I fear lurker's opinion only counts for moo.

Removed Kira Yamato. He was beaten by Shinn, which the entry tried to skirt around by tentatively saying it was referring to Kira in Strike Freedom only, but the Strike Freedom had comparatively little screentime and this is tantamount to saying that a person that wins one battle is a god moder when that's the only battle they've actually had. Furthermore, he was having difficulty in his fight with Rey until Rey lost it, and the point of the God Mode Sue is that they have no difficulty prevailing in all circumstances as per the trope description.

Farseer Lolotea: Who else thinks Med'an (the half-human, quarter-orc, quarter-draenei son of Garona Halforcen and Medivh from the World Of Warcraft Comic) is a canon example? He's already a mage and a shaman; now, in the most recent issue, he aspires to be a paladin after meeting his great-uncle, who's a draenei vindicator. (It's rather a pity about all of that; he's as close to being a sympathetic character as the writers seem to be able to manage.)

Screw it, I'm just adding him.

P Miller 1: Joshua, God Mode Sue or Not?

Unknown Troper: I'm going to have to agree with Mr. Death here on Harry Dresden not being a GMS, especially for the reasons that keep being brought up. His supposed skill with women being a GMS trait is ridiculous and idiotic; aside from that not even being an indicator for GMS, of the women who have actively propositioned him, a grand total of one did it entirely of her free will (Susan). Of the others, Murphy admits she cares about him but never gets close, and Luccio is mind-controlled. Maeve is irrelevant, as she's a Faerie Queen whose base nature demands she appeal to and manipulate everyone around her, Lara Raith is a freaking White Courth vampire who feeds off and enslaves people via sex, Tessa s a psychopath who offered sex as a means to her ends, and Lash is trying to corrupt Harry into slavery. And he is cruel to Molly, because Molly is an idiot who has already once been tempted by Black Magic, and if she backslides both he and Molly will be executed. being a rough teacher is justified in that case, and unless you want to accuse every military drill instructor in the world of being a Sue because they are rough on their students because they will be going into life-or-death situations, that doesn't count. Always getting in the last word - unless we're going to put everyone under Deadpan Snarker on this list, this is retarded. And that bit about Thomas constantly getting beaten up being some kind of nerd fantasy: what kind of fucked-up relationship must you have with your relations to have them getting beaten up be your fantasy? I am a proud and loud geek, but I have never had any fantasies about my family members getting beaten up.

Unknown Troper: Pulled the following due to an Edit War between millinniummany3k and Black King. Hash out the disagreement here on the discussion page, instead of engaging in a pointless edit conflict. Also, millinniumm3k, please stop accusing someone whose edits you disagree with as being vandalism. That definition only applies to overtly destructive and disruptive edits. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean they're vandals.

Lara Croft of Tomb Raider would have to be going neck and neck with Kim Possible in this catagory about now. Less so in the reboot if we were to ignore the games up to Legend, where over the trilogy she is shown as a badass normal instead of suffering from Barbie Doll syndrome and portrayed to be able to do anything. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing as both are portrayed (or at least interpreted) as all powerful positive role models.
Kim Possible has very few flaw portrayed, yet her apparently knowing 16 styles of kung fu is just the beginning of her of accomplishments. A short list includes going up the amazon, down a volcano, dog sledding in the arctic, swimming the English Channel, scaling Mount Everest, and in the same episode she claims these things she pilots a spaceship. When one of the show's taglines is "She can do anything", this trope is in full force. Like the Lara Croft example above, being a Sue isn't necissarily a bad thing. Given that Kim is a positive role model for girls, having a godly level of badassery is pretty much the point.

Ranchanthalas: Princess Vejitina is definitely a God Mode Sue. Consider:
Vejitina is the Long Lost Sibling of Prince Vegeta. Most Mary Sue DBZ characters are mysterious Saiyan survivors, and this one is no exception. Bonus Sue points for being a princess.
Vejitina is a half-breed Saiyan, to boot. Halfie Saiyans have traditionally been stronger than purebloods in the DBZ cosmology and this literary device is a transparent ploy to give the author an excuse for her God Mode Sue to surpass Vegeta in strength.
In her early teens Vejitina gains the ability to transform into a non-canonical Saiyan transformation stronger than Super Saiyan. Keep in mind at this time that while this is happening, Vegeta is doing grunt work for Frieza and Goku is living peacefully on Earth with Chi-Chi in the years between DB and DBZ.
She goes on to 'cut a swathe of wanton destruction across the galaxy the likes of which not even Frieza had attempted.' And we're supposed to believe this is the hero!
Beats up on Vegeta when the Saiyan Prince arrives on Earth, usurping the role of Goku. Bonus points for calling her brother a 'bitch' for working for Frieza (which all the Saiyans had been forced to do).
After some clashes with minor villains, Frieza returns to Earth, per the canon. However, Vejitina usurps the role of Trunks, killing Frieza effortlessly to the shock and awe of the Z Senshi.
Most glaringly, usurps the role of Goku a second time by becoming the official protector of the Earth following the death of Frieza. No explanation is given for Goku's abdication, nor for his sudden absence (he never appears again).
Ranchanthalas: If we're going to be putting up God Mode Sues and so on, I don't think Fanworks should be allowed to count. For one thing, they are not canon and have no bearing on whatever they may be a part of and for another, if you have such an issue with them, 9 times out of 10 there's a way to make it known to the author/artist themselves rather than writing it here where it's only seen if someone looks for it. For another, RPG profiles shouldn't count because it's an RPG run by individuals who play in that particular universe, but have no way to account for some canon characters other than trying to play them all themselves... which is nearly impossible. That and I have to agree with Unknown Trooper: this is meant for actual canon God Mode Sues, not just characters they happen to not like... or the people behind said characters that they don't like that they simply use as an excuse to be jerks.
- See above for a solid example of the bwaaing in question. Fanfic writers can be notoriously thin-skinned and respond to any criticism of their work with hysterical ranting. In lieu of avoiding a frenzy of edit wars by vain fanfic writers I have to agree that this page remain devoid of examples.
- Ranchanthalas: Being fanwork, and of an alternate universe continuity where things have been changed to work around absentee characters due to no one to play them, it has no bearing on the trope at all. Not only that, but no other fanwork has been listed here but mine and I know why you're doing it. Pretty petty.
  - Fanwork is not sacrosanct from criticism, as exploration of the various other Mary Sue examples will reveal, or even the content of the God Mode Sue entry prior to all examples being deleted. Also, please attempt to keep your discourse professional. TV Tropes is a catalogue of tropes, not a proving ground for vendettas.

Anonymous Mc Cartneyfan: Um, Mary Sues in general were recognized in Fan Fic before they were recognized in professional fic. This is a type of Mary Sue. Therefore, this is a Fan Fic trope. So we can't exclude Fan Work. We can't make a comprehensive list of Fan Work (only the "egregrious" entries), but we can't simply say "no fanwork" either.

Alara J Rogers: Can we remove Wesley Crusher? He may well be a Mary Sue but he is not a God Mode Sue. The only rule of the Star Trek universe that he breaks is the one that says that teenagers don't belong on the bridge; he saves the ship three times, twice from disasters he himself created, which is hardly the fannishly popular notion that he saves it constantly; and he exists on the same ship as Data. And Geordi "my VISOR can do absolutely anything" La Forge. And Jean-Luc "did I mention that I'm an expert on Shakespeare? And history? And horseback riding? And fencing? In fact is there anything aside from putting up with kids that I can't do?" Picard. As for evolving into a superbeing, it was hardly surprising considering how often men his mother dated turned into, or turned out to be, superbeings. I thought that to be God Mode Sue you have to dramatically overshadow everyone else in the story, and the only character who comes close to doing that on TNG is Data. Wesley Crusher's not even in the same ballpark as Data. His only Sue qualifications come from his age and his status as a self-insert; otherwise he's a completely normal Trek character and well within the acceptable range of abilities for characters in that universe. (This is a franchise where two different teenagers, and a little boy who looked like an adult, all turned out to be omnipotent beings, after all.)

Unknown Troper: Agreed and pulled.

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