Troperville
Editing Help
Tools
Toys
|
alt title(s): God Mode Stu 
Only the ridiculously shiny Ryukendo can save us now!
"If the enemy becomes a devil, then Ryukendo must become a god!"
People like to watch fiction to live vicariously through the characters. Most people in real life have no illusions about ever being able to do the sort of things within the movies. Whether it be the story of an athlete on his way to the top, life as the president, or Stuff Blowing Up, these are stories that the average Joe won't find himself partaking in. Then there are things such as superpowers, magic, and high technology. However, even a story with fantastic (or just merely highly improbable) elements has to make it believable in order to allow Willing Suspension Of Disbelief. God Mode Sue takes that Willing Suspension Of Disbelief and tosses it out the window.
He or she (it's pretty evenly split... which says a ton, considering how most widely accepted Mary Sue characters are female) doesn't so much work within the plot as the plot works for them.
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).
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.
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 Only The Author Can Save Them Now.
The trope name comes from term " God Mode" (or, more specifically, it's use in the context of "godmodding"), which often gets used to denote when a player refuses to allow any random chance to negatively impact their character. In this case, the author is pretty much doing just that.
The Ace is frequently as powerful as a God Mode Sue, but is played for comedy due to Refuge In Audacity. Compare and contrast with the Showy Invincible Hero. The Boring Invincible Hero is the first stage of this trope - may the BIH never reach this level. The final stage of this trope, after the Rock Bottom has fallen out from under the story, is an all-devouring Black Hole Sue. Of course, Tropes Are Not Bad, and some creators may Plot A Perfectly Good Waste for the Catharsis Factor. Plus viewers can make their own god mode sue via Memetic Badass.
When listing examples, please only put in examples of characters that constantly break the Willing Suspension Of Disbelief due to plot bias in their abilities. One or two over the top moments in a very long period of time does not a God Mode Sue make. Also, only list examples of objectively high levels of skill. If a character is able to influence people through their subjective actions (i.e. getting them to change their beliefs through small talk, getting their opinion articles published with ease, etc.), that's Purity Sue.
open/close all folders
Fan Work
- David "Davey Crockett" Kintobor from The Piasa Bird, Blood and Metal, and Sailor Moon: American Kitsune trilogy of Mega Crossover fanfiction. David Gonterman (what a coincidence) probably thought it would be badass to have a random St. Louis civilian completely outclass the Power Rangers, Sonic The Hedgehog, and the Sailor Senshi (combined...), but it was done in such a flimsy, unjustifiable, and blatantly "making this up as we go along" way that nobody can relate to the character. That's only one of its problems, though...
- Practically the whole point of the Ranma ½ (and later Bubblegum Crisis) Self Insert Fic Twisted Path
 is how insanely powerful Twister is with his completely over-the-top psionic and magical powers that don't stop growing in strength, and the Martial Arts And Crafts he learned from Ranma himself.
- In Star Trek fanfiction, one character has become rather infamous: Stephen Ratliff's prized Her Royal Highness Lieutenant Marrissa Amber Flores Picard Gordon, Princess and Heir to the throne of Essex, Chief of Security USS Enterprise, Fighter Commander, and Coordinating Officer for all Kids Crews in Starfleet. She started her career in Enterprized, taking command of the Enterprise ... at 11 years old. During the series, she ends up getting adopted by the Captain (hence the name), carving embarrassing defeat messages on Cardassian warships, inflicting The Worf Effect on Worf, rewriting Starfleet regulations, and eventually becoming acting commander-in-chief of the entire Federation. This series turned into a popular MST target ... to the point where Ratliff himself started joining the MSTers. Some, however, find this at least to be So Bad Its Good, unlike the works of Gonterman.
- Rei: A New Kind of Princess is an incredible example of this in Avatar fanfiction - she's "some kind of second avatar," a wolf-demon, and weaponizes her good looks as well. A popular MST target - it is still unclear whether this is just that bad or a satire. You decide.
- Two words: Rose Potter. Whole articles have been written about this gender-switched Harry Potter's absurd amount of abilities. Here's one of them. She somehow manages to act way worse than Voldemort while getting away with it. If this isn't a huge satire, then the author's brain is one scary place.
- Tom. Dyron. Okay, let's review. 6'3" 16-year old Air Force pilot/Globally famous musician/Amateur professional wrestler turned EVA pilot, who is more powerful that the other pilots combined, pilots Eva-03 and sexes the living hell out of Asuka over the course of this unbelievably ridiculous (if audaciously so) 14-chapter fanfic called (and here's the clincher) Evangelion 2: The Delta Invasion. Can you freaking believe that? The Un-Msted vs. is lost; just change the number after "evad" in the link above for the other chapters of the MSTed version. Bear in mind that the same fanfic also turned Shinji into a beer-swilling, bike-riding, guitar-playing badarse.... who shags Rei. which is probably the best treatment he's ever got in Evangelion Sue-fic.
- An awful lot of female!Revan fiction is written as Self Insert Fic in the Mary Sue mold. Given a certain fact about Revan, this isn't entirely surprising. The trend is adeptly skewered in this fic.
- In fairness, the author of that fic has seen male!Revan fics that are just as bad. It's just that there are fewer of them, as the fandom is largely female.
- It should be mentioned that Revan's gender in these fanfics is really a technicality; the only major difference between Female Revan God Sue and Male Revan God Sue is that the latter tends to bring a lot more baggage, but exactly how much depends on how she's written, though the sources are often similar or the same.
- Marvah from the World Of Warcraft webcomic Equinox, Defender of the Horde took over the comic from about the middle of its second story arc. What was once a light-hearted romp became increasingly dark and heavy-handed. Marvah gained more and more amazing powers. At the same time, she developed a tendency to mouth off to authority figures and explain why they were wrong and she was right - which she always was. By the middle of the third arc, she was effortlessly and single-handedly defeating monsters designed to be a challenge for 20-40 players.
- In Transformers fanfic, there is Ultra Rodimus, created by the author of the same name, who straddles the line between Possession Sue and God Mode Sue. Able to turn into an infinite number of vehicles and creatures, expert at Metallikato (the Transformer martial art), super-strong, super-fast, able to change color and "heal" himself instantly with nanite technology, has traveled to multiple universes via crossover and is somehow responsible for ALL the major plot developments in each... and sleeps with about anything that moves. Add the fact that he has HAIR — a long gorgeous ponytail, even though he's a freakin' ROBOT — and there's just no way he can escape SOME sort of Sue title...
- The Misery Senshi Neo-Zero Double Blitzkrieg Debacle, a Daria/Sailor Moon Crossover by the infamous Peter Guerin, includes an obvious one. Apparently having the entirety of the canonical Sailor Senshi, a group of people who have saved the world from immensely powerful superbeings {Sailor Moon has done it naked) was not enough for this already-bloated fanfic cast. Enter The Solar Warrior, dubbed "The Sun Jerk" in the MSTing, whose powers include anything the plot needs him to have. He even gets to deliver a huge monologue of nothing but talking about how awesome he is and all the things he did that covers pretty much an entire chapter. This included things like being the descendant of a civilization in the Sun that was far more advanced than the Moon Kingdom, earning medals of honor from Queen Serenity, being reincarnated as pretty much every significant person in history, and being the servant of Amaterasu, creator of the universe and the only being depicted as more powerful than him.
- For the Daria fans out there, there's some debate as to whether the character of Lynn Cullen is a God Mode Sue or simply a Mary Sue who lives to Take A Level In Badass whenever needed.
- Dragonball V Meet Valis. A female Saiyan survivor. Destined wife of Piccolo. Destined mate of Vegeta. Embodiment of an ancient warrior prophecy, with Inner Senshi-style "warrior women" assistants. More powerful than Goku. Bigger clothes-horse than Cher. Destined Universal Queen. The author wrote a sequel in case readers didn't get the message the first time.
- Dragonball Z fandom also gives us Princess Vejitina, Vegeta's Long Lost Sibling who surpasses him in the first story arc through the character-specific 'Berserker Saiyan' transformation, usurps the role of Trunks by traveling to the future and being the one to kill Frieza, usurps the role of Goku by impressing him so much he decides to leave the safety of Earth in her hands, and is the Queen of the Universe in an alternate timeline (she chooses not to become Queen in this timeline).
- Although he was originally billed as a forgotten canon character, fan-made Digimon character Kaseidramon takes this trope and runs with it, along with a fair dose of Jerkass Stu and Bunny Ears Lawyer. He's an Anti Hero who has a super-powerful everything-cutting katana, unstoppable energy guns (AND energy beams he can shoot from his body), and his own matchless martial arts style that is a Take That against the canon tendency towards called attacks; and he is said to be able to trounce some of the most powerful canon Digimon around, like BlackWarGreymon, Gallantmon, and Beelzemon.
- The Brazilian Mega Man comic (yes, there is such an animal) had Princess, a character created by a "mad writer" to "kill all the characters and take over the comic". Literally. Yes, the writer was going to write Princess killing the entire Megaman cast, taking over the comic and turning it into his own original work. The editor found out and fired him after issue 5.
- The numerous Fan-Made Kaiju falls under this. More powerful than Godzilla? Yup. Is more revered than Mothra? You betcha! Mary Sue? Hell yeah!
- Eliza Diawna Snape, a very old-school Harry Potter fanfic first published in 2000 with a veritable herd of Sues. Eliza Diawna (and her twin sister, Diawna Eliza) are the daughters of Snape and another Mary Sue, along with Draco Malfoy's little sister Wyrren. Eliza is more or less a Harry stand-in, complete with a prophecy, magic jewelry, and "shinning blue-grey eyes" which are described over. And over. And over. Once upon a time there were photographs of the author (also called Eliza Diawna Snape) online, and she looks pretty much exactly like her Sue, albeit not Suetiful. When the fandom was smaller, her fics—all three of them—were considered the texbook case of Mary Sueism. The fics themselves are difficult to find online anymore, unfortunately, since they're unintentionally hilarious.
- Nuke 'em Till They Glow!!! Has it's share of characters in various states of Sue-ness, but Arbyfish Cannot Lose is probably a law of physics there. Ironically, a recent chapter introduced the Demon Lord Charlie, from the Dimension From Which There Is No Return, who literally was unbeatable in it's home turf, and in fact, its body consisted of the actual universe of that dimension.
- In Light And Dark The Adventures Of Dark Yagami, the titular character, after dying from being shot by "the girl from the bus," goes to the Shinigami world, kills his shinigami, and becomes King of the Shinigami, using the Everything Note to take over the world. Unfortunately, his sister Sayu manages to one-up him, defeating him by firing nuclear missiles at him from a Harrier jet, becoming Queen of the Shinigami and turning him over to L.
- Sonichu is half Sonic, half Pikachu. If you're familiar with the Common Mary Sue Traits, you probably think you've heard enough. But it gets worse. Much, much worse.
- John Freeman. He has to kill fast, and "bullets too slow!"
- Played with in an interesting fashion by Plagues Misadventures, a fairly popular Megaman X Sprite Comic hosted on Bob And George. The series contains several fan characters who would be God Mode Sues, except for the fact that there's so damn many of them fighting on different sides that there's actually a real sense of competitive balance, albeit an incredibly overblown, Dragon Ball Z-esque one. It helps that it's fairly decently written & edited compared to most sprite comics.
Canon Examples:
Anime and Manga
- 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.
- 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.
- Seijuro Hiko, Rurouni Kenshin's resident God Mode Sue, proves that this trope isn't necessarily the deathknell of a character. He's unkillable, undefeatable, and completely outstrips every other character in the series in speed, skill, and strength whilst wearing a 37.5 kg weighted cape...but in a subversion, the author understood these traits would make him into a God Mode Sue if he used him regularly and turned him into a rare character and an Ensemble Darkhorse.
- Golgo 13, aka Duke Togo, is an Draco In Leather Pants Bad Ass Sniper with a 100% accuracy rating, is a multi-billionaire, has played a hand in just about every historical event of the past forty years, and beds just about every woman he comes in contact with (and is awesome in bed, no less)... but it all kind of works, doesn't it?
- It helps that the series focuses more on the events that require his intercession than on Duke Togo himself as time goes on. His overwhelming ability is doled out in controllable doses.
- Akagi may fall under this trope due to his brilliance at catching on in a game he's never played before and his willingness to brazenly cheat in front of people that will kill him if he gets caught. In fact, he was so godlike that rumor has it the mangaka created Kaiji as a direct counter to Akagi: Kaiji has all of Akagi's brazenness, but absolutely none of his luck. They're even voiced by the same VA.
- It helps that Akagi is completely fricking insane and he doesn't cheat when he can't get away with it - when he cheats against Ryuzaki, he has the cops as insurance; against Ishikawa, he only manages because Ishikawa is blind, and he still catches on and begins cheating right back with nearly-fatal consequences. Against the punks at his workplace post-timeskip, they're well below his level (and were cheating in the first place), and he doesn't cheat against Urabe or Washizu - the former is about Ishikawa's skill level, but can actually see, and the latter is Evil Akagi and they're playing with seethrough tiles, which makes it just a little obvious.
- Kira Yamato in Gundam Seed Destiny. The fact that he's also a Boring Invincible Hero and has Plot Armor should make it really obvious.
- Except the plot was almost always working against him until he finally took the spotlight late in the series. Other than that, in terms of abilities, it was foolish for anyone to take on the Ultimate Coordinator with any hopes in winning (with one exception/fluke).
- Wouldn't the fact that he's the ultimate coordinator be a testament to his blatant God mode Sue-ness?
- Being the Ultimate Coordinator doesn't actually grant him natural abilities higher than the other Ace Coordinators. It just means that he was made in the intended manner. That aside, Kira built up his piloting skills throughout Gundam Seed, which is why he's so overpowered compared to the new characters. The plot doesn't exactly go out of it's way to make him win either.
- He's completely overpowered compared to the old ones, too. Anyway, it is clearly shown, that when piloting an outdated mecha he's nothing to write home about, so the skills cannot be used to explain the fact that in one episode he took out all of the other plot-relevant aces in about 30 seconds. Or that he danced through a half-dozen massive battles, including the one where Team Lacus basically took out the world war-winning superpower, without even scratching the paint on his machine. And "plot doesn't exactly go out of it's way to make him win"? Uh, yeah, I guess surviving explosions that should have blown anyone remotely human to atoms, doesn't count anymore.
- The same explosion that happened specifically because he got beaten? You know, the thing that doesn't happen to God Mode Sues. And again, as you yourself noted, when he used the inferior Strike in Destiny, he got owned by MOOKS. That's pretty far from God Modding.
- Kira only loses when he needs to get a Mid Season Upgrade. That wasn't blatantly obvious in Seed, but the repeat of the same plot in Destiny made it so. More generally, losing a few fights does not automatically preclude a character from being a God Mode Sue. Lots of people from the list below (Victor Cachat, Richard Rahl, Elminster, and that only those I know) were beaten up, punked, humiliated and even imprisoned and tortured by antagonists at some points during their careers. It is just that their losses either didn't matter, or were eventually overshadowed by their incredible victories. The latter is true for Kira. In Seed, he wasn't a God Mode Sue, because he suffered meaningful setbacks, such as being unable to save people dear to him, or being unable to follow his newfound principles all the way. In Destiny, he is, because he doesn't.
- Nanoha in season 1. Although her and Fate are represented as mostly equal throughout, episode 11 has Nanoha eat Fate's best move. Without any means of defending herself. At point blank range. Unharmed. Then she beats an actively defending Fate with a massive beam. And THEN reveals that's not even her strongest attack. For those keeping score at home, this means Fate's strongest attack isn't even worth Nanoha defending, and that Fate's best defense isn't even worth Nanoha's strongest attack. It's also worth mentioning that Nanoha had no training whatsoever.
Comics
- 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 hopes the writers were in on the joke.
- 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.")
- Tintin and the Broken Ear. Tintin is tied up, about to be shot in the face when the hut he is in is struck by lightning. While the two villains are found sitting in exactly the same places, just suffering from some clothing damage, Tintin is untied and thrown half way down the road. Also with some minor clothing damage, but otherwise unharmed. By ball lightning of God. Yes ...
- Big surprise, Watchmen has a Deconstruction of this trope. As far as the reader (and the narrator) can tell there is literally no limit to what Dr. Manhattan can do, but his abilities leave him completely unable to relate to anyone else on any level, and he sees all of time and space and feels obliged to keep it all the way it is, describing himself as "a puppet who can see the strings."
- He doesn't exactly feel obliged to keep things the way they are. Dr. Manhattan certainly uses his powers on a regular basis, such as by creating enough lithium to make electro-cars commonplace. It's more that he knows already what he is going to do in the future — and since the Watchmen universe is completely deterministic, he plain can't do anything else. He doesn't stop the assassination of John F. Kennedy, for example, since he already knew that he wouldn't, so he couldn't. For all of his power, he's probably the character most out of control of his own life.
- In GI Joe, the newest character Agent Helix can read a person's speed, instantly identify an opponent's weapons and its characteristics, learn a martial art just by seeing it performed, is so above top secret no one in GI Joe except General Hawk knows of her, she used to participate in fights to the death, she's an expert marksman, she has more martial arts expertise than Snake-Eyes, Storm Shadow and Quick Kick put together. She debuted in a book entitled Special: Helix, where the first third of the book was just General Hawk telling Duke about how super awesome special badass unique above top secret she is. It's normal for GI Joe members to be really good at their job because they're an elite, daring, highly-trained special mission force, but this is just taking it too far. To top it all off, she has no personality whatsoever... just a long list of powerful abilities that make her invincible.
- Hardly surprising, considering she was a creation of the Double Helix (how clever) video game studio and writer Brian Reed, who also happened to write the comic.
- Anarky was always something of a Mary Sue for writer Alan Grant. In later appearances, the character built his own Green Lantern ring and beat Darkseid in an argument.
- But Grant also sort of subverted in the first Anarky miniseries. Yes, he is a teenage super-genius, self-made multimillionaire, self-trained martial arts master, and capable of outwitting Etrigan, Darkseid, and Batman. On the other hand, it turns out that his superweapon doesn't actually work, and if it had, the results would have been totally disastrous, even from his perspective.
- Grant even tried to make him the illegitimate son of The Joker, but DC editorial wouldn't let him. Instead we got a lukewarm story where it's hinted that he might be The Joker's son (though there's no real evidence) and then no other writer ever mentioned it again.
Film
- 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 T-Virus without turning into a slobbering purulent 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 and make Jill and all other characters in the movie incidental. It 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, shrugged off rockets, its head being burned, and a hit from a particle cannon, and finally died when a bomb was dropped that leveled an entire city. Alice is now developing psychic powers, and she picked up the guy who was originally all into Jill. And Jill is pretty much just there to look stupid so Alice will look more awesome. Heck, so is the entire Resident Evil cast. Perhaps even the entire Resident Evil universe itself, considering she defies normal t-virus infection just so she can get neat powers. This culminates in the ending of the third movie where Alice, now with immortality, regeneration, super reflexes, super strength, and psychokinesis finds an army of clones of herself and the trilogy basically concludes with Alice being the dominant species on the face of planet Earth. By herself.
- Ator from Cave Dwellers, one of the reasons the movie is Mystery Science Theater 3000's choice as "the worst movie ever" (though this was before they had seen Manos The Hands Of Fate.) He can invent anything on the fly (such as a hang glider), perform complicated surgery despite not having tools or existing in an era that possesses the knowledge, beat down any opponent with his brawn and his manly pecs, and grab the attentions of any woman in a two-mile radius. He's just as bad in the other Ator films as he was in this one.
- Pretty much any film that Chuck Norris has a significant role in.
- This was even noted by the Nostalgia Critic in a review of one of Norris's films, Sidekicks. The critic states that the film is not only the first to say that Norris is better than God, but that he is A LOT better than God.
- And then Chuck Norris Facts turned this into a Memetic Badass joke.
Literature
- A lot of classic literature including Beowulf, Hercules, The Odessy, and The Aneid just to name a few. Also Jesus (Though he is a purity sue as well). This was VERY popular in ancient times. Also see Tokugawa Ieyasu in most of his portrayals by the Japanese. the Gary Stu is very much older then you think.
- 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. Also, 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 realistic way of treating, given her physique and the tools available to her. She also figures out how reproduction works all on her own and has birth control available to her (which comes in handy, given all the sex she has). Furthermore, she can imitate a truckload of animals well enough for them to believe she is one of their species.
- Wait, there's more! She invents the needle, discovers "firestones," or a way to strike flint to make fire faster, domesticates the horse, dog, AND cat, learns how to double-fire a slingshot (despite being female, and therefore prohibited from using weapons while still in the Clan), and she's...big enough for Jondalar. All of Jondalar.
- This troper once described the series as 'Mary sue walks across europe, slowly.'
- 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. He's never wrong. He 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 a timepiece, 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 (despite being on the road for years and unable to spend time practicing and maintaining any shooting skills)). Oh, and he also meets a new gorgeous girl in each novel, and he sleeps with practically all of them. One of them was happily engaged at the time but won over by Reacher's manly charm.
- Professor John Kenner of the Michael Crichton novel State Of Fear: he graduated from an MIT engineering course and a Harvard Law course, both at higher than average speed; he became a professor at MIT at the age of 28 and still manages to be a hot-shot federal agent. Oh, and he can quote geological surveys from memory. The only thing keeping him from being absolutely perfect is his once confessing he isn't good at languages and a major What An Idiot moment (chasing a group of bad guys into a warehouse, finding no one there, and going into a room with a lightning generator without bothering to secure the door).
- 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.
- 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.
- 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, revolutionizes 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.
- Laurell K. Hamilton's 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. And most of her magic is activated by sex. And 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 seduce, possess, or kill her.
- She also has strong elements of the Tsundere Sue, being able to treat some of her Harem quite horribly without consequences. She's called Nathaniel a freak for being a masochist, even when he simply requested for his hair to be yanked. Poor Richard is now a neutered dog on a leash, and he never even considers leaving her because she's just better. Oh yea, two of the harem were lovers, but are no loner allowed to fuck each other, since that's "Icky"
- To elaborate on the Mother of All Vampires thing, this is a character that very few vampires can ever remember so much as batting an eyelid. She's so disinterested in the world that she just ignores it. Renaissance? Bah. Industrial revolution? Pfft. Vampires being legalized and joining society at large? Boooor-iiiiing. Anita? Zomg ever so fascinating!
- Brian Herbert tries hard to avert this in regards to the lead character of his Timeweb trilogy, but said lead is simply too powerful, and can be declared Suetiful All Along by the time he uses his "primal energy" to blow up an Eldritch Abomination. Imagine what would happen on Heroes if Peter didn't possess the Idiot Ball, and you've got some idea of the problem.
- Many of Brian Jacques' 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 having no combat training, she 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, she instantly becomes flawless at cooking when nobody else is around to do it. The entire 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. 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.
- Regarding the "no female otter leaders" thing, a minor character in another book is a female otter and the leader of her people, the Northern Otter River Tribes. She even had a song about being the "Queen of NORT"! Did Brian Jacques just forget about this or something?
- The Wayfarer Redemption, by Sara Douglass. I think this sums it up nicely, a statement by all of the girls in the book, "Ohhh, Axis ish shoooooo sexah! I wantz him to be mah husband!!1!!1! He has all theze Gawd-liek powurz, and is liek totally perfect! He is sooooooooo smart and handsome and athletic and magical! OHHHHHHHH WE LOVE YOU AXIS!" Good thing he was down powered significantly or I would be unable to stand him. Thanks a million Time Keeper Demons. Oh, and Azhure is the Huntress, who wields a bow that could only be used by Wolfstar, can command Wolfstar's hounds, destroyed an army, was daughter of Wolfstar, is object of Axis' I want them both gambit, helps Axis exile the only good character, Drago, who is NOT A MARTYSTU! And then the both of them die and go to Heaven and this teenage troper, frustrated, contemplated murder on those idiots if he could and at the same time pondered what makes Axis so damn good with the girls.
- 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. 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, a compassionate statesmen, incredibly handsome, and amazing in the bedroom. While the real life Caesar was certainly an 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 a highly unsympathetic light.
- Herzer Herrick from John Ringo's Council Wars series. He begins the story with debilitating physical deformities, but 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, 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 Author Appeal for him or perhaps a reflection of his own temptations, making Herzer an Author Avatar.
- Similar complaints have been raised about the title character in the Into The Looking Glass series. As a counter, in the second book Ringo listed off each over-the-top trait and stated that his co-writer, Travis S. Taylor, had them all.
- Anne Robillard's Emerald Knights series contain both a Marty Stu and a Mary Sue as main characters. Without going into too much 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 flaws are that he gets angry at times (but mostly for good reasons!) and he gets a love relationship with the Gorgeous and Kind and Perfect Queen of a magical country. Sadly, she is horribly raped, her kingdom is destroyed by the Big Bad (who's also an anthropomorphic insectoid monster king) after which she dies. Causing much Wangst to Wellan the Great. Buuuuut that's not it! No, because the terrible 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 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 uncannily fast, and got into the Emerald Knights order at a very young age.
- Captain Kirk in the Star Trek novels (ghost-)written by (for) William Shatner. He beats Spock in a logical argument, out-wrestles Worf, out-doctors McCoy, single-handedly defeats the Borg, and romances a Mirror Universe Katheryn Janeway (who's a beautiful resistance fighter). He cold-cocks Picard at the end of one novel (they were competing for who would attempt that extremely dangerous mission against the Borg). And this isn't even getting started on Mirror Kirk, aka Tiberius, who started the mirror Klingon-Cardassian alliance because the Imperium was getting too soft, and who got the best of mainline Kirk at the end of one novel.
- Fortunately, if you can get past Kirk, the novels themselves are quite good and play off some interesting ideas (the conceptual Borg in "The Return," for example). Shatner got some top-tier writers for his Marty Stu magnum opus.
- Not to say that the original Captain Kirk wasn't one hair shy of being a God Mode Sue.
- The novels actually give this to just about everybody in turn, actually. While Kirk gets the most spotlight because, well, the novels are arguably about him, other canon characters all seem to take a level in badass in turn. Picard and Beverly do covert ops in the heart of a Borg cube, Riker kicks ten different kinds of ass, Scotty runs around building whatever he wants on whatever ship he wants, Mc Coy does some badass doctor-ing while ignoring Klingons trying to kill him, and Bashir can keep a laser scalpel from slipping even when the ship he's on is being pounded by photon torpedoes. Among others.
- Uhtred of Bebbanburg, the main character of The Saxon Stories pretty much combines this and the Jerk Sue trope in one literary figure. Although arrogant, rude and generally unlikable, he is a tall, blonde and muscular individual who has no trouble bedding any woman he comes across. This includes a nun and two queens. He also seems to be best fighter in Britain, won at least three battles single-handedly and is the only reason Alfred the Great actually still has a throne. Bernard Cornwell has described Uhtred as being a fictional ancestor, which pushes the character into Wish Fulfillment territory.
- Worth noting that the story is told as Uhtred's memoirs, so he very well could be playing up his importance in all of these events. Still, he is depicted as being much more intelligent than pretty much everyone else. Worth noting also that he is a Norse Pagan, and he (and the other Danes) are depicted as somewhat sympathetic, whereas most of the Christians are portrayed as dogmatic to the point of stupidity, and often corrupt as well.
- Rhonin from almost every Warcraft novel written by Richard A. Knaak. Don't so much as mention his name on the official forums unless you want a 26-page thread on how much of a Stu he is. Examples: He rode the Dragonqueen into battle after saving her life and those of her children; was taught by and befriended her mate; fought off a small group of night elf mages who were vastly more experienced than he is; married a beautiful elf and fathered two human-elf hybrid children by her who are said to be the only pair of surviving half-elf twins in existence; tutored and was greatly admired for his power by Illidan Stormrage; saved the world via time travel; became the leader of the Kirin Tor (he laments the time lost with his wife and kids but he's too nice to leave when everyone needs him so much); stopped Deathwing from destroying the other Dragon Aspects; befriended and later commanded an army of raptors; is referred to every other page as "the fiery-haired mage" (and his hair either doesn't gray or he's extremely young for an archmage); was personally chosen by Nozdormu to help guard the timeline; befriended the demigod Cenarius; and still somehow found time to become an expert at magic, swordfighting, and crossbow use. His only noteworthy flaw is that he's reckless, which only ever had serious consequences for him in his first book; he was given some survivor's guilt that he mysteriously and completely got over by his second appearence.
- Taken to its logical conclusion with the World Of Warcraft Comic's Med'an. Son of Medivh and Garona Halforcen, therefore half human, one quarter orc and one quarter draenei, prophecised Savior of Azeroth, master of shamanism and the arcane arts, studying Holy magic, extremely skilled in melee combat, can take down Old Gods by himself. Best friends with Aegwynn, founding member of the New Council of Tirisfal, "beacon of power." Oh, and he's still pretty young.
- And at the very least, even if he's God Mode, Med'an is at least interesting and sympathetic, having pronounced ignorance and uncertainty whereas Rhonin is always sure of himself and at the ready with a quip. It must take considerable effort to be more of a Stu than the fraking son of Medivh.
- Daniel in The Dangerous Days of Daniel X by James Patterson is a YA version.
- Lazarus Long, protagonist of a number of Robert A Heinlein novels in his Future History timeline, bears a number of Marty Stu traits, chief among them a perfectly clean genetic code that means he never gets sick, has an abnormally long natural lifespan, and can father children with his own descendants without any risk of birth defects. This plus his natural common sense and the existence of rejuvenation technology has made him the oldest living human by a factor of at least a thousand years; this lifespan having enabled him to travel the galaxy and father kids on nearly every human planet. The upshot is that, despite being a gruff, borderline misogynistic, self-professed loner; close to 80% of the humans in the galaxy are descended from him in some way, heads of state seek out his advice, women fall head-over-heels for him (up to and including his own mother), and he later becomes the supreme leader of the pan-universal Time Police.
- Xanetia, the Delphae priestess in The Tamuli, is a literal God Mode Sue: her entire race is gradually Ascending To A Higher Plane Of Existence. Xanetia herself is Really Seven Hundred Years Old, is feared by everyone but her own kind, wields godlike magic that nobody else in the entire world can detect, glows with power capable of turning humans to goo with the barest touch, and can read minds. Within a few chapters of her arrival most of the Church Knights are smitten with her, she uncovers Zalasta as The Mole and she makes nice with Sephrenia within half a book after aeons of Fantastic Racism between the Delphae and the Styrics after saving her life by touching Bhelliom, which nobody but Sparhawk should be able to do without being destroyed. And then she ascends into godhood at the end of the Tamuli.
Live Action TV
- Horatio YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH Caine from CSI Miami. Bomb expert. Master of the Sherlock Scan. Flawless Marksman. Peerless Driver. Applies/removes sunglasses like a pro. He rarely does any actual CSI work, but when he does, it's guaranteed he finds evidence his teamed missed and thus will break the case. No wonder the city of Miami cannot do anything unless Horatio is present.
- 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 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 Freudian Excuse (his Asshole Victim was the Dr Jerk who killed his adored wife and their stillborn baby through medical negligence - note that he, without any medical training whatsoever was able to tell they were dying, even though the highly trained Dr Jerk couldn't) 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, by fooling her into believing he had a bomb and he'd make it explode in the train station if she didn't surrender. After playing Mind Rape-level psychological mind games with Stabler that border on Nightmare Fuel, Rook releases Olivia unharmed, says he never ever had a bomb, dramatically escapes from custody and vanishes, seemingly into thin air. It's implied that he drowned himself, but they Never Found The Body
- 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 those in which Walker shoots him. Not only is Walker the best Texas Ranger ever, he's also a Magical Native American! This character was
probably definitely 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.
- Consider also that he managed to pull off his doctorate within what must have been a remarkably short period of time - a normal doctorate is an eight-year degree. Tommy graduated high school at the beginning of season five, 1997. When Dr. Oliver is reintroduced, it's the beginning of season 12, 2004. Seven years. In theory, a person could, with a whole lot of effort, pull that off - but given the other things (such as being Turbo Red for a time, or helping to design/build the Biozords) he's supposed to have done during that period, and the fact that he's apparently already been Dr. Oliver long enough to have landed a position as Reefside's science teacher, I'd be surprised if it took him more than four - at which point, most college students have just finished up their baccalaurate (bachelor's) degrees. Dillon from Power Rangers RPM also fits this.
- 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. But until that point, the series may as well have been called Turbine Sentai Go-onWings. They fell into a common rhythm: the MOTW shows up, the Wings respond, knowing of the MOTW's arrival through their psychic powers, then the Go-ongers show up late and fight Mooks while the Wings fight the MOTW. The Wings would then either defeat the MOTW or get thwarted by having to protect the Go-ongers as well.
- 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.
- Charlotte Watsford from H 2 O: Just Add Water. She's pretty, smart, and talented and science and art and pretty much everything she does. But, she's not a Purity Sue due to the fact that she's controlling, manipulative, and jealous to the point of being a psycho. But what really puts her in this trope is the fact that not only does she become a mermaid like the three main characters, but she gets all three of the powers that the other girls have combined (Emma can freeze things, Rikki can boil things, Cleo has the power to manipulate water, and Charlotte has all three) and is twice as powerful and easily able to beat all three girls on her own. And not only that, but she's also the granddaughter of Gracie, one of the original mermaids who first discovered the power of the moon pool on Mako Island. But luckily, she's later stripped of her powers.
- But the brilliant minds at the BBC weren't finished yet. In the third season they introduced us to Archer. Yes, Archer. He's brought in as the obvious replacement to Robin and given full responsibility of leading the outlaws by Robin. He's related to both Guy and Robin as their half-brother. He has a birthmark in the shape of an arrowhead. He was raised an orphan with no idea who his parents were. He's irresistible to women. He's travelled in the east and returned with "mystical knowledge." He fights with two katanas, has perfect aim with a ninja star, and he's as good at archery as Robin. He's got the gift of the gab and a twinkle in his eye. The BBC website describes him as a master of all weapons. Yes, a master of all weapons. The show was cancelled two episodes after his introduction. The world clearly wasn't ready for so much concentrated awesomeness.
- Sylar is virtually unkillable and always gets new powers as plot demands. Every character on the show wants to kill him, and they have succeded several times. And yet he keeps coming back, always defeating everyone with ease.
- Initially his ability to apparently stop himself from bleeding via telekinesis (writers have suggested this in interviews) as well as stop bullets Neo-style made him quite the foe, but now he's got that power AND regeneration, plus regeneration's main weakspot can be moved now thanks to shapeshifting he acquired later on.
- Peter Rickman in Kingdom Hospital, Steven King's godawful American remake of Riget. He's the most important character who has no antecedent in the Danish version, the first episode is entirely about him, he has remarkable similarities to King himself, and he solves all the problems in the series in the final episode with a truly ridiculous Ass Pull.
- Lana-Goddamn-Lang in Small Ville. She was already pretty much too perfect to begin with, what with her being forgiven every single time for her constant occurances of not-quite-clear morality, having Clark still be in love with her after she broke his heart a dozen times already, even deliberately at one point (she slept with Bizarro an told Clark to his face, that she preferred the psychopathic clone to him)... and then they gave her powers matching Clark's (via this weird biological suit), effectively making her his equal. But no, they didn't stop there... in order to save to day, they had her absorb Kryptonite radiation from a bomb set to go off with the stuff. Of course, what this means, is not only does she have strength and speed matching Superman... but she also radiates Kryptonite. Yeah, that's right, rather than having a semi-normal life like all other incarnations of the character, the Smallville version of Lana Lang is the only person on the planet who could slaughter Superman with ease if she wanted.
Professional Wrestling
- Sting in 1997 turned the invincible New World Order into a pack of incompetent cowards, kicking their combined asses with contemptous ease, when they're not frozen in their tracks in fear. He no-sold any attack they made, and outwitted them in every turn, often with Undertaker-esque mindgames. The Big Bad was terrified of him, regularly abandoning his men while he ran away. WCW was utterly ineffectual against the nWo onslaught and was only mobilized into an effective force when Sting returned to take command.
- A better example would be Hulk Hogan himself. Almost completely invincible during the 80's and 90's, the only two times this troper remembers him losing in a straight 1-2-3 count was versus the Undertaker, only to defeat him and win back the World Championship less than a month later, and the Ultimate Warrior. After moving to WCW, he embarked on a neverending quest to destroy any credibility WCW's home-grown talent might have had, beating Ric Flair (several times), Big Van Vader, and others. Once the nWo was formed, he got to do it all over again. Even going so far as to concoct an angle where the Ultimate Warrior was brought to WCW, built up as an invincible threat, and finally beaten in a match bordering on unwatchable. One of the big reasons the nWo angle eventually turned sour and ruined the company was that WCW simply ran out of credible opponents for Hogan to face.
- Anywhere he went, Hogan directly made sure he'd be a God Mode Sue. He had creative control written into his contracts, and wasn't afraid to manipulate events off-screen to keep that status. When he wasn't directly given his way, he'd complain until he got it. This has backfired on him more than once, most noteably during Summerslam 2005, when Shawn Michaels responded to Hogan playing the creative control equiviliant of a royal flush by hilariously overselling all of his moves and making him look bad.
- Beating Michaels (a veteran whose loss actually helped his Heel Face Turn the following night) wasn't nearly as bad as Hogan beating Randy Orton the next year. Orton was a much younger wrestler that the WWE has been building up for the past few years, while Hogan was so lame from hip surgery that he couldn't even perform his famous leg drop.
- Kurt Angle, upon joining TNA. He headbutted resident Samoan badass Samoa Joe and not only lived to tell the tale but beat him. Several times. While feuding with Joe, Angle managed to win every title the company had at the time. He was (and still is) featured heavily on TNA programming, to the point where the company has been nicknamed "Total Nonstop Angle". In recent times, he was a founding member of the Main Event Mafia, a group of other older wrestlers who'd made their reputations elsewhere (many of whom, including the aforementioned Sting, are also God Mode Sues of varying degrees) and proceeded to punk out most of the homegrown TNA roster. Even in the rare times Angle is made to look foolish, in the end he always wins.
- Subverted by his current feud with newcomer Desmond Wolfe, who basically punks Angle out over and over and over again on Impact in order to make a name for himself. When they finally have their first match on PPV, Angle does win, but it's via a triangle choke (which is, technically, illegal in wrestling) which gives Wolfe an out, which he uses on the following Impact before beating Angle up again.
- Triple H. He loses matches so rarely that regardless of your card position it's considered an upset. On the rare occasions that he does lose a match there will probably be some foul play involved on his opponents end. When he loses he'll usually get revenge on the next show, or on some occasions the same show. I can think of a couple of occasions where he lost and had a sledgehammer on stand by so he could destroy his opponents after he lost.
- Triple H is the biggest God Mode Sue in professional wrestling today. When instructions for what screenshots could be published went out to gaming magazines regarding Smackdown vs. Raw 2009, one of those instructions was not to show Triple H in a compromised or weakened position! Not even Hogan can claim that.
- This may very well be justified. After the curtain call incident where Triple H and his friends broke keyfabe, Vince was pushed into a position to do something. Scott and Kevin were leaving, Shawn as the champion was untouchable, so that left Paul to take the fall. His decade of dominance could be seen as a way of Vince making up for having to bury him to appease the old guard.
- Goldberg easily qualifies. He won his first 173 consecutive matches before finally losing to the larger Kevin Nash, and only then with some illegal help from Scott Hall. Even after joining the WWE, he went undefeated for nearly a year before finally losing to Triple H, again with outside assistance from Ric Flair. In fact, the first (and only) time this troper can remember him losing fair and square was late 2004 when he lost a handicap match in which he had to face THREE top wrestlers (Triple H, Randy Orton and Batista) forming a team against him, which is basically only "fair" in the sense that no one broke the rules set for that specific match. Basically every single time he's lost, it's either been against multiple opponents, or with the illegal outside help of some other wrestler, and he usually gets revenge on the perpetrator in the following weeks.
- The
Ultimate Warrior in WCW was an attempt at a God Mode Sue, and the result of what happens when you have two of them dueling. For some strange reason, he now had the powers of teleportation (via trapdoors), could fill the ring with a smoke that knocked out every member of the NWO aside from Hogan, and [[Mind Screw could appear in mirrors visible to Hogan (and the announcers, and the viewing audience) but invisible to the other members of the NWO). The he finally fought fellow GMS Hogan, and was humiliated.
Tabletop Games
- Elminster of Shadowdale. Probably the most notable is that he gets to bed the goddess of magic, as well as numerous other hot super-powered babes. And that he's still alive in 4th Edition, which means that not even the death of his patron goddess, the magic Weave going bonkers, the resulting Spellplague, and the chaos resulting from the deaths of other heroes and gods could kill him. The saving grace is that the death of his goddess was a metaphyiscal kick to the balls, meaning he isn't orders of magnitude more powerful than anyone else and doesn't have plot armor anymore.
- In 3.0 the normal maximum character level is 20, and characters roughly double in power every two levels. Elminster was level 39, 768 times more powerful than it is possible for a Player Character to be! (as a comparison, the most ancient and powerful dragon in the world is level 27)
- It could be argued that Elminster actually grew into this over time (not that that makes it any better, per se). His earlier AD&D stats are largely just those of a wizard of high but theoretically reachable level with a few custom tricks and mostly rumors for background; somebody player characters might someday catch up to. Cue the later novels (by his original creator) detailing said background and introducing the whole 'getting there by boffing the goddess of magic herself' bit apparently wholly out of the blue, and...yeah.
- Players of the White Wolf World Of Darkness fan club Camarilla's global chronicle know a God Mode Sue whenever any of the White Wolf staff show up to a convention. In the Year of Fire of Masquerade, any time an Antediluvian walked into the room, you knew everybody was going to die.
- Vampire The Requiem has The Unholy, who is clearly somebody's boner. Not only is she a badass half-crow cowboy woman who also has the looks of a model and kills absolutely everybody and everything in a room for the slightest provocation, but she's had no less that three separate write-ups in canon, each time detailing her badassery a little bit more cranked up. Oh, and there's the Word Of God that she's also Dracula's ex-girlfriend.
- Though somewhat compromising this is that the second mention of her name in the core book is as an example of how long rising from torpor takes... following her getting her ass thoroughly beaten by Lupines. Long story short, eight hundred years.
- The concept transcends setting and game franchises, but the DMPC is a well-known one in most gaming circles. The "Dungeon Master's Player Character" is the named NPC who, because the DM controls the game world and can adjust it to allow for the character as he likes, is always just better than the party and primarily exists to upstage them at every turn. The DMPC is The Chosen One; totally unstoppable, built on very munchkinly interpretations of the rules (or breaks them entirely, or just has whatever abilities the DM wants with no explanation at all), and is usually immune to justice, legal and karmic; if the P Cs take it into their own hands to stop him, he will always escape (and won't have to roll dice to do it). If he's actually in the party, the P Cs won't have an option to shake him, and most of the EXP that the players earn will be run-off from the DMPC's heroic exploits.
- Marneus Calgar and the rest of the Ultramarines definately qualify. It doesn't help that the most recent Codex was about 75% Ultramarines.
Videogames
- In the Ace Attorney games, Mia Fey. Most of the trials in the first three games boil down to a witness making a statement with holes that can be seen from space and even if the answer is completely obvious and you present the right piece of evidence Pheonix is completely lost, just so Mia can be channelled at just the right moment and save the day in a Big Damn Heroes moment. Pheonix has to lose a hell of a lot of intellegence to allow Mia to shine. Everyone you present her profile to has nothing but praise for her. Her sueishness is taken up a level in Trials and Tribulations where it is reviealed that before she died she only had two years of experience under her belt, and was still The Ace.
- To be honest, she's not really super smart, it's just that Phoenix is not the brightest one...
- One of the central aspects of Godot's character is that he knew Mia and considers Phoenix to be hopelessly inferior to her. This despite the fact that he only saw her defend one case before he became comatose, and she didn't win it.
- Shuji Yamagami, the protagonist of the Visual Novel H-game Season of the Sakura is something of a Deconstruction of the God Mode Sue. He's an incredible athlete without ever having to practice, but he refuses to join any teams at his new school despite the insistence of all his classmates. Later on he admits that at his old school, he joined every team and tried to be the "school hero", but the ease with which his skill came annoyed those who actually had to work to get good, and he ended up an outcast. Following that he promised never to join a team unless he found an opponent who could beat him. The only sport he isn't good at is swimming, which he actually can't do, thanks to violent hydrophobia.
- The Watatsuki sisters from Touhou manga/novel "Silent Sinner in Blue/Cage in Lunatic Runagate". Bonus points for they actually use gods to beat everyone silly.
- Speaking of Touhou, Yukari Yakumo is easily the most visible God Mode Sue in the series. She has the ability to manipulate any and all boundaries, even abstract ones, and this essentially makes her omnipotent as she can do just about anything she wants by manipulating boundaries. Despite this, she still managed to get kidnapped by one of the aforementioned Watatsuki sisters (although it's hinted that she got kidnapped on purpose to distract the Watatsukis so that Yuyuko could sneak in and steal their sake).
- Ingrid from Massive Multiplayer Crossover Capcom Fighting Jam sure seems like this. A goddess who is apparently older than she looks, has white hair, claims that M. Bison stole her powers (despite them never having met), can time travel, and is apparently one of the strongest characters in the series (she was also made a Canon Immigrant after an appearance in Street Fighter Alpha 3: MAX). The game she debuted in wasn't received too well and she hasn't appeared since. Make of this what you will.
- Crowe Almedio from Star Ocean: The Last Hope. Oh dear gods, Crowe. He is the protagonist's eternally unbeatable rival. He met some of your party members before you (they all thought he was awesome). While you were saving the world, he was busy saving it better. Enemy stronghold? He was there first, and left it in ruins. Ally stronghold? He was there first, and they loved him. When he finally shows up in the flesh he proceeds to massacre the enemies who your whole party struggled with, and the ship they flew in on (while one of your party comments on how awesome he was at it). After his heroic sacrifice (destroying a weapon the size of a planet about to destroy a whole fleet. By himself.) a wing of his ship manages to escape the resulting carnage and land in the exact necessary location to block the unpassable whirlwind guarding the final dungeon. And then finally, for literally no plot reason whatsoever he's not dead, but alive on another planet, where he immediately marries a beautiful woman and becomes the ancestor of the protagonist from the first game.
- And the only reason he's not playable is because the Xbox360 version of the game was an Obvious Beta and they're saving him and his overpowered attacks for a premium bonus for the PS 3 port.
- Bo Jackson from TECMO Bowl. ESPN writer Bill Simmons once half-jokingly suggested that they do a special on him where gamers recount their stories of abject domination in hushed tones.
- Sigmund from Infinite Undiscovery. He's a badass warrior, he can use the item crafting system to literally craft any item in the game which can be made that way, and he starts the game as the defacto leader. Hell, most of the cast within the story resent (if not outright hate) the protagonist Capell simply because he happens to kinda look like Sigmund and yet isn't a complete badass. He spends the first act of the game as a flute player who has just learned how to use a sword and they're wondering why he doesn't want to throw himself into the fray. Like Sigmund.
- There's little loathing for a Canon Sue like that of World of Warcraft players for Rhonin. His mentor is a dragon-in-disguise, he is as adept with swords as he is with spells, and he is able to keep up with — or even surpass, without really trying — the spellcasting abilities of major lore characters like the brothers Stormrage when he and his dragon-mentor take a little (debatably) accidental trip to 10,000 years ago. In modern days, he turns up in-game as the Archmage of the Kirin Tor, who were originally about to kick him out for being too much of a loose cannon.
Web Comics
- 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.
- Gregory Deegan in Dominic Deegan: Oracle For Hire starts out as a physically handicapped, emotionally 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, at one point turning him into a literal superhero.
- Dominic himself is also accused of this, with his ability to plan being seen by some as getting more than a little out of hand, while the rest of the cast sees him as the "I Win" button for the current crisis, and at one point deliberately avoided getting his help in order to prove to themselves that they could get along without him.
- Recent events may have curbed this a bit. Greg's suffered the double whammy of having his girlfriend dump him because he was too carefree and having his magic ripped away by the Infernomancer. The current Eldritch Abomination Big Bad has also managed to render Dominic's Second Sight useless in matters concerning it.
- The fact that the author has to limit his own character with plot devices further proves that Dominic is a God Mode Sue. Now, if he were to lose some of his omniscience/omnipotence and gain some of his flaws back, he would be a better character. Plus, it wouldn't hurt if he got the crap beat out of him more.
- Sarda in 8-bit Theater, although it's Played For Laughs and operates on Rule Of Funny. Mostly, it works. This comes to a grinding halt after he consumes an enegy field bigger than his head.
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.
- 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.
- There is a good reason why he's my Old Shame.
- Seireitou Hyuga, from something called Naruto Omega or some such, not only rips off every mainstream character (even managing to rip off Code Geass despite the other rip offs being a whole other genre), but makes a God-Mod Sue who would make every other one wet their pants if they ever saw him. Don't believe me? See for yourself.
- Please note what the top of the page says. It's a spoof of God Mode Sue to show how not to make a fanfiction character for the website. The author simply uses his user name, blatantly steals from other series, and the pictures he uses are simply screen shots (sometimes badly photoshopped usually not)from the series he ripped off from.
- Tennyo in the Whateley Universe arguably subverts this. In physical terms, she's a combination Person Of Mass Destruction-slash-Boring Invincible Hero — superhumanly strong, flies, heals so fast that she barely has time to notice the pain, and has crazy destructive powers. On the other hand, all that power is in the hands of a teenager somehow linked to an alien entity that has its own hangups and little if any experience in coping with the attendant emotions, which makes her none too stable psychologically (as seen in a confrontation with the ghosts of her 'other side's' alien victims from the past during a recent — and of course sabotaged — simulator run, in which she simply collapsed). It's because of the resulting potential for disaster that she wears an Ultraviolent armband at school and that trying to attack her (outside training or similarly controlled circumstances) has been declared an automatic expulsion offense by the Whateley administration.
- And she got curbstomped in "Ayla and the Great Shoulder Angel Conspiracy". They had to carry her off to the school hospital, and get her psychiatric therapy.
- In "The OP", Sara singlehandedly defeats the Grunts (the undisputed champions of the sims) in a simulator run, and makes them all look like chumps in the process.
Western Animation
- 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.
- The show got cancelled so there's no telling, but it definitely seems more like he'd have been a villain in disguise in subsequent episodes, rather than a wonderful new Wesley stand-in.
- Subverted in Ben 10 Alien Force with 'Alien X'- one of the forms Ben can take that seems to be indestructible with godlike power... but to use it, he has to gain the approval of two other beings within the form... that have not been able to agree with each other in millions of years. After changing out of this form, Ben says "It's not worth the price."
- Bloom from Winx Club becomes this in season 3, when she becomes incredibly powerful for no apparent reason, to the point that, in her standard transformation, she was much stronger than the other girls in their Enchantix transformation. When she finally got her Enchantix, she was able to beat The Trix (yes, those three scary and unstoppable witches from the previous two seasons that almost took over the world) almost effortesly. In the movie this gets even worse... however, the writers seem to have noticed this and took steps to remedy it: in Season 4, Bloom's power level is more or less equal to her friends', which takes her out of the trope.
|
|
