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alt title(s): Purity Stu  
The original Mary Sue archetype to gain wide recognition, from as early as King Arthur's Galahad of the Sangreal. Incorruptible Pure Pureness being the theme here.
A Purity Sue can be male or female without too significant a difference, but in all but the earliest incarnations there's a strong tendency towards the latter. It is a character that is intentionally made by the author to be overtly positive. They almost never have any flaws that actually affect them in a way that truly matters, usually going for endearing traits such as " clumsiness" or naiveté, instead getting overloaded with overwhelmingly positive but largely passive traits (i.e. beauty, innocence, etc.). The character will usually be soft spoken, have a pleasant voice, and be mild-mannered. Often, the traits verge towards the ethereal, with auras, non-human lineage, and other such things.
She's usually cast as a passive motivator of other people, inspiring people to strive towards the author's goals by her very presence alone. Oh, sure, she might smile, offer encouragement, write articles, and other such things, but she gets such a disproportionately positive response that it breaks the Willing Suspension Of Disbelief.
She most often overlaps with Relationship Sue (although romance isn't a necessary ingredient for this character), but can easily overlap with Fixer Sue. Almost never truly overlaps with God Mode Sue because her overwhelming righteousness is usually the focus of the story and not her objective actions. Anti Sue, Jerk Sue and Villain Sue are all antitheses to this character type (especially the last, since she's always a protagonist). This is the type that most often shows up as a Parody Sue.
When considering if a character that overlaps with one or more of the other types belong here, keep in mind that Purity Sue pretty much exists to be loved by everybody for being (as the plot tries to suggest) "perfect" (or close enough) in every way that matters. If it's less about the character's actions and more just about everybody's fascination with the character, it belongs here. Note that merely being a Yamato Nadeshiko or The Woobie does not make one a Purity Sue.
Modern male Purity Sues are uncommon, but they're much more common in historic shows and texts. They tend to fall into three categories:
See also Mary Sue Classic, the fairly specific and extremely common plot format that uses this character type exclusively. This trope, along with that framework, is the oldest (widely accepted) form of Sue, being Older Than Steam and probably (depending on whether you believe Galahad was a Christ figure) Older Than Feudalism.
- Fan sailor senshi often (and I do mean often) fall into this trope. If they're not the shining beacon of light that usurps Usagi, ChibiUsa, and Galaxia combined in power and yet is unfailingly wonderful to everyone, you aren't doing it right.
- And when it's not fan senshi, it's Usagi herself. She's often stripped of what makes her human—clumsiness, ignorance, lack of refinement, etc.—and made into a perfect saint for all the senshi to love and aspire to.
- Well, in Usagi's defense, she really IS a perfect saint as far as her capacity to love and such goes. And the Future Arc makes it pretty clear she gets grace and refinement so she can be Queen.
- In Lord Of The Rings Fan Fic, this breed of Sue tends to be an Elf even if she was raised as a human in our world. Thus, she is immortal and has a very good chance of surviving through the story and ending up happily married to Legolas (or, rarely, someone else).
- Chihuatlan Razortalon (NSFW), the Jenna Silverblade of the Gargoyles fan world. Aside from her meaninglessly exotic and Bad Ass-sounding name, her Sparklypoo credentials include being a shapeshifting dragon princess with a healing touch, hair like "multicolored shades of brown silk," and eyes described as "golden orbs." She struts onto the scene and immediately lays claim on Brooklyn—who is only to be the first member of her orientation-bending harem—and is adored by everyone except Angela, who quickly deteriorates into a spoiled, jealous, power-hungry brat.
- Princess Aara of The Otherworld Series. A demi-goddess born from an orb of light (along with her less important older sisters), the beautiful and universally loved Aara's entire purpose is to rule over and protect several dimensions inhabited by various anime characters by using The Power Of Love to get a bunch of sexy demons and half-demons to fight for her. Her Intimate Healing abilities are always the only thing that can help a character, making some of her magician and healer servants completely useless. While she is more of a Fixer Sue near the start of the series (the author rearranges a bunch of character pairings by having the unwanted male character "bond" with Aara or one of her sisters, which puts those males in sexual bondage), she eventually settles down with Vash from Trigun, and her harem is magically divided between her Cain And Abel twin daughters (who were born by painlessly appearing in an orb of light above her stomach.). The series eventually moves past its original canon-fixing intentions and becomes all about her and her daughters.
- Thomas The Tank Engine example: Fan character ''Iolite'', who was a human (named Elizabeth Truit, after her creator), died an untimely death and was reincarnated because of it, and was assigned the job of "Guardian of the Island of Sodor". She can switch between human and engine forms, has angel wings in both, can fly, has romantic affairs with Oliver and Douglas, and has powers beyond those possessed by Lady (the Island's canon guardian angel).
- Male example: In the World Of Warcraft fanfic Stand of the Exiles, the draenei vindicator designated love interest seems to have no personality beyond "kind of dumb," "stuck on the heroine," and "badass." (Unless "very big" and "very blue" count.) We're nonetheless informed that he's the perfect paladin, a model of honor, et cetera.
- Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch tends to get a lot of these in fan fiction; She'll most likely be a White or Red mermaid princess. She'll have beautiful hair, which she'll deem "boring". Her eyes will most of the time match the drapes, and they'll be so beautiful that people get lost in them. On her first day of school, she'll be greeted with a chorus of how beautiful she is. By the third day, she'll be friends with everyone for no apparent reason. She'll have a bunch of fans who want to date her because she's so incredibly beautiful and pure. She'll be stopped by random people to be told how beautiful she is and ask her out a LOT. She'll be friends with all living things and will always solve everyone's problems. She has the best singing voice and costume. She'll be the most beautiful mermaid there ever was. She often gets stuck in a love triangle, even though she's betrothed. The bad guy will try to seduce her every time, and if not, he hates her for being so pure and full of love. She will always live happily ever after; If not, everyone will pity her. Are you annoyed yet?
- Cori Falls's rendition of Jessie's mother Miyamoto in Pokemon. Sweet, gentle, intelligent, a top-class Pokemon trainer, loving wife and mother and when she dies she becomes Jessie and James's guardian angel.
- Azula is entirely rewritten into one in the infamous Avatar: The Last Airbender fancomic How I Became Yours. Complete with Jesus-like ressurection and an unborn child said to be "the hope of the world". Her daughter Miracle will take her place as this if there's ever a sequel.
- Sakura Tenshi of Tenshi Trail. A "Wish/Chobits flavored" Gratuitous Japanese speaking amnesiac "alluring little kitten goddess yet innocent"
angel tenshi-chi with love powers strong enough to destroy Heaven, Hell, and everything in between... in Cowboy Bebop? Sure, why not?
Canon Examples
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Anime
- Shirayuki Berii/Mew Berry (a.k.a. "Berry Sue") from Tokyo Mew Mew a la mode. This is an especially grating case, because the translators made the fandom wait forever for a sequel, only to release it... and reveal that Ichigo and company had been reduced to living accessories for an unsympathetic ditz who immediately gets twice the power of any previous character (for no reason at all, Ichigo's powers can now only be sustained for enough time to give Berii a power boost, at which point she turns into her helpless kitten form), magnetizes the cast so that they immediately start stalking her to see how special she is and transfer to her school for no good reason, and makes everyone love her more than their sanity. While she's also a God Mode Sue, it's not so much her ridiculous power level that's offensive as how she derailed the rest of the cast into a fawning fan club.
- Point this out to any of the few people who enjoyed a la Mode, however, and you'll be met with adamant claims that this isn't how it happened at all and that you haven't read it or just aren't willing to accept Berry as a true and totally not overpowered Mew Mew.
- Lalah Sune from Mobile Suit Gundam 0079. Not only can she do no wrong, she's the ultimate love interest for the main protagonist and antagonist where after 14 years, it still boils down to her love. Every man that encounters her either becomes jealous of her position or gazes at her with awe. She has no flaws except for being too good. She even floats and glows. More than once.
- Lalah's Expy Lacus Clyne from Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny can be considered this as well. Unlike the other main characters, she doesn't have any crippling character flaws, is always right in whatever she does and ends up as the hero's love interest at the end of the first series. She becomes the de facto ruler of the Earth Sphere at the end of the second.
- Usagi Tsukino of Sailor Moon eventually evolves into a Purity Sue in the manga timeline, though mostly off-camera— she goes from a flawed teenage superhero who just wants to be a normal girl to the ultimate force of good in all creation, Sailor Cosmos. This means her Sailor Crystal is that of the universe, and she's evolved beyond the need for the other senshi beyond her own past self, which is why she comes to the past as Chibi-Chibi. Naoko Takeuchi has even said many times that Usagi is based on herself, if she were a magical girl.
Comic Books
- The titular Mr. A as created by Steve Ditko. Despite being a vigilante with a one hundred percent success rate, he has no superpowers, but he's a perfect person in a world that doesn't understand his perfection. There's a reason why these comics weren't financially successful.
Film
- Lady In The Water features as a significant character an author who will write a work of fiction so universally loved and inspirational that it will change the face of the world forever. The author just happens to be played by M Night Shyamalan, the movie's writer and director. Coincidence? He even made sure he had a movie critic horribly killed off before the reveal of M. Night as the martyr of the story.
- Muriel Pritchett in the film adaptation of The Accidental Tourist is a Hollywoodization Sue. In the book, Muriel is far from perfect. She gets moody, screechy and ambivalent. In the film, she's virtuous, and her "flaw" is that she's offbeat and kooky - and in such an endearing way! Macon's ex-wife Sarah shrugs and says, "Okay" when she finds out Macon's fallen for Muriel. In the book, she's protesting at Macon, and stating that he and Muriel would be one of those odd couples that people can't understand how these two opposites attracted. But in the film, since Muriel is a Purity Sue, being attracted to her is inevitable for any good character, and her being attracted to him is a gift to him; no further explanation is needed.
- The female lead of the So Bad Its Good movie Soul Taker (featured on MST 3 K) is apparently so incredible that not only does the main character try to turn his life around just for her, but the Grim Reaper chasing after them is madly in love with her, which causes all the mistakes that prevent him from stopping the heroes? And it's worth noting, the lead actress is also the film's screenwriter, a fact which Mike and the Bots gleefully point out at every opportunity.
- The aptly named titular character from There's Something About Mary. You can make a drinking game for the number of times she's called a "fox." She's also a doctor, an avid sports fan who plays golf in her spare time (when she's not helping out the disabled, mind you), and her ideal man is supposedly an Everyman on the one condition that he be self-employed. Every single man in the film wants her and is willing to sacrifice any relationship he currently has to be with her, including Brett Freakin' Favre.
- Nastia from the movie Jack Frost as seen on MST 3 K. She's so pure that the sun reverses course to give her the time to finish knitting a stocking. Her eventual suitor would be the epitome of a Marty Stu if the plot wasn't largely about teaching him some humility.
- To be fair, Jack Frost was pretty much a bunch of Russian fairytales lumped together, so Nastia is just a Cinderella or Snow White equivalent.
Literature
- This essay describes a couple characters that popped up in a magazine in the mid-19th century. See if they sound familiar.
- George Eliot wrote the essay Silly Novels by Lady Novelists in 1856, yet most of her descriptions could fit Sues that were written yesterday. Example: "...it may be that the heroine is not an heiress — that rank and wealth are the only things in which she is deficient; but she infallibly gets into high society, she has the triumph of refusing many matches and securing the best, and she wears some family jewels or other as a sort of crown of righteousness at the end. Rakish men either bite their lips in impotent confusion at her repartees, or are touched to penitence by her reproofs, which, on appropriate occasions, rise to a lofty strain of rhetoric; indeed, there is a general propensity in her to make speeches, and to rhapsodize at some length when she retires to her bedroom." Sound familiar?
- Many Victorian-era authors bought into this trope to varying extents, as they were both inclined to sentimentalism and conditioned to value females especially for their virtue (the archetype dubbed "angel in the house" after a poem by Coventry Patmore.) The uber-type of the Victorian Purity Sue is Agnes Wickfield, from Dickens' David Copperfield, who is shown standing in the light of a stained-glass window, pointing upward, on very first appearance. Narrator David rhapsodises about his dear 'sister' at every opportunity; she's a paragon of womanhood even by the standards of her era - beautiful and kind and wise and helpful and sympathetic, yet so gentle and modest about it all you'd hardly know she was there, save for the way her goodness 'somehow' makes everyone's life better. The villain's presumption to aspire to her hand is used to underscore just how evil a cad he is. Her beneficent influence extends even to David's first wife Dora, who on her deathbed extracts a promise from Agnes that she alone will marry David after Dora's gone. Which Agnes does, having 'loved [David] all her life!' Not surprisingly, she is considered one of Dickens' least successful female characters.
- In every book by Dickens there is an example of this (at least until Great Expectations, when he seemed to change his views on women a bit). Kate Nickleby in Nicholas Nickleby, Amy Dorrit, Esther Summerson and Ada Clare in Bleak House, Florence Dombey in Dombey and Son, Emma in Barnaby Rudge...Lucie Manette in A Tale Of Two Cities. She doesn't do anything, and yet everybody is fascinated with her. She's a Macguffin Girl.
- Charles Dickens had some serious issues with the women in his real life, and they were channeled into many of his female characters. He never quite got over the sudden death of his beautiful young sister-in-law, divorced his wife (mother of his ten children) in middle-age - not hesitating to denounce her publicly as too stolid and unimaginative to be of interest to him any longer - then promptly took up with a much younger actress.
- Oliver Twist has a whole family of Purity Sues, the Maylies, and Dickens stops the plot dead in its tracks for several chapters to expound at length on their Pure Wholesome Light of Purity, and the rest of the novel is as concerned with whether the Maylies will marry well and be reunited with their long lost relatives ( including Oliver) as it is with Oliver's attempts to escape from Fagin and Bill Sykes. Nonetheless, they're dropped from pretty much every adaptation of the story without much trouble, and nobody misses them.
- Not quite true; a recent adaptation got some mileage out of Rose Maylie, who is a quintessential Purity Sue.
- In A Christmas Carol there's Tiny Tim.
- In Bram Stoker´s Dracula there are Lucy Westenra and Mina Murray Harker. Lucy is a "lily-like girl" of "unequalled sweetness and purity" loved chivalriously by three men,; after her tragic death she takes her place "among other angels". Mina is so pure, wise, sweet and angelic that everybody loves her; mad Renfield dies by fighting for her and even Dracula wants her as his vampire companion. Then, especially Lucy´s character has suffered from adaptation decay..
- Dagny Taggart from Atlas Shrugged is a somewhat scary example of a fully grown Mary Sue in a serious, influential piece of work. She is and has everything Ayn Rand could ever hope for, a total personification of her values — she's a brilliant though underestimated businesswoman, more beautiful than anyone else in the room without even trying - even the simplest of dresses seems 'indecent' on her. She is the linchpin of all the important changes in the world, the last and most important part of the puzzle, the one everyone wishes they could reach, the one everyone looks to. She has multiple lovers and moves on from one to the next without any warning or explanation given — or needed, as each of these lovers peacefully acknowledges the others without the slightest surprise or jealousy, with the impression given that they're going to quietly bear never-again-requited candles for her indefinitely.
- Technically, John Galt is a closer fit. It's Dagny's failure to embrace the Objectivist Ideal until the very end that moves the plot along and causes her and everyone else a world of misery and trouble. Galt faffs about with his sunny-shiny hair, and everyone confesses their love and adoration to him at every turn, and Dagny falls in love with him before first sight. Then again, this is Ayn Rand; she never denied that this was the case.
- "Sister" Jane Arnold in Rita Mae Brown's Jefferson Hunt mystery series. She never makes a mistake; the other characters spend inordinate amounts of time discussing how wonderful she is; half the male characters are in love with her; and the people who do dislike her tend to either be villains or end up dead. Sister is the Master of Fox Hounds (MFH) for the Jefferson Hunt. Brown's author blurb emphasizes that she is the MFH for the Oak Ridge Hunt Club. The Sue-ness of the character becomes blindingly obvious.
- Little Women: Amelia Curtis "Amy" March has plenty of faults, even in Part Two (selfish, a bit shallow, whiny, over-the-top), but the author seems unaware of this and constantly describes how beautiful and graceful she is, how wise and kind and courteous and good she is in the chapters "Calls" and "Consequences," spends far more time describing Amy's appearance and wardrobe than any other characters', and generally can't do anything but praise her perfection (whether true or not). By the time we get to the second sequel (Jo's Boys), Amy is the absolute epitome of perfect taste, tact, gentility and generosity. Her marriage is beyond perfect... in fact, for her and Laurie, "life [has] been a sort of poem since they married," and her famously middling artistic talents are suddenly such that she's able to execute marble busts with rare skill. The only thing Alcott concedes is perfect beauty; but not to worry...
- ...Amy's daughter Bess, nicknamed "The Princess" with a complete lack of irony, has got that covered and then some. Her role in the plot of the same book is solely as a shining inspiration and/or unattainable angel, depending on which boy is being spotlighted at the time. Purity Sue -ness is apparently genetic.
- Incidentally, Meg's daughter Daisy was fixing to be Purity Sue Junior in the last chapters of the first book. She's considered (and called) Beth incarnate. Then Bess shows up and she's relegated to cheerful servant to her oh-so-wonderful cousin.
- Beth is *also* accused of being a Purity Sue. She has crippling self-esteem and insecurity issues, but everyone she knows looks past that; no one but her would say a bad word about her. When she is sick, people who are mourning their own relations think of her first. It's less glaring for her, though, since the Shrinking Violet problems are her only obvious flaws. (They are almost certainly more obvious to us than to the original readers.) We'll give Alcott a pass on this one, though, since she was based on Alcott's own Dead Little Sister.
- Alcott also featured a more mature version of the Purity Sue in many novels, in keeping with her desire to instruct as well as entertain her young readers. In Jack and Jill, Mrs. Minot is a truly noble lady, beautiful, kind, wealthy, wise and sensible, the perfect mother and community leader. Under the Lilacs features Miss Celia, a bit younger and less serene, but similarly favoured and beloved as an inspiration to the wayward main character, and heroine to his small female sidekicks. Uncle Alec Campbell of Eight Cousins and its sequel Rose in Bloom is this same character as Purity Stu (to say nothing of fiercely loyal, loving and lovely Phebe from the same books).
- Beansidhe's Wail's Wynne, though not a published character, is a fairly good example of this. She's beautiful; she's powerful - she's half fairy, half god; she has a legion of fans thanks to her band; she was loved, adored, and considered the muse of several famous artists (including Shakespeare) and nobles throughout history (before someone (usually her sister) got jealous of their love and killed her); she even died during the sinking of the Titanic. Oh, don't worry, she's no slut. All of those men were the reincarnations of one single guy. Now that's loyalty! She and her sisters' beauty was enough to cause a car accident which they laughed and blew kisses at. And she's also a self-insert.
- Brevelan from the Dragon Nimbus trilogy. After escaping from a forced marriage and attempted rape, she flees into the woods to live a wonderful and pure life in harmony with nature and the creatures of the woods - oh, and the last of the dragons, which she shares an empathic bond with. She uses her own "special" form of magic which is based on her singing (and she has a beautiful singing voice), which is more powerful and "pure" then the magic used by trained wizards. By the end of the first book, both of the male leads - one of them the prince of the realm - have fallen in love with her. And then there's the scene where the pair beg, plead and grovel to her not to cut her hair. Also, she can't stand the smell of the cooked meat, so everyone around her becomes vegetarian by default... which sounds like a case of Author On Board.
- Princess Rossmikka probably qualifies for this as well. In fact, just about any female by Irene Radford will generally be pure, innocent and radiantly beautiful.
- The author of the Sweet Valley High book series admitted in a later interview that Elizabeth, the smart, sensible blonde twin, was a Mary Sue.
- Arya from the Inheritance Cycle, overlapping with Relationship Sue. From the moment she's introduced, there are paragraphs upon paragraphs of description to tell readers just how beautiful she is (how can there be that many ways to describe the shine of someone's hair?) She is also meant to be seen as an incredibly sympathetic, a vegetarian, and the mysterious one who causes intense silence in a battlefield full of fighters. She's also an elven princess. But even with all this focus, she still seems to exist solely for the hero (and probably the author) to drool over; so far, she's been rejecting him, but Eragon has been prophesied to hook up with someone beautiful and of noble birth, which fits Arya, princess of the elves, to a T. To top all that off, the only ones that dislike her are the bad guys and the dwarves. The dwarves only dislike her because she manages to insult their religion with nothing but a quiet smile on her face. This might've been a bad trait, but later on religion is treated as naive and a way to push responsibility away.
- Correction: it was prophesied that Eragon would love someone beautiful and of noble birth, but the person making the prophecy explicitly stated that she didn't know if it would work out or not. Plus Arya seems to regard Eragon as a Stalker With A Crush... which is entirely justified, really. It's just that if she shunned The Chosen One any more than she did, the world would be doomed.
- Phineas of A Separate Peace would seem to be one if you took Gene's word for it.
- The Tabura and Salixia from Brian Jacques' Redwall book, Eulalia!. The Tabura is 'the wisest of all badgers' DESPITE its being stated in Mossflower that female badgers are scholars, male badgers are badasses. He comes to the Abbey, and all every single solitary creature within its walls can do is gush about how wise and wonderful the Tabura is. He has little sessions in the courtyard about the virtues of simplicity. He's a crackerjack healer. And then, it turns out he's also a psychic badger with telepathic powers!!! His ward Salixia is, if possible, an even bigger Sue. She's constantly described as being slim and beautiful (two traits that ought to be incompatible in a badger!); she's wise in the ways of herbs; and then, out of nowhere...SHE'S AN EXPERT ARCHER, TOO. She stands next to a shrew and tells him exactly how to make a shot. And Gorath the Flame, the other badger, falls madly in badger wuv with her, and she with him. Yeugh.
- Brian Jaques is unfortunately prone to writing a lot of his Heroes and Heroines in this manner:
- Sunflash the Mace - an orphaned, enslaved Badger with a golden stripe instead of a white one, who goes on to be the wise and righteous Lord of Salamandastron...
- Mattias, the young and shy, yet brave and determined orphan who turns out to be the spiritual successor of the greatest hero the land ever knew, whose 'star metal sword' he can wield perfectly as soon as he touches it, and who wins the heart of the unbearably pure and sweet girl Cornflower with his gentle and bumbling ways...
- Mariel Gullwhacker, the plucky young girl who leads her adoring friends into battle with murderous pirates armed with only a rope with a knot in the end and topples an Empire at the head of an army of the finest warriors in the land...
- ...all spring immediately to mind, but there are certainly others. In many cases, even some of the supporting characters have similar Sue-ish backgrounds, their only flaw being that they are usually outshone by even bigger Sues.
- Any protagonist from a Dan Brown book is, without exception, an expert in their field — internationally recognized as the expert-of-experts in fact, elicits love at first sight from their love-interest, who is, as a general rule, fabulously attractive, and probably way out of the league of the sort of person the protagonist is meant to be. Not to mention able to act as an Action Hero despite being a middle-aged intellectual. Their inability to sort out the plots by the end of the first page when all the readers do makes this exceptionally infuriating.
- Robert Langdon from The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons is an example. An athletic, ruggedly handsome, and brilliant academic, in both books he is apparently the only person in the world smart or qualified enough to solve the various obscure puzzles that turn up in the plots of both books. He is, essentially, what every art history or religion major wants to be.
- Also, as an supposed expert on European history, he can barely count in Italian or speak french.
- Brutally, brutally deconstructed in the classic Dostoevsky novel The Idiot. Prince Myshkin is a model of Christ-like kindness, able to forgive his worst enemies and treat the most depraved members of society with compassion. He talks to servants as equals and has an innate connection with children. His innate integrity distinguishes him from the pettiness of Russian high society, and everyone realizes this. In addition, he inherits a princely fortune, and is a world-class calligrapher (not to mention a virgin, who still treats women with the utmost honor). Unfortunately, his saintly example rubs off on exactly no one: they all turn to their self-destructive behaviors, unable to prevent themselves from taking advantage of the Prince, leaving his relationships broken, and in the end driving him to insanity. Yup, Humans Are Bastards.
- Aljoscha from The Brothers Karamzov is just like that and everybody, even the most cynical, love him.
- The titular character from The Legend Of Rah And The Muggles. (And yes, in case we all forgot...) Let me put it this way: Rah is so perfect in every way that his brother Zyn turns into a Card Carrying Villain out of sheer envy... which could be considered a deconstruction, actually, if it weren't for the way Zyn is portrayed.
- Lampshaded in the first book of J.R. Ward's Black Dagger Brotherhood series. During her wedding ceremony, when her name is being carved into her new husband's back as per tradition, protagonist Beth (who is stunningly beautiful, whose lost father turned out to be a now dead vampire who's left her millions and millions, and who has won the heart of the womanizing vampire king within days of meeting him) laments that her name is nine-lettered Elizabeth instead of something short like Mary or Sue.
- Pick a Catherine Anderson heroine, any one. Even the ones with visible flaws and handicaps are at their core impossibly wonderful and beautiful and loved by all...except the Evil Exes, stalkers and rivals for the love of the hero who are Just Jealous.
- Galahad and Percival from Arthurian legend combine this trope with God Mode Sue. They're both young virgins who have little experience with the world, yet consistently beat every opponent they come across (in Galahad's case, this includes defeating the previously unbeatable Lancelot) and are two of three knights traditionally believed to have found the Holy Grail, with Galahad being taken directly to Heaven afterwards to boot. Normally this wouldn't count at all since all mythological characters are this way...except for the little fact that Galahad was added to the legend much later by the French so they could have a Frenchman that would be the epitome of perfection. Ladies and gentleman? The world's first recorded Mary Sue.
- T.H. White later manages to have some fun with this in The Once And Future King. The Galahad legend plays out just like it does in older texts, with his being utterly perfect and pure and wonderful and finding the Grail and being taken to Heaven - but then White explains that he could only find the Grail because he acted like that, and was doomed to find the Grail and leave the Earth. According to White, being a Purity Sue condemns you to die and accomplish nothing to actual note on the corporeal Earth. (Galahad's only true accomplishment was finding the Grail - he didn't impact a single thing else.)
- White also takes the mickey out of the type a little bit by having all the other knights torn between liking Galahad and being mystified by him - he's so perfect that he's nearly imcomprehensible to the more realistic characters.
- Jaenelle from Anne Bishop's Black Jewels series. A literal manifestation of all good sentient hopes and dreams, anyone who hated her was by definition evil. She's practically omnipotent from childhood and only gets more powerful; but she's still innocent and sweet, and all the "good guys" devote their lives to protecting her (mostly from her self-sacrificing tendencies). She tries to sacrifice herself to save the world, but she is saved with The Power Of Love. She has an angsty past; her birth parents didn't understand her greatness, dismissed her as unstable, and sent her to a "mental asylum" where she was molested and later raped. She has single-handedly reconciled humans with all the telepathic animals, whom the humans previously didn't even know existed.
- She is also something of a Jerk Sue. She's a small child at the beginning and a young woman at the end, and she is oh so innocent, impressionable, emotionally vulnerable and fragile. Combined with her power, this makes her a dangerous menace to be around. But anything destructive she does is not her fault; it's because the bad, bad people hurt her feelings. Afterwards, everyone flocks around her to cheer her up.
- Ironically she becomes less of a Sue when she gains her full powers. At that point, she has too much power but not enough control, and is crippled throughout most of the third book because using any of her major abilities will cause Armageddon. Bishop probably recognized her Sue needed to be taken down a peg.
- L. Frank Baum's portrayal of Santa Claus. He does nothing except make toys for children...and, for that reason alone, he's adored by everything in existence that's not pure evil. (And everything that is pure evil wants to destroy him.) Whenever he's in any actual trouble, he can just count on his "elves" to do all the work...including waging a war of extermination against some demons of sorts that have the gall to kidnap him. We know what that means.
- Justified. I mean, he's Santa Claus!
- An unusual example of a Mary Sue in literary fiction is Isabel Dalhousie in the series by Alexander McCall Smith. She's middle-aged but still attractive to men, independently wealthy, a brilliant ethical philosopher (or so we're told) and adored by all around her. Her forays into mystery-solving are distinctly Fixer Sue-ish; in the third book she becomes a Relationship Sue when she hooks up with a much younger man, himself a Marty Stu: the only reason Isabel can think of why his previous girlfriend dumped him is because he was too good to her.
- It's already been proposed elsewhere on this site that Bella in Twilight is a Purity Sue. Perhaps she is a deconstruction. No human being (and in this setting, no inhuman being) can be absolutely perfect, but she doesn't realize she's as close to perfect as can be reasonably expected, so her slightest mistakes have her acting like The Atoner, and their accumulation makes her hate herself enough that she'd sacrifice herself to save Edward, to save Renesmee, or even for no reason at all. (For those who would call this Alternate Character Interpretation and Fan Wank, consider that she blames herself when the Cullens nearly eat her, then when she becomes a vampire and has difficulty controlling her own urges she blames herself again. For that matter, consider Jacob's remark that she should have been born when there were still martyrs.)
- Sara Crewe from A Little Princess is just about an intentional example: clever, book-smart and wise beyond her years, pretty but convinced that she's ugly, polite, kind and generous, a Friend To All Living Things, honest yet tactful, possessed of a great natural talent for storytelling, and with it all, not snobby or spoiled when she's a rich Daddys Girl nor bitter or self-pitying when she becomes a Fallen Princess. Of course, this is pretty much the point.
- Dickon of Hodgson's The Secret Garden is a rare male example. While being described as fairly plain, any mention of Dickon is used to show what a perfect little boy he is. Animals flock to him, he's extremely clever and mature, he's unfailingly kind to everyone, he's bluntly honest but never cruel, and every time people talk about him both parties will know and love him for being so sweet and pure.
- in Hodgson's Little Lord Fauntleroy, it's main character Cedric himself as the adorable, compassionate Stu. He's even able to get his crotchety, hateful grandfather to love him and his mother, who his grandfather hdetests. Everyone who comes into contact with Cedric is bettered and loves him.
- Ellysetta Baristani of C.L. Wilson's Tairen Soul series is good, good, good. Good to her friends, good to her enemies, forgiving, wise, generous, guilty only of loving too much. Her "mistakes" involve being ultra-kind; for example, endangering her life by weaving forbidden magic to save a dying boy. Everyone she sees falls in love with her, and corrupt souls can be "cured" by her touch. Wilson tries later in the series to imply that there might be a darker side to her, due to her being tragically "mage marked" as a child (through no fault of her own) but as of this writing it has been all tell, no show. And the picture on this page is not a bad representation of her appearance.
Live Action TV
- Parodied in Frasier episode "The Show Where Diane Comes Back", in which Diane's play Rhapsody and Requiem is a thinly veiled reproduction of Cheers, with "Mary Ann" as the Author Avatar. Everyone loves her in the bar, which drives Frasier nuts. When the actor "Franklin" openly asks why his character would forgive Mary Ann so easily for leaving him at the altar, it causes Frasier to explode in a famous speech:
Frasier: What you are feeling is that this woman has reached into your chest, plucked out your heart, and thrown it to her hellhounds for a chew toy! And it's not the last time either! Because that's what this woman is! She is the Devil! There's no use running away from her, because no matter how far you go, no matter how many years you let pass, you will never be completely out of reach of those bony fingers! So drink hearty, Franklin, and laugh! Because you have made a pact with Beelzebub! And her name is Mary Anne!
- Lana Lang in Smallville is, of course, Clark Kent's love interest and is therefore adored and idolized by him, but in the course of the show she's had the most psychotic stalkers (especially in the first season, when at least half the Freaks of the Week were devoted to Lana Lang.) If that wasn't bad enough, she also learned enough martial arts (in the course of like, a day) to spin-kick a handsy football player into a table, got possessed by an ancient powerful witch ancestor, had everyone from Lex Luthor to Bizarro Clark Kent fall desperately (and pathetically) in love with her, orchestrated an elaborate ruse to fake her own death and move to China, and learned enough Mad Hacking Skills to spy on her ex-husband Lex Luthor as well as make the Chloe Sullivan character completely useless.
- Not to mention that she was accepted into a prestigious art school in Paris, despite never having shown either interest or skill at art, and being able to manage a busy coffee shop despite being only a high school student. Hell, despite still having to attend high school and do all the homework. Isn't managing usually a full time job?
- Lana Lang is a rare example that jumps from one Sue type to another as the show goes on. While unquestionably perfectly talented, beautiful and beloved by every male character she bumps into on the street, the specific types of Sue that she qualifies for are many and varied. At certain points in the show (like the first few seasons,) Lana does indeed come off as a Purity Sue, a Sympathetic Sue and a Tsundere Sue at various points. Later seasons have turned her into a certified psychopath, if not a Card Carrying Villain at times. Seemingly realizing they'd need to drop the pretext of Purity Sue to make those two unpleasant traits work, the writers strengthened her Tsundere Sue side, while adding in some extra Relationship Sue and Villain Sue to fill the gaps. Even at this point, though, all the other characters think so highly of her that if she'd drop the evil Luthor psycho routine, she could probably pick up her Purity Sue title where she left off without much hassle (though many viewers wouldn't be fooled.)
- Which turned out be the case. To top it all off, she marks her departure from the show by becoming a God Mode Sue with powers equal to Clark's. Suetiful to the last.
- Lana's Identical Great-Aunt made 3 guys fall desperately in love with her during one episode. Being a Mary Sue must be in the blood.
- Annie Blackburne in Twin Peaks, an ex-nun with a tragic past who immediately turns Agent Cooper into a fawning idiot.
- Power Rangers Mystic Force: Nick. Nick, Nick, Nick. His presence makes everyone else able to go Beyond The Impossible (as opposed to him being all-powerful on his own). It's apparently this ability, as opposed to raw power, that makes him "The Light," which he's prophesied to be. He only has to give a determination speech to take the rest of the team from uncharacteristically whiny and ready to give up to card-carrying Determinators. Near the end of the season, two mentor types wind up focusing only on him, without the rest of the team even around to watch—perhaps because the villains, too, have singled him out. Characters bend around him like a Purity Sue. And he winds up being the only one of the main five with any connection to the overall plot. However, he can also be a God Mode Sue in bursts that hint at his Mysterious Past. Big Bad that nobody can touch? Surprise, banishment spell. The Dragon brings his sword down toward Nick's head? Kaboom, fire spell. Stuff like this only happens at the last second during desperate times, though, not every week. Finally, the Mysterious Past means he doesn't know who his family is, and sometimes feels alone and unwanted, and he also has plenty of self-doubt, making him a Sympathetic Sue as well. The character-bending and screentime-stealing that are his primary traits just makes Purity Sue the category he fits best.
- Zoey, from Zoey 101. Her life is so perfect that it's almost ridiculous - she is insanely popular, is usually the leader of whatever project the other kids are making, is kind, "pretty", smart, strong, weak (yes, at the same time), nearly every male character of her age have some kind of attraction for her, makes friends in the drop of a hat, solves everybody's problems... did I forget something?
- I am going to regret this, but: Fred Burkle. Beautiful, genius-level intelligence, EVERYONE has some sort of romantic tension with her, traumatic past, Too Good For This Sinful Earth, no real flaws to speak of, the fact in her first appearance she's better and helping Angel than the people who have been friends with him for over a year, her sixth episode was about how wonderful she was and how important to the team, and no-one dislikes her, or ever even gets mad at her.
- Kate from Robin Hood. After Marian was killed off the writers were apparently terrified to make her replacement anything other than a shining example of heavenly perfection. Informed Attractiveness? Check. Almost every male in the show falls in love with her (even Prince John wants a piece of her). Informed Ability? Check. The website lists her weapon as her "imagination", even though she never uses it (she spends most of her time getting captured and waiting for one of the boys to come rescue her). Traumatic experience? Check. Her brother is murdered right in front of her (as a direct result of her own stupidity, but that still doesn't stop Robin from apologising to her for letting it happen). Supernatural talent? Check. Somehow a peasant girl manages to overpower an armoured guard on horse back with nothing but her bare hands. Everyone on the show adored her, leaving the audience to scratch their heads and wonder why on earth everyone was so fascinated with such a whiny, obnoxious, brainless little snot.
- Secret Girlfriend: You. Yes, you. Shot from a first person perspective, the main gimmick of this Comedy Central show is that the viewer is the main character. The POV "character" is never referred to by name, only by some generic form of address. And unsurprisingly, "you" are awesome. Every woman in the show is interested in "you." "You" have sex with most of them, and "you" always leave them blown away. "Your" rich, gorgeous ex-girlfriend (who is admittedly psychotic) can't get over "you." All "your" jokes are funny. Every character in the show admires "you." Congratulations.
- According to some fans, Rory from Gilmore Girls fits this trope.
- Betty Roberts from Remember WENN: beautiful, witty, super-competent, and every man is in love with her. Yet for some reason, she's still intensely likable.
Newspaper Comics
- Michael Patterson from Lynn Johnston's comic strip For Better or For Worse. Although examples of his Stu-ishness abound, the defining moment was when he sent off his first novel to a publisher and, without the help of an agent or any prior published fiction to his name, received a reply three weeks later, with a gushing acceptance letter from the editor praising his genius, and a $25,000 advance check. Margaret Atwood probably doesn't even get $25,000 advances. Just to rub salt in the wound, Johnston has, off-strip, posted sample passages from this "wonderful novel" and they are horrible. His book was published a scant seven months later in hardcover. Seven months after that, his second book was published, also in hardcover, and this time there's talk of movie deals.
- Anthony Caine in the same work. Shaenon Garrity's enormous rant describes the antipathy he inspires in a great many fans perfectly: "It's like the strip has become a FBOFW fanfic written by Anthony." He was constantly talked up by everyone else in the strip as reliable, successful, and romantic, without ever actually doing anything on camera to deserve it. The only person that didn't like him? Naturally, his ex-wife, portrayed as a Complete Monster for not being happy with him still openly pining for Elizabeth for their entire marriage. The final six weeks of the strip were aglow with the glory of his final triumph in marrying Liz, in a wedding impossibly held in six weeks and with all of the services provided for free because everyone in the town was so happy to see him marry Liz. Even Liz's grandfather having a heart attack was considered far less important than the wedding in the strip's morality.
- And by 'constantly talked up,' we mean constantly. The entire world sang his praises constantly, to the point that most any strip without Anthony in it would have someone mention how great he was at least once. Shilling The Wesley meets Beyond The Impossible.
Opera
- Leonore from Beethoven's Fidelio. All anyone can talk about is how amazing she is! When disguised as a man to save her imprisoned lover she is so attractive that the gaoler's daughter falls in love with her, which she heartlessly takes advantage of and is not remotely reproached when the truth is revealed! She fixes everything just by showing up! And the opera ends with a song about how marvellous she is!
Tabletop Games
- The Forgotten Realms D&D setting has several Sue-like characters, but the Seven Sisters are the closest to Purity Sues, particularly High Lady Alustriel, queen of Silverymoon. An immortal, vastly powerful sorceress and Chosen disciple of the Goddess of Magic, she is also, according to the Wiki, "known for her love and devotion to her people...extremely popular in Silverymoon (as well as everywhere else she goes), and most of her subjects would do anything within their power to keep her from harm." The only thing keeping her from being irritatingly Suetiful is her unavailability...she's too busy filling her kingdom with sweetness and light to get involved with the rest of the world.
- Another thing keeping her from being irritatingly Suetiful is that in 2nd and 3rd edition, you couldn't cast a Magic Missile in the Realms without it bouncing off three even more ridiculous Sues before their retaliatory strikes turned you into vapor. And a good many of them were Jerkasses. Alustriel, Sue-ness and all, was still a breath of fresh air simply for actually being heroic and polite.
- Attempt at an aversion in 4th edition. Most of the Mary Sues and such are DEAD and the survivors have been kicked in the balls!
- Alustriel does break trope by having promiscuous sex with a large number of partners, all of whom instantly fall in love with her after one night and are absolutely loyal from then on. It's also worth noting that said promiscuous sex typically takes place with various nobles and faction leaders from around her kingdom. She does so in order to keep them in line and favorable towards her Light And Hope policies. Basically, her Utopian politics revolve around making love, not war.
- Subverted in Eberron. Queen Aurala, who is beautiful, good, and devoted to her people (the latter two both being extremely rare in Eberron)... is busy plotting world domination and makes no bones about the fact.
- Socially-oreinted Solar Exalts from the Exalted often are variations of this trope. Or, possibly, subversions, as their auras of righteousness and purity are usually the result of the conscious use of magical mind control powers by them.
- Considering this is how Desus is perceived, yeah, major subversion. For the record, Desus is a brutal sadist who brutally tortures (an example would be any one of the times he beat her until she miscarried.) and mind rapes his wife Lilith in private. In public, they are pretty much universally loved and viewed as one of the last bastions of true romance in creation. The kicker? He does love her, in his own twisted way. Isn't insanity fun?
- In current Legend of the Five Rings continuity, the otherwise entirely devoid of personality new Empress of Rokugan is described as making everyone who sees her kneel before her, awestruck and hopelessly in love. This includes sociopathic master assassins who make Petyr "Only Ever Loved One Woman" Baelish look mawkishly sentimental and whose martyred One True Love has been in her grave for over a decade.
- And to even further up her Sue quotient, the new Empress was hailed by the gods as Empress of Rokugan despite not actually winning the divine tournament that was supposed to choose the new Emperor. Apparently showing "appropriate virtue" during the tournament is enough, regardless of the merit of any other contestant. How Purity Sue can you get?
- The Ultramarines in the newest editions of Warhammer 40000 are apparantly the ultimate, defining, most honourable and all around swellest chapter of Space Marines in the setting, that leave all other chapters looking immensely inferior and far less honourable. This is a stark contrast to their earlier portrayals, when they were much more amoral force, more concerned with the purity of their chapter and suicidal adherence to the codex than anything else.
- To be fair the Tyranid invasion was a wake up call for them to stop being so Lawful Stupid, Games-Workshop just went too far
- Changeling The Lost deconstructs the various Mary Sue tropes in several ways. The Fairest kith is built on the idea, as some of the example Durances suggest that the world that Purity Sue lives in is a hellish one when closely examined— imagine being kidnapped from your ordinary life, and forced to be a beautiful princess who never stops smiling and never says no, and can understand the words of the things that can't speak, the one bastion of purity in a terrible, terrible world...
- ...and of course by the time they get out of Arcadia, the Fairest are seen as haughty, conniving and cruel, lording it over the other Changelings, or disconnected from reality and caught up in their own heads.
Video Games
- Reala in Tales Of Destiny 2. Born in an almost very ridiculous way, and she suddenly gains a lot of wisdom right off bat. The protagonist Kyle, who happens to be the son of the previous hero Stahn, immediately got fixated on her, she got along just fine with everyone, she gets to be the one who lectures Kyle the most (especially near the end), is not afraid in the face of imminent death, and worst of all... she is a Spotlight Stealing Girl, that the plot is really heavily fixated on her, especially when it's revealed that she is The daughter of God, along with the Big Bad, who ends up rebelling. And then, in the ending, she's killed, and everyone returns to their timeline, with their adventure annulled. But then... she is the only one who came back and remembers all the adventures! Man. The second you see her in the opening sequences, that should be a hint of her Sue-ness.
- Well, to be fair, Kyle REALLY wanted to be a hero due to all the tales of his father his mother told to him, and when Reala first arrived, she stated that she needed a hero since she needed someone strong enough to stop her sister Elraine and then promptly goes off to talk to all the previous heroes (she logically assumed that they were the go-to people if you needed heroes) from the original game, causing Kyle to chase after her, causing Loni and Judas to accompany him for personal reasons each, causing the whole game to happen, so there's a reason the plot is fixated on her. Her personality is also the type that's kind of hard to dislike anyway (I'd compare her to Colette or Estelle since this game is a case of No Export For You). Also, in all reality, she was the only one who COULD come back, since Leon and Harold's death already happened and Nanally, Loni and Kyle were all still around in the present. As for being the only one with the memories... well, she did kind of go outside time, and nobody knows whether or not Kyle remembers as well (all he says is a confused "Reala"). Don't get me wrong, she's still probably a Purity Sue, but you could say the same about some of the other Tales female leads with the reasons you're pointing out.
- I think the point is that the other Tales leads actually have genuine flaws. Colette? Very nice, but absolutely no self-esteem deep down and a big willingness to be used as a sacrificial lamb? Estelle? Constantly gets screwed over due to her lack of knowledge about the world and what her powers really do! And then there's Shirley... Dear God is there Shirley. Reala is just... well... Reala.
- Arcia in Granstream Saga is possibly one of the most disgusting examples in the gaming world. Absolutely everything including her "adorable" innocent laughter reeks of absolute Purity Sueness. This is emphasized even further by her contrast with the main character's other possible Love Interest, the dynamic and somewhat tomboyish Tsundere Laramee. While Laramee has a very no-nonsense and even pushy attitude in life, Arcia is pretty much of a Yamato Nadeshiko who's unable to conceive of any negative feeling in herself or others and who can't stick up for herself. If you choose to sacrifice her at the end, you also find out that she's a celestial being and that she was researching everybody. She then gets sent back. If being able to so easily cheat the viewer out of what was supposed to be a dramatic sacrifice doesn't clinch it, nothing will.
Web Comics
- Rikk in Fans; although the nature of the comic and it's parodying / homaging of fandom means he's more than likely intended as a parody (and indeed, many strips often play with the fact that a Pure Sue at times just isn't cut out for harsh realities of life and war), he strays a little too close at times to fulfilling this trope in completely seriousness. As if it wasn't enough that he's pretty much The Messiah, meaning he's loved and adored by almost everyone he comes into contact with (and if they don't worship the ground he walks on, then you can damn well be sure that they're a bad guy), he's capable of inspiring huge crowds with the power of his almost entirely improvised speeches, he's almost flawless (and is very self-perceptive of the relatively few flaws he does have) and has two women fighting tooth-and-claw over him throughout the entire strip (and by the end of the strip they've agreed to share him). Although the author acknowledged the potential for Mary Sue in the character and took steps to remedy this by pairing him up with the kinky, self-destructive Perky Goth Alisin, thus hinting at some hidden kinks , this in some ways just makes it worse, because her near-nymphomania means that on top of everything else, he's getting fantastic sex on a regular basis as well.
- Interestingly enough, Jim Goodlaw in David Gonterman's FoxFire fits this trope. Within the first couple strips, he has Stan Lee praise him for his artistic ability and offer an instructional video with the suggestion that he could work for Marvel someday (although one unintended interpretation of this scene that makes it untold levels of hilarious is that Stan Lee was playing a really mean practical joke). From that point on, pretty much everybody that meets Jim simply won't shut up about how awesome he is, how cool his artwork is, and several girls want to date him.
Western Animation
- Lila is a deliberate example from Hey Arnold. On the other hand, Helga's older Olga is a deconstruction of this trope: she looks like one, but the pressure of keeping up with the Purity Sue image does get to her more than once.
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