A new Mary Sue test

Sues tend to be what the author wants to be; they're wish-fulfilment characters. For those with some degree of gender dysphoria, Sues can indeed be opposite-gender. Is that common?

A brighter future for a darker age.

I really like the Incompatible Orientation idea, as it seems much more likely to rule out a character from being a Sue then merely being the opposite gender.

I'm drawing a blank on examples of it happening, so offhand I'm going to say no.

Nous restons ici.

While there seems to be a definite correlation between sues and being the same sex as the writer, it's not a very strong one at all. I mean, consider you have a story and you have two (probably) choices for gender, and most stories have characters of both genders, well this doesn't really bode well for the mary sue test.

I would however put points for something like the character does something unusual/disallowed for their sex in the setting/time period.

There's the gender dysphoria issue, but there's also the separate issue of taking all the traits an author finds attractive and assembling a wish fulfillment character from that. Relationship Sues are often of this type; Edward Cullen would be a prime example.

My own worst Sue character was female, and I think there was an element of both those things there.

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All my sues are the opposite gender of me.

They are also all kind of...built with dynamics that I would be attracted to.

Oddly enough, this is a complete 180 from when I was younger, and all of my sues were the same gender as me.

Read my stories!

Rerunning The Arbiter of Planes, who was a Mary Sue that I've tried to tone down as much as possible without changing the story.

Section 1: 1, 4, 5: 3 points

Section 2: 11, 11b (an empire he created!), 13 (because he's a wanted criminal in the Aniverse), 15, 17 (one of his main powers), 18 (despised by the D-Police, but not any other group): 15 points.

Section 3: 21, 21a, 21b (his race is the most common where he's originally from, but rare in the Aniverse, and unique in the FC - 'verse [yes, he travels between multiverses]), 27 (The Ring of Overdeification, which he created, and gave him his current powers, before being subsequently lost), 28 ("The Arbiter of Planes"), 28a (for aiding the planar lords in saving the multiverse), 30 (he's considered a legend - most mortals who find themselves at the gates of The Office of the Arbiter of Planes are shocked to discover it's a real place), 33, 33a (but not at the same time, he ends up sacrificing one power to gain another), 35 (see 28a): 18 points.

Section 3a: 45 (only works if you kill him), 46, 50 (he's a Magnificent Bastard who is blackmailing the planar lords, though not even close to the most Magnificent Bastard-ly character in the setting): 4 points

Section 4: 51 (see 28a), 58 (see 28a), 58a (see 28a), 61 (see 28a): 12 points

Section 5: 82 (only when he's killed - see 17): 3 points

Section 6: 86, 86a, 87, 91, 91a, 91c, 92, 94, 95, 96, 96a, 98, 99, 100: 14 points

Total: 55 - 14 = 41 points

I may have to change the story

---

Nekssa the Insane Marilith, another "deliberately de-suified Sue".

Section 1: 4 (wrestling, and can dual - wield katanas [actually 6 at once - but that's normal for her race]): 1 point

Section 2: 7 (normal in the Crapsack World setting), 9 & 10 (but she's Too Kinky to Torture), 15 (she was tricked into getting into a fight that left her lieutenants killed), 18, 19 (more of a Minion with an F in Evil): 12 points

Section 3: 21, 21a (lesser Mariliths are pretty rare - in fact keeping one as a slave is a status symbol, even amung Pit Fiends), 25 (several, actually, but that's normal for an auxilliary cohort commander), 26a (she prefers to wear jewelry and armor, and nothing else), 28 ("Nekssa the Insane Marilith"): 10 points

Section 3a: 39, 42, 43 (looks like this), 44, 45, 46, 47, 50 (being a Cloudcuckoolander Minion with an F in Evil / Hero with an F in Good, and Dangerously Genre-Savvy): 9 points

Section 4: 54, 63: 6 points

Section 5: -

Section 6: 85, 85b, 89 (lost 2 of 6 arms, use of an eye, and part of her skull - not so serious a handicap), 92, 92a (is a POW, so she was rescued by enemies), 93a, 94 (Mainly due to Evil Cannot Comprehend Good), 98, 100: 7 points

Total: 31 points

"Then again, if your setting tends to be over-the-top, he or she may fit right in."

edited 23rd Sep '11 8:56:06 AM by FrodoGoofballCoTV

@AHR, Bobby: I think maybe it's that in most cases it takes a better or at least more confident writer to write an opposite-gender character, and thus the most awful examples of Sue tend to be same-gender.

A brighter future for a darker age.

That's true.

Although my most hated sue was a girl written by a guy, but it WAS written in a time when that archetype was allowed.

Hmmmm.

I think the thing is, is same gender (assuming no gender hate or dysphora) = self insert, other gender (assuming a straight person) = idealization.

edited 23rd Sep '11 11:53:57 AM by MrAHR

Read my stories!

I have an idea for a new de-Suifier:

"Despite being more skilled than the majority of the cast, it is shown in the plot that it was extremely difficult for him to obtain such skills"

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

I'm torn on the 'obtains skills insanely quickly' bit. It seems as if it's meant to apply to people who learn things that quickly just because, or to move the plot along, and the most justification it's given is "because they're that awesome". Which is obviously a Sue trait, and a fairly off-putting one. However, both the characters I've put through these sorts of tests (the protagonist of my novel-type-thing and my Naruto from a fanfic) have justifications for learning stuff stupidly fast; the former has Bullet Time and can fake years of practice by slowing things down enough that he can consciously think what he's doing through, and the latter has, of course, shadow clones. Do justifications like this count against its Sueishness, or do they just encourage Sues with threadbare justifications tacked on?

Shinigan (Naruto fanfic)

Desuifier idea: Dies because of something that was their own fault.

At first I didn't realize I needed all this stuff...

I'd say if there's a reason justified by the plot, then it wouldn't count. If your reason is "because they're that cool", that's just using the character to justify themselves, which doesn't work. If your reason is "he was implanted with a microchip that allows him to pick up skills insanely fast", well, if your story does a good job of telling us why this character has that chip, then you're good. If not, it's still Sueish.

edited 23rd Sep '11 10:10:12 PM by tropetown

@P Down: A better one would be: Someone (including themselves) dies because of something that was their own fault.

Or even: Someone (including themselves) unintentionally dies because of something that was the character's fault.

edited 23rd Sep '11 10:35:49 PM by tropetown

@alethiophile

Mine is a peculiar case.

Learning The Mystery of Time and Space is known to require more effort than many years of practice in any other "normal" skill. It is, in fact, insanely difficult (and the most difficult thing my protagonist managed in the first book, and he's not the only one). It requires a practically irrational level of obsession and the learner even suffers a mental detachment of reality while trying to discover it. However, not only does it give a perfect spatial notion, perfectly precise movements and the capacity to focus great effort to multiply your strength, it also allows the one who knows it to learn new skills very quickly.

edited 23rd Sep '11 10:25:15 PM by Teraus

"You cannot judge a system if your judgement is determined by the system."

Which sounds rather like mine. I like playing around with powers and such that have easy meta-applications for Taking a Level in Badass, but I like to justify them. (Couldn't have things that annoy me in other people's work in mine, after all—or at least try not to.) I also like characters that are not necessarily high-cool-factor, but are ridiculously badass. So avoiding Sueishness is something I put a lot of thought into.

Shinigan (Naruto fanfic)

Teraus, alethiophile, tropetown:

The trick, as I see it, is that justification (however strong) is only part of the issue. However good the explanation, it's simply problematic to have a character who is far better at everything than the rest of the cast. It can lead to uninteresting stories because you know who's going to win and uninteresting character interactions because the power imbalance is so great. So while it's clearly better to have an explanation—and it scores two points fewer—I don't think any justification can make it not a potential problem.

(I say "can" because of course it's quite possible to write fascinating, complex characters with those traits—those traits can even be what makes them interesting. For instance, the Aang/Katara interactions are partly interesting because Aang picks everything up so much faster than Katara and that creates conflict. And I haven't read your stories, so I can't judge them specifically. Neither this nor any test can answer "have you found a way to make it work?"—it only tells you that most of the time, handled by most writers, it wouldn't work.)

P down and chihuahua:

Very possibly (I can stick it onto "mistakes have negative consequences" as a sub-question). My reservation is that it can be used as a woobie backstory (think "And I wasn't able to save her!").

Another de-Suifier I'd like to add is body horror, especially non-human forms of reproduction (budding, pollinating, etc). But since I've got exactly 100 questions, I have to take something off.

On that note - as far as personal appearance questions go, when using nonhuman characters, should we try and answer from a human perspective or the perspective of their species? What Insectoid Aliens find attractive is obviously not what we would, for instance.

Generally from the perspective of the author. Do you think your character is unusually attractive?

I just redid the test with another character (actually, it's essentially the same character I ran through it the first time; I just transplanted his place in the story and personality traits onto the character they originated from: it's a long story), and question 97 was a little difficult to answer. What if your story has multiple perspectives? Who do you consider a hero, and who is a villain? My story operates on Black-and-Grey Morality, you see (and that's not even throwing in my own moral concepts), so most of the heroes are villains to someone else, and most of the villains are heroes to themselves and others. Of course, there are exceptions; I do have Complete Monsters and purely heroic characters, to provide a contrast.

For the record, my character got 15 this time.

edited 23rd Sep '11 11:30:34 PM by tropetown

There's also the issue that Sue tests are basically designed for people who aren't used to thinking. The rule of thumb is, if you get a high score on the Sue test and you don't have good reasons to hand why the character isn't actually a Sue, then you aren't a good enough writer (or at least don't think things through enough) to make all the traits that gave you the high score work. It functions as a warning for more experienced authors, as well, but should by no means disqualify anything unconditionally.

I think I should make that one of my Stock Pieces Of Writing Advice, alongside 'Execution is everything'—"Nothing substitutes for thinking."

Shinigan (Naruto fanfic)

I also think that too much focus is being placed, here, on "this doesn't HAVE to mean they're a Sue" — the point is not individual questions but overall just how many Points Of Specialness a character has, and thus a rough guide to how easy it would be for this character to be a Sue. Every character is going to get some points. Heroic characters in a story where Cool Powers are dime-a-dozen may get more. That's to be expected.

@jeweled: do you have to stick to a hundred questions? I don't see an absolute need to do so, though it does make scoring easier.

A brighter future for a darker age.

I don't, of course, it just seems odd for a test to have, say, 103 questions