Mary-sues in Family Guy.

Yes, another Family Guy conversation. Does anyone agree with me that a few of the characters in Seth Mc Farlane's comedy Family Guy are mary sues? I have a few reasons why I can make this statement.

-Brian: Much like Seth Mc Farlane, he is a Democrat. He never suffers any real karma for his occasionally insane acts (like holding the mayor hostage to prevent gay marriage from being banned in Quahog), and his views generally get the upper hand. In "Not All Dogs Go To Heaven", he is able to convince Meg that her views on religion are wrong in just a simple speech. Jesus agrees with him on his idea that "All religion is crap". When he DOES get a "Reason You Suck" Speech, it's from a sex pervert who has low moral standards, just to make Brian sympathetic.

-Peter: In "Seahorse Seashell Party", Meg retracted HER RYSS so that the family would not collapse, and has the gall to tell him that he's a decent parent. Just to save his ego. And it appears he keeps some form of sanity in the household. In "Family Gay" and "Back to the Woods", the family treats Peter's absence like the worst thing ever. Granted, he IS their dad, but he is an abusive asshole to them. And we must mention Lois feeling bad about HER RYSS in "Baby not on Board" just because Peter quoted Planes Trains And Automobiles?

-Lois: Essentially Peter, but gender-flopped.

Any character being a sue is up for debate, and apologies are had if this was discussed in an earlier conversation. Does anybody agree or disagree?

Brian is NOT a Sue,he is frequently attacked by Lois and Peter,is the target of Quagmire ever since that "The Reason You Suck" Speech,and he always gets hit hard by karma for being such a pathetic loser.At best,you can consider him Seth's Doomed Moral Victor but considering everyone calls him out on some of the crazier things he's done,that's hardly the case.

Why am I answering this,I don't like the show,and I hate threads that start like this.

I don't see this thread surviving.

I think the fact that Quagmire delivered the big "Reason You Suck" Speech isn't supposed to win Brian any points, we're not supposed to be sympathetic just cause it's Quagmire. If anything recent years have both Flanderized the hell out of Quagmire AND given him more aspects to his personality.

This is one problem the show definitely doesn't have.

All the characters tend to get away with a lot of crap that they may as well be Jerk Sues, though it's hard to tell whether that's really the case since the show pretty much thrives on being as immoral and mean spirited as possible.

I admit the show sometimes gives really Broken Aesops when it's trying to be earnest however, and all three characters are usually the ones who end up delivering them. Perhaps one of the few redeeming points of Seasons Nine and Ten is that all of them have been called out big time for being hypocritical deadbeats, even if they haven't really become any more sympathetic from it.

It might not be so much it trying to make the characters supportable as much as it is just parodying classic sitcom archetypes. Lois is a Women Are Wiser parody for example, but most of her dynamic revolves around an unsubtle darker hypocritical side to her (same for Francine and Donna in Seth's other shows), while Peter and his respective counterparts parody the Bumbling Dad that is supposedly all the more loveable for making an ass of everything, even ruining his friends' lives and abusing his family. Truth be told, most sitcoms have similar instances where both archetypes are Designated Heroes or Karma Houdinis, just Family Guy completely erases any subtlety from it whatsoever.

As for the Quagmire vs Brian thing, it hasn't really been seen since Tiegs For Two, where they were both depicted as being equally vindictive jerks. Ever since the speech Brian has mostly been depicted as a straight played Jerkass Attention Whore.

edited 18th Sep '12 6:06:40 PM by Psi001

I don't see any of those characters as very Sue-like, although Lois does come close. Brian was also a borderline case in the first couple of seasons, but that's been abandoned. If anything, he's coming close to Butt-Monkey status now.

The previous two season have pretty much done as much to put Lois and Brian off their high horse as possible, it's just that it's mostly done in a manner that makes them even more repulsive than before (eg. Brian Writes A Bestseller or Excellence In Broadcasting). They're still jerks who refuse to learn anything, just the jerkishness is recognised (and even exaggerated) and played perfectly straight.

I've just come to the conclusion the show doesn't really know how to make likeable characters anymore, even when it's trying to.

edited 19th Sep '12 11:47:25 AM by Psi001

I don't think there are any Mary Sues in this show. Brian and Lois used to be though, but were Flanderized into callous jerks. The Quagmire vs Brian thing isn't even funny anymore, since both of them aren't innocent as some people make them out to be.

Many characters have Jerk Sue traits, but it applies more into the show's Comedic Sociopathy and because if they weren't, the cast likely wouldn't hold together for so much as ten minutes without killing each other.

Heck even Chris has Jerk Sue traits as of late (joining Peter and Lois when it comes to abusing Meg). The problem with the show that the characters have been Flanderized so badly that even if they were to shift back into what they used to be, a few characters will just end up getting worse. I would say that Bonnie Swanson is a Mary Sue, but the fact that she tried to have an affair just averts that trope for her.

Didn't they have an episode where Joe had an affair, and he basically pointed out the whole hypocrisy of her being upset about it?

Yes, but Bonnie said she was "planning" on it, but didn't go through with it.

This thread seems to have a strange definition of Mary Sue...

She admited to cheating on Joe to Lois in another episode too, another that oozed of The Unfair Sex admitedly.

The word Mary Sue gets abuse so much to the point where it loses it's original meaning.

Much like the term Troll.

This thread should really be closed. Can someone get a Mod? I really don't know any of them that well.