Why don't you guys allow any example of Mary Sue, at all?

I must confess, I don't get it. First you deleted all Mary Sue examples in the trope pages, and now I see that you are also deleting them in the YMMV pages despite it being perfectly clear that it is an entirely subjective trope (that's what YMMV stands for). Even iconic examples (Berii Shirayuki? Frikkin' Enoby Dark'ness?) are disallowed because... what, they're too much Flame Bait-y? How is that so? I can see deleting notoriously controversial examples (like Rey from Star Wars), but not this. Not everything. Because right now Mary Sue is a phantom trope: it theoretically exists but no one knows or has seen any example of it. And this despite it being one of the most notorious bad character tropes ever. I simply don't get it. Can you explain it to me?

edited 14th Mar '16 4:54:02 AM by KhlavKalash

It's simple: Mary Sue has no objective criteria. It's solely used as a vehicle for complaining. Those few examples that may be considered iconic are drowned out by the noise. If we allow examples, they will not remain contained to the ones that "everyone agrees on". We tried it for a long time, and it was a complete disaster.

Mary Sue no longer has any value in criticism. It's a fossil trope, gathering dust.

:( Mary sue is an iconic trope of legend. Oh well.

What Fighteer says is not likely correct due to framing generalizations as absolutes, but it is probably true in principal. There is probably nothing wrong with the trope, but it likely saw horrendous abuse.

It died about ten minutes after Ensign Mary Sue coined the idea and someone decided, "Hey, let's call every fan fiction character that I think is too unrealistic or idealized a Mary Sue!"

Or any character, really. It's a pretty worthless term nowadays.

While there are still some people who use the term in a somewhat objective manner, most usage is little more than "character I don't like". That made it functionally impossible to keep a lid on misuse, so the chainsaws came out to play.

And she must die.

It's one of those tropes that while it technically is a proper trope, it just doesn't work to have a page with examples on it. There's a reason why Parody Sue has examples on it, since that's easily checked.

Fixer Sue and Copy Cat Sue still have examples, for some reason, and they to a large part consist of generic examples in the form of "this happens a lot".

Parody Sue also lacks the capacity to start Flame Wars.

There's nothing on teh intrawebs that lacks the capacity to start flame wars. There are however some things that are less likely to. Having more objectivity to it helps a lot. "The character accidentally ended up with a few traits that match the description," is a whole lot flimsier than, "The author intentionally played these traits up for the purpose of parodying the character archetype."

We got tired of every character and their dog being listed as Mary Sue because of its overuse as shorthand for "I don't like this character". Calling someone - especially a female character - a Mary Sue even for something so simple as being a main character is a popular tactic on the internet for masking dislike as criticism.

Because it puts the impetus on the character rather than the critic. Logic goes that everyone knows that Mary Sue is a poorly written character, so if I say that Alice from Bob and Alice's Wacky Funtime Adventure is a Mary Sue, that means she's a bad character rather than one that doesn't appeal to my sensibilities. I'm not the problem, the Work is.

Then, having a largely nebulous definition, you can't prove she's not a Mary Sue. And if you can't prove she's not, then she must be a Mary Sue because I said she is and that's the only criteria needed. Therefore, Alice is the worst character ever written and the writer hates men. Point proven!

These are exactly the kind of pointless, circular arguments that having Mary Sue as a trope creates and it gets very aggravating, very fast. Mary Sue is a conversation killer; rather than encouraging discussion and deliberation of tropes and other qualities the character has, breaking out that name for a character abruptly shifts the topic to complaint versus defense.

Some people think that if they can slip in some tropes about how Alice is the shittiest character ever created, then having Alice noted as the shittiest character ever on our site makes it official. It will communicate Alice's horribleness to the universe and everyone will stand in unison that characters like Alice must never be created again. But casting judgment as to who is a bad character or which is the shittiest movie isn't what we do here. Ultimately, we are about celebrating fiction.

Now, as I'm basically just restating what's already been said, I think the question's pretty well answered. Are we done here?

edited 15th Mar '16 9:49:38 AM by TobiasDrake

This. The conceit of Mary Sue is that there can be objective standards for "badness" that one can apply, ignoring that people can have differences of opinion. It's a form of the old rhetorical trick called "poisoning the well".

Anyway, while the conversation is pointless, I was planning to leave it open for the OP to see and possibly give a response to, but if they don't, I'll lock it later today.

I'd say the problem with Mary Sue is people started applying it to non-fanfiction works. In fanfiction, the criteria for being a Mary Sue is fairly objective: an Original Character who outshines the Canon characters and receives a lot more attention and love from the author than they do. That's pretty straightforward. It's when you move out of fanfiction and into non-derivative works, where every character is an original character, that the term loses all meaning.

Can we just kill the old definition and replace it with so we don't have a needlessly long Wall of Text? It also justifies the existence of Canon Sue.

(Keep them as Flame Bait, though)

No, because the page needs to catch the ways the term is used in the world, not just one person's definition.

What about Mary Suetopia? Should that one have examples? It's basically "badly written" utopia. And given the added political component, what counts as bad is even more subjective if anything.

Yeah I would agree chopping that one, open a repairshop.

There are some works that invoke Mary Suetopia, deliberately deconstructing their precepts. City of Reality is one such. So there might be room for In-Universe applications, just as there are for the other Mary Sue concepts.

edited 16th Mar '16 11:17:26 AM by Fighteer

Speaking of pages that still have examples: why do Fixer Sue and Copy Cat Sue still have examples? Apart perhaps from being fanfic-centric, I don't see any way they're more valid than the rest of the pages.

To reiterate some of what other people have said: Just because a trope is misused and abused does not make it invalid. As those two are harder to abuse, emergency action is far less likely to be needed.

No, that's what you've been saying. Most other people have been saying that the term is irredeemably toxic (a viewpoint I 100 percent endorse) and cannot be salvaged.

I see. I'm pretty sure that's the first time I said that, but that doesn't invalidate the claim that I am the only person who is saying that.

I must have misread. Carry on.

edited 16th Mar '16 6:24:30 PM by war877

Personally, I think the various Sue-tropes should be able to be used in derivative works (like fanfics or adaptations) to describe OCs who exhibit Mary Sue-like traits. That seems to me like enough hard criteria to nail down ("OC is so special that they outshine the canon characters"), but I understand the idea that the trope is too toxic to not touch.

Even there, it would risk misuse for unfinished works. There are a lot of reasons why an OC might outshine the canon characters initially, and they're the same reasons the source's writer might introduce a character who outshines the established ones.

Maybe the writer's just trying to give the character an impressive introduction before folding them into the cast. Maybe they're supposed to be impressive because they're actually the villain and the scenes of them overshadowing the protagonists are building retroactive tension for the reveal that, oh shit, we have to fight this person. Maybe they don't really exist and the characters are in a Lotus-Eater Machine. There's tons of reasons to introduce a character who is a unique and special snowflake right off the bat that can actually work within the narrative, and those reasons aren't exclusive to people who own the IP.

Take Future Trunks for example. If you've only far enough in the story - possibly because that's all that's been published at this hypothetical point in time - to get to where he shows up out of nowhere with a vague but not-yet-established connection to existing character Bulma, is a Super Saiyan somehow, and effortlessly slaughters previous arc villain Frieza and his father, King Cold then he is obviously a Mary Sue. Were the story a fanfic and the trope allowed there, then one might be tempted to list him as such before the later chapters explain everything, demonstrate that Goku still outclasses him, and have him adopt a supporting role.

edited 22nd Mar '16 10:37:19 AM by TobiasDrake

Mary Sue as a term is inherently complainy anyway.

No, it's not, but it's because people believe that it doesn't work.