Mary Sue Must Die: a call to arms

I agree with that statement, but just because a term is slung around and misused doesn't mean it doesn't have a place.

I see it in the same area as the word "pretentious" is. Used needlessly, but needed for the definition that no other word describes. In my personal opinion, anyway.

This may seem like splitting hairs, but a common argument that I hear is that these characters have "cute" flaws. Flaws that give writers an excuse to point to a character and say "see, they have flaws" when most people in the real world still wouldn't hesitate to trade their lives in a heartbeat. So Beautiful, It's a Curse is a primary example, and it's often touted as a sure sign of a Mary Sue.

Tony Stark's "flaw" is that he gets to party too much, screw too many slutty women, and be a dick to as many people as he can while still being a genius billionaire playboy philanthropist. So let's repeat that: he parties, boozes, man-whores, and treats people like crap and still gets to be beloved. That's not a real flaw; that's the American dream in a nutshell.

Same thing with Reed Richards. His only flaw is that he's just so smart that sometimes he's too busy inventing a time machine to spend time with his family. You know, his supermodel-hot wife that even the King of Atlantis would give his right arm to bang. And his two children—one of which is a supergenius who is even smarter than he is AND has better invisibility powers than his wife and the other which is pretty much God.

As for Spider-man. ...Okay, pull up a chair.

Spider-man is the ultimate tale of a character who betrays the very principles he was created to stand for. He was supposed to be an Audience Surrogate, but he's also a scientific genius that eventually married a supermodel and became Friends with Benefits with the world's buxomest cat burglar. Spider-man's life "sucks", but that's because of Wangst and problems he ultimately causes hismelf. Linkara gives a perfect spiel about the inherent problem with Spider-man; all in all, Peter Parker has lived an amazing life, but we're supposed to look past all of his successes and focus primarily on his failures (such as his It's Not You, It's My Enemies whining) when most of those problems were unnecessarily caused by himself. Both the Blue Beetle comic and Avengers Academy pointed out flaws in his entire gimmick (such as constantly leaving his friends and family in danger by NOT telling them he's Spider-man or failing to use smart business practices to use both his powers and his inventions to improve quality of life for himself and the world). Spider-man, with your definition of Mary Sue, probably fits better than any other character on this list. Tony Stark and Reed Richards are beloved, handsome and successful with women (in their own way), but because they earned it. Spider-man shmucks his way into those situations, fucks them up completely on his own, and then whines about how much is life sucks and expects the audience to sympathize.

Spider Man has problems with his characterization, but Mary Sue being that problem is not it.

Tony Stark is very hard to write. I think that one of the strengths (once again, movies for me), is how well he's written.

One of the rules of writing, I've found, is that any rule ever can be broken if you're a good enough writer and can "pull it off"

I'm not just talking about Mary Sues though. I mean breaking the worst things ever. Mirror scenes. Telling not showing. Too much prose. Not enough prose. Etc. etc.

Also, I'd honestly reccomend not using characters who have been swapped around with different writers. One person's realistic and interesting take on Batman, and another person's overly idealized take on Batman result in an argument that could go either way.

Try using examples from one source. Easier.

So are you saying they're not Mary Sues? Again, why? You basically just said "Nuh-uh" for Spider-man but didn't actually provide a counterargument.

edited 14th Sep '12 12:56:25 PM by KingZeal

I already told you, I'm not going to have any more discussion on characters written by multiple people.

That's side-stepping the issue. Being a Mary Sue doesn't require that you were written by one writer.

So how about Tom Strong? He's basically Reed Richards meets Superman.

How about Captain Jack Sparrow?

How about Driz'zt DoUrden?

edited 14th Sep '12 1:01:55 PM by KingZeal

I've always thought of Mary Sue's as simply unrealistically written characters, with their absurdity stemming from any number of corrupted factors, such as their personality (Personality flaws or graces), the way others react to them (Generally extremely polarized, and more often than not unrelated to their personality...), and the way the environment itself treats them (Do they have polarized luck, are they inexplicably gifted, etc.) to name the major ones. It brings to mind the Uncanny Valley effect, actually. Not to mention the Uncanny Valley affect.

Naturally, there are probably any number of unrealistic personalities in fiction that are not associated with being a Sue, so it's not that great a description.

Though don't get me wrong—I don't like how, "Mary Sue," is used.

If everyone has a personal definition of a word, then how can it be used to properly communicate an idea?

The problem with using it as a term for criticism is that you have to explain what you mean by Mary Sue.. in which case, you could just skip using the term entirely.

And, as I said before, this is exactly why 'Mary Sue' is a useless term - it puts all the focus on 'something is wrong with this character' and not 'something is wrong with the writing'. The problem is pretty much always 'this character interferes with or does not contribute to this story', not 'this character is bad'. With the term 'Mary Sue' we just create an entire category for characters who are bad without looking at why. (NONE of the traits you listed in your definition are individually loathsome.)

We have the Scrappy (and it various flavors) for a character that the writer/creator adores but the audience hates. It's easier to define, Doug Walker got it right with NC's "Top Eleven Dumbasses In Distress" (link).

On this wiki we have a list of Common Mary Sue Traits, I think that's a good tip off on "Mary Sue-ness". Sure one or more is not a cause for alarm but too many and you risk the audience going "Dafaq am I watching?"

It's not just bad writing, Goddess knows I have low tastes in books and movies. I'm willing to put up with B-grade schlock. It's not being unusual or a badass. Gen Patton was a real life Four-Star Badass, Audie Murphy did things IRL that had to be toned down for the movie "To Hell and Back." Even he thought people wouldn't believe it.

This quote distills "Mary Sue":

I agree that the term is overused. Some of it is fan dumb. Every work has characters that you just loathe. That's not quite it. There is X-Pac heat for actors that the viewers hate.

But there are characters that are so bad even the actors hate them. The former page for The Westley used an image of Wil Wheaton as the trope namer: Westley Crusher. Even he hated that character. Westley saves the ship, despite being 16 years old. He commits every sin listed above. The writers realized (sorta) what was going on and put him on a shuttlecraft. They didn't kill him off because "Wesley" is Gene Rodenberry's middle name!

Mary Sue/Gary Stu whatever you call it is a character that breaks the viewer as much as it break the plot. Whether she's a fanfic character or part of the canon, if the plot and character interaction revolves around it, it's a Mary Sue.

I'd love to see a better, more specific term. Until then it exists much the same way we have "Panama Hats" that aren't made in Panama*

edited 15th Sep '12 5:42:38 AM by TairaMai

So once again. Explain why Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Superman and Spider-man are not Mary Sues.

Which version of them, and by which writer?

Any version of them, by any writer.

And you ignored my last post, in which I implicitly gave examples of characters created by one writer.

edited 15th Sep '12 7:38:22 AM by KingZeal

Any version results in ANY interpretation. I ignored your previous post, because by the time I came back, you had already fallen back on the super hero argument, even though it's impossible to run a successful debate with them, because you could take ANY story from ANY year, and ANY continuity, and come up with WILDLY different conclusions. for example.◊

edited 15th Sep '12 7:47:07 AM by MrAHR

Depending on the Writer:

• Tony Stark: do other characters talk about how smart the character is or is that just a given? Tony Stark built the suit (in a cave with a box of scraps!) but the movie just takes his abilities as a given and moves on. A Mary Sue? We'd never hear the end of how smart Tony was or how he cured cancer in his spare time. The movie (and I've mostly seen the movies), just says "He's smart, next scene!" and wisely moves on.

Pepper Potts is immune to Tony's charms, until their UST is resolved. And by then the resolution is earned (after her rant at Tony). He fights with his best friend, almost gets pwnd by the big bads in both movies. The movies are paced well. It's a comic book movie and you'd exepect schlock. I think the first two Iron Man movies saved Robert Downey Jr's career (it helps that as a recovering addict he can play Tony's demons better).

The Avengers was boring for me because the interaction between Banner and Stark was just dull. I don't care how smart they are, fire a laser or hulk out! It's as if Joss Weldon read the outline of Iron Man 2 for Tony's character. He tired to write him as a rebel but he came off as an asshat. And the other heroes still came to his aid! That pings the Mary Sue-o-meter[tm].

• Spiderman: Peter Parker is an Anti-sue, a whine that would put a jet engine to shame. Spiderman is a deadpan snarker who made a super strong adhesive in his spare time. Both recipes for a Mary Sue sammich. The movie and the animated series made Peter Parker human, the whine was normal for a kid. Hell, drop movie Peter Parker into my college classes or basic training platoon and he'd blend right in. Spiderman doesn't always win. Mary Sue forgets that she has a civilian identity. Animated Spiderman may have spouted one liners but the inner-monologue was Peter Paker, wondering if he was really a hero. Movie Peter Parker is Spiderman after he gets a chance to "give up" his powers. If it wasn't for Mary Jane, he would have been glad to be normal. The third movie sucked because "Emo-Spidey" (fitting nickname IMO) was a Mary Sue. Wangst and unlikeable, he still manages to win. I want to see the reboot if this has changed.

• Reed Richards, I got nothing. I hated the movies. It's just too easy to make Richards a Mary Sue. And that's why he's ripe for parody. Hell, the DC version was a villain and a cyborg. Perhaps if he looked like he was made of tire rubber he'd be more sympathetic to Ben Grimm.

It's not just that Mary Sue has cool colors for hair or can fly. It's that she/he/it is a Flat Character that is NOTHING without cool powers or being the focus of the story.

edited 15th Sep '12 7:52:46 AM by TairaMai

Not really. You're the ones who are saying that a "a few common traits" is enough to assign a label, right? Any canon version of Superman you find is still going to be a physical god who's the last of his kind and is Christ-like in his crusade against evil. Any canon version of Tony Stark is still a genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist with a super-sophisticated suit of armor. Any canon version of Reed Richards is a super-intelligent, world-renowned inventor/explorer dating/married to a hot blond. Any canon version of Spider-man is going to be a scientific genius that married a supermodel and/or dates a busty cat burglar and/or has adventures and abilities.

Tony's genius is CONSTANTLY brought up to the point that Doctor Doom (who is a pathological NARCISSIST) grudgingly admits that Tony is a better inventor than him. Even in the films, we never learn HOW Tony gets the materials he needs to build the suit. He seemingly has enough resources to build two working A.I.s, a nuclear particle accelerator, and a multi-million dollar suit (the comics mention that each suit is worth millions) and even in the second film, when the US GOVERNMENT wants to shut him down, they have no options but to ask him nicely. What, does he have a titanium mine in his garage? Where is he getting these materials? Because he's Tony Stark, so shut up.

Tony could have Pepper any time he wanted. The problem in the UST is on his end, not hers. All it would take would be for Tony to just scoop her into his arms to end it. And in the second film, that's exactly what happens. She gets pissed at him, tells him she quits and that she can't live with the pressure of—whoops, nevermind. Tony kisses her, and that changes everything.

Thank you.

DC has two homages to Reed: one became the Cyborg Superman and the other is a member of the Challengers Of The Unknown and a hero.

edited 15th Sep '12 8:00:12 AM by KingZeal

Just searched the entire thread. No one ever said that.

I think that might be why the movies avoided Black Cat. Mary Jane...she's more of a damsel scrappy. Funny, the movies made her...plain, IMO. Keep in mind I had girl-crushes on Kirsten Dunst among others. So I was surprised at how plain she was as Mary Jane (and her character...who needs to be saved from their own food?!).

It's delivery. Seeing Tony Stark(movie) cope with death and that his genius was failing him? Good character. Hell, the stages of dying, that was his character arc! Stark!comics, I think his alcoholism has been used as an example of wangst by bloggers for the reasons you cite.

Superman, I agree with you 1000%. He's just not interesting if you're over the age of 10 (and don't get me started on Supergirl...). At least one of the Superman movies tried with Superman giving up his powers to be with Lois Lane. Christoper Reeves saved a schmaltzy movie. "My blood!" That line gives me chills. The rest of the movies? A 7-8 on the Mary Sue-O-meter.

edited 15th Sep '12 8:06:48 AM by TairaMai

Maybe acording to your definition.

But I have seen many people include round characters as sues. In fact I have seen powerlesss characters being called "sues".

The doctor for example is a round character and in fact interesting without "powers" and I have seen many people swear he is a sue, same goes for sherlock Holmes.

I am 21 and a BIG fan of superman. Perhaps you haven't seen Smallville or All star superman? maybe some stuff written by Dwayne Mc Duffie?

Supergirl was great in JLU imo."Little girl lost" was one of my favorite supergirl episodes ever.

Just because you don't like them it means they are bad characters.

edited 15th Sep '12 8:15:07 AM by FallenLegend

Taira, I'm actually a fan of all the characters I mentioned. A huge fan, in fact. Superman is one of my favorite fictional characters, ever.

My point is that I can assign the label to just about every superhero that exists.

Mr AHR: Night paraphrased it in Post 36.

You yourself listed a "definition" that ticked off traits in Page 42.

I am not Night, so do not assume Night's argument is my own.

Furthermore, I distinctly recall posting a definition that did not say that. Wish-fulfillment is not a character trait, because it's a method of being written.

Wish-fulfillment is definitely a trait. It's basically the main trait that defines an Escapist Character—something most Sues are accused of being.

Every fictional character is someone's Mary Sue.

I agree completely with the OP- Mary Sue used to mean something. Now it doesn't. A word whose definition nobody can agree on is functionally pretty useless.

Rather than calling every badly written character a Mary Sue and then completely redefining the term to fit your purposes, wouldn't it be easier to say that the character is a reality warper, or is taking over the story, or is annoying to read about? Everyone can easily agree what these things mean, and they point out clear problems that can be addressed, rather than just throwing out a vague, generic criticism that the author will more likely than not find insulting and uncalled-for.

Wish fulfillment is not a character trait unless it's something the character exhibits in-universe, and not out of universe, much in the same way if a book is very political, a character does not necessarily have that as a trait.

edited 15th Sep '12 12:25:55 PM by MrAHR