Meet Mary Sue

[Pripyat Pony 2,608]

This is a basic introduction to Mary Sue, and her brother Gary Stu, and some tips on how to avoid her.

1. Who is Mary Sue?

Mary Sue is a character in fanfiction or roleplay who is so perfect as to be annoying. A Mary Sue character is usually written by a beginning author, altho Mary Sues pop up in published fiction as well. Often, the Mary Sue is a self-insert with a few "improvements" (ex. better body, more popular, etc). The Mary Sue character is almost always beautiful, smart, etc... In short, she is the "perfect" girl. Her brother, Gary Stu, is just as annoying. The Mary Sue usually falls in love with the author's favorite character(s) and winds up upstaging all of the other characters in the book/series/universe. In roleplay, her effect is ten times worse as other players get frustrated with a character who's the best at everything, loved by all (even the villain), grabs all the best storylines, never makes mistakes and makes the story all about them. In short, a Mary Sue can kill a roleplay stone dead. Altho it's tempting to want to make a Mary Sue, for roleplaying purposes it's best not to, as character development, mistakes etc make a roleplay better for all participants.

2. What makes a Mary Sue?

There are certain traits which make up a Mary Sue. They are listed here as well as some tips on how to avoid them.

Pointlessly flowery description. For example; "Her hair was golden like the sun shining on ripening wheat." Completely unnecessary. We call this "purple prose".  This is when a writer uses elaborate overdescription when talking about a character's looks, clothes etc. It is especially annoying when coupled with "My Immortal Syndrome" or "Twilight Syndrome". These were coined by my friends and I, and mean either exhaustively describing a character's clothes, or their physical appearence. It's not necessary and just comes off as ridiculous. Yes, you can describe how your character looks and what they're wearing or where they are at this point, but there's no need to go overboard in extravagant description, or to do so every five seconds.

* Perfect in every way. Only Mary Poppins is "practically perfect in every way." Anyone else who has no faults is a Mary Sue. Faults are things like bad temper, laziness, greed, selfishness. NOT "she was so beautiful all the girls were jealous." Faults are essential to round out a character and make them interesting; any character who is perfect without faults is really boring to roleplay with. Character development is essential to the character moving on within the roleplay and can also help to drive the plot.

* Overpowered. While it is tempting to make your character be all powerful and the best in every field, it's never the right thing to do within roleplay. No-one is saying that your character can't be powerful, you just need to have limitations on that power and not succeed every single time, or save the day every time, not allowing other players a look in. This also leads us on to godmoding; either making your character win every single time with deux ex machinas or special skills that are thrown in purely to ensure your character's victory, or taking over another player's character without their permission to do likewise. Sometimes, defeat might contribute to character development, or allow another player to have their time in the limelight. In any case, taking over someone else's character without permission is just plain rude.

* Makes canon characters behave out of character. Don't do this. If you can't do this, then make an original roleplay instead. A common trait of Mary Sue is that even canon characters are not free from becoming her. Sometimes, a canon will be played as a Mary Sue and be completely out of character in order to force a change in the story; for example, Twilight Sparkle suddenly becoming thick as two short planks in order that the Mary Sue can step forward and show her how to do the essential spell to save the day. It's incredibly lazy writing to do this and will anger people who are fans of the show and the canons.

* Constantly bangs on about her tragic past. No-one's saying you can't have a character with past tragedy, just don't have them constantly bring it up, unless it pertains to the roleplay. The vast majority of people with tragedy in their past do not talk about it at every given moment. Also, try and be a little original; for example, the "dead parents" story is overused and boring, and often used to justify why a Mary Sue is the way she is. Why not instead have an absent father, or a remarried mother? This happens far more often in real life, and will be far better received.

Is the focus of the roleplay, or the main character. This just makes other players wonder what the point of them is, when there's Mary Sue there to be the star of the roleplay. Many Mary Sues want to make other players' characters become their admiring entourage; this can and will kill a roleplay dead as it will quickly become frustrating for other players when they realise that their characters are there simply to ooh and aah as Mary Sue controls the story and saves the day over and over again. Yes, you can base a roleplay on a character, just make sure that they don't take it over entirely and allow others a chance to influence the plot.

3. A common misconception about Mary Sue.

All super powered characters are Mary Sues. This is wrong. You can have a character with power, no-one is saying that. However, you must balance the character with faults and make them well rounded. For example, there's the misconception in MLP that all alicorn OCs are Mary Sues. This is incorrect, as there are plenty of well written alicorn OCs and also, plenty of badly written earth, pegasus and unicorn OCs. To dismiss an alicorn as a Mary Sue before reading his or her backstory is not a good thing to do.

This article here: https://michaeljmcdonagh.wordpress.com/2014/03/03/meet-mary-sue-part-one-who-is-mary-sue-anyway/  has a passage which sums this up perfectly.

 

A character is not a Mary Sue just because she is interesting, strong, smart, or attractive. It gets harder as you pile more of those elements onto a character, but even a character with all of those attributes is not, necessarily, a Mary or a Gary. More than anything, what defines a Mary Sue (for me) is her relationship with the other characters. As soon as she is one among equals, and not the object of near or total adoration from everyone else in her universe, she is not a Mary Sue. If she is a participant in the story — not the center of gravity, around which all other story elements orbit like fawning moons circling a planet of hot awesomeness — she’s not a Mary Sue. Unless other characters are rendered less interesting or competent or independent because of their love of and/or (but usually just “and”) reliance on her awesomeness, she is not a Mary Sue.

So yes, you can have a character who is super powerful, beautiful and talented, but you do have to make them well rounded and ensure that they don't completely drive the plot or force everyone else to adore them and become out of character for their benefit. As for testing your character, I find that the litmus tests seem to penalise against characters for being interesting. Here's a better one for testing a character: http://katfeete.net/writing/suestart.php
 

[Castle Bleck 19,163]

I remember my absolute-worst Gary Stu.

 

His name was Fusion, and it was because he was "fused" with every ability in existence.

 

...

 

 

God, my preteen self was really out-there sometimes.

Edited June 4, 2017 by A.V.