Mary Sues! *Shakes fist*

[Griffolion]

I'm going through Game of Thrones at the moment. I think this is a narrative that has a very distinct like of Mary Sues in it. Martin really does take time to express a characters vices. Even the typical Lawful Good Eddard Stark has a past he doesn't like to talk about regarding his bastard son Jon. And funnily enough, it's Jon I want to talk about, as he is probably the closest to a Mary Sue GoT has. He's the troubled outcast with a heart of gold. Great in battle, (usually) gentle in spirit, loved by all his family despite him being not a true born (except for Catelyn, Eddard's wife). He even refused to have sex with a prostitute because he was too afraid of getting her pregnant and having a bastard child of his own, and thus make that child go through the same rejection he did. So yeah, Jon Snow is my contribution.

 

[tkioz]

The Matthew Ward afflicted Ultramarines and Grey Knights. Before him, they were either respectable everyman marines or just the elite chaos hunters, but now each one is pretty much jesus.

There's a lot of Mary Sue-ing in 40k I reckon. Ciaphas Cain also springs to mind, for some reason him being within reaching distance of two World Eaters and not getting his puny human face smooshed to a pulp strikes me as ridiculous.

Cain admits freely in the books he's got some crazy good luck. Personally I love the Cain books, he's a bastard (though not as much of one as he thinks he is) who honestly keeps lucking out of things that get many many other people killed.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Actually no, i don't think so. A Mary Sue is supposed to be flawless and talented while Bella is not particulary good at anything and kind of a gigantic *****. The only sue-ish thing about her is the fact that she dates guys who are actually way out of her league.

See, I always thought Mary Sue just referred to an author insertion character who is there for wish fulfilment, and given that Stephanie Meyer has outright admitted that Bella is an author insertion, and a lot of what happens to her is clearly wish fulfilment, I do think she qualifies.

It's easy to talk about how she's kind of pathetic and bitchy and flawed, but at the end of the day everyone still either thinks she's awesome or is jealous of her. She doesn't come across as a particularly interesting or special person, in fact she's a bit of a *****, but everyone still loves her unquestioningly anyway. Her flaws don't actually affect her character, they are insecurities whose only purpose is to make her more relatable to neurotic teenage girls (and presumably to repressed mormon women).

She's the centre of the entire series, she's the centre of the entire world the books take place in, and yet there's absolutely no reason for her to be. Personally, I think that qualifies her for Suedom.

Not sure. Being an author insert alone doesn't make a Mary Sue. Or in other words: Not all author inserts are Mary Sues and not all Mary Sues are author inserts. Having some blatant wishfulfillment: Yeah, obviously. But the thing about Bella is, that she's not particulary talented, smart, or good looking she's just lucky with guys. In a lot of ways she's just a parasite who married a succesful, rich and good looking man. You know one of those women who marry famous athletes or aging millionaires.

 

[Macgyvercas]

Batman

No superpowers but can go toe to toe with any superpowered person.
crazy prepared or not batman cant fight everybody.

If he was THAT prepared, nothing bad would ever happen to him. Since stuff DOES, and he is flimsy mortal that has to rely on brains or resources, that just means that he does alot of research to find ways to handle other beings. It is for this kind of reasoning that he is the #1 superhero and not Superman.

Superman can do anything, period. He's the damn sue.

You do realize Superman got killed by Doomsday, right? That and if you throw kryptonite into the equation, he's pretty well fucked.

Don't get me wrong, I do agree with you. I'm just stating that Superman can't do ANYTHING (after all, he couldn't not die) (double negative intentional)

 

[Stephen Wo]

Anybody read (or tried to read) the "Equations of Life" trilogy? The main character, "Samuil Petrovich", is such a fucking sue I threw the book across the room about a hundred and twenty pages into it. And the book was shit too.

 

[Zantos]

The Matthew Ward afflicted Ultramarines and Grey Knights. Before him, they were either respectable everyman marines or just the elite chaos hunters, but now each one is pretty much jesus.

There's a lot of Mary Sue-ing in 40k I reckon. Ciaphas Cain also springs to mind, for some reason him being within reaching distance of two World Eaters and not getting his puny human face smooshed to a pulp strikes me as ridiculous.

Cain admits freely in the books he's got some crazy good luck. Personally I love the Cain books, he's a bastard (though not as much of one as he thinks he is) who honestly keeps lucking out of things that get many many other people killed.

I adore the Cain books, the footnotes Amberly leaves are brilliant. I think my favourite thing is how amazingly loyal Jurgen is to Cain, and all he can ever mention is the fact that he smells. He really is a lucky bastard though.

 

[axlryder]

Kino from Kino's Journey. I was so disappointed in that show. It started off good, but quickly spiraled downward.

 

[silver wolf009]

Hmm, well let's see here...does Sherlock Holmes count? The only actual flaw I seem to remember him having was a drug addiction, but other than that he was pretty much perfect. Not that it spoiled my enjoyment of Sherlock Holmes stories.

One would think, but apparently a lot of what he says is just wrong. I'm not a big fan of the works, but I've heard that a lot of what the character says about history or current events is just flat out false, but he plays it off and everyone takes his word for it.

OT: Captcha: Meddling Kids.

That inspires me. Could the Mystery Machine gang fit? I mean, they have connections to seemingly endless supplies of money, never have to get a job, and just sorta bum around. Maybe? No? Maybe? I dunno.

And as others have said, River Song. Thank you for really mucking up the show River.

 

[MrGrey]

OT: Artemis Fowl from... Artemis Fowl, the kid is just unbeatable (still enjoyed the book back in the day though)

I never really thought of him as a Mary Sue (at least in the books I've read, 1-6). He seems to at least stick mainly to being the Chessmaster, planning and using the rules of his verse in improvising. In order to be a blatant Mary Sue you'd have to combine him and his body guard into one character at least even if magic and technology are withheld. As is he is debatable.

 

[Legion]

Just about every main character, really. Why would we be playing or watching or reading about a protagonist if he/she wasn't Special in the universe?

- Harry Potter bleeds Mary Sue out his ears.

Going by what people are describing as a Mary Sue, then I am not sure he does really.

He has no real talent, he gets saved by everybody else being more talented and smarter than him:

Spoiler

Hermione and Ron solve most of the puzzles in the first book, Hagrid unwittingly helps them too, the only think Harry does is the flying part.

In the second Hermione figures out it's a Basilisk, and Fawkes saves Harry both by arming him, and by literally saving him.

The third one again, Hermione has the ability to travel through time, so without that, he'd have been screwed.

The fourth one in the first challenge Hagrid cheats and helps, and so does Moody. The second challenge Dobby saved him or else he'd fail, the third challenge Moody removes most obstacles. He only survives Voldemort due to the wand he has.

The Fifth one, well just imagine what'd have happened had the rest of his friends not been there. Him alone against a dozen Death Eaters. He also gets Sirius killed due to him not thinking things through logically and leading his friends into a trap/

The Sixth one he doesn't really do anything heroic.

The last one Hermione does pretty much everything, and Ron also happens to figure some things out. He finally defeats Voldemort due to the one thing he did right, which was sacrificing himself.

His only talent is flying, and his only real character is that he cares about his friends strongly.

Apart from that, the only Mary Sue-ish thing is that everybody thinks he is the greatest person ever.

There are many more examples that could be used, but I just stuck with the parts that are in the main story arc.

 

[FallenTraveler]

... I'm throwing Light Yagami out there. He just... did he fail? Up until the end of the show, did he fail at all? Cuz, just... yeah. Irritates me the nonsense he got away with.

Once or twice... I think. You may be right though.

OT: Off the top of my head... I'd say most main characters in video games, especially RPG's. Especially pokemon, there are no defeats that aren't on the player in any of those games, at least that I'm aware of.

 

[Treblaine]

So, tell me fellow escapists; what characters in popular fiction do you find to be Mary Sues. Search the definition if you don't know what it is.

Mary sue? You mean the sexist idea that it's a problem that if a female character is too awesome, that all female characters have to have major flaws but the likes of male characters can be perfect:
-James Bond
-Nathan Drake
-John Matrix
-Neo
-(keep listing male protagonists)

PS: male protagonists almost ALL fit the definition of Mary Sue except in one key aspect: they aren't female.

It's a sexist term, it is pointlessly gendered and adds nothing.

 

[hydroblitz]

I did recently see the trailer for a movie where the titular character seems to be a huge marty stu. I get that it's kinda the point of the movie and I don't want to be "that guy" but this kid is pretty much the second coming of jesus.

 

[silver wolf009]

Snip

Snip

Seriously, I'd watch a spin-off of just what Rory was doing for those 2,000 years of guarding the Pandorica.

I would too. That would actually be a really cool show if they did it right. They can also have a cross over with that one inter-species lesbian couple from Victorian England. That'd be a good episode.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Jesus. He's probably the most famous Mary Sue.

What about God? Omnipresence, omnipotence, omniscience... they literally could not have made a more Mary Sue-ish... being? "Hey guys, our God farted out the wonders of the universe on a whim and is infinitely powerful."

The main character from The Fades. I love that show but I hate the protagonist. Hate. I don't even remember his name. I just despise him so much. Everything about him just reeks of Sue-ism.

The black dude was awesome though. Same actor was in the best episode of Black Mirror too (watch it, blatant whoring for an awesome show here.)

 

[Treblaine]

I usually (usually) try to read stuff that's well written, so I don't deal with too many mary sues that often.

I'd have to say Makarov from the Modern Warfare series is a pretty big Mary Sue, making him one of those rare examples of a villain sue. His plan goes off too perfectly, and he seems to have the power of teleportation along with limitless resources.

Where did he get the resources to hire men to not only hijack a plane mid flight but also crash it, possibly killing themselves and the president in the process?

How come when the President of Russia is kidnapped, he somehow gains control over the country's military and orders it to, essentially, attack all of Europe after just getting it's ass kicked in the U.S.?

And how, HOW did he somehow manage to walk into a hotel, a hotel restaurant mind you, filled with perhaps dozens of people from all over the world, and NOT get arrested on the spot? Shouldn't he be a relatively famous terrorist by now? Osama Bin Laden just ordered terrorists to destroy the twin towers and he became the most wanted man in America. Are you trying to say someone who starts WWIII, massacres an airport of innocents, kidnaps the president of his own country, then somehow takes control of the military to spread war to almost every other nation in Europe is, for whatever reason, not on every wanted poster in America and Europe by now? He's somehow not recognizable by anyone in the hotel, and the staff let him bring in a small army of armed thugs as well? How god damn stupid is everyone in that series?!

That's all I can think of, for now.

That's less Makarov's hyper-competence and more the incredible incompetence of the writers who know they'll make bank on just being the next CoD multiplayer instalment.

Makarov is just the subject of extreme contrivance as there are going to be loading screens between the shooting-russians so might as well put some cutscenes there to join things up in any contrived way.

 

[Terminal Blue]

Yeah, obviously. But the thing about Bella is, that she's not particulary talented, smart, or good looking she's just lucky with guys.

Until she becomes a vampire, at which point she suddenly becomes super awesome and kewl and all her previously "weak" character traits are inverted for no particular reason into things she is suddenly really good at, but at that point I'm just going on what other people have told me.

And I still maintain that the fundamental problem with her is that, however "flawed" her character is, every characters motivation still centres around her, she constantly drives the plot simply by virtue of all the other characters having nothing better to do than react to her. Despite not being particularly good looking, she constantly has guys competing over her and/or trying to do implied sexual assault on her. Despite not being particularly talented, she continuously drives the plot by virtue of the universe simply handing her stuff or her ineffectual behaviour somehow having the desired effect. Despite not being particularly smart, everyone takes her seriously.

Yeah, she's not particularly "awesome", but she never needs to be because the authorial dice are stacked in her favour. The world completely revolves around her, and she overcomes every obstacle without having to do anything except, you know, live out her two character traits. Being shy, and being in twoo wuv with her vampire daddy.

I dunno.. I think she definately has Sueish tendencies.

 

[rosac]

Marneus Calgar when written by matt ward. Seriously, what the hell.