Hey dudes! Noticed a few running themes in the comments that I felt I hadn't adequately addressed, so I just wanted to pop in and discuss a couple of 'em! FIRST OFF: Yes, I know what a Gary Stu is. I didn't explicitly mention it because I consider it to be a subtrope of Mary Sue. SECOND OF ALL: I've seen a number of comments getting grumpy and saying that I lost them when I segued into "the gender thing," usually saying that I'm ascribing to sexism something that can simply be explained by overall trends in media and characterization. And I understand the anger! I knew that was going to happen when I decided to address the gender thing in the first place, and I almost didn't, because backlash is uncomfortable and I hate feeling like I've failed my audience. But in this case I felt like I'd regret it more if I *didn't* address something that I perceived as a real problem. I try not to censor myself just to avoid pissing off people who would disagree with me, so… here we are. Full disclosure: the idea that Mary Sue is a gender-weighted term is not mine. I *agree* with it, but I didn't come up with it. Heck, the Wikipedia page on "Mary Sue" even has a section that specifically addresses the idea that Mary Sue is disproportionately used to criticize female characters! (Check it out: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Criticism) This is a large part of why I felt I had to address it in the video, backlash be damned - it clearly wasn't something that only *I* was bothered by, you know? A lot of what I've seen in response has been "well on the message boards I hang out on, is CONSTANTLY called a Gary Stu, and I've never seen a female character called a Mary Sue!" And that's totally fair. We've all had different experiences! I only have my own to go on, and for the most part my experience in this particular area was seeing female characters I really liked being systematically demolished by fandoms for the crime of Sueness, and fans of those characters being hassled for liking such "problematic" content. And, of course, given that I personally quite like standard heroic characters, especially female ones, it makes sense that I would encounter a lot more female heroes being branded as Sues than those of you who don't share my preferences. Clearly a number of you have had a very different fandom experience than I have, and that's great! Life would be boring if we all lived it the same way. But just because we see things differently doesn't mean one of us is necessarily seeing things wrong. And, of course, the worst case scenario is that we recognize our disparate experiences and resulting worldviews, and agree to disagree. ;) Anyway, that's all I got tonight. Peace! ✌️
As someone who wrote and read quite a while in the fanfiction... genre??? i mostly saw female Mary Sues, and i wasn´t suprised, because - judging by my own experience - at least 3/4 of fanfiction-authors are female, and fanfiction is the place to go for many unexperienced writers that just want to write down something that i would call "a fantasy, not a story", its just logical that you get much more Mary Sues than Gary Stues. But i agree, it is annoying that this accusation is thrown at people way to quick, and i am guilty of that too. PS: Your videos actually made me want to write stories again, (considering everything you said) after 3-4 years of not writing at all, and thinking that i never would do it again. Thanks!
a story that is badly written has no excuse but the fact that it was badly written. people can point to things but overall it was just badly written. it may have other things going for it and may meet some peoples standards but other people may have no interest to watch it. having a female character doesn't make her any less likely to be disliked. it is how the character is written not what it's gender is that counts. qualities the character has. Stories with great female leads: SALT, Twilight, Madoka magical girl, kill la kill, claymore. stories with bad female leads: star wars, hunger games, avatar. some of the best music is made by women, either its good or its not. either it is likable enough or off putting. the most most OP character in one of my favorite games was a female character, well i only used her as a last resort when i am sick of losing too much of course. reasons why i didn't use her, everyone sues her , you have to face players with more experience with her, it is hard to predict who will win with her because it can go either way and the person with experience has the odds, reasons for using her when everything else fails and you don't want to lose anymore, and she has the best army bar none.
I think one of the major reasons Mary Sue is so often considered female is also to do with the generally higher tendency for women to be fanfiction writers. As a result, the self-insert Mary Sue oftentimes *did* come in the form of an attractive young woman with a troubled past who is outcast for uncertain reasons and doesn't know her own beauty (so on, so on). (I should also mention that, as somebody who read fanfiction quite a bit in the 00s, the Mary Sue with perfect, colorful hair and color-changing eyes is definitely not a memory of 1973. She's still out there. She will always be.) It also helps that many Gary Stus, in most fanfiction, were less likely to come in the form of a new fan character than they were to hijack the main character (or other popular male character) and use him as a power fantasy cipher for the author. Given that so many properties have male characters as the default it's far easier for a male writer to just use them as their self-insert (the mentioned Possession Sue), without necessarily needing to make an all-new character. It helps that a number of male heroes are already themselves power fantasies (and nothing wrong with that), making piggybacking on them far easier and less obvious. As a result, the female Mary Sue is far more *visible*, and becomes more ingrained in the cultural vernacular (and, unfortunately, creates a radiating assumption about female leads, particularly those portrayed by female writers).
@@kattieq.1109 Marinette is actually pretty flawed. E.i. jealous, some what temperamental, holds grudges, self doubting, etc. Edit: Yeah she's a Mary Sue....
I once read a fanfic where the premise was that there was a perfect, awesome, infallible character that everyone loved, where the plot revolves around them. Because they were a reality bender who was controlling the minds of the regular cast to make them love them. The protagonist of this story was the villain of the source material, who was unaffected by this Mary Sue power, and had to figure out a way to kill/remove the power of the Mary Sue.
@@furiousstudios4438, tell what to bad gacha tubers? the depression isn't a personality trait thing that kokichi said? or the liking pizza/tacos isn't a personality trait thing that I said
Harmony Alexandria if something happens* without the protagonist, then no. They are telling about actions of someone else, so they aren’t the center. *Something that shows that the world is living without the hero, like reports about battles and offenses from other fronts in a war story
Harmony Alexandria “If the narrator doesn’t see something, then it doesn’t exist” How about any kind of shady schemes on any sides? Usually protagonist see’s them in the moment of their enactment, doesn’t make them unreal or anything.
1:32 Did anybody notice that Spock blushes green? This is accurate since Vulcan blood is copper-based and thus green and THAT is huge attention to detail!
@@mariustan9275 I don't think there are any blue copper oxides and recollect from a book about the science behind Star Trek that Vulcan blood is green since it is copper-based, which is similar to octopuses.
Copper based blood on Earth is blue on the arteries and clear to white-ish on the veins. On some invertebrates it has green color due other pigments that don't carry the oxygen. However, it's not so similar in structure as our blood.
@@fisch37 it's confusing because many books say green hemolimph copper based, wich technically it's true. but fails to clarify that it's a combination of carotene like compounds, generally yellowish, that don't bind oxygen and the copper base ones that make the green colour. The horseshoe crab only has the copper based anthocyanin and has blue blood
What if there was a novel with a Mary Sue who realizes she/he's a Mary Sue and discovers they're inside a simulation and the rest of the book is focused on Mary Sue trying to escape the simulation and discovering memories of his/hers real life.
My first OC was a Lion person who didn't care about all these wierd sex and gender stereotypes that I didn't really understand but also realized on some level really didn't describe me.
Best example of a self-insert Mary Sue... a classic: “Hi my name is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that's how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don't know who she is get da hell out of here!). I'm not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he's a major fucking hottie. I'm a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I'm also a witch, and I go to a magic school called Hogwarts in England where I'm in the seventh year (I'm seventeen). I'm a goth (in case you couldn't tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow. I was walking outside Hogwarts. It was snowing and raining so there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of preps stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.” -My Immortal, but you knew that
Fatima Ansari unfortunately yes, it’s an entire 24k+ word fanfiction published on FFN back in 2011 [correction: 2007]; known infamously as the worst fanfiction ever written.
"Joule is a Mary Sue, but not just any Mary Sue. She's the Mary-est of Sues. She'd take you to court on Christmas the day after being wed to a man named Susan."
I mean i get that significant flaws are realist and a easy way to relate,but I think it is too restrictive to think only a flawed character can be a good one.They can be «perfect» and still face struggle and it doesn t mean the whole story have to bend itself, just show things «objectively»
@nam oma It's not that the Mary Sue doesn't have flaws or is flawless, it's the ways the story will bend to accommodate the MS and whatever flaws are present have no impact.
@@namoma4922 I don't think op meant the Mary Sue has NO flaws. They meant Mary Sue has no flaws that matter. For example, the character is written to be clumsy as a flaw, but the character is never clumsy during events that are important to the story or people in the universe actually like that the character is clumsy and find it cute. It's a fake disadvantage.
When I think of Mary Sues and flaws I think of the interview question "describe your biggest weakness" and the inevitable "flaw but actually a strength" type response in the vein of too much attention to detail, too much overtime, the quintessential "being too nice" or something equally insufferable. Technically these can pass as flaws but if that was the best/only flaw it feels like a weak attempt to lampshade the character as a flawless paragon of perfection with no proper weakness, that'll usually kill tension and make relating to the character difficult. Without either its still possible to have an entertaining story but you'll need something other than following the MC's character arc to keep people invested (e.g. saitama, gary stu incarnate, as a person isn't specifically the reason you watch OPM, its to bask in great fight animation, parodies of shonen tropes and interesting side characters who do have arcs).
This comment will probably never be seen, but your objective and non-biased perspective when it comes to your analyses of fictional tropes is god damn INSPIRATIONAL. I try every day to think more like this rather than using my preconceived biases, and it’s really hard, but you show that it’s possible. I’d be very lucky if I could pick up even a hint of your creativity, commitment, and insight.
@@jamestunedflat8942 That's an interesting assessment of these videos. I personally find Red's subjective bias very apparent in most trope talks, which I actually appreciate. It makes it easier to both understand and appreciate her perspective, and separate that perspective from the plain information that I can use.
@jamestunedflat8942 Oh I think her bias in this case is pretty blatant. She is obviously working through some stuff with this one in a way that she doesn't in others - the way she attacks the existence of the trope is designed to counter **specific** criticisms, as if she's defending a work in mind, and not the way the trope is or can be mishandled by either whoops-butterfingers-I-have-no-idea-what-I'm-doing new writers or legitimate bad actors.
Imagine a self-aware Mary-Sue who just kinda hates the fact that she lives in an empty world where the focus is only her all the time... Until she realizes she can exploit it
Someone wrote a story about former Lancre Witch Lucy "Diamanda" Tockley wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Lucy_Tockley for whom everything would always go right, because magic (or the Elf Queen) was trying to get her back as a witch. It frankly drove her mad because she was saddled with one of those fools who think 'if I just believe the universe will save me'. Everything went her way, when she was trying to prove that she was more than just magic, and she realized her idiot friend had stopped learning and growing becasue every stupid thing she did would work out around Lucy.
@@nk_3332 I haven't read that one yet, but I did read a Lucy Tockley fanfic where she resents being forced to give up her magic and tries various methods for guaranteed power but never gets any satisfaction from what she attempts. It references the "King of the Cats" folktale.
“The Mary Sue distorts the world around them, changing the way characters act and reality works to put the focus on them.” Mary Sue could be an interesting antagonist, looking at those powers she has.
@@whiteraven181 That's essentially the plot of the Ensign Sue Must Die trilogy of webcomics, although it's really the second and third that deal with this particular idea in depth.
Lol there is an entire genre popular today that a person got reincarnated as a villainess in a mary sue heroine's story. You can guess what the plot it is just by describing it.
Someone once accused my (female) skyrim OC of being a Mary Sue because of all the powers she had. I then told him that, in-game, you have the power to save the world three different times, be the leader of every major guild, kill entire armies, and just generally be the biggest badass of the era. My OC was merely following canon ;)
Don't forget the Pokemon main characters in the main series games. In most of them, you're a ten-year-old or teenager who can catch all the native Pokemon in that region, defeat all the gym leaders, thwart the schemes of a powerful organization, defeat the region's five strongest trainers and becomes Champion, and capture the Legendary Pokemon who are significant to the region's history and mythologies.
I'm glad the mention of a Mary Sue being a symptom of bad writing is there at the end because I've seen so many people say that removing a Mary Sue will automatically make the story good which it won't because you just took away a symptom of a bigger problem.
@@ButWhyMe... most humans developed genetic imunization through trauma, it was that powerful of a disease, I bet you don't know a lot of people who had it, and even if you do, you just know a few.
@@irmaosmatos4026 Bubonic plagues is extremely deadly when untreated and will likely kill you. Note that being infected with Yersinia pestis is NOT the same as having Bubonic plague, which is when the bacteria infects your lymph nodes causing them to swell and ooze fluid. Hence why it's called BUBONIC plague, because it causes you to develop buboes, AKA swollen lymph nodes. Getting infected with Bubonic plague in a wealthy nation period is extremely rare, regardless of severity levels. And deadly outbreaks still happen periodically, some of them kill thousands of people. Without antibiotic treatment Bubonic plagues has between 40-60% mortality. Never mind the other forms of plague, like Pneumonic plague, which has an untreated mortality rate of 100%, and Septicemic plague, which is almost always lethal even with treatment.
I used to have a Mary Sue character literally just for a coping mechanism, whenever I had a bad day I would write my self insert Mary Sue as the goddess of the universe with every power who ruled the world and just do whatever I wanted to. It made me feel a lot better when I got bullied.
This lowkey made me feel sad cuz I know someone who has a deep connection to his original characters (as in within the context of when he created them) and I myself cherish my stories as if they were my most prized possessions
I still do that lol. I can't remember how many times I declared myself the queen of everything and imprisoned my bullies for eternity. Doesn't actually help the situation, but makes it easier to cope.
I wrote a short story where a person did exactly that but then got sucked into a story as that character and had to cope with the outcome with all the side characters very confused when she would do normal human things like have panic attacks and have no idea how to handle real violence in fighting the big bad.
yes and no, you can be important and still have genuine character flaws, take Anakin for example because I KNOW people would make that comparison that he's mary sue because he's the chosen one, based on your comment
@@tiffanyhendricks1860 kid anakin was Mary sueing up the ass tho. Beat more experienced drivers in the first race he ever finished. Piloted and fucking destroyed and entire separatist Droid control ship with zero effort and is also the chosen one. Kid anakin is OP af
@@tiffanyhendricks1860 idk man Mary Sue's don't usually end up being a slave to hatred and full of regrets, yeah sure Anakin was stronger than the average jedi in terms of the force and lightsaber dueling but he still gets his ass handed when he fights someone stronger like Dooku, and Ep3 Dooku would've beat Ep3 Anakin if Palpatine didn't order him to toy with Anakin, it's only when he gets pissed that he was able to turn the tables, although I agree that Ep1 Anakin is borderline Mary Sue
I mean if the 15 year old girl was the one that wrote the story as a self-insert (I get the impression it was) then it's not weird. Kids/teens fall in love with adults all the time, they're not mature enough to fully understand why that relationship would be a problem. It was probably just part of her "blunder years". If it was an ADULT that wrote about a 15 y/o getting hit on by adults, then yeah that no bueno
@@sebastianferm4440 Also worth noting the original Mary Sue fanfic was a parody. From wikipedia: "The term Mary Sue comes from the name of a character created by Paula Smith in 1973 in the parody story "A Trekkie's Tale", published in Smith's and Sharon Ferraro's Star Trek fanzine Menagerie. The story featured Lieutenant Mary Sue ("the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet-only fifteen and a half years old"), and satirized idealistic female characters widespread in Star Trek fan fiction."
Mary Sue self insert? Nah mate, if I insert myself, I’m gonna be the comic relief character who’s probably gonna get beat up at least once throughout the story.
Yeah same. I add my character as the background comic relief that has actually pretty sad undertones to her jokes (for example, I had a scene where she was crying over if she wanted food or to get a textbook for her college classes. I’m not in college but I put my characters in college for some odd reason)
i didnt think you were actually serious about the way the og mary sue story goes. "Gee, golly, gosh, gloriosky," is definitely a phrase i will be using
I beg your pardon that's the actual dialogue used? I just thought that she was paraphrasing (I think I'm using that word correctly) for the sake of comedy...
"A Trekkie's Tale" was explicit parody, written by a fanzine contributor (editor?) PaulA [sic] Smith who was fed up with the scourge of similar stories being published. The full text is only about a page long, and I encourage you to look it up, because it's a hilarious read.
i mean its good to practice better writing, but there's nothing inherently wrong with just having fun in your own head. do what makes you happy, first and foremost.
my dreams are like "There's this attractive biologist who goes in side my house and charms my cats so they no longer pay attention to me, which makes me upset because I want to snuggle the fluffs!"
Lucky, I'm just the main character in a boring horror film. I don't get scared of them, so I refuse to call them nightmares, but I guess it reflects how I think most horror films are boring.
Now I want to read a story where the characters are trying to cope with a reality bending Mary Sue on the loose. They can't bring themselves to hurt her because she's just too nice and pretty, but everywhere she goes reality bends around her causing untold chaos. at least untold until someone tells it then its told chaos. This is making me think of Cultist-chan for some reason.
I can just imagine at the climax of Confrontation that makes her perhaps get violent or rude and the reality can't take it and violently tries to shift into turning you into the bad guy.
That scene you showed of Rey in the beginning always makes me laugh. It feels like she intentionally aimed for the rock, based on how much she adjusted her aim after, like it was a warning shot but she didn’t even wait for the stormtrooper to react before shooting them. Like she was thinking “Okay it’s always polite to fire a warning shot” then thought after “Oh wait these are Space N*zis why am I being polite”
One way I would rewrite the sequels is that Rey ends up moving the plot along by complet accident most of the time. By the end of the trilogy this would be mostly averted.
@@Moved506 I mean… it kinda happens in the movies, themselves? Rey wasn’t trying to get off the planet, she just got airdropped a BB-8 who she couldn’t let get torn apart. She wasn’t trying to get him to the Resistance, just a bunch of First Order agents showed up (after her boss called them because she refused to turn BB-8 in for food, no less) and she and Finn started running for the hills and got away for self-preservation. She kinda DID get dragged into the story and only grew to be more proactive as she matured.
1:07 this had me CACKLING Update: I thought you were joking. You were not. This is literally how the first paragraph is written. I am... thoroughly shook.
Tbf, it IS a parody of the bad Trek fanfiction of its day, so that just means the original author deserves credit for any cackling that may have occured
I honestly tried reading it to my friends as an example of what a Mary Sue actually is, and it took me about 5 minutes to read the first line because I couldn’t stop laughing my a** off.
Kusakabe Shinhoto kirito is defo a Mary Sue difference is that since kirito is a dude he's likely to be called a Mary Sue and the show is still gonna be a hit. Cause we are use to seeing over powered male hero who literally do nothing and still get the girl and god sao why. When she says it's only a female problem I don't think she means there no such thing as a male Mary Sue but more likely that female Mary Sue or just over powered female are more likely to be pointed at and be mocked for it than males. At the end of the day some people still like kirito despite the fact he literally does nothing, learns nothing and is wayyy over powered. Alongside his logicaless harem, yet it still a super successful franchises. If Kirito was a girl there would have a big a stronger chance that the show would have flopped (financially/ most people do hate sao with a passion) and that people would have been quicker to go BAD WRITING. Compared to what happen.
how is he a mary sue? The show doesn't revolve around just him but others, and a hes pretty good with fighting but thats only b/c he has been playing the game longer than most of the others. If you call him a Mary sue you have to call Asuna a Mary sue too.
I know this is entirely missing the point, but I love how Lt Mary Sue's hair looks. It's so curly and fluffy that it absolutely can't be regulation and is very clearly someone's fantasy, but still looks outstanding.
I never thought about how long hair would be dealt with on a spaceship until I read starship troopers where women would shave their heads to keep hair from getting in the way and also wiping out the need for conditioner/ shampoo
She was explicitly an over-the-top parody, lampooning what was at that point a pretty established pattern in -fanfic- literature. It's weird, because Red does say that at the start, but the rest of the episode she seems to take _Mary_ at face value.
My first oc was a Mary Sue. She was also me but wearing glasses( I used to really want glasses) and with better clothes... I don’t read the stories I wrote anymore.
Not all, as there are a number of examples to the contrary...but, yeah, in many ways you are absolutely correct. And they get flack for it. And even in many of those that are that way, they do still have flaws...which Rey has none of, she's perfect.
I wouldn't say a first gen Sue but they are part of the Sue family. Most of them excel at about 2 or 3 things, typically swordsmemship being one of them. Anything they're mediocre at, their harem covers for. EX: there's always a cook in the harem. Contrast this to the type 1 Sue who is good at everything they comes across thus not needing a harem except for their praise. They do become the center of a plot gravity well, thus earning the Sue title.
@@brentonoftheunknown.821 You just explained why they AREN'T part of the Sue family, just because you really want them to be a Sue, that doesn't make it true.
@@Egeslean Seeing as the garden variety anime MC exists in states of writing, I shall describe them. Trashy anime and well written anime. Your Kirito's vs your Kazuma's. You can definitely feel that there are plenty of isekai that don't cross that hill to becoming well written. They only exist to scratch some itch. Now what constitutes your preferred flavor of good writing is up to the viewer. I'm not into sappy romance but I won't argue if there's a collected agreement on a good sappy romance. Sue's are dependant on 2 things. A Sue generates a plot black hole. Everyone falls in love with them or gives them endless praise, or is just a baddie who needs to be stopped. A trashy isekai protagonist achieves this as soon as all relevant characters become either part of the bro squad or join the harem. A Sue is also better than everyone at all things required to make the story progress. The powersets that they have often outclass everyone else to ridiculous extremes, as long as it pertains to whatever flavor of fantasy their in. Wise man's grandchild. The fantasy is based off of magical prowess, so our MC starts off so ludicrously high that all other characters become negligible, save of course the villain. Naturally he starts teaching the other students, thus starting the praise/love harem. The only skills he lacks aren't important to the plot, they're just there to force god-kun to interact with his harem 1 on 1. I don't believe that a Sue needs all the skills, they just needs all the important ones to be able to outclass everyone else to the point of negligibility. I don't believe that trash tier anime mc's are gen 1 sue's but if you follow the family tree, they are on there.
When I was 7, I made my first official OC. Her name was Cherrie, Princess of The Flowers. She's pretty much a mary sue but I'm so attached to her now 3 years later that I'm keeping it that way
@@anoniempersoon6165 she was pretty cool, her grandmother was the one who made peace between the dragons and fairys and now it's Cherrie's job to keep peace between them
even realizing a character is a mary sue opens the door to de-mary sueize characters. having a character you love is not a bad thing by any means, and keeping at working on and creating that character will inadvertently, in most cases, make them no longer mary/gary sues. so keep working with and creating the character you love, and keep breathing more life into them, and you'll eventually find other people that love what you've created
Man a lot of people just sorta ignored the video, where it's said a Sue isn't really about the laundry list of character traits, it's about how the story/world around the character warps around them to make them out to the single most important thing inside the story.
@@evilallensmithee I'd say a bit of both. The ones that _disagreed_ brought up valid points. They're the ones disputing the definition Red proposed and the possibility of bias. But a sizable chunk of the comments you find after scrolling down far enough kind of just... miss the point of the video entirely and fling themselves into an undignified outrage.
Damn... You are right. The most powerful guy in the world , that defeated the god of the game. Every bit of action is there to make him look awesome. Even his sister wants to bang him. I feel like my eyes are opening for the first time in years. I used to like that crap. Thank you
@@dvmpld9103 you're free to dislike what you want, but I'll give you a word of advice in that most of the "proofs" that people bring up when calling Kirito a gary stu are cases of taking stuff out of context or completely misunderstanding scenes.
@@minupakumarasinghe3913 sure, but never liked it that much anyway. And by the end of the second season I just couldn't watch it, I was bored, so bored that I would rather watch a Nat Geo documentary about mosquitos One of my friends even joked about this, he said " If they are not gonna f*** , then what is the point of all this nonsense " and that was by the end of the third season.
Bella Swan from Twilight was the first time i noticed that something was wrong with the main protagonist. I found out the term Mary-Sue after that. Everybody likes her for no reason, she is special for no reason, the story revolves around her for no reason and she can overcome any obstacle because she can for no reason
1. Everyone notices her because she is new to school and her mom left her dad and the small boring town in a rather scandalous way. 2. She is special because she directly affected the local vampire coven when the telepathic one really wanted to eat her. 3. She is immune to telepathy and other paranormal powers but not all. She doesn't qualify for a Mary Sue but her inspired fan-fic 50 Shade of Grey counterpart does.
You know what would have been so cool if that essence worked against her early on as it gets her killed by the vampires who lure her on the false pretense of romance and immortality, and then Charlie goes on "you killed my kid so I'm gonna kill you" revenge rampage. Ah a girl can dream.
@@helenhobbs5472 Everyone NOTICES her for a good reason, but everyone LIKES her for no reason. She's distant with her human friends and later and outright jerk to them but they all still adore her. All the vampires except Rosalie, who is "just jealous" like her before she ever proves herself to be compelling beyond smelling nice to Edward and having a randomly specific superpower. The smell and the power are a good reason for Edward's attention to be drawn to her, and maybe a little attention from the rest, but Alice basically fawns over her and showers her with gifts at multiple points before Bella ever puts any investment into their friendship. And as the story continues, all the vampires go out of their way to be nice to Bella except "Just Jealous" Rosalie despite her never offering them that niceness in turn. At best she disregards the other people in her life and at her worst points she's terrible to them. In Breaking Dawn, Alice is suffering and Bella barely pays that any attention at all despite Alice ultimately saving her daughters life. Their an intimacy between Bella and all the other non-Edward, non-Rosalie characters that goes entirely one way. And none of those characters are compelling-- they have superpowers and one trait of each their own (Jasper is quiet, Alice likes fashion, Esme is motherly, Rosalie is jealous, ect) and a backstory that is shared but never does anything but explain why they have their One Trait (Esme is motherly because she wanted to be a mom, Rosalie is jealous because she wanted to be a mom, Jasper is quiet because he used to eat people and is focusing on not eating people) but not a single non-Bella character has an actual character arc. Whatever few traits they had at the start, they have at the end because they're not important because the story revolves around Bella, who herself is also static. She's a sue.
Yeah, about this- I'm going to insert my two cents because why the hell not? XD Okay, so, I mean, most Mary Sues are made by writers who aren't that good yet. A lot of us/them start writing from a really young, young age when we hate that we don't have any power over our lives and want to change that while not sacrificing the fact we're still pudgy little childrens. The fact that Mary Sues are so often seen to be female might have some call-back (Who the hell am I kidding? There's callback) to the idea that women are fragile, and all of us are emotional. So why would a girl ever be a prodigy in anything, right? Even if the female character had acceptable consequences for her actions, like she was given superpowers and they went crazy cause she got them from a traumatic event (because YES THEY WOULD) and she levels her home town, this wouldn't inherently make her a Mary Sue. Its not about her. She's not precisely the Rome in this story. I think there's a sexism problem with this one, but it isn't one that most are externally aware of. It's implicit. The idea that any female character that is a little bit overpowered is unrealistic within itself might just be the source. Basically: Sexism is still a thing, you don't have to be a sexist person to think sexist things, there's a stereotype that women can't be powerful, despite there being women who have had power and used it very well, and as long as you take the time to write a character well, with direct consequences for her actions, you're fine. There's my tuppence XD
Ava Laun You know, I wrote a self-insert story too, when I was younger, but I never let anyone read it, because I knew it was very very bad (not the writing itself, but I already found the plot childish and embarrassing for others to read). It was a way to relax myself at the end of the day, and I found it very useful, I have to admit, because in only one year I wrote like 500 pages about that story and I found out that my writing skills improved a lot. So yeah I don't really see the point of complaining or Mary Sue-shaming: if you know your character is not-so-well-written and you use it as a guilty pleasure I find it completely understandable.
Even if you don't realize it at first I don't think there is any harm. We all learn by writing, not sitting around thinking how bad we are at writing, and the more we write (and read, and generally understand the world and widen our horizon xD) the more we realize the flaws in what we do write. If anything, it's probably easier and faster to recognize if others read your works and aren't too happy about them.
Charlie Hershberger Lol, That's true, but would he put a new girl in the captain's chair just because he liked her? Also, would Spock just play along with it?
I'm not referring to the whole incident, I am just making fun of the fact that kirk is a serial womanizer so the whole immediately falling in love with a girl is the most plausible portion of the story. I am exaggerating the correlation between this story and kirk's actual traits.
Also, how is nobody on board taking notes that everyone is hitting on the 15.5 year old girl. Kirk propositions the SEVERELY UNDERAGE girl within seconds of meeting her. If someone sends footage of that to high command Kirk would lose his position either on pedophilia or attempting statutory rape charges. Screw the fact that he backs of immediately. If someone makes the case that the first time Kirk meets a willing underage person that will result in pedophilia, or just demonstrates that this is apparently how he views and greets teens, that will get him sent home so he doesn't become an embarrassment to star fleet. Spock is a suspected pedophile at best and that will no doubt get worse over time. If anyone on the bridge isn't swept up by her "charms" a few key messages to high command would get everyone above them resigned and they could claim the position of captain for themselves. Their first order of business being "get rid of the jail bait."
Charlie Hershberger are you saying that Kirk wouldnt sleep with an underage girl within minutes of meeting her? He'd sleep with some sort of cosmic horror if given the chance.
Another thing that I haven’t really seen mentioned: Mary Sues in comedy, satire especially. Purposely writing a Mary Sue in a comedic or satiric way can actually lead to some pretty hilarious stuff. I may be the only one who watched this show, but take The Misfit at Demon King Academy for example. Anos fits the definition of a Mary Sue perfectly: he’s op as hell, right about everything, always the center of attention and everyone loves him because he’s so great. Anos is a textbook Mary Sue but that’s what makes all the comedy land so well. And Misfit is really funny because of just how ridiculous the stuff Anos pulls off is. So writing a Mary Sue isn’t always a bad thing, you just have to know how to use them well.
@@dreameater8548 I would say that kokomi is the mock Mary sue, everyone loves her and the world literally bends to her will, but saiki actually sees her true self and she has more of a personality, and that's what makes her great
I believe they all ready wrote that on one of the foreign sites
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It is Hell you can argue for reality benders, that one SCP that is a literal manifestation of a Mary Sue jumping into a random game or media and well doing what he does bending reality around him and beating the big bad in it
I just realised, if we look at gen 1 Mary Sue from outside perspective it's like some elderitch horror. E.g.: *Post shows up on random unknown blog* Hello, this is Therick Maverick normal student of the Randoringa Highschool and lately I've started noticing a terrifying entity, called Mary Sue appearing in this school engaging with the Loser Group although she is obviously Perfect, terryfingly Perfect. I've tried looking into her past, but I found nothing. She just suddenly appeared on the 5th of March of this year and immediately became the center of atention, such powerful and active center of attention that it makes it impossible for her to not be mentioned in the past. She excells at everything, be it sports, games or studies which further cements that she would be somehow known, but there's nothing and when I try to bring it up with someone they just brush it off as if I was the crazy one. I'm beginning to worry, what did she do to them? What will she do to me? Maybe it's all in my head, maybe this is completely normal. God I need help, I think I'm beginning to go crazy. I need proof what hapenned isn't me going crazy, I'm going to talk to her. *Couple days later, new post shows up* How could I be so stupid? Mary Sue is just a sweet, kind & intelligent girl. How could she be in anyway terrifying? I just hope that other people will get to know her as the sweet girl she is.
I've definitely read a fanfic with this premise. A self insert Mary Sue (male) enters an established universe and it warps to suit his needs. The only one who notices is a reality warping villain who quickly realizes that he is the only one who can prevent the world from breaking and sets off to save the world in his morally dubious way. It never got finished, but there were hints that the only solution was to enter the real world and stop the author from writing and I just realized that cutting off in the middle is now a satisfactory ending.
Mary Suedom isn't as much a problem with the character as much as it is how they are treated by the story. Take Bella Swan and Kirito. Two of fiction's most unanimously agreed upon Mary Sues... and yet as characters in a vacuum, they have almost nothing in common. You, the person reading this, will _never_ be as cool as Kirito... but I sure as hell bet you're cooler than Bella. What makes these two problematic is not THEM... but the way the story distorts itself around them. Regardless of how badass or deserving Kirito is... he has a dreamy relationship that everyone supports - even women he's friendzoned. Characters who WOULD be interesting reduce to 1D haremites after meeting him - one of SAO's best characters, Konno, is actually notable for her ability to *_resist_* this property! He's the number one fighter in every game he plays and gets access to abilities that NOBODY ELSE GETS. He never seems to struggle to earn or maintain any of this - the story just gives it to him. Bella on the other hand, gets a dreamy relationship that everyone seems to support, for which nothing ever seems to actually go wrong. Other characters lose importance beyond what they mean to Bella and her relationships. And in the end she gets handed the most overpowered set of Vampiric powers in fiction. She never seems to struggle to earn or maintain any of this - the story just gives it to her. This is the problem. Mary Sues seem to have this "favor of the Gods." Support characters - once living, breathing human beings - lose focus and even depth around them. Enemies who would otherwise be considered professionals mysteriously end up falling short of them. The camera is always focused obsessively on them, and whoever has the console commands seems way too happy to /give them shit or arrange events so that they're the lead player. So to all you aspiring writers out there who want to De-suify characters but can't seem to fix them, I have an alternative solution for you: If you can't fix your hero, that's fine. Try to fix the way the story treats your hero instead. I don't think my Mary Sue self-insert changed all that much in the years I've been iterating. But everyone else around him continued to grow and move on. They formed social networks that didn't include him. They went on their own adventures. Characters gained and kept importance even though they never met or held a positive opinion of him. The world didn't revolve around him: everyone just started doing their own shit and living their own lives - like _actual people._
I mean, all of his friends got killed at one point. In the light novel, they went into detail about how he had to use every healing item he had, just to survive. And he survived because he was a much higher level, secretly. The implication was that there were a number of hidden abilities in the game, and he just got one of them due to his two swords style and playing solo as an unusual unlock req, IIRC. Your description of Mary Sueness holds up, though.
@@vanivanov9571 I believe that you are missing the point a little. Unfair treatment by TPTB => breaking of immersion => readers dislike the novel without understanding why they hate it => must be the characters. Kirito's suffering while valid does not resolve the underlying problem, so he still got called a Sue.
"He never seems to struggle to get or maintain any of this - the story just gives it to him." Did you not see the movie where it's AR and he fucking sucks at the beginning. There is even a scene that was memed to hell where he grabs his sword from his back but only grabs air because he is IRL and not in game.
"Ensign Sue Must Die!" is probably one of my favorite webcomics for how it takes the concept of a mary sue and runs with it, starting out as a generic "canon characters are aware of the sue and hate her" gag comic and slowly evolving into a discussion about many of the writing concepts you've discussed in this video. It's definitely pretty dated by now but I still highly recommend it!
Literature Devil has my preferred definition: It's about having a character who isn't shaped by the world and their place in or defiance of it. The world simply warps to fit that character's whims or desire for praise.
I'm pretty sure that's near exactly what Red is saying. Not necessarily for praise, but just a character who the universe of the writing warps around. It bends around them to glorify them, or hurt them, or whatever else. They're just kinda boring, or even frustrating and obnoxious because it pulls you out of the story in an almost violent fashion.
I actually have a simpler one: Pejorative for wish fulfillment characters written by and/or for teenage girls. Hence why Rey vaguely meets the definition, but Luke doesn't. Dudes are assumed to be aspirational, wish fulfillment characters for everyone, while Nice Guys get salty about having to look up to women.
@@justineberlein5916 Looks like you're trying to shoehorn in sexist bullshit here. You're also clearly talking out your ass without actually doing any sort of research as to why the two are different. But, you be you, keep trying for that white knight bs or whatever. Just take it somewhere else.
@@cyan_8716 You mean a New Hope didn't culminate in Luke, who only had a few hours of training with the Force at most at that point, make the one-in-a-million shot that destroyed the Death Star and save the Rebellion through his mentor's literal ghostly guidance? And he isn't also the son of a fallen Chosen One, with that lineage being why Vader was redeemed when he chose to save Luke from Palpatine at the cost of his own life, and is also the reason why he's so strong in the Force? The only thing I'm getting here is you're selectively focusing on Luke's struggles while selectively ignoring Rey's own. Namely, Rey's main struggle throughout the Sequel Trilogy isn't "physical challenges", but character-driven: she doesn't know or understand what her place is in everything. That's the opposite of many protagonists, like Luke Skywalker, who are usually told within the first act they are special, why they are special and what their "destiny" is, and that becomes a defining trait for them and/or their motivations.
Honestly telling someone they can't like something because it's dumb is just the worst thing. To quote Uncle Dane, "We all like bad things. Hell, I like cp_dustbowl, and that map is *trash."*
My Mary Sue is the antagonist, she's always envied how in books the Mary Sues got everything they wanted, so she decided to become one. My protagonists need to stop her before the becomes a mary sue and thus impossible to defeat.
James Bond is an obvious Mary Sue. He can drive cars, boats, ride motorcycles, fly planes and helicoptors, shoot any kind of guns, only loses a fight when it serves the story, is desired by all women (married or otherwise), work any gadget and is virtually indestructible. All stories revolve around him to the point where any other double 0's involved will fail, betray or die, yet he is insubordinate to such a degree that his 00 status has been revoked, yet he is STILL needed to solve the case.
It seemed to change with Craig's version : he much less likable, doesn't always do the right thing, he fails here and there, and most people don't agree with his way of doing things. Hence is why I like it so much. :)
I'd argue that Bond is, at most, 'Sue-ish', since most of his "powers" are explained, or at least implied. He's a highly trained secret agent, which explains his vehicle skills: he was trained to drive, sail, and fly. This also explains the guns/gadgets thing (he's trained to use a variety of weapons and his own equipment). His most Sue-ish traits are his attractiveness and his plot armor. The attractiveness/charisma is somewhat explained by A) he's just good looking and that factored into his recruitment and B) he probably got trained in social manipulation, but I agree that he is way too good at talking his way out of things (or into things, as the case may be). Indestructibility comes in the form of plot armor rather than generic, explained-in-universe powers. For example, villains tend to attempt to kill him with elaborately slow death-traps, allowing deus-ex-machinas to happen frequently (I recall a scene where a villain taunted Bond about being able to choke him to death with a single increase in the pressure of a deathtrap, but the cavalry arrived at the last second). However, this isn't an overpowered character, just a stupid villain. I haven't read all the books or watched all the movies though, so forgive me if I'm utterly wrong owing to having missed something.
Sue is plot no reason protagonist over come even it doesn't make any sense or logic.You wouldn't say Newton is a bad character because he is a genius and make all the wonderful things you admire because he still live in the same world as we do.Sue needs to be breaking the premise that previously said and without a logical or good explanation.Like when you see REY IN STARWARS TRIPLE SHOT TIE FIGHTER IN HER FIRST OR SECOND FLIGHT WITHOUT TRAINING WITHOUT THINKING WITHOUT LUCK.You can say she's a genius but when she refused the dark side and at that point you basically know that her character is just as boring as the story goes.SHE WILL ALWAYS DO THE RIGHT THING WITHOUT REASON ADD ON SHE ALSO DO EVERYTHING PERFECT.I think she can be a sue because the story is empty SHE COMES FROM NO WHERE BUT SHE'S THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE.
I believe there are three key traits to a Mary Sue/ Gary Stu 1: A lack of genuine, demonstrated weaknesses, failings, and failure on the character's part. - Note the words 'genuine' and 'demonstrated'. The other characters say Mary Sue is clumsy, but we never actually see that (not demonstrated). Oh wait, no, she tripped that one time. Right into the arms of her crush (not genuinely a weakness). If her weaknesses and failings aren't genuine issues, they aren't genuine weaknesses. Further, being too loving, too loyal, or too caring CAN be genuine weaknesses, but can also be "job interview weaknesses," and thus not genuine. - A point of note is that failures also have to be genuine. Did Mary want to bring Dingles back from the side of evil, but he turned her down? GREAT, a failure! Did she recognize a genuine failure, and experience a crisis of faith, and a need to reevaluate herself, her views, and others? Or did you get the vibe that her 'failure' just shows how great she is ("she was just over idealistic," "she got close, and knows she will succeed next time," "it wasn't her failure, it was his for not being strong enough to accept her help! [we'll return to this one later]). - A strong example of a lack of genuine failings is when the character seems to excel, even by coincidence and sheer luck, at things she shouldn't be able to. - An almost omnipresent 'failing' is a the characters inability to realize her own Mary Sue-ness, such as never noticing that every male character wants her, and probably never questions her infinite luck and skill. 2: The story, world, rules, lore, characters, and reasoning all bend and flex around her and for her. - Do all characters seem to love her, even though they just met her? Do rogue characters want to follow and die for her because there's just "something about her?" Do competent enemies suddenly lose competence around her? - Long time rules and concepts are changed, rewritten, or out right ignored on behalf of her. New rules may be introduced simply for the sake of helping this character. - No aspects of the world will be used to hinder this character, nor any new aspect introduced to provide a genuine issue for our character. - Did Mary fail to make Dingles a good guy again? It's Dingles fault for not being strong enough to accept her help! The very reasoning of the plot is twisted so that Mary isn't the actual failure, it's Dingles. The world and story has flexed around and for Mary. 3: The out-of-story 'characters' (such as writers, actors, and authors) reject any notion that the character is poorly written, and will do so militantly. If pushed, they will become more militant. - Yes, this is not exclusive to Mary Sues, but is one of the predominant issues with Mary Sues.
this misses the point completely. #2 is the only thing that makes a character a sue. Mary Sue =/= overpowered character. The problem is NOT the character, it's the world being subject to them #1 is a list of bad character traits that are in plenty of non-sue characters, and aren't even present in all Sues #3 is fandom behavior that is the same. exists around non-Sues too, and doesn't exist around every Sue side note: "out-of-story 'characters'" are just.. people, those are not characters
"Isn't just a perky fifteen-year-old with natural highlights." See, this is what gets me when people get on Ruby Rose (RWBY) for being a Mary Sue. (In one of the Chibi episodes, they even made a joke about Ruby writing herself as a Mary Sue.) But she's not the only important character (by far), she doesn't save the day alone, she doesn't win every battle, she makes mistakes, and most importantly, she's proactive.... BUT, she is perky, fifteen, and has natural highlights, so gets called a Mary Sue all the time. James Bond, on the other hand, is extremely Mary Sue, but he doesn't look like one, so no one calls him out for it. Strangely, though, the Bond movies are actually better the more Mary Sue he gets. When they tried to make the movies "realistic" with Daniel Craig, the movies stopped feeling like James Bond movies, and more like Jason Bourne with a little bit of Bond window-dressing.
But that's just it, Shawn. The fact that she isn't the ONLY important character in the world and that the narrative doesn't completely warp around her to make this true is what disqualifies her as a Mary Sue. James Bond CAN be written as a Marty Stu, but again, most of the time the world is consistent and James is simply one of the impossibly elite characters who exists within it; and usually not the only one! The enjoyable Bond stories commonly have him run up against someone in the same magnitude of competency as he is, whatever their particular version of that is: some have armies of mooks (SPECTRE), others have similar training and strength (Raoul Silva), still others have vast intellects and resource pools (Goldfinger), and so on. If there is no warping of the narrative -- and thus a narratively self-consistent plot with stakes and a goal for the protagonist and antagonist to work for and against, respectively -- you no longer have a Mary Sue. A boring Invincible Character does NOT immediately mean Mary Sue / Marty Stu. It's just easier for such characters to devolve into one.
But RWBY as a show does suffer from the exact same issues that are tied to Mary Sue writing styles. For one, the show bends over backwards to make the most ass backwards decisions appear like the truly virtuous choices, and any genuinely decent choices that aren’t the main four look like buffoons.
I would even say that you shouldn't bully people for writing something mediocre or bad. Just give criticism and help guide them to do better next time. Even good artists sometimes make mistakes as in the end, we're only human
@@tux2457 yep & I was 'bullied' for it - some people online said it was shit - in retrospect that experience made me a better writer. To conclude: 'bully' children, tell them what's good and what's bad.
This is probably my favorite video that addresses the Mary Sue. Most Mary Sue videos on UA-cam are just them ranting and saying that anyone who uses a Mary Sue is bad. This one is actually logical and you've obviously done your research. Good job!!
While I agree that Kirito is a Mary Sue, the premise of an MMORPG was still new and ready to be explored. SAO was written shortly after .hack, if I remember right, even though it was published and turned into an anime way later. Everyone (including me) latched on because they wanted to experience that MMO overpowered feeling. That said, I still don’t know where his hacking skills came from.
Yeah Kirito has been repeatedly accused of being a Mary-sue (or Gary Stu), so it's definitely not a trope that affects female characters only. Wesley Crusher (Star Trek) has also been repeatedly pointed out as a Gary Stu character.
Ideas for a Mary Sue: 1. She's some sort of Eldritch horror or a demon or something in a magic-power centered universe. . She shows up somewhere, with no evidence that she had ever existed before. Everyone instantly admires her and she seems to have so much skill and power. Her magic shows no boundaries, and acknowledges that her magic is the greatest they'd ever seen, even if it breaks the established rules of the world. One day, once she has successfully charmed everyone in the town or school or whatever, she goes to the center of the area, glows and absorbs all that is good in everyone's personality, powers, and looks, leaving only the worst parts of the people, where they are half alive, half dead ghost servants that are terrifying and ugly. 2. She's a girl from a noble or royal family that are obsessed with having the absolute perfect version of themselves. From a young age she was brutally train in magic and charm. Her power is incredible, but probably still fits in the realm of possibility. She was also told to hide all of her own flaws, making her emotionally unstable. In a Five-Man Band, she'd probably be the Heart. One day she has a breakdown and is incapacitated or perhaps is a bit of an antagonist or burden for a while, where the team has to learn how to exist without her perfect, shiny self. Have any other ideas?
dude, I totally love that second one. that would make such a great animated series. I'm thinking too that the 'perfect version' mentality could also come from some sort of corruption that gave people great powers, but also has a horrible dark side to it. Is that too cliche? I feel like it is.
My favourite kind of Sue is the bloodline Sue. You know, the offspring or descendant of amazing character X and impressive character Y, who has all the best traits of both canon characters while having the character arc of "man I hope I can live up to my family's legacy, oh hey looks like I'm already just as good if not better than them at all the things they do/did". I always get a little tingle of malicious joy to see them roaming around, trying to be taken seriously.
I've read an actual book series that has the main character like that, except it had a whole "My parents were evil how will I ever escape the thoughts of becoming like them"
meds vannie well if you ever saw the flashfoward of Boruto and saw that he literally somehow had a mix of sasuke and Naruto bloodline, then maybe you could understand why people are calling him bloodline sue. plus a big part of his character is that he's the overdog trying to get out if his father's shadow. They even made Naruto a bad father(despite having characteristics that would say otherwise) to give Boruto more reason to... You know exist.
I used to think that a Sue is a self-inserted girl who has a tragic backstory, does everything and everyone falls in love because she's so perfect. That was stupid, but then I realized that a lot of animes also have people who fit that criteria, but don't irritate me. After watching your video, which basically boils a Sue down to the fact that they bend the laws of the world around them, I realized why Sebastian, Saitama, and other 'perfect' characters (not really Saitama, but meh) don't annoy me. They are able to coexist with the world, and things happen when they aren't present. The worlds that they are placed in still function if you take them out of it. Honestly, most interpretations of a sue is that they're perfect, but I like your interpretation the most. At first glance, it's pretty ridiculous, but after I think about it and compare that to other characters, I realized that you're absolutely right!
Wow really good point about Saitama, he's the perfect example of someone who technically should be a mary sue based on his character traits, but wouldn't be considered as such under Overly Sarcastic's definition from the video.
Just to toss in my own take Batman is an excellent example of a Mary Sue when handled poorly and it’s become an increasingly frequent issue with the character. When he’s handled poorly he comes off as a flawless perfect unbeatable individual who is never wrong about anything and makes people who could flatten him in an instant cower in fear of him. There’s a reason why the derogatory term “Bat-God” exists.
It's also why a lot of the best Batman stories humanize him by giving him definite weaknesses (physical or otherwise) or have him fail throughout the story.
Superman is a real mary sue. Born with his powers, treated like a god on Earth in most iterations; has super strength, speed, laser eyes, X ray vision, freezing breath, is bulletproof, intelligence (depending on the iteration), resistance to his weaknesses (in some iterations), and more. The only time Superman isn't a mary sue is when he's a villain (Red Son, Injustice, etc...)
@@morromenos1016 perhaps, but Supes can also be flawed if given to the right writer who focuses on superman as a person, as opposed to Superman the beefed up OP piece of shit god
Funny how star trek is the source of the word 'mary sue' because the first mary sue character that comes to my mind is Wesley from Star Trek: The Next Generation
Honestly, if that original Mary Sue had more or less kept the same personality and skill sets, but the characters around her stayed true to form, then she probably wouldn't be a Mary Sue. There would need to be an explanation for why she was allowed to be there despite her age, a backstory on what a prodigy she was, and initial distrust from the rest of the crew regarding her abilities, but that's about it! Oh, and probably some internal doubt on her abilities, or struggles to maintain her appearance, someone who gets jealous of her and starts a petty fight... etc... And she could even be very kind to the rival, although if things get too personal she would have to go through some struggles/not be in perfect control of her emotions. Basically, a Mary Sue is just a "normal" person who exists in a world where the author was too lazy to give anyone else a personality, and too lazy to care about explanations and plot holes.
_Star Trek: Strange New Worlds_ S02E07 "Those Old Scientists" is *explicitly* a Mary Sue-the writers and actors have said explicitly that Boimler is us-but it works* because, as you say, Pike, Number One, Spock and Chapel all act true to their characters. *with the general consensus, if not my personal opinion, being that it is the best episode, not only of the season or of the show, but of all modern _Trek_
As a roleplaying nerd, particularly an online forum roleplaying nerd, 'Mary-sue' was used as a rule to say 'hey! you know that thing where you make *your* character in particular special and always win and everyone likes them? It might be uncomfortable to lose and not be special and to have someone not like you, but it makes everyone else really bored to RP with you. So don't do that thing." So that's where I've heard it most often. I don't think I've ever heard it used on actual media characters...
@@neutronalchemist3241 Wesley Crusher is almost an anti-Sue. So much so that he's become a separate character trope--the Wesley. Basically a Mary Sue that no one likes (not even in-universe characters) yet the writer keeps throwing him in our faces hoping that we'll adore him as much as the writer does.
@@ourkeving I'm not. Why should I? Before Rey, the canon character on which the definition "Mary Sue" had been used the most is probably Wesley Crusher.
"I don think anyone would shame you for liking Goku" Try being a twelve year old black kid whose dad hates anime lol He was like "Why don't you like black heroes instead of this pale screaming guy in this cartoon?"
There this annoying classmate that jokes that when I read or watch anime he say that it’s hentai I really want take his guts and turn them into rope so I tie to car
"If your first original character is you with better hair, then whatever man." Oh my gosh... I had an imaginary friend growing up. I described her as "just like me but with long blonde hair." I should have named Lu-lu Mary Sue.
To me a Mary Sue is a character that breaks the established rules of their universe without explanation(or with little explanation to the point it doesn’t make any sense) and is always right/good no matter what they do
@@johnsavage7507 This is exactly why I don't like Rey, as a character she's...fine personality-wise I guess, but 'tragic backstory' aside she literally has everything handed to her; she could use the force and a lightsaber without training to the point where she could fight with it without cutting a hand off and used the Jedi Mind trick without even seeing it being done something not even Luke pulled off until Return of the Jedi. It irks me cause I've had people complain to me that "If she's a Mary sue then so is Luke" and I just have to point out Luke actually had training with a lightsaber and in the force by Obiwan, sure he didn't have much in the first movie but it was enough to help him blow up the death star with the help of Han. Luke even pointed out to pilots before the mission that a two-meter vent wasn't that hard to hit as he'd had practice hitting targets that small in Tattooine as womp rats are about the same size so he already had some skill before he tapped into the force to aid him. That's not even going into the several months he spent training in Yoda's place in the empire strikes back furthering his skills in the force and facing his own inner darkness so he was resistant to turning to the dark side, this was only cut short due to the fact he sensed that Han and Leia were in trouble and went to help them ignoring Yoda's warning. I was a big fan of the original trilogy and still am and for me, the newer movies are an insult to every OG Star wars fan and are frankly awful compared to both the original and the prequels (which were okay in my opinion). Luke earned and suffered for his victories losing a hand and a father in the process, but gaining a family. Rey did not. Don't get me wrong Im fine with strong female characters! I'm female and I love strong characters! One of my favourite video game characters is friggin Zarya from Overwatch a big buff Russian lady who can lift 500lbs. But, when you hand said character everything they need without them earning it to make them 'tough and powerful' it feels hollow and empty and they wind up paling in comparison to who came before who DID actually earn their place as the 'hero'.
@@jaderotaski1 Amazing comment 👏 I would like to add that people also compere Ray to Anakin which I think is worse than compering her to Luke because... 1) The main plot point in the prequel trilogy is Anakin turning to the dark side which has him execute a man who surrendered, commit genocide and kill children 2) Anakin can't control his anger which leads to him losing multiple fights with devastating injuries 3) Anakin had year's of training
that is completely valid the only reason i think the rhea mary sue argument has merit is because it does break the established laws of the star wars universe
Ok so when I was a like, 12, I made a sheet for an OC and now, about 3 years later, found the paper I had written her in, and fell in love with her again. She's somewhat basic. 14 y/o girl, curly dark hair, glasses, blue eyes, white skin, shorter than average. Personality traits (reading off my paper) were "Nice" "Shy" "In love" and "Likes french fries". Like, literally. Those were her only personality traits. But, that alone would have made me cringe. But that's not the reason I loved her. No, she had a superpower. A very quite powerful one. I dare even say it would make her into a Mary Sue. She could turn people into giraffes. Like, literally. Just whoop, there you go, you're a giraffes now. And nothing in the wrinkled paper said anithing about a reverse cure, so, I just assumed she just turned them into giraffes and that's it. That's her power. How she got it? No idea. Would she turning people into giraffes escencially kill them, replacing their human brain with a giraffes brain? Probably. Am I still gonna use her? *You bet I am*
"A Mary Sue is just symptomatic of a specific strain of poor writing where the author prioritizes the glorification of a specific character over the story they're actually trying to tell."
@@SlapstickGenius23 that is not what a Mary Sue is. Under that classification you could argue that a most any character is a Mary Sue. Plot relevance has nothing to do with the trait of being a Mary Sue, it just means the character is unjustifiably good at everything they do. For example if we went by your definition the protagonist from Into The Wild would be a Mary Sue as he’s the only plot relevant character, yet he’s bad at most every survival situation he comes into and dies. That certainly isn’t a Mary Sue. Goku also isn’t a Mary Sue just because he’s strong, his fault almost outweigh his positive personality traits. Goku loses, he dies more than once, his strength is also justified by the nature of his character and the many many times we see him train. He constantly puts others in danger and disregards his family, these are pretty front and center when discussing Goku as a character. None of those would apply to a Mary Sue character.
My definition of a "Mary Sue" is this: When people say that Character X is a "Mary Sue," what they really mean is: "The person WHO WROTE Character X is an egocentric narcissist who wishes that everything was all about them. Said author sees themself as infallibly perfect, and they wish that everyone in real life would constantly congratulate them on how perfect they are. They wish that everything would get handed to them on a silver platter, and that they could always pull off insanely impressive feats with basically no effort and still be congratulated for it. Thus, said author projects onto Character X, and writes them in order to serve as an outlet for their own self-absorbed, implausibly idealized, wish-fulfilling, escapist fantasies." This to me, is EXACTLY what Mulan from Mulan (2020) is, and what Kirito from Sword Art Online is.
I mean yeah. He never loses hes a super genius hacker who even the villian respects. He gets all the girls... and I mean all. Which is problematic when you consider some of the ages. Hes just the coolest dude whose only fault is that he cares to much. Hes kinds of like guts if you removed all of guts faults. Like that time he literally murdered children
When you mentioned that Beowulf is a Mary Sue, it made me realise that a lot of mythological characters are Mary Sues, plenty covered by this very channel. Krishna, Heracles, Sun Wukong, Thor... These characters never really struggle; defeat pretty much everyone and everything they go up against, no matter how powerful they're supposed to be; are perfect at everything they do (or fail in such a way as to prove they're still awesome, like Thor failing to drink the ocean); and are pretty much a storyteller saying 'my mythology is better than yours, because my character can do all of this.'
Eh, it varies. Heracles fails repeatedly and, like many Greek heroes, has a major flaw in his anger issues. Hell, even when he dies it's his own fault because he cheated on his wife. He's definitely an overpowered badass, but I wouldn't consider him a Sue.
I’d say not really sun Wu Kong because he’s a representation of brawn with no brain, overpowered but ultimately directionless, and it becomes a kinda important plot point in the Journey to the West
@@MetaKnight964 is true though, Many hate on captain marvel being a mary sue for being powerful but no one talks about superman or Goku Don't get me wrong, Cap marvel is terribly underdeveloped and her movie fell flat to me, but many people just hate her for being too powerful
Could have been worse. Beowulf is probably based on another character named Bodvar Bjarki, who can summon bears. There is a novelette called Grendel (an existentialist retelling from Grendel's point of view) and in that story it actually takes these traits and uses them to paint Beowulf as monstrous. Like, he looks so perfect that he looks wrong, somehow.
@LTNetjak I love it. Admittedly, I have a strong fascination with artifacts in media (magic swords, rings, etc)...and can also read Old English, so it's far more in my wheelhouse than most people (the translations of Beowulf are fair enough, but actually reading it as poetry in its original language is much better than just reading it as prose). I had a Medieval Literature course at Berkeley and ended up writing a 72-page paper about the use of artifacts as literary devices in ancient storytelling and how it was a method to ascribe divinity to a character without sacrilege, by putting godly powers into the hands of mortals. I originally planned it to be about 16 pages...but getting to write about dozens of the stories I love (La Chanson de Roland, King Horn, Arthurian legends, Beowulf, Cantar de Mio Cid, the many tales of Ogier the Dane, and many more) made me go a bit overboard. It's just too bad that my English degree has only gotten me debt thusfar, no matter how much work I put in, or how much I love the subject.
Turning "flaws" into good things. "B-b-but I'm too clumsy and I'm used to fall, even when that makes me cuter and makes everyone wanting to help me without hesitation, I'm not perfect, I'm just a magnet of perfectness"
Also, I LOVED how Filoni made Asoka Tano a Mary Sue ORIGINALLY, but then transformed her into someone who feels consequences from her being the center of everything and therefore started her on her character's growth. Filoni KNEW that no one would like her to start with, so started with that trope and then morphed it around into some really cool growth and now everyone loves her again.
Asoka was never a Mary Sue. The universe didn’t bend around her. She wasn’t showered with praise for every little thing. I mean I’m only on season 3 atm, but if she supposedly started off as a Mary Sue I really don’t see it.
He made Asoka unlikeable, very much so, but not a Mary Sue by the definition of this video. She is in no way entirely central to the plot of the clone wars. Asoka is a brilliantly written character but Anakin verges closer to Mary Sue territory than Asoka ever does.
@@toxicmute6379 Yeah, thats the general point I was trying to make, I wasn't saying that Rose Quarts acts like a Mary Sue, I just was trying to say the Mary Sue literally *looks* like Rose Quarts.
What really grinds my gears about the Rey discourse is how we got Jurassic World THAT SAME YEAR and nobody bat an eye at how the movie tried to convince us that Chris Pratt was the coolest awesomest alpha male who can stick his hands in front of a dinosaur's face and still keep all his fingers, and also make a clearly disinterested Bryce Dallas Howard fall in love with him
His character works with raptors as a job. It is like a person that works with reptiles and they are able to handle them without getting bit. It is still fantastical but there is some kernel of realism there to build from. As far as we know Rey is an orphan junker on a desert planet. She is able to successfully steal the millennium falcon which just happens to be there, out pilots several professional fighter pilots who are trained from a young age, everyone automatically likes her, and she defeats Kylo Ren in a dual when she has never used a lightsaber before while Kylo has been training with it his entire life. In OG star wars Luke Skywalker is established as flying in his spare time and wanting to be a a fighter pilot. He trains with Obi Wan and Yoda and still loses to Darth Vader in the second movie. They could have opened the movie with Rey piloting a freighter and maybe fighting some bandits to establish that she has these piloting and melee combat skills. Even then it would be a stretch.
> Chris Pratt was the coolest awesomest Alpha Male You mean "The greatest, most interesting, most important person of all times?" I feel like _The Lego Movie_ somehow lampshaded and lampooned The Chris Pratt Hero before that even beame a thing-after all, the message of the movie is that _literally anyone_ put in that position could have been "The Special"
@@oswinhull4203 Look, Luke was farmboy who ended up maneuvering a fighter and nailing a perfect shot into the Death Star with minimal training with the force. Star Wars has always made up shit and given it's characters temporary buffs for the sake of telling a good story.
@@littlefieryone2825 But he did have some training. Rey has zero training. There are several lines in A New Hope that establish Luke as potentially being a good pilot and gunner. He talks about wanting to be a pilot. There is the line about how he thinks he can make the shot because he bulls eyes womprats in his T14 back home. His friend who is a pilot has to vouch for him before they even let him fly. In The Force Awakens there is no precedent for anything that is happening.
The thing I love about this video (and Trope Talk in general), is that it's not just "Don't use this trope, this is a stupid trope, and if you use it you're a bad writer" but rather looks at the nuances of the trope, situations in which it can be used, and the challenges that come with employing the trope
I feel like an additional problem with recognizing and codifying Sues is dependent on what kind of narrative that character exists in. I watched a video recently by a channel called _Just Write_ about writing a character who has no character arc, i.e. they never change in a significant way throughout the story. These characters instead exist to change the lives and further the arcs of everyone _surrounding_ them, by not conforming to or believing in the ideals or world everyone else does. Many of these characters, like Superman or Paddington Bear or Forrest Gump (or yes, even Goku) can come across as very Sue-ish, being naturally good-natured characters with little in the way of negative personality traits, and the ones they do have are more endearing than anything else. It can be easy to call these characters Sues, but that misunderstands their role and purpose in the story.
These characters when written BADLY come off as sueish, Toph from avatar thr last airbender is exactly that character, but has not to my knowledge been called a mary sue or come off as sueish
@@amarh1555 This is an extremely old comment but I figured I could clarify exactly why Toph has never been called a Mary Sue. It's because she doesn't start out perfect. She's born blind so she's already at a huge disadvantage in the world and manages to meet the badgermoles who help her regain some control in the world. Her most Mary Sue traits are her standoffish attitude, overconfidence and combat skills. The combat skills however are absolutely earned, she worked hard for years to get where she is and she knows that. Even then, the desert episode and when she almost drowns both show she's not perfect, there are situations in which she's a liability. She's even insecure about her looks but stays strong about it. Toph is not a people person and it shows early in the gang when she chooses to pull her own wait but eventually learns that that's wrong and that she can depend on others, she does in fact grow and change. The only reason she doesn't seem unchanging is because that bravado of hers never changes, she gets humbled a few time but the bravado is always there because she earned it, it's important to her and she constantly proves that she deserves to be that confident. She invents metal bending but its done in such a way that in universe it makes sense why she alone could do that, and that's why we don't question that. It's the ultimate form of her turning her greatest disadvantage into her greatest advantage. One last thing is that it's greatly implied when she meets Aang that if there were still Airbenders around she'd be mostly helpless against them as they can remain airborne and thus out of here sight, or worse they could propel her into the air where she couldn't do anything. So basically Toph, has all the potential making of a Mary Sue but the writers knew what to do to keep her genuine.
Additionally, I'd also say that there is a lack of adversity to the Mary Sue, no mountain to climb or fears to face, no real challenge, Kirito from SAO comes to mind- I don't like Luke being called a Mary Sue simply cause he went through *a lot* of shit, losing his aunt & uncle, losing obi-wan, his goddamned hand- His trials. His personal struggle. I dunno, that's my additionally factor to the argument anyway.
She didn't say he was, only that on the surface he can seem like a Mary Sue, especially if George Lucas didn't provide Luke with a strong story or supporting cast which he did. If Luke's story was just beat the Empire with nothing else to make the conflict interesting or a weak supporting cast that just follows Luke for no particular reason, then Luke would be a Sue and I even bet his whinny moments which fans consider relatable though a minor grievance would seem much more annoying without his cast to balance him out or an arc to justify it properly. Similar to Anakin Skywalker in Episode II who whines a lot, is considered OP, but doesn't have a strong enough supporting cast(except Obi-Wan) or a strong arc except for his 15 minute search for his Mom.
The most prominent thing in Mary Sue's is the lack of any serious character flaw to overcome or deal with. The next is being able to do things that lack any and all plausible explanation, or ignores pre-established rules. Starkiller was super powerful, but had massive internal issues, (not to mention he still had to train, and Vader had, if I recall rightly, put Starkiller thorough intense and strenuous training regiments. I'm no expert on star wars lore)
Teesloch Tipplecrest I think another aspect of a Mary Sue that's touched on in this video is that Mary Sue characters are the only thing interesting about their world. And in Star Wars, no matter what genre or what main character, often have interesting side characters to accompany the main protagonists, as well as interesting antagonists.
You really think Kirito doesn't have mountains to climb or real challenges? Just in the first arc he's one of 10,000 people playing a game where if you lose all your HP, you're dead. If a literal life or death scenario isn't a challenge, I don't know what is. And what about the emotional problems he has in ALO or GGO?
@@DavidbarZeus1 It's not a challenge for Jesus-kun when he is so immensely strong and good at the game that he can take on like 6 different players and regen his health faster than they can deal damage. For crying out loud, the only person that could defeat him was the lead dev himself, and he had to cheat to achieve that. Also, his PTSD was so poorly-handled that it had no bearing on the actual story and saving Asuna was just a matter of time for him - heck, he had so much time that he managed to singlehandedly defeat one of the best players in that game and end a conflict between 2 opposing armies of races.
I worry that my main characters are Mary Sues sometimes. I seem to be most comfortable with first-person perspective (all three of my story series so far are written that way) but the story is about them exploring their hangups/flaws and working to improve. (And they're all self-inserts, so they're my flaws too. I'm my own therapist, whee!) Princess the Dragon is constantly afraid she's a burden on those around her, always struggling to "do enough" to "earn" the relationship she has with her friend/owner because she ignores or dismisses the things she does bring to the table and focuses on the things she can't. She has a major breakdown at one point where the slowly-building inner demons convince her that she's actually hated by the one person she depends on. Flopsy the Hoofbun is practically the personification of "I have to be useful to be liked/tolerated/allowed to exist", but now she's stuck in a double life where her human form is developing friendships and her normal form is fighting crime, and her human form can't take credit for the useful/helpful things her normal form is doing, and so she isn't understanding why people are treating her like a person and liking her for who she is. Vayryn the Yinglet has less internal angst, and more constant frustration as present-day Earth is not prepared to take seriously a creature that's three feet tall and looks like a rat-weasel-bird-thing on stilts, and so she's struggling to build something resembling a life in that kind of nightmare scenario. I'm hoping I do a good job at having the other characters be convincingly people in their own right, who have thoughts and feelings and things that don't revolve around the MC, but since the story is almost always told from first-person, the reader generally only gets to see those characters in light of their interactions with the MC. If you asked Princess, she'd probably deny being a main character vehemently, and most of the people in her story would similarly point to her owner, as he's got a suspicious number of "MC Checkboxes" applied to him. Flopsy would probably have trouble thinking of herself as a focal point of a story, because even though she acknowledges her uniqueness, she'd consider life to be "just a crazy set of circumstances, and everyone is trying their best to make it through, and I don't want to be a hero, I just want to help people and make their day better" even though she's the resident cryptid/superhero. If you told Vayryn she was the main character of a story, she'd grumpily say it makes sense that the universe seems to be set on putting her through a Humiliation Samba, but I tried to make that just be the natural consequence of the situation she got thrown into rather than "universe bending and warping" to mess with her. I dunno, man. I just write stories about things I like.
I think that's perfectly natural to write what you know. What you're describing sounds like author insertion, but not the world-warping schlock that Red describes here. Also, regarding the name Princess the Dragon-I see what you did there, and I think it's an awesome and brilliant pun to play on the "saving the princess from the dragon" trope in a fiction about a character struggling to overcome her inner turmoil.
So, basically, a Mary Sue is: 1. A poorly written character, often in a poorly written story. 2. Frequently completely perfect, often to a ridiculous degree. 3. A plot focus vortex.
No? Did you even listen? This video shows very clearly why Rey is *not* a Mary Sue. A great supporting cast, not the only plot focus, the world does not bend around her? Like...literally none of the identified Sue-traits apply to her?
Eulenkeks I didnt think she was in TFA, but then TLJ came out and she was too perfect. Her character hasn't had an arc. Things just happen to her that are out if her control. The only thing she's ever done that was actually her choice was go try to save Kylo (with no training) and take out all of his guards (with no training).
Jace Hendriks - Oh, you mean like Luke running off half-cocked to save his friends in ESB? Or like Anakin trying to take on Dooku on Genosis? They both had...so much more...character arc...in the *second movies of their trilogies*...yes, alright... Did we watch the same movie? Because I saw a character arc for Rey, and a pretty damn good one too. I saw an ignorant young woman prone to idealising people having to face reality in the form of a very human, broken Luke Skywalker. And a very human, broken Ben Solo *who she tries to fix but can't*. She has to stop clinging to illusions. She has to be honest with herself and see the world and the people around her for what they are. Flawed. Complex. It's so obvious and in your face? Yoda even spells it out - "The greatest teacher, failure is." That's true for Luke, but he's at the end of his story and can't do much with that lesson. Rey can. As for her training - she can fight - has been doing so her whole life. And if you pay attention to the fight in the throne room, you'll see her fighting like Kylo. Which, you know, is kind of obviously *because of their mental connection*. They are one in the Force. In perfect synch. It's poetic cinema, it's a metaphor. Wedding the Animus and all that. Seriously you might wanna read up on Jung and Maureen Murdoch. And the Heroine's Journey as a literary device.
Hey dudes! Noticed a few running themes in the comments that I felt I hadn't adequately addressed, so I just wanted to pop in and discuss a couple of 'em!
FIRST OFF: Yes, I know what a Gary Stu is. I didn't explicitly mention it because I consider it to be a subtrope of Mary Sue.
SECOND OF ALL: I've seen a number of comments getting grumpy and saying that I lost them when I segued into "the gender thing," usually saying that I'm ascribing to sexism something that can simply be explained by overall trends in media and characterization. And I understand the anger! I knew that was going to happen when I decided to address the gender thing in the first place, and I almost didn't, because backlash is uncomfortable and I hate feeling like I've failed my audience. But in this case I felt like I'd regret it more if I *didn't* address something that I perceived as a real problem. I try not to censor myself just to avoid pissing off people who would disagree with me, so… here we are.
Full disclosure: the idea that Mary Sue is a gender-weighted term is not mine. I *agree* with it, but I didn't come up with it. Heck, the Wikipedia page on "Mary Sue" even has a section that specifically addresses the idea that Mary Sue is disproportionately used to criticize female characters! (Check it out: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Criticism) This is a large part of why I felt I had to address it in the video, backlash be damned - it clearly wasn't something that only *I* was bothered by, you know?
A lot of what I've seen in response has been "well on the message boards I hang out on, is CONSTANTLY called a Gary Stu, and I've never seen a female character called a Mary Sue!" And that's totally fair. We've all had different experiences! I only have my own to go on, and for the most part my experience in this particular area was seeing female characters I really liked being systematically demolished by fandoms for the crime of Sueness, and fans of those characters being hassled for liking such "problematic" content. And, of course, given that I personally quite like standard heroic characters, especially female ones, it makes sense that I would encounter a lot more female heroes being branded as Sues than those of you who don't share my preferences. Clearly a number of you have had a very different fandom experience than I have, and that's great! Life would be boring if we all lived it the same way. But just because we see things differently doesn't mean one of us is necessarily seeing things wrong.
And, of course, the worst case scenario is that we recognize our disparate experiences and resulting worldviews, and agree to disagree. ;)
Anyway, that's all I got tonight. Peace! ✌️
As someone who wrote and read quite a while in the fanfiction... genre??? i mostly saw female Mary Sues, and i wasn´t suprised, because - judging by my own experience - at least 3/4 of fanfiction-authors are female, and fanfiction is the place to go for many unexperienced writers that just want to write down something that i would call "a fantasy, not a story", its just logical that you get much more Mary Sues than Gary Stues.
But i agree, it is annoying that this accusation is thrown at people way to quick, and i am guilty of that too.
PS: Your videos actually made me want to write stories again, (considering everything you said) after 3-4 years of not writing at all, and thinking that i never would do it again. Thanks!
a story that is badly written has no excuse but the fact that it was badly written. people can point to things but overall it was just badly written. it may have other things going for it and may meet some peoples standards but other people may have no interest to watch it. having a female character doesn't make her any less likely to be disliked. it is how the character is written not what it's gender is that counts. qualities the character has. Stories with great female leads: SALT, Twilight, Madoka magical girl, kill la kill, claymore. stories with bad female leads: star wars, hunger games, avatar. some of the best music is made by women, either its good or its not. either it is likable enough or off putting. the most most OP character in one of my favorite games was a female character, well i only used her as a last resort when i am sick of losing too much of course. reasons why i didn't use her, everyone sues her , you have to face players with more experience with her, it is hard to predict who will win with her because it can go either way and the person with experience has the odds, reasons for using her when everything else fails and you don't want to lose anymore, and she has the best army bar none.
I think one of the major reasons Mary Sue is so often considered female is also to do with the generally higher tendency for women to be fanfiction writers. As a result, the self-insert Mary Sue oftentimes *did* come in the form of an attractive young woman with a troubled past who is outcast for uncertain reasons and doesn't know her own beauty (so on, so on).
(I should also mention that, as somebody who read fanfiction quite a bit in the 00s, the Mary Sue with perfect, colorful hair and color-changing eyes is definitely not a memory of 1973. She's still out there. She will always be.)
It also helps that many Gary Stus, in most fanfiction, were less likely to come in the form of a new fan character than they were to hijack the main character (or other popular male character) and use him as a power fantasy cipher for the author. Given that so many properties have male characters as the default it's far easier for a male writer to just use them as their self-insert (the mentioned Possession Sue), without necessarily needing to make an all-new character. It helps that a number of male heroes are already themselves power fantasies (and nothing wrong with that), making piggybacking on them far easier and less obvious.
As a result, the female Mary Sue is far more *visible*, and becomes more ingrained in the cultural vernacular (and, unfortunately, creates a radiating assumption about female leads, particularly those portrayed by female writers).
Overly Sarcastic Productions you talk way too much.
Overly Sarcastic Productions on an unrelated note, your stuff isn't sarcastic enough.
Lucas = Luke S.
Me: Facepalms
Never saw it.
@Rockin' Roll Also Greek
Dakota Jones same
I never noticed that until now either.
OH MY GOD YOURE (both) RIGHT!!!
You're not alone
'If your first character is you with better hair, whatever man, you do you".
As a bald man who sometimes write, I feel validated.
If it makes you feel better than its all the better.
@Parvika Singh Nope, especially if it's written on the back of someone's bald head.
@@dannyhefer6791 lmao
Remember, you're bald and sexy.
Don't listen to people who tell you otherwise, just keep doing your things. :>
@@dannyhefer6791 Don't make up of yourself.
Theres also the “I’m clumsy and can’t talk to my crush so that’s why I’m not a Mary Sue” Mary Sue
s a i l o r m o o n
m i r a c u l o u s l a d y b u g
@@kattieq.1109 P R E A C H
*Marinette is quaking*
@@kattieq.1109
Marinette is actually pretty flawed. E.i. jealous, some what temperamental, holds grudges, self doubting, etc.
Edit: Yeah she's a Mary Sue....
I once read a fanfic where the premise was that there was a perfect, awesome, infallible character that everyone loved, where the plot revolves around them. Because they were a reality bender who was controlling the minds of the regular cast to make them love them. The protagonist of this story was the villain of the source material, who was unaffected by this Mary Sue power, and had to figure out a way to kill/remove the power of the Mary Sue.
That’s actually really cool and an awesome idea for a story!
That sounds like something out of that show “WandaVision”
@@themariobroschannel8763 sorta
Do you remember the name of the fic?
utter genius
Little tip for writing a character:
Depression is not a personality trait
But depression can heavily influence personality traits.
Good definition, will take that into mind if I write about a psychopath or someone struggling with something.
The Way of Kings does a great job of depicting depression for those of you who like fantasy.
yes, kinda like how liking pizza or tacos isn't a personality trait *AHEM KOFF* quirky girls *AHEHEHEM*
Tell that to Gachatubers.
The BAD ones.
@@furiousstudios4438, tell what to bad gacha tubers? the depression isn't a personality trait thing that kokichi said? or the liking pizza/tacos isn't a personality trait thing that I said
"Captain! I am not that kind of girl!"
"You're right, and I respect you for it"
Unrealistic, blocked.
15,5 year old Mary Sue just saved Kirk from space-jail
SPACE JAIL.
wHEEZE SPACE JAIL
is it just a box floating in space
@@EakiTurtle it's definitly a box floating in space
Peter Marsella I'm sorry, but I love your profile picture!
Protagonist: Center of the story
Mary sue: center of the universe
People from year 500ac: So A mAry suE is tHe sUn
This is the best summary of a Mary Sue I've ever seen
We need a couple “in Soviet Russia” jokes in this thread
Harmony Alexandria if something happens* without the protagonist, then no. They are telling about actions of someone else, so they aren’t the center.
*Something that shows that the world is living without the hero, like reports about battles and offenses from other fronts in a war story
Harmony Alexandria
“If the narrator doesn’t see something, then it doesn’t exist”
How about any kind of shady schemes on any sides? Usually protagonist see’s them in the moment of their enactment, doesn’t make them unreal or anything.
1:32 Did anybody notice that Spock blushes green? This is accurate since Vulcan blood is copper-based and thus green and THAT is huge attention to detail!
I thought copper-based blood was blue.
@@mariustan9275 I don't think there are any blue copper oxides and recollect from a book about the science behind Star Trek that Vulcan blood is green since it is copper-based, which is similar to octopuses.
Copper based blood on Earth is blue on the arteries and clear to white-ish on the veins. On some invertebrates it has green color due other pigments that don't carry the oxygen. However, it's not so similar in structure as our blood.
@@soledadariasaller754 My book said Octopi have green blood on a copper basis. Maybe the author was wrong about the connection with copper oxide...
@@fisch37 it's confusing because many books say green hemolimph copper based, wich technically it's true. but fails to clarify that it's a combination of carotene like compounds, generally yellowish, that don't bind oxygen and the copper base ones that make the green colour. The horseshoe crab only has the copper based anthocyanin and has blue blood
You made Spock's blushies green. Now that's attention to detail.
And great observation that a Mary (or Gary) Sue/Stu exists most clearly when a story is written to their benefit.
brackonstudios I know right.
Too much detail, as referenced in my immortal, can be annoying.
Yeeee, green Vulcan blushies
Given what it must take to make a Vulcan blush....
What if there was a novel with a Mary Sue who realizes she/he's a Mary Sue and discovers they're inside a simulation and the rest of the book is focused on Mary Sue trying to escape the simulation and discovering memories of his/hers real life.
@@peppapig2.065 I'm good at concepts, but not execution
I read this out loud to my roommate. Her response?
"Isn't that Assassin's Creed"?
Doesn't Gwen Pool sort of touch on this?
That would make a great story
Sounds like The Truman Show.
"And if your first OC happens to be you with better hair, whatever man."
9 year old me is crying tears of joy.
My first character was a superhero who “had the power of hair”, so yeah, 7 year old me found that very validating
a stick figure who wore a bandana around the head and used a chain scythe.
A magic goddess who was immortal and had fire powers
My first OC was a Lion person who didn't care about all these wierd sex and gender stereotypes that I didn't really understand but also realized on some level really didn't describe me.
My Naruto OC is hugging 13 YO me.
A male Mary Sue isn’t traditionally called a Mary Sue, they’re called a harem protagonist
Or gary stu.
@@MetaKnight964 don't forget manny sue
What about "Gary Sue"
Or Kirito
Tru
Best example of a self-insert Mary Sue... a classic:
“Hi my name is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair (that's how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like Amy Lee (AN: if u don't know who she is get da hell out of here!). I'm not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he's a major fucking hottie. I'm a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I'm also a witch, and I go to a magic school called Hogwarts in England where I'm in the seventh year (I'm seventeen). I'm a goth (in case you couldn't tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black corset with matching lace around it and a black leather miniskirt, pink fishnets and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow. I was walking outside Hogwarts. It was snowing and raining so there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of preps stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.”
-My Immortal, but you knew that
Armun Jay burn it.
“I’m not related to Gerard Way but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie”
incest?
The cursed one has returned
This hurt to read. Please tell me it's not really a thing some one actually wrote, and let other people read.
Fatima Ansari unfortunately yes, it’s an entire 24k+ word fanfiction published on FFN back in 2011 [correction: 2007]; known infamously as the worst fanfiction ever written.
Now we're asking the real questions.
Who is Mary and who's she gonna sue?
The real question is: who is Sue and why do I have to marry her?
"Joule is a Mary Sue, but not just any Mary Sue. She's the Mary-est of Sues. She'd take you to court on Christmas the day after being wed to a man named Susan."
everyone who can write
Who is Mary Sue and why won't she return my calls?
Along with your definition, I would like to add that a Mary Sue lacks character flaws that directly impact that story in a negative way.
I mean i get that significant flaws are realist and a easy way to relate,but I think it is too restrictive to think only a flawed character can be a good one.They can be «perfect» and still face struggle and it doesn t mean the whole story have to bend itself, just show things «objectively»
@nam oma It's not that the Mary Sue doesn't have flaws or is flawless, it's the ways the story will bend to accommodate the MS and whatever flaws are present have no impact.
A character that is perfect in every way, has absolutely no weaknesses, everybody likes them etc.
@@namoma4922 I don't think op meant the Mary Sue has NO flaws. They meant Mary Sue has no flaws that matter. For example, the character is written to be clumsy as a flaw, but the character is never clumsy during events that are important to the story or people in the universe actually like that the character is clumsy and find it cute. It's a fake disadvantage.
When I think of Mary Sues and flaws I think of the interview question "describe your biggest weakness" and the inevitable "flaw but actually a strength" type response in the vein of too much attention to detail, too much overtime, the quintessential "being too nice" or something equally insufferable. Technically these can pass as flaws but if that was the best/only flaw it feels like a weak attempt to lampshade the character as a flawless paragon of perfection with no proper weakness, that'll usually kill tension and make relating to the character difficult. Without either its still possible to have an entertaining story but you'll need something other than following the MC's character arc to keep people invested (e.g. saitama, gary stu incarnate, as a person isn't specifically the reason you watch OPM, its to bask in great fight animation, parodies of shonen tropes and interesting side characters who do have arcs).
This comment will probably never be seen, but your objective and non-biased perspective when it comes to your analyses of fictional tropes is god damn INSPIRATIONAL. I try every day to think more like this rather than using my preconceived biases, and it’s really hard, but you show that it’s possible. I’d be very lucky if I could pick up even a hint of your creativity, commitment, and insight.
HAH! You have been proven wrong! Your comment has been seen, various people have LIKED it, and I've even commented on it!
MUAH HAH HAH!!!
Oh there's bias here, but everyone has a little. In her case, it's not blatantly obvious, which I think is a good thing.
I use these trope talk to do my homework it is now the only way I can do hw so thx
@@jamestunedflat8942 That's an interesting assessment of these videos. I personally find Red's subjective bias very apparent in most trope talks, which I actually appreciate. It makes it easier to both understand and appreciate her perspective, and separate that perspective from the plain information that I can use.
@jamestunedflat8942 Oh I think her bias in this case is pretty blatant. She is obviously working through some stuff with this one in a way that she doesn't in others - the way she attacks the existence of the trope is designed to counter **specific** criticisms, as if she's defending a work in mind, and not the way the trope is or can be mishandled by either whoops-butterfingers-I-have-no-idea-what-I'm-doing new writers or legitimate bad actors.
Imagine a self-aware Mary-Sue who just kinda hates the fact that she lives in an empty world where the focus is only her all the time...
Until she realizes she can exploit it
Someone wrote a story about former Lancre Witch Lucy "Diamanda" Tockley wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Lucy_Tockley for whom everything would always go right, because magic (or the Elf Queen) was trying to get her back as a witch. It frankly drove her mad because she was saddled with one of those fools who think 'if I just believe the universe will save me'. Everything went her way, when she was trying to prove that she was more than just magic, and she realized her idiot friend had stopped learning and growing becasue every stupid thing she did would work out around Lucy.
@@nk_3332 I haven't read that one yet, but I did read a Lucy Tockley fanfic where she resents being forced to give up her magic and tries various methods for guaranteed power but never gets any satisfaction from what she attempts. It references the "King of the Cats" folktale.
Isn’t that basically Deadpool?
Edit: And maybe Binks of Mundania
You mean one punch man?
One punch man
“The Mary Sue distorts the world around them, changing the way characters act and reality works to put the focus on them.”
Mary Sue could be an interesting antagonist, looking at those powers she has.
I'd read that story
@@whiteraven181 That's essentially the plot of the Ensign Sue Must Die trilogy of webcomics, although it's really the second and third that deal with this particular idea in depth.
_Emperor Joker,_ anyone?
DIO is a villain-sue and it's glorious.
Lol there is an entire genre popular today that a person got reincarnated as a villainess in a mary sue heroine's story. You can guess what the plot it is just by describing it.
Your design for the Star Trek Mary Sue is adorable. Can we get her on a t shirt that says, "The original Mary Sue"
That's red for you she can make anything adorable
She looks like rose quartz but smaller and I’m here for it
There was a webcomic called "kill sue" for a star trek mary sue
@@dinodude7290 yesss
@@dinodude7290 You better be careful we all know what happened last time someone messed around with a smaller Rose Quartz
Someone once accused my (female) skyrim OC of being a Mary Sue because of all the powers she had. I then told him that, in-game, you have the power to save the world three different times, be the leader of every major guild, kill entire armies, and just generally be the biggest badass of the era. My OC was merely following canon ;)
Not to mention the absurd amount of power you can get through exploits
RPG videogame characters in general are meant to be Mary Sues
@@eugene12310mobile And Marty Stus / Gary Sues / etc. It would be much harder to show a protagonist that isn't.
Don't forget the Pokemon main characters in the main series games. In most of them, you're a ten-year-old or teenager who can catch all the native Pokemon in that region, defeat all the gym leaders, thwart the schemes of a powerful organization, defeat the region's five strongest trainers and becomes Champion, and capture the Legendary Pokemon who are significant to the region's history and mythologies.
@@wolfehologram3539 kinda hard to write a complex blank slate character.
So in other words, a main character is like a star, a Mary Sue is like a black hole
Nice example
Too much shit on the star then it becomes a black hole.
A paragon is a super bright star
An Everyman is a small dwarf planet trying to get big
@@fantasyshadows3207 the underdog is an asteroid
It's the difference between an entrepreneur and a trust fund baby.
One put in the work to get where they are, the other had everything handed to them.
I'm glad the mention of a Mary Sue being a symptom of bad writing is there at the end because I've seen so many people say that removing a Mary Sue will automatically make the story good which it won't because you just took away a symptom of a bigger problem.
Yea it's like putting Swell cream on a broken leg, or taking fever medicine when you have the Bubonic plague.
@@ButWhyMe... bubonic plague is not that strong anymore on humans, you probably already had it.
@@irmaosmatos4026 Well... Then it's like drinking water when you have a concussion.
@@ButWhyMe... most humans developed genetic imunization through trauma, it was that powerful of a disease, I bet you don't know a lot of people who had it, and even if you do, you just know a few.
@@irmaosmatos4026 Bubonic plagues is extremely deadly when untreated and will likely kill you. Note that being infected with Yersinia pestis is NOT the same as having Bubonic plague, which is when the bacteria infects your lymph nodes causing them to swell and ooze fluid. Hence why it's called BUBONIC plague, because it causes you to develop buboes, AKA swollen lymph nodes.
Getting infected with Bubonic plague in a wealthy nation period is extremely rare, regardless of severity levels. And deadly outbreaks still happen periodically, some of them kill thousands of people. Without antibiotic treatment Bubonic plagues has between 40-60% mortality. Never mind the other forms of plague, like Pneumonic plague, which has an untreated mortality rate of 100%, and Septicemic plague, which is almost always lethal even with treatment.
I used to have a Mary Sue character literally just for a coping mechanism, whenever I had a bad day I would write my self insert Mary Sue as the goddess of the universe with every power who ruled the world and just do whatever I wanted to. It made me feel a lot better when I got bullied.
This lowkey made me feel sad cuz I know someone who has a deep connection to his original characters (as in within the context of when he created them) and I myself cherish my stories as if they were my most prized possessions
I still do that lol. I can't remember how many times I declared myself the queen of everything and imprisoned my bullies for eternity. Doesn't actually help the situation, but makes it easier to cope.
i do that lol
When i was a kid, i used to do that but as a Villain, not a hero. Lmao
I wrote a short story where a person did exactly that but then got sucked into a story as that character and had to cope with the outcome with all the side characters very confused when she would do normal human things like have panic attacks and have no idea how to handle real violence in fighting the big bad.
I love the kaiju-comment fights. They're hilarious.
I loved them too. But she cut away too quick and I'd have to rewind & pause to read it.
Sadly realistic too.
@@christophermire3872 same lol
Absolutely hilarious
I think it’s how loud they are. There’s always a roar or a thud
So basically, a Mary Sue isn't someone who's too powerful, it's someone who's too important.
I like this 👍🏼
yes and no, you can be important and still have genuine character flaws, take Anakin for example because I KNOW people would make that comparison that he's mary sue because he's the chosen one, based on your comment
Specifically so important that every character in the world is practically nonexistent
@@tiffanyhendricks1860 kid anakin was Mary sueing up the ass tho. Beat more experienced drivers in the first race he ever finished.
Piloted and fucking destroyed and entire separatist Droid control ship with zero effort and is also the chosen one. Kid anakin is OP af
@@tiffanyhendricks1860 idk man Mary Sue's don't usually end up being a slave to hatred and full of regrets, yeah sure Anakin was stronger than the average jedi in terms of the force and lightsaber dueling but he still gets his ass handed when he fights someone stronger like Dooku, and Ep3 Dooku would've beat Ep3 Anakin if Palpatine didn't order him to toy with Anakin, it's only when he gets pissed that he was able to turn the tables, although I agree that Ep1 Anakin is borderline Mary Sue
I can't be the only one concerned that the og mary sue was a 15 year old girl in the midst of fully fledged adults looking at her that way right--
i know, that always bothered me too
"i'm not that kind of girl" and "i respect you for that" just... gah!!
I mean if the 15 year old girl was the one that wrote the story as a self-insert (I get the impression it was) then it's not weird. Kids/teens fall in love with adults all the time, they're not mature enough to fully understand why that relationship would be a problem. It was probably just part of her "blunder years".
If it was an ADULT that wrote about a 15 y/o getting hit on by adults, then yeah that no bueno
@@sebastianferm4440 Also worth noting the original Mary Sue fanfic was a parody.
From wikipedia:
"The term Mary Sue comes from the name of a character created by Paula Smith in 1973 in the parody story "A Trekkie's Tale", published in Smith's and Sharon Ferraro's Star Trek fanzine Menagerie. The story featured Lieutenant Mary Sue ("the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet-only fifteen and a half years old"), and satirized idealistic female characters widespread in Star Trek fan fiction."
It's on purpose, it was a parody. Funny how parodies often codify tropes.
Mary Sue self insert? Nah mate, if I insert myself, I’m gonna be the comic relief character who’s probably gonna get beat up at least once throughout the story.
EldTrainboy Music become sokka
@@jesther9277 best character arc in one of the best stories in recent years
Imma report this comment because I'm in this post and I feel attacked!
Yeah same. I add my character as the background comic relief that has actually pretty sad undertones to her jokes (for example, I had a scene where she was crying over if she wanted food or to get a textbook for her college classes. I’m not in college but I put my characters in college for some odd reason)
that could end up as a mary sue if you are really careless about it
i didnt think you were actually serious about the way the og mary sue story goes.
"Gee, golly, gosh, gloriosky," is definitely a phrase i will be using
I beg your pardon that's the actual dialogue used? I just thought that she was paraphrasing (I think I'm using that word correctly) for the sake of comedy...
"A Trekkie's Tale" was explicit parody, written by a fanzine contributor (editor?) PaulA [sic] Smith who was fed up with the scourge of similar stories being published.
The full text is only about a page long, and I encourage you to look it up, because it's a hilarious read.
I read the entire thing (like 4 paragraphs long), that was word-for-word exactly what was written
Pretty sure it was supposed to be a parody
This made me realise that I'm basically a Mary Sue in my dreams T_T Might need to dream up some better narratives and story development
i mean its good to practice better writing, but there's nothing inherently wrong with just having fun in your own head. do what makes you happy, first and foremost.
That’s called a dream sue, actually. You brought it to your real life, technically!
really I'm powerless in my dreams against Lovecraft monsters going to murder me, lucky you
my dreams are like "There's this attractive biologist who goes in side my house and charms my cats so they no longer pay attention to me, which makes me upset because I want to snuggle the fluffs!"
Lucky, I'm just the main character in a boring horror film. I don't get scared of them, so I refuse to call them nightmares, but I guess it reflects how I think most horror films are boring.
Now I want to read a story where the characters are trying to cope with a reality bending Mary Sue on the loose. They can't bring themselves to hurt her because she's just too nice and pretty, but everywhere she goes reality bends around her causing untold chaos.
at least untold until someone tells it then its told chaos.
This is making me think of Cultist-chan for some reason.
Now _that’s_ a good idea.
I can just imagine at the climax of Confrontation that makes her perhaps get violent or rude and the reality can't take it and violently tries to shift into turning you into the bad guy.
Isn't that the basic premise of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya?
So basically The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya?
Check out the old webcomic Mary Sue Must Die.
I'm still amazed at how you speak so fast without stuttering or stumbling with your words. Aaah, super powers.
I was thinking the same thing.
That's because she edits herself doing multiple takes. If she messes up she just says the line again and edits it to sound contentious.
ehhhhhh yahtzee does it better.
Oreon Peregrino ikr she's such a Mary sue
Oreon Peregrino thats the english language for u
That scene you showed of Rey in the beginning always makes me laugh. It feels like she intentionally aimed for the rock, based on how much she adjusted her aim after, like it was a warning shot but she didn’t even wait for the stormtrooper to react before shooting them. Like she was thinking “Okay it’s always polite to fire a warning shot” then thought after “Oh wait these are Space N*zis why am I being polite”
I mean, that’s just what it’s like when someone tries to fire a gun they’ve never used before, with one hand and doesn’t have enough time to aim it
One way I would rewrite the sequels is that Rey ends up moving the plot along by complet accident most of the time. By the end of the trilogy this would be mostly averted.
Based comment. Nice pfp as well.
@@PatheticApathetic True that. It's also NOT like someone firing a gun they've never used before to nail every subsequent shot.
@@Moved506 I mean… it kinda happens in the movies, themselves?
Rey wasn’t trying to get off the planet, she just got airdropped a BB-8 who she couldn’t let get torn apart. She wasn’t trying to get him to the Resistance, just a bunch of First Order agents showed up (after her boss called them because she refused to turn BB-8 in for food, no less) and she and Finn started running for the hills and got away for self-preservation. She kinda DID get dragged into the story and only grew to be more proactive as she matured.
1:07 this had me CACKLING
Update: I thought you were joking. You were not. This is literally how the first paragraph is written. I am... thoroughly shook.
Tbf, it IS a parody of the bad Trek fanfiction of its day, so that just means the original author deserves credit for any cackling that may have occured
It does sound like a fun read. It's simultaneously hilarious and also fun if you like to pretend you are her
I honestly tried reading it to my friends as an example of what a Mary Sue actually is, and it took me about 5 minutes to read the first line because I couldn’t stop laughing my a** off.
She could have read the entire story, it isn’t much longer. And the fanzine editor who wrote it to mock the bad fan fiction is ... A WOMAN!
WHERE CAN I FIND IT
"Male OC can't be Mary Sue"
Anyone who think this way never watched Sword Art Online.
Kusakabe Shinhoto kirito is defo a Mary Sue difference is that since kirito is a dude he's likely to be called a Mary Sue and the show is still gonna be a hit. Cause we are use to seeing over powered male hero who literally do nothing and still get the girl and god sao why. When she says it's only a female problem I don't think she means there no such thing as a male Mary Sue but more likely that female Mary Sue or just over powered female are more likely to be pointed at and be mocked for it than males. At the end of the day some people still like kirito despite the fact he literally does nothing, learns nothing and is wayyy over powered. Alongside his logicaless harem, yet it still a super successful franchises. If Kirito was a girl there would have a big a stronger chance that the show would have flopped (financially/ most people do hate sao with a passion) and that people would have been quicker to go BAD WRITING. Compared to what happen.
Gary Stu is for boys
how is he a mary sue? The show doesn't revolve around just him but others, and a hes pretty good with fighting but thats only b/c he has been playing the game longer than most of the others. If you call him a Mary sue you have to call Asuna a Mary sue too.
Then explain the hacking scene. Even the Abridged can't solve it. And Asuna is actually poorly written.
Kusakabe Shinhoto my solution for that scene in the abridged series is for Kirito to type Password or 1234567890
I know this is entirely missing the point, but I love how Lt Mary Sue's hair looks. It's so curly and fluffy that it absolutely can't be regulation and is very clearly someone's fantasy, but still looks outstanding.
Regulations aren't as important as letting Lt Mary Sue ~express herself~
Yeah, but did you see how cute Spock was drawn? It was just ~AWWW~ 😍😝
I never thought about how long hair would be dealt with on a spaceship until I read starship troopers where women would shave their heads to keep hair from getting in the way and also wiping out the need for conditioner/ shampoo
Looks similar to Rose from SU
@@lucilucid there's more similarity than just the hair 🤣
I love the first Mary Sue. She is the perfect representation of baby's first story and for that I appreciate her
She was explicitly an over-the-top parody, lampooning what was at that point a pretty established pattern in -fanfic- literature.
It's weird, because Red does say that at the start, but the rest of the episode she seems to take _Mary_ at face value.
I feel like every young fan fiction writer has an experience with their self insert Mary Sue.
doesn't even need to be fanfiction, I shudder to think of my year 7 english book
My first serious fanfic was literally me in Undertale.
But like I wouldn't be scared to death as soon as I saw the talking flower.
For me it was my first D&D character.
My first oc was a Mary Sue. She was also me but wearing glasses( I used to really want glasses) and with better clothes... I don’t read the stories I wrote anymore.
@@mmmirei "used to really want glasses"
Holy shit that feels like me. Now I actually use glasses and _boi do they feel like absolute hell_
"You're allowed to have plain stupid fun!"
I love this channel! :)
Dude, that basically means all the self-insert harem protagonists and self-insert isekai protagonists are all first-gen Mary sues
Not all, as there are a number of examples to the contrary...but, yeah, in many ways you are absolutely correct. And they get flack for it. And even in many of those that are that way, they do still have flaws...which Rey has none of, she's perfect.
I wouldn't say a first gen Sue but they are part of the Sue family.
Most of them excel at about 2 or 3 things, typically swordsmemship being one of them. Anything they're mediocre at, their harem covers for. EX: there's always a cook in the harem. Contrast this to the type 1 Sue who is good at everything they comes across thus not needing a harem except for their praise.
They do become the center of a plot gravity well, thus earning the Sue title.
@@brentonoftheunknown.821 You just explained why they AREN'T part of the Sue family, just because you really want them to be a Sue, that doesn't make it true.
@@Egeslean Seeing as the garden variety anime MC exists in states of writing, I shall describe them. Trashy anime and well written anime. Your Kirito's vs your Kazuma's.
You can definitely feel that there are plenty of isekai that don't cross that hill to becoming well written. They only exist to scratch some itch. Now what constitutes your preferred flavor of good writing is up to the viewer. I'm not into sappy romance but I won't argue if there's a collected agreement on a good sappy romance.
Sue's are dependant on 2 things.
A Sue generates a plot black hole. Everyone falls in love with them or gives them endless praise, or is just a baddie who needs to be stopped.
A trashy isekai protagonist achieves this as soon as all relevant characters become either part of the bro squad or join the harem.
A Sue is also better than everyone at all things required to make the story progress.
The powersets that they have often outclass everyone else to ridiculous extremes, as long as it pertains to whatever flavor of fantasy their in.
Wise man's grandchild. The fantasy is based off of magical prowess, so our MC starts off so ludicrously high that all other characters become negligible, save of course the villain. Naturally he starts teaching the other students, thus starting the praise/love harem.
The only skills he lacks aren't important to the plot, they're just there to force god-kun to interact with his harem 1 on 1.
I don't believe that a Sue needs all the skills, they just needs all the important ones to be able to outclass everyone else to the point of negligibility.
I don't believe that trash tier anime mc's are gen 1 sue's but if you follow the family tree, they are on there.
@@brentonoftheunknown.821 The fact you're trying to make new categories to fit what you want proves you wrong. Have fun.
When I was 7, I made my first official OC. Her name was Cherrie, Princess of The Flowers. She's pretty much a mary sue but I'm so attached to her now 3 years later that I'm keeping it that way
She sounds great, don't be ashamed to create a mary sue just for fun, it's what sues are made for:)
@@anoniempersoon6165 she was pretty cool, her grandmother was the one who made peace between the dragons and fairys and now it's Cherrie's job to keep peace between them
even realizing a character is a mary sue opens the door to de-mary sueize characters. having a character you love is not a bad thing by any means, and keeping at working on and creating that character will inadvertently, in most cases, make them no longer mary/gary sues. so keep working with and creating the character you love, and keep breathing more life into them, and you'll eventually find other people that love what you've created
Im going to say it. If you realize that decided to keep her as such then it should be no skin off of your nose.
Man a lot of people just sorta ignored the video, where it's said a Sue isn't really about the laundry list of character traits, it's about how the story/world around the character warps around them to make them out to the single most important thing inside the story.
DarkIceKrabby, ignored or disagreed? Legitimately asking.
@@evilallensmithee
I'd say a bit of both. The ones that _disagreed_ brought up valid points. They're the ones disputing the definition Red proposed and the possibility of bias.
But a sizable chunk of the comments you find after scrolling down far enough kind of just... miss the point of the video entirely and fling themselves into an undignified outrage.
I didn't ignore it, I just disagree with it.
Kirito from Sword Art Online is a good example of a male Mary Sue, or a Marty Stu
Come to think of it, most harem isekai protagonists are Marty Stus
it’s Gary stu
Marty Stu? I'm sorry, you mustve meant Gary.
Damn... You are right. The most powerful guy in the world , that defeated the god of the game. Every bit of action is there to make him look awesome. Even his sister wants to bang him. I feel like my eyes are opening for the first time in years. I used to like that crap. Thank you
@@dvmpld9103 you're free to dislike what you want, but I'll give you a word of advice in that most of the "proofs" that people bring up when calling Kirito a gary stu are cases of taking stuff out of context or completely misunderstanding scenes.
@@minupakumarasinghe3913 sure, but never liked it that much anyway. And by the end of the second season I just couldn't watch it, I was bored, so bored that I would rather watch a Nat Geo documentary about mosquitos
One of my friends even joked about this, he said " If they are not gonna f*** , then what is the point of all this nonsense " and that was by the end of the third season.
"What are you doing in the command seat lieutenant...?"
"Captain told me to." :3c
"Flawlessly logical, I admire your mind."
Beautiful...
Yes because 15 year olds are known for executive decision making, their years of wisdom, and strong leadership abilities
@@didosauce6008 HAHAHAHA 👏👏
@@didosauce6008 You could add that as a line in the original fanfiction and I don't think anyone would be able to tell lmao
Speaking of Beowulf, the culture itself basically mary sued itself. Making fanciful boasts was basically the norm.
Its a society of fanfic writers. lol!
Bella Swan from Twilight was the first time i noticed that something was wrong with the main protagonist. I found out the term Mary-Sue after that. Everybody likes her for no reason, she is special for no reason, the story revolves around her for no reason and she can overcome any obstacle because she can for no reason
Thank God someone thinks this
I feel the same for most protagonists in a harem anime.
1. Everyone notices her because she is new to school and her mom left her dad and the small boring town in a rather scandalous way.
2. She is special because she directly affected the local vampire coven when the telepathic one really wanted to eat her.
3. She is immune to telepathy and other paranormal powers but not all.
She doesn't qualify for a Mary Sue but her inspired fan-fic 50 Shade of Grey counterpart does.
You know what would have been so cool if that essence worked against her early on as it gets her killed by the vampires who lure her on the false pretense of romance and immortality, and then Charlie goes on "you killed my kid so I'm gonna kill you" revenge rampage. Ah a girl can dream.
@@helenhobbs5472 Everyone NOTICES her for a good reason, but everyone LIKES her for no reason. She's distant with her human friends and later and outright jerk to them but they all still adore her. All the vampires except Rosalie, who is "just jealous" like her before she ever proves herself to be compelling beyond smelling nice to Edward and having a randomly specific superpower. The smell and the power are a good reason for Edward's attention to be drawn to her, and maybe a little attention from the rest, but Alice basically fawns over her and showers her with gifts at multiple points before Bella ever puts any investment into their friendship. And as the story continues, all the vampires go out of their way to be nice to Bella except "Just Jealous" Rosalie despite her never offering them that niceness in turn. At best she disregards the other people in her life and at her worst points she's terrible to them. In Breaking Dawn, Alice is suffering and Bella barely pays that any attention at all despite Alice ultimately saving her daughters life. Their an intimacy between Bella and all the other non-Edward, non-Rosalie characters that goes entirely one way. And none of those characters are compelling-- they have superpowers and one trait of each their own (Jasper is quiet, Alice likes fashion, Esme is motherly, Rosalie is jealous, ect) and a backstory that is shared but never does anything but explain why they have their One Trait (Esme is motherly because she wanted to be a mom, Rosalie is jealous because she wanted to be a mom, Jasper is quiet because he used to eat people and is focusing on not eating people) but not a single non-Bella character has an actual character arc. Whatever few traits they had at the start, they have at the end because they're not important because the story revolves around Bella, who herself is also static.
She's a sue.
"If your first original character happens to be you with better hair..."
*guilty look* I WAS 13 SHE GOT BETTER
Yeah, about this- I'm going to insert my two cents because why the hell not? XD Okay, so, I mean, most Mary Sues are made by writers who aren't that good yet. A lot of us/them start writing from a really young, young age when we hate that we don't have any power over our lives and want to change that while not sacrificing the fact we're still pudgy little childrens. The fact that Mary Sues are so often seen to be female might have some call-back (Who the hell am I kidding? There's callback) to the idea that women are fragile, and all of us are emotional. So why would a girl ever be a prodigy in anything, right?
Even if the female character had acceptable consequences for her actions, like she was given superpowers and they went crazy cause she got them from a traumatic event (because YES THEY WOULD) and she levels her home town, this wouldn't inherently make her a Mary Sue. Its not about her. She's not precisely the Rome in this story.
I think there's a sexism problem with this one, but it isn't one that most are externally aware of. It's implicit. The idea that any female character that is a little bit overpowered is unrealistic within itself might just be the source.
Basically: Sexism is still a thing, you don't have to be a sexist person to think sexist things, there's a stereotype that women can't be powerful, despite there being women who have had power and used it very well, and as long as you take the time to write a character well, with direct consequences for her actions, you're fine. There's my tuppence XD
Yep, I am guilty too)) As most of us are. We start to write at a young age and as a teens and kids we exoderate- a lot)))
Ava Laun You know, I wrote a self-insert story too, when I was younger, but I never let anyone read it, because I knew it was very very bad (not the writing itself, but I already found the plot childish and embarrassing for others to read). It was a way to relax myself at the end of the day, and I found it very useful, I have to admit, because in only one year I wrote like 500 pages about that story and I found out that my writing skills improved a lot. So yeah I don't really see the point of complaining or Mary Sue-shaming: if you know your character is not-so-well-written and you use it as a guilty pleasure I find it completely understandable.
Even if you don't realize it at first I don't think there is any harm. We all learn by writing, not sitting around thinking how bad we are at writing, and the more we write (and read, and generally understand the world and widen our horizon xD) the more we realize the flaws in what we do write. If anything, it's probably easier and faster to recognize if others read your works and aren't too happy about them.
Ava Laun I believe in you
1:14 in captain Kirk's defense, that probably the average amount of time Kirk spends looking at a girl before he asks her to sleep with him.
Charlie Hershberger Lol, That's true, but would he put a new girl in the captain's chair just because he liked her? Also, would Spock just play along with it?
I'm not referring to the whole incident, I am just making fun of the fact that kirk is a serial womanizer so the whole immediately falling in love with a girl is the most plausible portion of the story. I am exaggerating the correlation between this story and kirk's actual traits.
Also, how is nobody on board taking notes that everyone is hitting on the 15.5 year old girl. Kirk propositions the SEVERELY UNDERAGE girl within seconds of meeting her. If someone sends footage of that to high command Kirk would lose his position either on pedophilia or attempting statutory rape charges. Screw the fact that he backs of immediately. If someone makes the case that the first time Kirk meets a willing underage person that will result in pedophilia, or just demonstrates that this is apparently how he views and greets teens, that will get him sent home so he doesn't become an embarrassment to star fleet. Spock is a suspected pedophile at best and that will no doubt get worse over time. If anyone on the bridge isn't swept up by her "charms" a few key messages to high command would get everyone above them resigned and they could claim the position of captain for themselves. Their first order of business being "get rid of the jail bait."
Charlie Hershberger are you saying that Kirk wouldnt sleep with an underage girl within minutes of meeting her? He'd sleep with some sort of cosmic horror if given the chance.
I hope not. I really hope not.
Another thing that I haven’t really seen mentioned: Mary Sues in comedy, satire especially.
Purposely writing a Mary Sue in a comedic or satiric way can actually lead to some pretty hilarious stuff.
I may be the only one who watched this show, but take The Misfit at Demon King Academy for example. Anos fits the definition of a Mary Sue perfectly: he’s op as hell, right about everything, always the center of attention and everyone loves him because he’s so great.
Anos is a textbook Mary Sue but that’s what makes all the comedy land so well. And Misfit is really funny because of just how ridiculous the stuff Anos pulls off is.
So writing a Mary Sue isn’t always a bad thing, you just have to know how to use them well.
Kinda like Sakomoto desu ga, and saiki k
I feel like Saiki K is the story of a Mary Sue that doesn't want to be a Mary Sue but the world keeps bending to his will even if he doesn't want it
I'm pretty sure that's called a Parody Sue. Look up "Ensign Sue Must Die" for a prime example.
@@dreameater8548 I would say that kokomi is the mock Mary sue, everyone loves her and the world literally bends to her will, but saiki actually sees her true self and she has more of a personality, and that's what makes her great
@@sleepy_koko she literally has the power of god and anime on her side
“Mary sue distorted the world around them!!”
~ how is this concept not a SCP.
I believe they all ready wrote that on one of the foreign sites
It is
Hell you can argue for reality benders, that one SCP that is a literal manifestation of a Mary Sue jumping into a random game or media and well doing what he does bending reality around him and beating the big bad in it
@is it Fred?
I believe the one you’re looking for is called “the archetype” (I can’t remember the number for it)
@@Lemonnitenite
Nah, Fred is cool. He wants to be part of a story, but doesn't want to take up the spotlight.
I just realised, if we look at gen 1 Mary Sue from outside perspective it's like some elderitch horror.
E.g.:
*Post shows up on random unknown blog*
Hello, this is Therick Maverick normal student of the Randoringa Highschool and lately I've started noticing a terrifying entity, called Mary Sue appearing in this school engaging with the Loser Group although she is obviously Perfect, terryfingly Perfect. I've tried looking into her past, but I found nothing. She just suddenly appeared on the 5th of March of this year and immediately became the center of atention, such powerful and active center of attention that it makes it impossible for her to not be mentioned in the past. She excells at everything, be it sports, games or studies which further cements that she would be somehow known, but there's nothing and when I try to bring it up with someone they just brush it off as if I was the crazy one. I'm beginning to worry, what did she do to them? What will she do to me? Maybe it's all in my head, maybe this is completely normal. God I need help, I think I'm beginning to go crazy. I need proof what hapenned isn't me going crazy, I'm going to talk to her.
*Couple days later, new post shows up*
How could I be so stupid? Mary Sue is just a sweet, kind & intelligent girl. How could she be in anyway terrifying? I just hope that other people will get to know her as the sweet girl she is.
Hmmmmm.......🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
I've definitely read a fanfic with this premise. A self insert Mary Sue (male) enters an established universe and it warps to suit his needs. The only one who notices is a reality warping villain who quickly realizes that he is the only one who can prevent the world from breaking and sets off to save the world in his morally dubious way. It never got finished, but there were hints that the only solution was to enter the real world and stop the author from writing and I just realized that cutting off in the middle is now a satisfactory ending.
@@elementaldragon34 You gotta tell me which fic is that one
@@elementaldragon34 this synopsis in and of itself is a meta rollercoaster of emotions
I need this animated with complete tonal differences each "day" in the show.
Mary Suedom isn't as much a problem with the character as much as it is how they are treated by the story.
Take Bella Swan and Kirito. Two of fiction's most unanimously agreed upon Mary Sues... and yet as characters in a vacuum, they have almost nothing in common.
You, the person reading this, will _never_ be as cool as Kirito... but I sure as hell bet you're cooler than Bella.
What makes these two problematic is not THEM... but the way the story distorts itself around them.
Regardless of how badass or deserving Kirito is... he has a dreamy relationship that everyone supports - even women he's friendzoned. Characters who WOULD be interesting reduce to 1D haremites after meeting him - one of SAO's best characters, Konno, is actually notable for her ability to *_resist_* this property! He's the number one fighter in every game he plays and gets access to abilities that NOBODY ELSE GETS. He never seems to struggle to earn or maintain any of this - the story just gives it to him.
Bella on the other hand, gets a dreamy relationship that everyone seems to support, for which nothing ever seems to actually go wrong. Other characters lose importance beyond what they mean to Bella and her relationships. And in the end she gets handed the most overpowered set of Vampiric powers in fiction. She never seems to struggle to earn or maintain any of this - the story just gives it to her.
This is the problem. Mary Sues seem to have this "favor of the Gods." Support characters - once living, breathing human beings - lose focus and even depth around them. Enemies who would otherwise be considered professionals mysteriously end up falling short of them. The camera is always focused obsessively on them, and whoever has the console commands seems way too happy to /give them shit or arrange events so that they're the lead player. So to all you aspiring writers out there who want to De-suify characters but can't seem to fix them, I have an alternative solution for you:
If you can't fix your hero, that's fine. Try to fix the way the story treats your hero instead.
I don't think my Mary Sue self-insert changed all that much in the years I've been iterating. But everyone else around him continued to grow and move on. They formed social networks that didn't include him. They went on their own adventures. Characters gained and kept importance even though they never met or held a positive opinion of him. The world didn't revolve around him: everyone just started doing their own shit and living their own lives - like _actual people._
I mean, all of his friends got killed at one point. In the light novel, they went into detail about how he had to use every healing item he had, just to survive. And he survived because he was a much higher level, secretly. The implication was that there were a number of hidden abilities in the game, and he just got one of them due to his two swords style and playing solo as an unusual unlock req, IIRC.
Your description of Mary Sueness holds up, though.
@@vanivanov9571 I believe that you are missing the point a little. Unfair treatment by TPTB => breaking of immersion => readers dislike the novel without understanding why they hate it => must be the characters. Kirito's suffering while valid does not resolve the underlying problem, so he still got called a Sue.
"He never seems to struggle to get or maintain any of this - the story just gives it to him." Did you not see the movie where it's AR and he fucking sucks at the beginning. There is even a scene that was memed to hell where he grabs his sword from his back but only grabs air because he is IRL and not in game.
Kirito is cool?
@cooljay cooljay kirito is still cooler than Bella
"Ensign Sue Must Die!" is probably one of my favorite webcomics for how it takes the concept of a mary sue and runs with it, starting out as a generic "canon characters are aware of the sue and hate her" gag comic and slowly evolving into a discussion about many of the writing concepts you've discussed in this video. It's definitely pretty dated by now but I still highly recommend it!
Just read it this afternoon. Thanks for the recommendation!
Literature Devil has my preferred definition: It's about having a character who isn't shaped by the world and their place in or defiance of it. The world simply warps to fit that character's whims or desire for praise.
I'm pretty sure that's near exactly what Red is saying. Not necessarily for praise, but just a character who the universe of the writing warps around. It bends around them to glorify them, or hurt them, or whatever else.
They're just kinda boring, or even frustrating and obnoxious because it pulls you out of the story in an almost violent fashion.
I actually have a simpler one: Pejorative for wish fulfillment characters written by and/or for teenage girls. Hence why Rey vaguely meets the definition, but Luke doesn't. Dudes are assumed to be aspirational, wish fulfillment characters for everyone, while Nice Guys get salty about having to look up to women.
@@justineberlein5916 Idk, that seems kind of one sided to me... I feel like Red has a good definition of what a Mary Sue is
@@justineberlein5916 Looks like you're trying to shoehorn in sexist bullshit here. You're also clearly talking out your ass without actually doing any sort of research as to why the two are different. But, you be you, keep trying for that white knight bs or whatever. Just take it somewhere else.
@@cyan_8716 You mean a New Hope didn't culminate in Luke, who only had a few hours of training with the Force at most at that point, make the one-in-a-million shot that destroyed the Death Star and save the Rebellion through his mentor's literal ghostly guidance? And he isn't also the son of a fallen Chosen One, with that lineage being why Vader was redeemed when he chose to save Luke from Palpatine at the cost of his own life, and is also the reason why he's so strong in the Force?
The only thing I'm getting here is you're selectively focusing on Luke's struggles while selectively ignoring Rey's own. Namely, Rey's main struggle throughout the Sequel Trilogy isn't "physical challenges", but character-driven: she doesn't know or understand what her place is in everything. That's the opposite of many protagonists, like Luke Skywalker, who are usually told within the first act they are special, why they are special and what their "destiny" is, and that becomes a defining trait for them and/or their motivations.
Honestly telling someone they can't like something because it's dumb is just the worst thing.
To quote Uncle Dane, "We all like bad things. Hell, I like cp_dustbowl, and that map is *trash."*
Which Dante the Sword wielding gunslinger pizza , ice cream lover or Dante that wrote self inserts fanfiction with his Idol and love of life
dustbowl is fine, its just chockier than other maps but i like that
Worst map for spies
D-Did you just quote a TF2 youtuber ?
Man I love you
No homo
My Mary Sue is the antagonist, she's always envied how in books the Mary Sues got everything they wanted, so she decided to become one. My protagonists need to stop her before the becomes a mary sue and thus impossible to defeat.
I love the detail of Spock's blush being green
Oh wow, I didn’t pick up on that, thanks!
"A Mary Sue is not a character, it's an artifact of an over-centralized story."
I AGREE WITH THIS SO MUCH!!
Sword Art Online and Vanguard G in a nutshell.
Kristin B. But what if her name is Mary Sue?!?!
Kristin B. Yes, someone gets it!
666 likes. Good. Very good.
Ok
James Bond is an obvious Mary Sue. He can drive cars, boats, ride motorcycles, fly planes and helicoptors, shoot any kind of guns, only loses a fight when it serves the story, is desired by all women (married or otherwise), work any gadget and is virtually indestructible. All stories revolve around him to the point where any other double 0's involved will fail, betray or die, yet he is insubordinate to such a degree that his 00 status has been revoked, yet he is STILL needed to solve the case.
It seemed to change with Craig's version : he much less likable, doesn't always do the right thing, he fails here and there, and most people don't agree with his way of doing things. Hence is why I like it so much. :)
I'd argue that Bond is, at most, 'Sue-ish', since most of his "powers" are explained, or at least implied. He's a highly trained secret agent, which explains his vehicle skills: he was trained to drive, sail, and fly. This also explains the guns/gadgets thing (he's trained to use a variety of weapons and his own equipment).
His most Sue-ish traits are his attractiveness and his plot armor. The attractiveness/charisma is somewhat explained by A) he's just good looking and that factored into his recruitment and B) he probably got trained in social manipulation, but I agree that he is way too good at talking his way out of things (or into things, as the case may be).
Indestructibility comes in the form of plot armor rather than generic, explained-in-universe powers. For example, villains tend to attempt to kill him with elaborately slow death-traps, allowing deus-ex-machinas to happen frequently (I recall a scene where a villain taunted Bond about being able to choke him to death with a single increase in the pressure of a deathtrap, but the cavalry arrived at the last second). However, this isn't an overpowered character, just a stupid villain.
I haven't read all the books or watched all the movies though, so forgive me if I'm utterly wrong owing to having missed something.
Sue is plot no reason protagonist over come even it doesn't make any sense or logic.You wouldn't say Newton is a bad character because he is a genius and make all the wonderful things you admire because he still live in the same world as we do.Sue needs to be breaking the premise that previously said and without a logical or good explanation.Like when you see REY IN STARWARS TRIPLE SHOT TIE FIGHTER IN HER FIRST OR SECOND FLIGHT WITHOUT TRAINING WITHOUT THINKING WITHOUT LUCK.You can say she's a genius but when she refused the dark side and at that point you basically know that her character is just as boring as the story goes.SHE WILL ALWAYS DO THE RIGHT THING WITHOUT REASON ADD ON SHE ALSO DO EVERYTHING PERFECT.I think she can be a sue because the story is empty SHE COMES FROM NO WHERE BUT SHE'S THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE.
Ya mean "Gary Stu"
Sounds more like black panther lol
I believe there are three key traits to a Mary Sue/ Gary Stu
1: A lack of genuine, demonstrated weaknesses, failings, and failure on the character's part.
- Note the words 'genuine' and 'demonstrated'. The other characters say Mary Sue is clumsy, but we never actually see that (not demonstrated). Oh wait, no, she tripped that one time. Right into the arms of her crush (not genuinely a weakness). If her weaknesses and failings aren't genuine issues, they aren't genuine weaknesses. Further, being too loving, too loyal, or too caring CAN be genuine weaknesses, but can also be "job interview weaknesses," and thus not genuine.
- A point of note is that failures also have to be genuine. Did Mary want to bring Dingles back from the side of evil, but he turned her down? GREAT, a failure! Did she recognize a genuine failure, and experience a crisis of faith, and a need to reevaluate herself, her views, and others? Or did you get the vibe that her 'failure' just shows how great she is ("she was just over idealistic," "she got close, and knows she will succeed next time," "it wasn't her failure, it was his for not being strong enough to accept her help! [we'll return to this one later]).
- A strong example of a lack of genuine failings is when the character seems to excel, even by coincidence and sheer luck, at things she shouldn't be able to.
- An almost omnipresent 'failing' is a the characters inability to realize her own Mary Sue-ness, such as never noticing that every male character wants her, and probably never questions her infinite luck and skill.
2: The story, world, rules, lore, characters, and reasoning all bend and flex around her and for her.
- Do all characters seem to love her, even though they just met her? Do rogue characters want to follow and die for her because there's just "something about her?" Do competent enemies suddenly lose competence around her?
- Long time rules and concepts are changed, rewritten, or out right ignored on behalf of her. New rules may be introduced simply for the sake of helping this character.
- No aspects of the world will be used to hinder this character, nor any new aspect introduced to provide a genuine issue for our character.
- Did Mary fail to make Dingles a good guy again? It's Dingles fault for not being strong enough to accept her help! The very reasoning of the plot is twisted so that Mary isn't the actual failure, it's Dingles. The world and story has flexed around and for Mary.
3: The out-of-story 'characters' (such as writers, actors, and authors) reject any notion that the character is poorly written, and will do so militantly. If pushed, they will become more militant.
- Yes, this is not exclusive to Mary Sues, but is one of the predominant issues with Mary Sues.
Woah man-
Your comment helped me, thanks 👌✨
@@Qydee I actually had to think about if this response was genuine or not lol
@@unigaming9921 "dingles" is such a good side character name
@@vermojonson8835 thank you, I'm very proud of it
this misses the point completely. #2 is the only thing that makes a character a sue. Mary Sue =/= overpowered character. The problem is NOT the character, it's the world being subject to them
#1 is a list of bad character traits that are in plenty of non-sue characters, and aren't even present in all Sues
#3 is fandom behavior that is the same. exists around non-Sues too, and doesn't exist around every Sue
side note: "out-of-story 'characters'" are just.. people, those are not characters
"Isn't just a perky fifteen-year-old with natural highlights." See, this is what gets me when people get on Ruby Rose (RWBY) for being a Mary Sue. (In one of the Chibi episodes, they even made a joke about Ruby writing herself as a Mary Sue.) But she's not the only important character (by far), she doesn't save the day alone, she doesn't win every battle, she makes mistakes, and most importantly, she's proactive.... BUT, she is perky, fifteen, and has natural highlights, so gets called a Mary Sue all the time.
James Bond, on the other hand, is extremely Mary Sue, but he doesn't look like one, so no one calls him out for it. Strangely, though, the Bond movies are actually better the more Mary Sue he gets. When they tried to make the movies "realistic" with Daniel Craig, the movies stopped feeling like James Bond movies, and more like Jason Bourne with a little bit of Bond window-dressing.
If I wanted to get into an argument about RWBY, I'd say that Jaune's more of a Mary Sue than Ruby is.
But that's just it, Shawn. The fact that she isn't the ONLY important character in the world and that the narrative doesn't completely warp around her to make this true is what disqualifies her as a Mary Sue.
James Bond CAN be written as a Marty Stu, but again, most of the time the world is consistent and James is simply one of the impossibly elite characters who exists within it; and usually not the only one! The enjoyable Bond stories commonly have him run up against someone in the same magnitude of competency as he is, whatever their particular version of that is: some have armies of mooks (SPECTRE), others have similar training and strength (Raoul Silva), still others have vast intellects and resource pools (Goldfinger), and so on. If there is no warping of the narrative -- and thus a narratively self-consistent plot with stakes and a goal for the protagonist and antagonist to work for and against, respectively -- you no longer have a Mary Sue.
A boring Invincible Character does NOT immediately mean Mary Sue / Marty Stu. It's just easier for such characters to devolve into one.
I got confused and thought you were talking about Batwoman when you mentioned Ruby Rose. A VERY nice example of a Mary Sue btw.
@justvibing4796 Different Ruby Rose. The initial comment discussed a character from RWBY, while the reply discussed the lead actor from Batwoman
But RWBY as a show does suffer from the exact same issues that are tied to Mary Sue writing styles. For one, the show bends over backwards to make the most ass backwards decisions appear like the truly virtuous choices, and any genuinely decent choices that aren’t the main four look like buffoons.
Note: DONT bully people- especially young people- for making a Mary Sue!
I guess so. We've all made our first untouchable God OCs before right?
I would even say that you shouldn't bully people for writing something mediocre or bad. Just give criticism and help guide them to do better next time. Even good artists sometimes make mistakes as in the end, we're only human
@@tux2457 I usually made theme so character and mc could have happy ending and I usually take the one who doesn’t have partners
@@tux2457 yep & I was 'bullied' for it - some people online said it was shit - in retrospect that experience made me a better writer. To conclude: 'bully' children, tell them what's good and what's bad.
you still sleepy?
This is probably my favorite video that addresses the Mary Sue. Most Mary Sue videos on UA-cam are just them ranting and saying that anyone who uses a Mary Sue is bad. This one is actually logical and you've obviously done your research. Good job!!
Ma'am. Have you heard of Kirito from SAO?
Gary-Sue Jesus-Kun
God kun himself touched the earth
Now wait a sec.............actually yeah he kinda is a Gary-Sue. But despite that I still like SAO.
Alex McBride
'Kinda' is a serious understatement.
While I agree that Kirito is a Mary Sue, the premise of an MMORPG was still new and ready to be explored. SAO was written shortly after .hack, if I remember right, even though it was published and turned into an anime way later. Everyone (including me) latched on because they wanted to experience that MMO overpowered feeling.
That said, I still don’t know where his hacking skills came from.
Yeah Kirito has been repeatedly accused of being a Mary-sue (or Gary Stu), so it's definitely not a trope that affects female characters only. Wesley Crusher (Star Trek) has also been repeatedly pointed out as a Gary Stu character.
Oh my God,
Velma in the HBO max cartoon is a "Jerk Sue"
Ideas for a Mary Sue:
1. She's some sort of Eldritch horror or a demon or something in a magic-power centered universe. . She shows up somewhere, with no evidence that she had ever existed before. Everyone instantly admires her and she seems to have so much skill and power. Her magic shows no boundaries, and acknowledges that her magic is the greatest they'd ever seen, even if it breaks the established rules of the world. One day, once she has successfully charmed everyone in the town or school or whatever, she goes to the center of the area, glows and absorbs all that is good in everyone's personality, powers, and looks, leaving only the worst parts of the people, where they are half alive, half dead ghost servants that are terrifying and ugly.
2. She's a girl from a noble or royal family that are obsessed with having the absolute perfect version of themselves. From a young age she was brutally train in magic and charm. Her power is incredible, but probably still fits in the realm of possibility. She was also told to hide all of her own flaws, making her emotionally unstable. In a Five-Man Band, she'd probably be the Heart. One day she has a breakdown and is incapacitated or perhaps is a bit of an antagonist or burden for a while, where the team has to learn how to exist without her perfect, shiny self.
Have any other ideas?
Spongebob voice: WRITE THAT DOWN, _WRITE THAT DOWN!_
dude, I totally love that second one. that would make such a great animated series. I'm thinking too that the 'perfect version' mentality could also come from some sort of corruption that gave people great powers, but also has a horrible dark side to it. Is that too cliche? I feel like it is.
Get this man (or lady) a pen, paper, ink, and maybe an anime adaptation, ASAP!
@@smileyphantom2838 Haha, thank you! I might use it in the story I'm writing, but idk how it would fit.
@@tortis6342 Cliche doesn't mean bad. The power of freindship is pretty cliche, but still good. I don't know how it would work though.
My favourite kind of Sue is the bloodline Sue. You know, the offspring or descendant of amazing character X and impressive character Y, who has all the best traits of both canon characters while having the character arc of "man I hope I can live up to my family's legacy, oh hey looks like I'm already just as good if not better than them at all the things they do/did".
I always get a little tingle of malicious joy to see them roaming around, trying to be taken seriously.
I've read an actual book series that has the main character like that, except it had a whole "My parents were evil how will I ever escape the thoughts of becoming like them"
Boruto? :^))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
orophinellenese did you just start watching Boruto and decide to write this?
meds vannie well if you ever saw the flashfoward of Boruto and saw that he literally somehow had a mix of sasuke and Naruto bloodline, then maybe you could understand why people are calling him bloodline sue.
plus a big part of his character is that he's the overdog trying to get out if his father's shadow.
They even made Naruto a bad father(despite having characteristics that would say otherwise) to give Boruto more reason to... You know exist.
orophinellenese Have you heard of JoJo's bizarre adventure?
I used to think that a Sue is a self-inserted girl who has a tragic backstory, does everything and everyone falls in love because she's so perfect. That was stupid, but then I realized that a lot of animes also have people who fit that criteria, but don't irritate me.
After watching your video, which basically boils a Sue down to the fact that they bend the laws of the world around them, I realized why Sebastian, Saitama, and other 'perfect' characters (not really Saitama, but meh) don't annoy me. They are able to coexist with the world, and things happen when they aren't present.
The worlds that they are placed in still function if you take them out of it.
Honestly, most interpretations of a sue is that they're perfect, but I like your interpretation the most. At first glance, it's pretty ridiculous, but after I think about it and compare that to other characters, I realized that you're absolutely right!
Wow really good point about Saitama, he's the perfect example of someone who technically should be a mary sue based on his character traits, but wouldn't be considered as such under Overly Sarcastic's definition from the video.
Why do you have a pony with a troll face profile picture
Ross Kuehl-Martin
did that happen in the anime, or just the manga? I feel like I would remember that, and I thought I watched all the ovas...
For now, manga only. It's one of the first story arcs for next season
Saitama is bad example because whole point of him is being OP because that's parody od typical anime character
This makes me want to write a short story about an SCP-esque shapeshifter that has the power of distorting the near universe around it.
Average Joe
Just to toss in my own take Batman is an excellent example of a Mary Sue when handled poorly and it’s become an increasingly frequent issue with the character. When he’s handled poorly he comes off as a flawless perfect unbeatable individual who is never wrong about anything and makes people who could flatten him in an instant cower in fear of him. There’s a reason why the derogatory term “Bat-God” exists.
It's also why a lot of the best Batman stories humanize him by giving him definite weaknesses (physical or otherwise) or have him fail throughout the story.
His best armour is his plot armour.
"Because I'm Batman!!!!!"
Superman is a real mary sue. Born with his powers, treated like a god on Earth in most iterations; has super strength, speed, laser eyes, X ray vision, freezing breath, is bulletproof, intelligence (depending on the iteration), resistance to his weaknesses (in some iterations), and more.
The only time Superman isn't a mary sue is when he's a villain (Red Son, Injustice, etc...)
@@morromenos1016 perhaps, but Supes can also be flawed if given to the right writer who focuses on superman as a person, as opposed to Superman the beefed up OP piece of shit god
Funny how star trek is the source of the word 'mary sue' because the first mary sue character that comes to my mind is Wesley from Star Trek: The Next Generation
shut up wesley
To be fair, Wesley can literally bend reality.
And he became one of the most hated characters..big shocker.
I don't get why everyone hates him so much...
@@stoneoffarel ...Did you watch the show, cuz I'm thinking you didn't.
"fifteen and a half"
*'i love you madly, will you, come to bed with me?'*
**Knock Knock**
*_SECTION 31 OPEN UP_*
It was a different time, I swear.
FBI open up
Well, Kirk did stick his dick in everything....
@@Zurgo-fl1kx Even the blende--
EVERYTHING
Honestly, if that original Mary Sue had more or less kept the same personality and skill sets, but the characters around her stayed true to form, then she probably wouldn't be a Mary Sue.
There would need to be an explanation for why she was allowed to be there despite her age, a backstory on what a prodigy she was, and initial distrust from the rest of the crew regarding her abilities, but that's about it! Oh, and probably some internal doubt on her abilities, or struggles to maintain her appearance, someone who gets jealous of her and starts a petty fight... etc... And she could even be very kind to the rival, although if things get too personal she would have to go through some struggles/not be in perfect control of her emotions.
Basically, a Mary Sue is just a "normal" person who exists in a world where the author was too lazy to give anyone else a personality, and too lazy to care about explanations and plot holes.
_Star Trek: Strange New Worlds_ S02E07 "Those Old Scientists" is *explicitly* a Mary Sue-the writers and actors have said explicitly that Boimler is us-but it works* because, as you say, Pike, Number One, Spock and Chapel all act true to their characters.
*with the general consensus, if not my personal opinion, being that it is the best episode, not only of the season or of the show, but of all modern _Trek_
I love how Red _only_ uses Godzilla (from that one movie) fight scenes to recreate the Comment Section Wars.
I heard that it's actually Pacific Rim.
Yes. Pacific Rim.
a Kaiju vs a Yaeger.
@@benmartinworks Jaeger
To y'all said that it's pacific rim, he's referring to 8:13
Xophlia thanks!
Missed opportunity to call it "Suegularity"
*buh dum, pssh*
As a roleplaying nerd, particularly an online forum roleplaying nerd, 'Mary-sue' was used as a rule to say 'hey! you know that thing where you make *your* character in particular special and always win and everyone likes them? It might be uncomfortable to lose and not be special and to have someone not like you, but it makes everyone else really bored to RP with you. So don't do that thing."
So that's where I've heard it most often. I don't think I've ever heard it used on actual media characters...
Super munchkin!
The canon character on which it had been used the most first than Rey was probalby Wesley Crusher (so much for it being a sexist trope).
@@neutronalchemist3241 Wesley Crusher is almost an anti-Sue. So much so that he's become a separate character trope--the Wesley. Basically a Mary Sue that no one likes (not even in-universe characters) yet the writer keeps throwing him in our faces hoping that we'll adore him as much as the writer does.
@@neutronalchemist3241 please tell me you're joking.
@@ourkeving I'm not. Why should I? Before Rey, the canon character on which the definition "Mary Sue" had been used the most is probably Wesley Crusher.
I love that Red's version of Mary Sue is a Rose Quartz cosplayer
"I don think anyone would shame you for liking Goku"
Try being a twelve year old black kid whose dad hates anime lol He was like "Why don't you like black heroes instead of this pale screaming guy in this cartoon?"
Well, that's more "why do you like those chinese cartoons" rather than "why do you like Goku", but I'm sorry you had to face that.
Me it was practically the samething but with fantasy.
There this annoying classmate that jokes that when I read or watch anime he say that it’s hentai I really want take his guts and turn them into rope so I tie to car
Exactly they always say that
@@shadowclaw7210 wtf
"If your first original character is you with better hair, then whatever man."
Oh my gosh...
I had an imaginary friend growing up. I described her as "just like me but with long blonde hair."
I should have named Lu-lu Mary Sue.
Don't worry, you can make her real via writing and art
To me a Mary Sue is a character that breaks the established rules of their universe without explanation(or with little explanation to the point it doesn’t make any sense) and is always right/good no matter what they do
They also don't earn their skills/power it's just "inherent".
@@johnsavage7507 that too, or they’re just naturally born with their insane world breaking powers
@@johnsavage7507 This is exactly why I don't like Rey, as a character she's...fine personality-wise I guess, but 'tragic backstory' aside she literally has everything handed to her; she could use the force and a lightsaber without training to the point where she could fight with it without cutting a hand off and used the Jedi Mind trick without even seeing it being done something not even Luke pulled off until Return of the Jedi. It irks me cause I've had people complain to me that "If she's a Mary sue then so is Luke" and I just have to point out Luke actually had training with a lightsaber and in the force by Obiwan, sure he didn't have much in the first movie but it was enough to help him blow up the death star with the help of Han. Luke even pointed out to pilots before the mission that a two-meter vent wasn't that hard to hit as he'd had practice hitting targets that small in Tattooine as womp rats are about the same size so he already had some skill before he tapped into the force to aid him.
That's not even going into the several months he spent training in Yoda's place in the empire strikes back furthering his skills in the force and facing his own inner darkness so he was resistant to turning to the dark side, this was only cut short due to the fact he sensed that Han and Leia were in trouble and went to help them ignoring Yoda's warning.
I was a big fan of the original trilogy and still am and for me, the newer movies are an insult to every OG Star wars fan and are frankly awful compared to both the original and the prequels (which were okay in my opinion). Luke earned and suffered for his victories losing a hand and a father in the process, but gaining a family.
Rey did not.
Don't get me wrong Im fine with strong female characters! I'm female and I love strong characters! One of my favourite video game characters is friggin Zarya from Overwatch a big buff Russian lady who can lift 500lbs. But, when you hand said character everything they need without them earning it to make them 'tough and powerful' it feels hollow and empty and they wind up paling in comparison to who came before who DID actually earn their place as the 'hero'.
@@jaderotaski1 Amazing comment 👏
I would like to add that people also compere Ray to Anakin which I think is worse than compering her to Luke because...
1) The main plot point in the prequel trilogy is Anakin turning to the dark side which has him execute a man who surrendered, commit genocide and kill children
2) Anakin can't control his anger which leads to him losing multiple fights with devastating injuries
3) Anakin had year's of training
that is completely valid the only reason i think the rhea mary sue argument has merit is because it does break the established laws of the star wars universe
Ok so when I was a like, 12, I made a sheet for an OC and now, about 3 years later, found the paper I had written her in, and fell in love with her again. She's somewhat basic. 14 y/o girl, curly dark hair, glasses, blue eyes, white skin, shorter than average. Personality traits (reading off my paper) were "Nice" "Shy" "In love" and "Likes french fries". Like, literally. Those were her only personality traits. But, that alone would have made me cringe. But that's not the reason I loved her. No, she had a superpower. A very quite powerful one. I dare even say it would make her into a Mary Sue.
She could turn people into giraffes.
Like, literally. Just whoop, there you go, you're a giraffes now. And nothing in the wrinkled paper said anithing about a reverse cure, so, I just assumed she just turned them into giraffes and that's it. That's her power. How she got it? No idea. Would she turning people into giraffes escencially kill them, replacing their human brain with a giraffes brain? Probably.
Am I still gonna use her?
*You bet I am*
I love the 'likes french fries' part, it's such a human trait to give a character.
“YOU get a giraffe! YOU get a giraffe!! EVERYONE GETS A GIRAFFE!!!”
Mary Sue has Rose Quartz's hair from Steven Universe...
...
The plot thickens...
Greg G Ahahahah
don't you mean it looks like pink diamond's hair?
ahhahahaha
*Sips tea*🍵🐸
Coincidence? *I THINK NOT!*
"A Mary Sue is just symptomatic of a specific strain of poor writing where the author prioritizes the glorification of a specific character over the story they're actually trying to tell."
Mary Sue is basically defined of as the only character that matters.
@@SlapstickGenius23 that is not what a Mary Sue is. Under that classification you could argue that a most any character is a Mary Sue. Plot relevance has nothing to do with the trait of being a Mary Sue, it just means the character is unjustifiably good at everything they do.
For example if we went by your definition the protagonist from Into The Wild would be a Mary Sue as he’s the only plot relevant character, yet he’s bad at most every survival situation he comes into and dies. That certainly isn’t a Mary Sue. Goku also isn’t a Mary Sue just because he’s strong, his fault almost outweigh his positive personality traits. Goku loses, he dies more than once, his strength is also justified by the nature of his character and the many many times we see him train. He constantly puts others in danger and disregards his family, these are pretty front and center when discussing Goku as a character. None of those would apply to a Mary Sue character.
My definition of a "Mary Sue" is this:
When people say that Character X is a "Mary Sue," what they really mean is: "The person WHO WROTE Character X is an egocentric narcissist who wishes that everything was all about them. Said author sees themself as infallibly perfect, and they wish that everyone in real life would constantly congratulate them on how perfect they are. They wish that everything would get handed to them on a silver platter, and that they could always pull off insanely impressive feats with basically no effort and still be congratulated for it. Thus, said author projects onto Character X, and writes them in order to serve as an outlet for their own self-absorbed, implausibly idealized, wish-fulfilling, escapist fantasies."
This to me, is EXACTLY what Mulan from Mulan (2020) is, and what Kirito from Sword Art Online is.
@@jonah_da_mann You mean to tell me the author of Sword Art Online inserted themselves as Kirito?
@Yay Yay what??!
I think everyone already knew that Kirito was a Marie Sue.
I disagree
Though few called him by that. He was just too OP.
I mean yeah. He never loses hes a super genius hacker who even the villian respects. He gets all the girls... and I mean all. Which is problematic when you consider some of the ages. Hes just the coolest dude whose only fault is that he cares to much. Hes kinds of like guts if you removed all of guts faults. Like that time he literally murdered children
I didn't. Didn't even know who he was. Not everyone reads/watches the same stuff.
And Kira Yamato from Gundam SEED
When you mentioned that Beowulf is a Mary Sue, it made me realise that a lot of mythological characters are Mary Sues, plenty covered by this very channel. Krishna, Heracles, Sun Wukong, Thor... These characters never really struggle; defeat pretty much everyone and everything they go up against, no matter how powerful they're supposed to be; are perfect at everything they do (or fail in such a way as to prove they're still awesome, like Thor failing to drink the ocean); and are pretty much a storyteller saying 'my mythology is better than yours, because my character can do all of this.'
Eh, it varies. Heracles fails repeatedly and, like many Greek heroes, has a major flaw in his anger issues. Hell, even when he dies it's his own fault because he cheated on his wife. He's definitely an overpowered badass, but I wouldn't consider him a Sue.
Sun Wukong was not a Sue. Sun Wukong is a complete disaster.
I’d say not really sun Wu Kong because he’s a representation of brawn with no brain, overpowered but ultimately directionless, and it becomes a kinda important plot point in the Journey to the West
@@LineOfThySun is OP, but he's relatable and fun, so it's okay.
@@AishathFauzaaIbrahim he’s also a complete psychopath XD
"Hi. My name is Ebony Darkness Dementia Raven Way"
Marni Stone Omg enoby my queen
Marni Stone "Hi, my name is Ivory Luminous Radiant Angelus."
"Bow before your God!"
Omfg u prep!!!1111
I read this FanFiction and it was fucking great xD AND IF U DISAGRE U CAN GOO DIE U FUKIN PREPSSS!!!111!
STUP FLAMMIN DA STORY BITCHEZ!!!11111 ENOBY ISNT A MARY SUE SHES GOT RLY BAD PROBLEMZ SHES DEPRESSED SO FUK UUUU!!!!11111111
"it's time to talk about the gender thing"
me: oh no
red: actually starts talking about it
me: oh wait no this is actually a good message
Yeah
Except she was wrong to say that heroines get called mary sues simply for being on the same level as heroes.
Well a lot of them do
@@MetaKnight964 By "heroes" do you just mean male heroes?? If so, explain yourself and give an example
@@MetaKnight964 is true though,
Many hate on captain marvel being a mary sue for being powerful but no one talks about superman or Goku
Don't get me wrong, Cap marvel is terribly underdeveloped and her movie fell flat to me, but many people just hate her for being too powerful
it's true, the majority of beowulf if commenting on how great beowulf is.
Beowulf was most certainly a commission work, so it's more literary brown-nosing instead of insertion.
To be fair wasn't it from a period that was full of praise poetry and stories
Could have been worse. Beowulf is probably based on another character named Bodvar Bjarki, who can summon bears.
There is a novelette called Grendel (an existentialist retelling from Grendel's point of view) and in that story it actually takes these traits and uses them to paint Beowulf as monstrous. Like, he looks so perfect that he looks wrong, somehow.
@LTNetjak I love it. Admittedly, I have a strong fascination with artifacts in media (magic swords, rings, etc)...and can also read Old English, so it's far more in my wheelhouse than most people (the translations of Beowulf are fair enough, but actually reading it as poetry in its original language is much better than just reading it as prose). I had a Medieval Literature course at Berkeley and ended up writing a 72-page paper about the use of artifacts as literary devices in ancient storytelling and how it was a method to ascribe divinity to a character without sacrilege, by putting godly powers into the hands of mortals. I originally planned it to be about 16 pages...but getting to write about dozens of the stories I love (La Chanson de Roland, King Horn, Arthurian legends, Beowulf, Cantar de Mio Cid, the many tales of Ogier the Dane, and many more) made me go a bit overboard.
It's just too bad that my English degree has only gotten me debt thusfar, no matter how much work I put in, or how much I love the subject.
But at least Beowulf *shows* how awesome he is/was
Mary Sue: A character never held accountable for their mistakes or flaws in any way.
"Oooh, but I'm not perfect, I'm to pretty and everyone is jealous, and it makes me sad, waah"
Turning "flaws" into good things.
"B-b-but I'm too clumsy and I'm used to fall, even when that makes me cuter and makes everyone wanting to help me without hesitation, I'm not perfect, I'm just a magnet of perfectness"
Also, I LOVED how Filoni made Asoka Tano a Mary Sue ORIGINALLY, but then transformed her into someone who feels consequences from her being the center of everything and therefore started her on her character's growth. Filoni KNEW that no one would like her to start with, so started with that trope and then morphed it around into some really cool growth and now everyone loves her again.
QUALITY WRITING!
Asoka was never a Mary Sue. The universe didn’t bend around her. She wasn’t showered with praise for every little thing. I mean I’m only on season 3 atm, but if she supposedly started off as a Mary Sue I really don’t see it.
@@animekitty4218 I think they mean the original clone wars animated movie that basically no one watched
She was never a mary sue. She had deep flaws and want the only important character in the movie.
He made Asoka unlikeable, very much so, but not a Mary Sue by the definition of this video. She is in no way entirely central to the plot of the clone wars. Asoka is a brilliantly written character but Anakin verges closer to Mary Sue territory than Asoka ever does.
1:11
I cant be the only person who thinks Mary Sue kinda looks like Rose quartz from Steven universe.
it's the hair
@ALSO-RAN !
Oh, Ok. Is totally fine, thanks for the info!
ALSO-RAN ! I believe the point was that her hairstyle looks quite similar, which it does
@@toxicmute6379
Yeah, thats the general point I was trying to make, I wasn't saying that Rose Quarts acts like a Mary Sue, I just was trying to say the Mary Sue literally *looks* like Rose Quarts.
@@thefandomfreak1742 np friend, I think ALSO-RAN just read a little to deep into what you said, which we all do at times
What really grinds my gears about the Rey discourse is how we got Jurassic World THAT SAME YEAR and nobody bat an eye at how the movie tried to convince us that Chris Pratt was the coolest awesomest alpha male who can stick his hands in front of a dinosaur's face and still keep all his fingers, and also make a clearly disinterested Bryce Dallas Howard fall in love with him
I’ve watched a video that pointed that out. Chris Pratt was basically just playing Chris Pratt in those films.
His character works with raptors as a job. It is like a person that works with reptiles and they are able to handle them without getting bit. It is still fantastical but there is some kernel of realism there to build from. As far as we know Rey is an orphan junker on a desert planet. She is able to successfully steal the millennium falcon which just happens to be there, out pilots several professional fighter pilots who are trained from a young age, everyone automatically likes her, and she defeats Kylo Ren in a dual when she has never used a lightsaber before while Kylo has been training with it his entire life. In OG star wars Luke Skywalker is established as flying in his spare time and wanting to be a a fighter pilot. He trains with Obi Wan and Yoda and still loses to Darth Vader in the second movie. They could have opened the movie with Rey piloting a freighter and maybe fighting some bandits to establish that she has these piloting and melee combat skills. Even then it would be a stretch.
> Chris Pratt was the coolest awesomest Alpha Male
You mean "The greatest, most interesting, most important person of all times?"
I feel like _The Lego Movie_ somehow lampshaded and lampooned The Chris Pratt Hero before that even beame a thing-after all, the message of the movie is that _literally anyone_ put in that position could have been "The Special"
@@oswinhull4203 Look, Luke was farmboy who ended up maneuvering a fighter and nailing a perfect shot into the Death Star with minimal training with the force. Star Wars has always made up shit and given it's characters temporary buffs for the sake of telling a good story.
@@littlefieryone2825 But he did have some training. Rey has zero training. There are several lines in A New Hope that establish Luke as potentially being a good pilot and gunner. He talks about wanting to be a pilot. There is the line about how he thinks he can make the shot because he bulls eyes womprats in his T14 back home. His friend who is a pilot has to vouch for him before they even let him fly. In The Force Awakens there is no precedent for anything that is happening.
The thing I love about this video (and Trope Talk in general), is that it's not just "Don't use this trope, this is a stupid trope, and if you use it you're a bad writer" but rather looks at the nuances of the trope, situations in which it can be used, and the challenges that come with employing the trope
I feel like an additional problem with recognizing and codifying Sues is dependent on what kind of narrative that character exists in. I watched a video recently by a channel called _Just Write_ about writing a character who has no character arc, i.e. they never change in a significant way throughout the story. These characters instead exist to change the lives and further the arcs of everyone _surrounding_ them, by not conforming to or believing in the ideals or world everyone else does. Many of these characters, like Superman or Paddington Bear or Forrest Gump (or yes, even Goku) can come across as very Sue-ish, being naturally good-natured characters with little in the way of negative personality traits, and the ones they do have are more endearing than anything else. It can be easy to call these characters Sues, but that misunderstands their role and purpose in the story.
These characters when written BADLY come off as sueish, Toph from avatar thr last airbender is exactly that character, but has not to my knowledge been called a mary sue or come off as sueish
@@amarh1555 This is an extremely old comment but I figured I could clarify exactly why Toph has never been called a Mary Sue. It's because she doesn't start out perfect. She's born blind so she's already at a huge disadvantage in the world and manages to meet the badgermoles who help her regain some control in the world. Her most Mary Sue traits are her standoffish attitude, overconfidence and combat skills. The combat skills however are absolutely earned, she worked hard for years to get where she is and she knows that. Even then, the desert episode and when she almost drowns both show she's not perfect, there are situations in which she's a liability. She's even insecure about her looks but stays strong about it. Toph is not a people person and it shows early in the gang when she chooses to pull her own wait but eventually learns that that's wrong and that she can depend on others, she does in fact grow and change. The only reason she doesn't seem unchanging is because that bravado of hers never changes, she gets humbled a few time but the bravado is always there because she earned it, it's important to her and she constantly proves that she deserves to be that confident. She invents metal bending but its done in such a way that in universe it makes sense why she alone could do that, and that's why we don't question that. It's the ultimate form of her turning her greatest disadvantage into her greatest advantage. One last thing is that it's greatly implied when she meets Aang that if there were still Airbenders around she'd be mostly helpless against them as they can remain airborne and thus out of here sight, or worse they could propel her into the air where she couldn't do anything. So basically Toph, has all the potential making of a Mary Sue but the writers knew what to do to keep her genuine.
Ultimately, a character is only as well as you write them. The same character if written badly may come off as sueish, but if written well will not.
Additionally, I'd also say that there is a lack of adversity to the Mary Sue, no mountain to climb or fears to face, no real challenge, Kirito from SAO comes to mind- I don't like Luke being called a Mary Sue simply cause he went through *a lot* of shit, losing his aunt & uncle, losing obi-wan, his goddamned hand- His trials. His personal struggle. I dunno, that's my additionally factor to the argument anyway.
She didn't say he was, only that on the surface he can seem like a Mary Sue, especially if George Lucas didn't provide Luke with a strong story or supporting cast which he did. If Luke's story was just beat the Empire with nothing else to make the conflict interesting or a weak supporting cast that just follows Luke for no particular reason, then Luke would be a Sue and I even bet his whinny moments which fans consider relatable though a minor grievance would seem much more annoying without his cast to balance him out or an arc to justify it properly. Similar to Anakin Skywalker in Episode II who whines a lot, is considered OP, but doesn't have a strong enough supporting cast(except Obi-Wan) or a strong arc except for his 15 minute search for his Mom.
The most prominent thing in Mary Sue's is the lack of any serious character flaw to overcome or deal with. The next is being able to do things that lack any and all plausible explanation, or ignores pre-established rules. Starkiller was super powerful, but had massive internal issues, (not to mention he still had to train, and Vader had, if I recall rightly, put Starkiller thorough intense and strenuous training regiments. I'm no expert on star wars lore)
Teesloch Tipplecrest I think another aspect of a Mary Sue that's touched on in this video is that Mary Sue characters are the only thing interesting about their world. And in Star Wars, no matter what genre or what main character, often have interesting side characters to accompany the main protagonists, as well as interesting antagonists.
You really think Kirito doesn't have mountains to climb or real challenges? Just in the first arc he's one of 10,000 people playing a game where if you lose all your HP, you're dead. If a literal life or death scenario isn't a challenge, I don't know what is. And what about the emotional problems he has in ALO or GGO?
@@DavidbarZeus1
It's not a challenge for Jesus-kun when he is so immensely strong and good at the game that he can take on like 6 different players and regen his health faster than they can deal damage. For crying out loud, the only person that could defeat him was the lead dev himself, and he had to cheat to achieve that.
Also, his PTSD was so poorly-handled that it had no bearing on the actual story and saving Asuna was just a matter of time for him - heck, he had so much time that he managed to singlehandedly defeat one of the best players in that game and end a conflict between 2 opposing armies of races.
I worry that my main characters are Mary Sues sometimes. I seem to be most comfortable with first-person perspective (all three of my story series so far are written that way) but the story is about them exploring their hangups/flaws and working to improve. (And they're all self-inserts, so they're my flaws too. I'm my own therapist, whee!) Princess the Dragon is constantly afraid she's a burden on those around her, always struggling to "do enough" to "earn" the relationship she has with her friend/owner because she ignores or dismisses the things she does bring to the table and focuses on the things she can't. She has a major breakdown at one point where the slowly-building inner demons convince her that she's actually hated by the one person she depends on. Flopsy the Hoofbun is practically the personification of "I have to be useful to be liked/tolerated/allowed to exist", but now she's stuck in a double life where her human form is developing friendships and her normal form is fighting crime, and her human form can't take credit for the useful/helpful things her normal form is doing, and so she isn't understanding why people are treating her like a person and liking her for who she is. Vayryn the Yinglet has less internal angst, and more constant frustration as present-day Earth is not prepared to take seriously a creature that's three feet tall and looks like a rat-weasel-bird-thing on stilts, and so she's struggling to build something resembling a life in that kind of nightmare scenario.
I'm hoping I do a good job at having the other characters be convincingly people in their own right, who have thoughts and feelings and things that don't revolve around the MC, but since the story is almost always told from first-person, the reader generally only gets to see those characters in light of their interactions with the MC. If you asked Princess, she'd probably deny being a main character vehemently, and most of the people in her story would similarly point to her owner, as he's got a suspicious number of "MC Checkboxes" applied to him. Flopsy would probably have trouble thinking of herself as a focal point of a story, because even though she acknowledges her uniqueness, she'd consider life to be "just a crazy set of circumstances, and everyone is trying their best to make it through, and I don't want to be a hero, I just want to help people and make their day better" even though she's the resident cryptid/superhero. If you told Vayryn she was the main character of a story, she'd grumpily say it makes sense that the universe seems to be set on putting her through a Humiliation Samba, but I tried to make that just be the natural consequence of the situation she got thrown into rather than "universe bending and warping" to mess with her.
I dunno, man. I just write stories about things I like.
Please do not call her princess the dragon
I think that's perfectly natural to write what you know. What you're describing sounds like author insertion, but not the world-warping schlock that Red describes here.
Also, regarding the name Princess the Dragon-I see what you did there, and I think it's an awesome and brilliant pun to play on the "saving the princess from the dragon" trope in a fiction about a character struggling to overcome her inner turmoil.
Flawlessly logical. I admire your mind.
Vulcan pickup lines.
Flawless? Eh. Wouldn't say that. Reasonable and with good points, sure.
Wocxdid pull that line out on Vulcan and they just slowly walk away
DON'T RUIN THIS FOR ME!
@@scarletsky2614 A-Ai'ght....?
@@PRGME7 💦
"People are quick to pile on with the accusations if they happen to dislike the character for whatever reason."
Oh, how relevant this is today.
It's always relevant.
@ALSO-RAN ! I meant specifically the accusations of a character being a Mary Sue, but what you say is also true.
Yep. Captain Marvel for example.
@Fleur Garden eh she was ok. Like a female Tony
@@leoparathesweekgeeky7244 she is a Jerk mary sue-ish kind of protagonist tho
So, basically, a Mary Sue is:
1. A poorly written character, often in a poorly written story.
2. Frequently completely perfect, often to a ridiculous degree.
3. A plot focus vortex.
1987MartinT I can agree with 1 and 3
Rey
No? Did you even listen? This video shows very clearly why Rey is *not* a Mary Sue. A great supporting cast, not the only plot focus, the world does not bend around her? Like...literally none of the identified Sue-traits apply to her?
Eulenkeks I didnt think she was in TFA, but then TLJ came out and she was too perfect. Her character hasn't had an arc. Things just happen to her that are out if her control. The only thing she's ever done that was actually her choice was go try to save Kylo (with no training) and take out all of his guards (with no training).
Jace Hendriks - Oh, you mean like Luke running off half-cocked to save his friends in ESB? Or like Anakin trying to take on Dooku on Genosis? They both had...so much more...character arc...in the *second movies of their trilogies*...yes, alright...
Did we watch the same movie? Because I saw a character arc for Rey, and a pretty damn good one too. I saw an ignorant young woman prone to idealising people having to face reality in the form of a very human, broken Luke Skywalker. And a very human, broken Ben Solo *who she tries to fix but can't*. She has to stop clinging to illusions. She has to be honest with herself and see the world and the people around her for what they are. Flawed. Complex.
It's so obvious and in your face? Yoda even spells it out - "The greatest teacher, failure is." That's true for Luke, but he's at the end of his story and can't do much with that lesson. Rey can.
As for her training - she can fight - has been doing so her whole life. And if you pay attention to the fight in the throne room, you'll see her fighting like Kylo. Which, you know, is kind of obviously *because of their mental connection*. They are one in the Force. In perfect synch. It's poetic cinema, it's a metaphor. Wedding the Animus and all that.
Seriously you might wanna read up on Jung and Maureen Murdoch. And the Heroine's Journey as a literary device.
I like how this video not only addresses Mary/Gary Sue but how to fix the problem as well.