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My brother and I were calling her MaRey Sue before the end of The Force Awakens. That's the last chance I gave modern movies and TV, and every strong female character since is basically the same tier of bad as her
You know... A few of these Mary Sue personality traits are better suited for a villain: not owning up to their mistakes, putting down others, taking credit for success they had little to no part in. That's not my idea of a hero. It sounds more like a high school bully.
is there a "maru sue" version fo villians?, i feel plain and flawless villians are also boring imo, now days we want complex characters, we all know 100% goodness and 100% evilness is not a thing, so i think it goes both ways
It’s honesty kind of an interesting paradox that a character that’s liked by everyone (or at least every ‘good’ person) in the story is generally hated by the audience.
The funny thing is, I am currently writing a character that I intended to be a complete wreck. I was trying to write her as a teenager full of selfconsciousness and anxt. She's bad at academics, too timid to get things done, keeps making dumb mistakes... And now I was just in the middle of writing my 7th chapter in the story and I realized something. Way too many of these flaws I've layered onto her, and way too many of the problems in her life, are so identifiable with for the audience that I think I've just discovered the opposite of your statement is true as well. The more messed up the character is, the more they are given a disserved hard time by the characters in the story, the more the audience will love them.
To paraphrase what a better writer than me once explained: much like a tyrannical dictator that demands laws of civility and governance be rewritten to reinforce their own authority at the expense of the people's rights, a flawless/Mary-Sue character demands that the limitations of storytelling and suspensions of disbelief be redefined to reinforce their own literary importance at the expense of the readers' intelligence.
"No flaws or weaknesses" includes having "weaknesses" that are total b.s. like being "clumsy" or "awkward" in an endearing way that brings her to the attention of the male lead.
Alot of times Mary Sues are reinforced by absolutely imbecilic support characters. Like, Shes not superhuman, the badguys shes fighting are just dumb as dirt. Shes not a hero, the people shes "protecting" are just too stupid to do it themselves. It is as much a flaw of these badly written characters that some random male Flummox would get all "gushy" inside that your ditz heroin tripped over her own feet.
In the 1980s TV series "MacGyver", the title character isn't perfect. He has acrophobia. So he'll be climbing this oil rig hanging upside down from a beam hundreds of feet above the ground. He'll look down and mutter, "I hate heights". Then he'll continue climbing. That's not what acrophobia looks like.
And it includes having flaws and never being called out on them. Like friends just accept being cut down by them or them causing destruction with their (superhero) antics and for some reason that's just fine.
Also written by an incredibly interesting character himself. Cervantes had an absolutely wild life - fought at one of the largest naval battles in history, was a slave, was at odds with the law since youth and had to move around Europe a lot, lost the use of his left arm, etc. Funny how the most self-deprecating and humoruous characters tend to come from extremely interesting and adventurous people, and the most self-absorbed and unlikeable come from sheltered narcissists.
Thank you for showing clips from the Mulan live action remake. That Mulan was born with "chi" (or is it "qi"?) and is amazing from birth. The 90s cartoon, Mulan had to struggle and earn her skills, and was successful for using her brains and whit over braun and fighting ability. The fact the producers and writers didn't realize this was such a major flaw that resulted in a super boring remake baffles me.
I haven't seen the live one, but I don't plan on it. What's so interesting about a character who never has to fight for what they want/need, or find another way around a problem???
The very original fables of Fa Mulan did have her utilize some type of wind based magic, but she had to sacrifice a lot and take time to learn it. And she was always at risk of being discovered as a woman. I feel like Disney wanted to keep the "wind power' aspect of Mulan but failed at everything else.
Exactly!! I grew up watching the 90s version of Mulan (the only true version, in my opinion) and I was always inspired by the themes of quiet strength; how Mulan had to use her wit and quick thinking to succeed and help others. That's true character strength, right there! 💪 Don't even get me started on the ridiculous misuse of the concept of "qi" 🙄 like you said, the remake was bafflingly boring. 2 hours of my life I wish I could get back lol
@@JustAPotato13romantasy is huge on booktok. Fourth Wing, Lightlark, SJM's entire gallery, Vampire Academy, Zodiac Academy, House of Night Not all of these succeed from start to finish, but the fact that these books have come so far despite being so mediocre is absolutely saying something, both about the readers and the authors Also i will say, I haven't read Throne of Glass, HOWEVER, I've gotten quite far into Fourth Wing and while the MC has a disability, its such a non-factor outside of character interactions that it only feeds into the idea that Violet is a self insert because the author has the same disability
@@arkkon2740 oh thanks for the clarification! I’ve also read fourth wing and I agree that every 5 seconds somebody mentions something about how short violet is or how week she is.
Right? They could make it a character development (like the one Iron man had). They think they are unstoppable and "main character has no flaws" and they learn how that is not true and get better as the story develops.
@@alessandram.3289 Exactly!! Iron Man is one of my all time fav characters, and he was sooo bad in the beginning. Failed, arrogant, cocky, and privileged. But he becomes such a good person in the end.
Okay, please, give me a break. Let's use just the MCU examples. Ironman supposedly is a lot better than Captain Marvel, at least according to some of the commenter's. He was arrogant and other things, but he grew. Really? Did he? In some ways yes, but let's take stock. His major issue right from the beginning was creating technology others abused and used to hurt people. His mission from then one was to fix the damage his ignorance wrought. Yet, he helped build the Insight Carriers thar nearly handed the world over to Hydra. He played a significant role in creating Ultron. He pushed for the signing of the Sokovia accords which made half the Avengers and his friends criminals. He likely helped design and build the prison a number of them were held in. He failed? At what? He made technological advances an armybof engineers would have taken decades in a matter of years. He broke time travel in a matter of hours in his downtime after putting his adorable kid to bed. Then there is Captain Marvel. A character, pre-powers who was a female fighter pilot rated for experimental test flights of highly classified planes in the 80s and 90s. I don't know if you know what the military was like for women back them, but it was nearly impossible. So, right off, her character is a mix of Top Gun and GI Jane. How was Tom Cruises character in Top Gun again? Cocky, capable of the impossible, or at least he thinks he is, and never shows weakness, or rarely. How about GI Jane? Back in the 80s, a women doing certain jobs was viewed as society as trying to do a man's job. As such everyone would be extremely harsh to them. Look at almost any powerful woman from the time and you would see a very contained person. A woman striving to work in a so called man's field couldn't show emotion, positive or negative. They couldn't cry, they couldn't show pain, they couldn't be exuberant or too happy. Any slight emotional outburst would typically be used as evidence against them that they were too emotional as women to do the job right. So while Tom Cruizes character could be wild and reckless, a women in his position couldn't or it would have been used as an attack on her. That is accurate for the time. Then, with Capain Marvel, she effectively gets amnesia and is gaslighted into being a soldier for one of the most arrogant armies in the galaxy. Just look at every soldier in her group. They all act a lot like her, yet her character gets singled out for complaint as unrealistic. She doesn't have flaws? The story may have not given the right focus, but her childhood is montaged several times where she is constantly failing. Constantly being told she isn't good enough. Quite frankly, I think the better comparison is between her and Captain America. How many flaws did he have? He is very similar to her. He grew up failing all the time. Got powers from an outside source. How often did he get super emotional? Yet, she's a bad character. Let's face facts. The traits of this so called Mary Sue is the ones integral to almost any action movie main character. Anyone see Lethal Weapon, Total Recall, Demolition Man, Tango and Cash ,etc, etc. Yet, when a women plays the part, even when her backstory fully explains her way of managing emotions and decisions, people feel the need to make it out to be a big thing. It's funny how things don't really change that much. Wasn't it not thst long ago when a woman being called GI Jane as a joke was seen as a horrible insult? With this whole Mary Sue business, I think you really need to see just how much of this is because women have played the part men have been playing for forever and being successful at.
@@haddow777 You are the reason this video exists. Trying to excuse poor writing by calling it sexism. Iron Man really isn't self-less until Endgame. No one is saying he became perfect. But he does grow. Does he make similar mistakes throughout the series? Yes, because that's what humans do. We have strengths AND weaknesses, and though we grow, we tend to make the same kinds of mistakes, just hopefully in smaller ways or less consistently. How does Captain Marvel grow?
@@samsamelia3029 from what I can remember, she's still a Mary sue. At least feels like she was because she instantly goes up on the rank and attracted the hot popular guy. She's grown in a faction where she's supposed to be weak and focused on feelings and later choose the factions that valued bravery and stuff (forgive my memories).
I mean… to be fair, being a workaholic can be a legitimate flaw if written correctly. Have them be sleep deprived and have a poor work-life balance. :p
It's so interesting how "damsels in distress" and "strong female characters" are both in this "Mary Sue" trope. I think people don't realize how alike they actually are.
"Mary Sue" basically boils down to "lead female character existing." All this bitching is just misogyny. No one ever complains about "strong male lead who's good at everything." Those dudes carried the Marvel franchise for what? 20 years? I don't think Disney's crying over it. Sorry, I don't consume media to watch some girl who's as dumb and incompetent as I am flail and fail. I want to watch her conquer everything with ease and snappy quips. "Damsel in distress" is boring AF. Give me Mary Sues all day. I don't want to watch a woman do her womanly duty and beg some stupid man for help.
I have an idea for the damsel- have her be a political hosta*e or something and she has to pretend to be meal and submissive to survive but she’s actually really smart
Good observation! Because both are passive characters, they're always the victim of what's happening, whether they muscle their way though opposition or let someone else come to their rescue.
"Too proud to ask for help" is actually an interesting flaw that I rarely see fully utilized. That way you hit points 1 and 2 at the same, and you can grow your character in two different ways: in skill, and in humility.
To me, it's always been that Mary Sue characters can be arrogant, but no one ever tells them they're wrong. They never have to face the consequences of their actions, and no one ever calls them out because even though what they do is bad, others perceive it as good. I feel like I'm being manipulated (even gaslighted).
And in cases where's there's a glimmer of awareness in the creator and others call them out, they're quickly beaten down by the football team of people who worship the Mary Sue. How DARE you hold her accountable????
You forgot the classic 90's and early 2000's trope of a woman being so frumpy and unattractive to the characters in a film. But the moment she takes her glasses off, fixes her hair, and IDK wears things that show off her body more....she's automatically so much more attractive to everyone in the movie. This has got to be one of the funniest tropes that movies clung onto for way too long.
That was basically she's all that, and then it was in not another teen movie. Only one I can think of, and it only worked because it was Rachel Leigh Cook.
Oh my goodness, number 6 is the exact epitome of the new Velma. She’s not conventionally attractive, she doesn’t take care of her own body, she constantly insults others, she believes she’s better than everyone, and she literally eats from the garbage despite living in a middle class home. Yet for some reason, several characters crush on her when there’s literally no redeeming qualities about her. Original Velma was the nerdy character, but you could still tell how people found her attractive despite Daphne being “the hot girl.” She was smart, she was funny, she was cute, *and she wasn’t an a-hole to everyone.* To literally quote Fred from the Scooby-Doo movie, “dorky chicks like you turn me on too.”
Then the producers be like: The audience haaates female/black/hbtq+/strong characters... *whines* It's amazingly weird to watch. Just make good, likable characters. XD
I think Jenna Ortegas wednesday is also one of the best examples of an infuriating MS ( although the fact they make her very conventionally attractive despite her not caring about such frivolity 🙄🤣 is even more obnoxious)
I really loved original Velma and scoobydoo. The new velma leaves a sour aftertaste. The could have created a new original character instead of changing an already well known and loved character
one of my friends actually fits the description you gave of velma very well, other than the eating garbage, yet according to her many people have crushes on her and even fight over her. Its not delusional though, she's shown me proof of this
@@KLD-es6ftbs, wednesday is a well written character, she acts cold because AGAIN she doesn't enjoy companion and had made it clear, several people in the show just had an i can fix her mentality, and even then she STILL tolerate them
My grandma is an example of a real strong woman figure. She raised 3 generations of children. Her siblings, her own children, and of course me and my siblings. She cooked, cleaned, worked 9-5 jobs most of her life, and did everything she could to ensure we had a childhood worth remembering. We were not rich, but we lived humble happy lives. I love my grandma so much. I owe everything to her and more. I hope one day more women can be like her. Hollywood doesn’t understand strong women.
Your example is of a real superhero and hence doesn't apply here. Real life courage, grit, strength or anything else is nothing like what's shown in films. Most of the times i.e. Some movies do show it incredibly well.
Mary Sues also tend to warp the world and characters around them to behaving in ways that are not consistent with their own established character traits. The brooding male counterpart who hates everybody and never gives anyone an inch of leeway suddenly bends over backward for the Mary Sue for no reason, etc.
@@ExtremeMadnessX He's not her romantic partner at the time , how does she even get there to begin with , she just shows up and boom he loves more than his own mother , more than everyone he's ever loved befor
No one talking about the radical far left who have absolutely took over all things creative. It's more political stances now than raw talent. Quite sad to watch just how bad it's gone.
Remember how Mulan the disney cartoon version was a crappy fighter and weak but practiced and never gave up to get better. Everyone remembers her. Remember how live action Mulan was so incredible ly good at fighting because magic or something. Of course nobody remembers, it was a forgettable movie.
I (F) won't forgive 2009 Mulan for excluding Mushu to "make it more realistic". Then inserting an effing witch who shape shifts into an eagle. And let's not forget adding in a culturally insensitive use of the phoenix. But yeah. Mushu too unrealistic. Oh yeah and her character was perfect in every way and just needed to "find herself". It was the same damn trope that made me hate Captain Marvel
@@Pomeranian690 I don't know if shes a Mary Sue, but she's definitely underdeveloped. She does struggle with the entire premise of the show, as nobody believes her ideas and her trust that others can change will do any good. She messes up a LOT because shes too enthusiastic and sometimes only thinks of herself, like with the Angel situation in episode 4. But I can see why someone would think she's a Mary Sue, as she hasn't had to push herself too much when it comes to actually helping people, and almost everyone comes around to liking her eventually. So she's the worst character imo.
3:51 "Let your character struggle with some things, okay? Let her not be perfect at something the first time she tries it. It's okay; she can be crappy at something and then get better, and actually have to, like, put in effort, and time, and blood, sweat, and tears to get better at a thing. I have more respect for a character who suffers to get better at a thing than a character who is just like, 'Step aside. I'm gonna do this better than anybody.' True strength does not mean knowing 100% of everything 100% of the time. True strength actually means having humility-right?-not being too proud to ask for help when you need it, and not being too proud to admit that you're a beginner at something, and laughing at your mistakes, being okay with failure. It shows that your character is strong because they're willing to learn and grow."
It would be fun if the character who was a "mary sue" realises the absurdity of it all and is very quickly loosing their mind cause the plot wont let them die, fail, or live as a "normal girl, with a normal life". TLDR: Everyone around me is a certified idiot, and I'm slowly loosing my mind. After a careful 2 months of re-evaluation and cool down time. I've come to the conclusion that Mari is a partial marysue. No ive not watched the new instalation yet. Yes i admit i got a bit too heated.
This is the exact plot of the anime, "One Punch Man." A character the defeats all his enemies with one punch. It's worth the watch if you're into that sort of stuff.
About point 1: I was really struggling with how to add "character flaws" in practice. I didn't want to just mark a checklist, because sometimes it made no sense to add a "random negative" quality to a character. Then, some time ago, under another video, a commenter said: difference between "character strength" and "character weakness" is situational. Just give characters attributes and then figure out in which situations and how would these attributes cause conflicts. Which completely flipped this "character flaws" thing on its head and it makes sense! For example: you have two characters, the first one trusts other people, the second one doesn't. Which one of those attributes is a character flaw? Well, that depends on who the character is dealing with. If they're dealing with someone who genuinely wants to help them, the second one causes conflict. But if they're dealing with an asshole, who plans to betray them, the first one causes conflict later on. Real life example - me at work. My biggest strength and weakness is "attention to detail". Why it's strength? I often notice details that others miss. Why it's a weakness? I might get stuck on details and miss the big picture. So, if you're stuggling with the "character flaws" too, ignore "flaws". Go for "attributes" and make those attributes cause "conflict".
That's a great concept. I have a character that's a lone wolf. He's learned to be self sufficient, even as a child, and he sticks to himself in his "pack." He's prideful and hubristic. I'm currently working through a subplot where he needs help, but he fears being weak, a burden, or casted out. It's interesting writing someone trying to help him, but it is fundamentally against his character to accept it.
You can also look from societal point of view. My character can't cook and she is a girl in a country where women are expected to cook well. She is stubborn - in a society where it isn't seen well. And she has difficulty of letting of the past.
Also, most virtues can easily turn into character flaws, so you can make a character have to walk a tightrope between the two. For example, confidence can easily turn into arrogance, bravery can become foolhardiness, compassion could lead to either naiveté or cause your character to feel the need to set themselves on fire to keep someone else warm
This is really good advice. I'm currently writing a novel and my protagonist is a genetic experiment raised in a lab who spent most of his early years fighting and killing other test subjects. As a result, he's very good at fighting and has incredibly good reflexes, but this also makes him respond to any unexpected stimuli with violence. So a friendly pat on the bat could easily spook him into pulling a knife on the person who did it.
@@SharkaOfSea also you can give characters traits that seem very positive and then slowly develop them into flaws. For example ambition developing into obsession, kind character becoming too sacrifacial tc etc
I think Sherlok is a great example of how you can be perfect at what you do but still incredibly flawed because he is smart but struggles with opening up and connecting with others and we love him because we see his growth through his friendship with Watson.
His friendship with Watson is a fairly natural extension of his working relationship with Watson. I've hardly see any depictions of his character that made his character flaws seem anything other than trivial. Like his drug use is usually quirky.
@@AshePBlack Sherlock was a prick, but he wasn't evil. At best he was neutral. However, if he completely didn't care he wouldn't have taken so many cases. Another example is Poirot - he is arrogant, but he is a great detective and he does not lack empathy and does form friendship with Hastings.
The only argument I have is that the "I'm good at everything right off the bat" trait is more common with female characters. I disagree. I think we *notice* it more with female characters. This trope is massively long lasting for male characters in action movies, but we don't notice it as much because we've been conditioned to see this as correct and normal. We notice it with female characters because the conditioning inflicted rose coloured glasses have been removed.
This. This. I was coming to say this too. The first part anyway. I just don't see this outcry against say, James Bond, who is a definite male Mary Sue I don't need tons of growth and soul searching and development when I just want an action movie. We have not demanded it for men , but now we hold everything female As a Mary Sue.
Yes, haha, don't we all want to feel better about ourselves by finding flaws in everyone else, which is little better than a "Mary Sue" whose parents cared and tried to raise her the best way they could, with multiple sacrifices along the way. We love the characters who throw this care away and find flaws with the care and reasons to be an ungrateful slob. I think the trick is to give the role-model-for-children character a natural humility, great goals, geek aspects like shyness, misunderstanding of the world based on inexperience, and love for others. Hmmm
@@brandic89I think you misunderstood the video. It's not like you can't make a character that doesn't have a healthy lifestyle- I get what you're trying to say, but the point is that your characters shouldn't be perfect. No human is perfect, and if you want to make your character more relatable and sympathetic, you should add a few flaws to do so. Also, even if the character has kind and appreciative parents, they can still have flaws. I don't know how to explain this but, "Whose parents cared and tried to raise her the best way they could, with multiple sacrifices along the way" isn't really a Mary Sue trait. And just because people don't want your/their character to be a Mary Sue, doesn't mean that they want the character to be an ungrateful slob. (Sorry if i have bad grammar or anything. Also, I'm not trying to insult your comment)
The Last Airbender was great at writing characters. Despite his Avatar powers, Aang was still a kid prone to do stupid things here and there, Katara was a superb role model, Toph still had limits to her impressive self taught earthbending powers, etc
you truly think people would be more upset at Toph doing that today? @@shawnamiller191 Toph immediately from the getgo shows herself as very strong, but still a kid and violent both physically, but also emotionally, feeling tied down. Mary Sue's would never get that
@@10thletter40 if you don't think certain mindless idiots would still freak out over a disabled girl pwning The Boulder so easily you're lying to yourself
The number 4 hits hard.Because just because someone had insecurities it doesn't mean they don't have confidence..You can be both insecure and still be confident...Real positivity isn't about denying negativity, it's about accepting what you feel
there's an old saying that REALLY needs to be remembered when writing: Bravery is not about lacking fear. Bravery is being afraid and doing it anyways.
@@cynxmangamy main heroine had the short end of the stick in a good chunk of her life, but at the end of the day she still tries to help people even if it's big or small. As a wise person once said "Being bad is easy. Being good is a challenge."
@@aralornwolf3140 Written by the co-owners of the fanzine, as a send-up of the kind of original fiction they were so often sent for submission! It's online somewhere, and it;'s very entertaining... but my heart twinged a bit at the illustration that went with it. Of a girl of about 14 or 15, conventionally, boringly dressed, bobbed hair in an alice band... the kind of girl brought up to 'be good', do as she's told, get married and become a trad-wife, the property of her husband. No wonder she dreamed of adventure, male respect and admiration, and the intellectual and physical superiority that made it possible for her to be that dream. Heartbreaking really.
Paula Smith wrote 'A Trekkie's Tale', which introduced Lt. Mary Sue. Since then Ms Smith has said that it was not her intention for the term 'Mary Sue' to be used to denigrate ALL female characters who are depicted as competent or aspirational.
@@pollyparrot9447 I know, I ws just commenting on the motivation to write that kind of fanfic in the first place. And whether she intended the term to be offensive (I don't see it as such myself), she and her colleague were certainly getting enugh of them to want to lampoon them.
@@TheLastSane1maybe? Even Schwarzenegger's character in Predator was likeable for caring about his fellow teammates. Competent, but had to learn to win. Ripley was bad ass but still very much a human woman trying to survive. Seems like the female characters are more mean girl and arrogant than necessary in the past just 10-15 years. Disney also seems like the face of this particular flavor of poor character design. Telling us to like the character instead of showing us.
@@Zyrean7007 Except that people call something a mary sue without ever seeing the media they are calling mary sue. I mean look at Prey, the main character of that movie is likeable and shows how she has her skills and even shows her training to improve them. But from the moment of announcement she was called a mary sue. If Alien or Aliens came out today, Ripley would be called a Mary Sue immediately and you know it.
@@TheLastSane1 I wonder if there is a way to put that to the test. Good writing stands on its own which is why people still read Homer. "Well everyone will call someone a Mary Sue whether they are or not" sounds more like shilling for a corporation than demanding stories you pay for via movies, streaming or games be of quality writing.
@@robertparobechek6580 I mean you have people calling every story, movie, or show with a female lead a mary sue. Before the movie Prey even came out people were calling the main character a mary sue because "Well she has to be to fight a Predator" when she is 100% not a Mary Sue. Thats the problem, we have to many people who just use it to mean "Something I don't like or want to like"
What tickles me when I see Mary sue stories is when you can really tell what kind of person the writer is. Someone who needs to interact with people and understand how the real world works a lot more
True but from what I observe (experience from friends who writes stories when we were younger) It also stem from massive bullying by other and insecurity from the author who are usually teens..in this case teen girls .
@@Blueming_345 interesting, I agree. Writing could be agreat way to cope with trauma like that. I guess if you're writing to heal your soul, you can do whatever you want. But if you want to sell copies and be a regarded acclaimed, gotta work on the amateurish signs and naive worldview. I think reading more from other genres and nonfiction and interacting with people casually could really help writers improve writing better stories
@@Blueming_345 Mary Sues are especially dNgerous for people who were bullied because they are a fantasy of "you dont have to do anything, people will love you just so and everyone who hates you is wrong, always". You can be bullied but that doesnt automatically make you a person who's justified in everything they do and who never will make a single mistake. If you end up escaping into mary sues, and believe them, that's when they work against you and your recovery. Especially considering that bullies tend to have been bullying victims in the past, it can be a slippery slope the older you get and the more mistakes you make.
Or they’re writing what they think the audience wants to see in a strong independent woman - it didn’t hit me until watching this video how bland Captain Marvel is because she has no flaws and is so passive. Yes her powers are incredible and she undergoes an amazing journey to recover her lost memories and makes a selfless decision - but she’s not as interesting as Black Widow or Scarlet Witch who both have deep flaws to overcome.
@@louisefarrar6037 yeah... I tried not to say it but the new wave feminism was what I was talking about. Starking examples would be she hulk, velma, the acolyte, we could go on and on. Delusional writers make dumb stories people can't enjoy
I enjoyed watching this video. I read a lot, from fan fiction to published books. And you are all spot on with these. And when I write, I constantly review my characters to ensure flaws, strengths, and growth... even for minor subplot characters. To me, a Mary Sue is the perfect Green Tea Bish and White Lotus wrapped in one big bundle and served cold and tasteless.
OK, so now you are throwing a bit of mold on a cold dish that has no taste. Is that Michelin Star cooking? No, but you did reach the next level of crappy writing. You have devolved from not being able to write to not being able to write without the wrong recipe. Sound of one had clapping.
When I was producing a monthly podcast on bad movies years ago, my co-host and I would tie Mary Sue characters into a trope we simply termed "The Center of the Universe." These characters are the most important people in the universe, everyone loves them or wants to use them for their own ends. They have no flaws. They are usually gorgeous, desired by everyone of the opposite sex (and many of the same sex.) They are the worst characters ever.
@@RobKristjansson Tranquil Tirades. Half the fun, and a unique aspect of our show, was our accompanying Wiki website where we made pages for all of the movies we covered, all the major characters, and our entire in-universe of tropes we invented, among tons of other pages. I can't post the link on YT, but just search for Tranquil Tirades Wiki on Google. It's a blast to just waste time clicking on 'Random Page' for an hour. 😂
@@RobKristjansson My first comment didn't post for some reason, but my show was "Tranquil Tirades." We have an accompanying wiki website where we made pages for all our episodes, the movie characters, etc.
@@RobKristjansson Thanks! If you listen to the show, the best episodes were from Episode 20 on. We had a third host who we kicked to the curb after about the first 13 episodes because he was insufferable.
Not sure where this fits into the 7 above (1 or 2 maybe?), but another sign of a Mary-sue for me is a constant cycle of affirmation, whether to their face when they're "struggling" or when they're absent and others are gushing over how great they are; they'll immediately pull themselves together until the story demands more angst & then the cycle will repeat. Having repeated bouts of "self-doubt" that are immediately resolved with a pep-talk really irks me.
So true, I wonder if this mirrors their childhood and youth if every set back they got a saccharine pepe talk and then ignored or on the an over anxious adult helping out vs the adults in their life letting them fail and try again and showing confidence in them that theyll figure it out in the normal part of life learning without freaking out they fell down.🤔
@@marikothecheetah9342 Sort of, I think it's just a cheap way to give them a flaw. They'll win every battle, everyone loves them & then they'll get all angsty (for half a chapter) and get their importance affirmed or how great they are validated; then it's right back to not struggling or having problems.
That is a version. Zoey Redbird from the House of Night series is an objectively awful person. She's extremely judgemental, shallow, misogynistic, hypocritical and extremely stupid. Hell she once blew two men into traffic to let them get hit by a car. In universe though? A literal Goddess chose her as her avatar because she is so "kind, compassionate, wise and forward thinking" and all the characters constantly praise her for making the most baby brained decisions, and if they don't they are evil and wrong.
@@nightmarefanatic1819 you must have not read the parts where she gets punished for things she did in one book she's in jail. She is a good person that part with the man actually is when she wasnt herself get into the context clues she went mad with power.
12:43 I agree. Even if your character is a narcissist or a sociopath, you might show them lashing out by destroying things in their room or do a flashback to when they were a child that relates to the psychological explanation behind their behavior. Or even do a scene where they go visit their alcoholic parent or drug addict parent.
They lack authenticity, something the audience can feel identified with the character, like flaws, struggles, conflicts, a thing which shows that an average person can overcome things, thats a hero in my book.
IMPORTANT: Don't just give your character flaws, make them having flaws important for the plot. Doesn't matter if she's struggeling in training if she can do it in a real fight. It doesn't mattzer if everyone always makes fun of a character being "clumsy" (because this is extremely common for some reason) when it's just a joke all the time and never important. Like, this is the most pick me kinda thing. Especially when it's the "Oh no she's bullied for being different and she's so innocent and clumsy" BUT AT THE SAME TIME SHE'S A FUCKING ATHLETE IN SECRET AND BEAT UP EVERYONE WITHOUT TRIPPING ONCE. (This is fine if it's adressed like if she only was ever clumsy because of her insecurities and it stopps as she becomes more aware of who she is and what she's good at because then it's actual character development and also an actual flaw)
Yeah, a flaw is only a flaw if it causes them to behave in a flawed and counterproductive manner, or causes them other problems relevant to the plot. If it doesn't, it's just cosmetic at best.
"Her only flaw is clumsiness" is probably pretty common with Mary Sues because it superficially makes her appear flawed and relatable without requiring her to take any moral strikes or requiring any great effort to write passably. For added Mary Sue-ness, there's a pretty good chance that this 'flaw' of clumsiness will only impact the story when she needs to trigger a 'meet cute' by tripping in the school hallway, causing her to bury her face in the chest of Hunky McStudson, quarterback of the football team.
My character can't cook for her life and in one scenes she is told by the other character she needs to cook for him (he is injured and can't do it himself, admittedly). That other character described her dinner as: the best and the worst: she really did her best, but the meal tasted awful :P She can't cook, no matter the circumstances. However - she does great statistics for her team and is even told by her ex-coach to do the scorer exam when she is eligible. With clumsy but super Usagi Tsukino comes to mind. I watched Sailor Moon because there was nothing else to watch at that time but honestly - Usagi is a huge Mary Sue. :/
My wife is Chinese. She was so angry at the live action Mulan. She told me the final straw was how in order to become the best warrior on the battlefield was to remove her armor, let her hair down, and embrace her womanhood. She was so mad after watching the movie. She said it was a total insult to the entire mythology of Mulan.
There is a type of Mary Sue that wouldn't fall into those categories, the type that is such a good, amazing person who cares so much that she takes blame and responsibility for everything and everyone and magically manages to fix every situation and become a guardian angel to every other character. Granted, I see this more in fanfics than legitimate books, but I see it so much I thought it deserves at least an honorable mention.
That seemed like a controlling behavior to me. Taking responsibility of others means that they are taking away people's challenges from them. No one should make decisions for others, you can guide them, but you shouldn't do it for them.
Could easily make that a flaw, though. Coming from a former people pleaser, it becomes exhausting putting your own needs on the backburner to be there for people who usually don't reciprocate. Often forms toxic and/or abusive situations, so for sure, being the "I need to help everyone" is more of a struggle than it is good.
You are all misunderstanding what I'm saying. I mean the kind of character who takes on the responsibility to fix everything, everyone etc and succeeds every time because they are just so amazing and a flawless blessing to the world
I lowkey feel like this fits to the character of Perrito from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, he's this type of guardian angel, helps everyone, is a perfect role model and it can be a bit annoying how there's really no weakness he needs to overcome throughout the whole story
What you defined as teh Zero's Journey is what a lot of youtube commentators call the HERoes journey. However they do fail. They just fail upwards and called a hero for it.
I think the 8th point could be that the plot caters exactly to their needs. Like even mistakes play out as victories because the plot develops in the direction making them being right in the end. Like the counter part to Mary Sues get shoved around by the plot. They are the plot.
Yup, yup. When making a character it's important to ask what they want vs what they need. My character Eleven is a demigod and wants to fit in somewhere, but what he needs is through a journey find the people who will accept him for who he is. It's writing 101
This generation of writers grow up by their parents always say, „You can do everything you want and be anything you want to be, because you are special. “. There is the problem. They don‘t have to take any responsibility until they get out of their house. Encounter First Hardship in life, they either behave like a Narcist or they break down and have a burnout.
Another thing about the Mary Sue is how only the villains hate her. Only a truly evil person could be blind to the Mary Sue's awesomeness, or jealous and intimidated by that awesomeness.
Exactly. It's reflected in how the creators react any time someone criticizes their creator's-pet character: "Well, anyone who doesn't like my Mary Sue is just a [___]ist!"
What you overlooked here is that it isn’t just the traits of the individual character that makes it a Mary Sue, but also the reaction of the world the character inhabits to said character - even if the Mary Sue does things that are glaring and obvious mistakes, the other characters in that world will pretend otherwise: they will invent any justification for their actions - no matter how unlikely or ridiculous it is! You can have a character that never admits to a mistake and still avoids Mary Sue status so long as the other characters in that world recognize that it’s the character’s fault that things are going badly - for instance, one can create a prodigiously talented fighter that only just barely won a battle because that character failed to properly scout the terrain before the engagement: the character takes credit and bathed in the glory of victory, completely convinced that success was never in doubt, while other fighters that were on the battlefield comment quietly among themselves that this victory was way too close for comfort and that one more misstep by the prodigy among them could mean the death of everyone. Of course, they don’t share that information with anyone outside their close circle because they don’t want anyone to know just how precarious their situation really is and are instead hatching a plan to fix this problem (either by instructing the prodigy among them or getting rid of the prodigy somehow as the risk of keeping them around is too great).
A character who is always doing terrible things, while getting called out for it, but is ultimately right, is an infinitely worse character than the one you first described, because by the principle of "show don't tell" lip service is paid to the questionability or amorality of the character's actions while their behavior is sanctified by the divine right of the "word of God."
@@ExtremeMadnessXNo actually, I mean a character who is always 100% right regardless of how many times they are told they're wrong. This can include themselves. They can admit wrongdoing, but it's just to posture to the audience, to signal that they're such a good guy they're making the "tough calls."
This is why Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the furthest things from a Mary Sue. She really is a nearly perfect hero, but she makes mistakes and owns up to them, and you better believe that everyone around her blames her when she messes up.
@@MandieTerrier I didn't know that but I actually liked Fanny Price. She was consistently undervalued and bullied but she held her own against her Uncle. I don't necessarily want to be Fanny but I admire her inner strength.
@@flowermeerkat6827 I also love Fanny Price. She has a lot of flaws, she isn't good in stuff (not playing music, not actually talented), introverted and shy, totally in co flict between what is proper and her feelings (love for Edmund, not loving mr Crawford), she may seem dull and is perceived as "dull nothing", only Edmund and William truly appreciate her, others either use her or neglect her or even bully her as mrs Norris did... Where is the said perfection, no idea. I have a great heart for her as I was a bit alike with my own shyness, social awkwardness, passion for reading (when normal young people preferred parties)...
Well, it doesn't always done on purpose. It's a common problem for authors, who try to create a strong/nice/handsome person, someone, who will be loved by people... and go too far. This authors just don't wanna let their heroes be "ugly" or "weak" even if they understand, that they must have weaknesses. Because, these authors can't let the readers or people, who will watch their movie, feel shame for their beloved character.
@@nastjafisunova7258 It's sad, because you can have characters who are beloved by the people and want to do right by them, and still give them flaws. Look at Liu Bei in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. He was such a virtuous person that his benevolence actually worked against him sometimes.
A lot of comes from the typical wish fulfillment stories. Your typical bodice ripper romance, for example, has the rich arrogant guy fall for the outcast girl who has strangely modern sensibilities. If you take that same story, but now have it written by a relatively passive individual doing a self insert, you wind up with a Mary Sue a lot of the time. Then factor in that "modern sensibilities" is a bit less inclined toward "damsel", you potentially get a character that is physically capable as well. And then you have other stories that are crafted with a relatively blank slate main character so the audience can project themselves into it. The more personality the main character has, the harder it is for the intended audience to project themselves into the character, so... And note that this wish fulfillment exists in terms of "manly" stories as well. These, though, differ because, well, men. Hero is typically passive at the start, but once pushed too far, will become proactive or extremely reactive. He's not liked by everyone, but a bunch of women, or at least one, will fall for him. He'll also be an overpowered bad ass. It'll either be a variation of the hero's journey, with blank slate "farm boy" (aka generic every man) becomes the hero, the "retired bad-ass trying to live the quiet life" trope common to action movies, or else, as is common these days in anime/manwa/manga, the bullied nobody who becomes OP and the focus of everything in another world or otherwise goes on a murder spree against laughably evil types. Either way, though, the nobody special (at least not special in a good way) becomes powerful/relevant. Basically, take your two standard genres (romance for women, action/adventure for men), and now have them written by someone who lacks life experience who either wants to be the focal point hero or is writing for those that do.
Because most authors create just a self insert. They don't care about the story itself, they just want to live out their fantasies and unfulfilled dreams, lol. That's why we have romantasy with bad fantasy and no story and no romance, just erotica in a fantasy setting with a side plot. I'm so tired of this leak of effort. You don't even have to be a good author anymore to get published. Just have a bad boy with no character, sex, and an appealing frame around the sex.
A co-worker once told me that she hated a certain author because her characters were either completely good or completely bad. Id never thought about it, but she was so right. Any character who is perfect is boring. As are characters that are completely imperfect.
It depends on the quantity of the characters, when all can be put in one of those categories, that's bad. But when the main antagonist of a novel is this unstoppable evil, like a force of nature, it can be interesting. Sauron for example is this epitome of evil (at least in the Tolkien versions) which can create a compelling story, if done right.
One character who isn’t a Mary Sue I just love is Katara from ATLA. She wasn’t a master, wasn’t perfect and certainly had flaws. But she trained and trained for literally years and became a master. She could be crude or mean and she could be kind or loving. Definitely a favorite.
@@yelhsanosnhoj6602Bingo. She was sweet and endearing but had minor struggles only, was naturally ludicrously powerful and only the bad guys hated her.
I love an interesting female character, but sometimes it’s ok for a character to be “basic” because they’re real-time virgins to the experiences they go through. That’s what makes it so fun. To feel what happening, in real-time, with them. There are exceptions to every rule, even this one. A Mary Sue would come in handy when the events of the story are, themselves, extraordinary-to make them even more so in the eyes of the Mary Sue.
Tip: The Mary Sue trope is basically Steven Seagal's character in most of his movies, which seems to be written for the sole purpose of boosting his ego. Watch "On Deadly Ground", and if you can get through it without passing out from cringe, make sure your character is nothing like Forrest Taft.
If that's about an established expert being pushed to the limit, i can understand why it's at least likeable...otherwise, meh... Reason : "Who are you and how are you so strong for no reason ?"
Seagal is the ultimate Mary Sue. Even the folk who write, direct and star in their own show whilst claiming to be god (coughBreenCough) don't have a chance of reaching his level of ego.
It's ŵhy Muriel in Muriel's Wedding was so popular. She was flawed and therefore relatable. She was selfish and shallow but also a victim of the cruel people around her. She committed fraud so she get away to Sydney where she started to thrive as she achieved her dreams. By getting what she wanted, she soon found what she needed instead, which was friendship not marriage. She was the opposite of a Mary Sue character.
I think a big reason why arrogance is shown as a good trait in movies is because it can be seen and interpreted as confidence. Is it actual confidence? Of course not! But constantly telling everyone how better than them you are at everything is an act to seem like you have self-worth. It's why people irl do it, after all. And it's why movies do too. It's the movie trying to scream at your face, "Look at how much she knows her worth! She's confident and believes in herself, and we want to make sure you know that!" But it's completely counter productive because by having her herself telling us how awesome she is she does not at all have the positive confidence they want her to have. Actual confident people do not need to tell you how great they are, because all that matters is they just know that they're great, and they don't care if you don't believe in them, confidence comes from within after all.
It depends largely on whether the character is male or female. Male: confident. Female: arrogant. Male works too much: he’s such a hard worker. Female works too much: workaholic and needs to spend more time with her family. Traits seen as positive in men are often seen as negative in women, also because they reject conformist beliefs about femininity. There are so many male characters who are ‘Mary Sues’, but society sees them differently.
@amethyst-rp just out of curiosity, what male characters do you think are arrogant, but people view as confident and vice versa? I, personally, can't think of any, so I'd like some examples to understand exactly where you're coming from.
And confidence isn't even a necessarily good trait either. Most characters should doubt themselves or their abilities at some point. It's determination that sees them through.
@BrianWelch-vc7xy I think what you're trying to describe is arrogance. Someone can be confident and still admit when they're wrong or not the best at something. Confidence is knowing your worth and not letting your flaws diminish how you feel about yourself. You know you're flawed and can make mistakes, but you also know that you still have things you thrive in and can understand that there are things that make you unique and special. You don't view yourself as above everyone, you view yourself as a human worthy of things like respect and love. Arrogance is when you refuse to acknowledge being flawed. You do view yourself as above everyone else, and arrogant people tend to believe that doing things like making mistakes does diminish someone's worth as a human being, and the way they combat that is acting like they just simply never fail or make mistakes. Confidence and Arrogance are very much not the same thing.
The way i see pride and arrogance is like a bar. There is your power and then how you perceive yourself. If both are equal then you are confident. If you see yourself more than your ability then you are arrogant.
I have a male character who at first glance appears like a Gary Stew. He was a child prodigy, he's a scientist, a world traveling adventurer, experienced pilot, scion of a mega rich family. But, he's lived a sheltered life. He is childlike, naive. He tends to believe the best in everyone. He gets tunnel vision on whatever new challenge or discovery he's making. His experiments frequently fail. He risks his own life and his friends with a nonchalance that is dumbfounding to the female lead. She frequently has to save him from his blind spots with her brains and cynicism. But he in turn, saves her from becoming too jaded by life. They compliment one another.
I think Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions had the best way of explaining a Mary Sue. Mary Sues are people who warp the logic of the world around them in ways that don't make sense. If a normal person is arrogant and refuses to apologize for anything (and there are people like that), that person will be disliked. If a Mary Sue is the same way, everyone will live him/her anyway, even though it makes no sense.
reminds me of my villain character HAHHAHAAA IM GOING TO TAKE OVER THE WOOOOOOORLD! and then he gets blown up by his own creation its more of a comic relief from a particularly gruesome main plot
Hi, Abbie. I'm a 30-year-old blind woman and I want to thank you with all my heart and soul for having described so well a blind character in your novel 100 Days of Sunlight! I was born premature and my blindness is a consequence of that. Tesa is such a loving character, she is sweet and caring and she loves writing and she is a bit of a loner, like me, and she has friends online, like me. She also loves children, like me (I loved when she interacted with Henry, Noah and Aidan), and I would love to read a sequel set in the future in which she and Weston, another character I absolutely love, are parents. I also read The Otherworld and I loved it. Adam is such a great and mature character, Orca is weet and innocent and she learns a lot, and Jack is fun and friendly (not when he is angry with Adam, obvously). Orca's Dad loves her so much, and I adored Lucius. I hated her Mom and how she behaved. She didn't care about Orca at all. She didn't deserve to have such a beautiful daughter like her. And, speaking of Moms, I loved the conflict between Tessa and her Mom and, in the end, everything went well. Weston is so good with Tessa, and your stories have so much value with all the research you make. I do too, for my original stories and my fanfictions. I adore your books, I adore your voice, I adore what you teach us and your passion for reading, writing and teaching. The Live Trainings are so incredible! And your voice is so sweet. I suffer from depression, anxiety and panic attacks, and when I listen to your voice, it helps me to calm down and I smile a little. You help me smile, sometimes. This means so much to me, Abbie! Your sister's meditation for writers are amazing, too, and even your podcast together. I have many friends who write, and we do it with fanfiction mainly, and my family doesn't understand why I write fanfiction from when I was twenty-two (I started writing short stories when I was ten and attempted with two novels at sixteen and nineteen, but they were horrible). From 2016, I post my stories online on an Italian website where you can post fanfiction, poetry and original stories. I wrote original stories and poems, too. Anyway, even if my famiy doesn't understand this, they don't tell me I should not write or things like that. I have doubts, lack of motivation, I have to take breaks, even for my mental health and, now, for some issues with my physical health. I take my meds and I have a few therapists who help me, and my Mom, my Dad and my brother, and my three, adorable, flyffy cats: Furia (almost nine-years-old), Red (four-years-old), and Alba (almost two-years-old). I love my cats, and they inspire me so much. Even your writing sprints help me to focus and enjoy my writing more. I concentrate, I immerse myself in my stories and I am with my characters, or I feel like I am my characters, and I write. Not always Live, most of the time I have to do it on replay, but it's wonderful to write with so many other writers. Could you do them twice a month, if possible for you? Or three times? Also, could you do more writing sessions with fantasy music? Not always dark fantasy. I love writing with those, too. So thank you, Abbie. Thank you so much!
Oh my goodness, I am so touched by your sweet message!! Thank you so much for sharing your story with me and for being here on my channel. I can't tell you how happy I am to know that 100 Days of Sunlight inspired you so much and that it made you feel represented 💖🥹 that means THE WORLD to me. I'm delighted to hear that you enjoyed The Otherworld too!! And it's so good to know that my voice soothes your anxiety, I couldn't ask for a sweeter gift than that. 🙏🏼 I understand what it can be like to have voices of doubt and discouragement around you as a writer, but I hope you will take heart from this vibrant community of writers just like you who have committed to their creativity, no matter the opposition! You can do this too! I believe in you and your writing. Keep writing fanfiction and original works and anything that makes you passionate to be creative! All of it is so important. You are bringing light into the world with every word you write and we need your unique voice 🙌 keep writing and rock on!
I ... I'm not the kind of person who says personal things online, but Abbie, I think, and I feel, I want to, at least for some things. Not because I want pity from you or the community, but ecause I would like you to understand my situation. But first, oh, Abbie, oh, my goodnesss, you replied! I didn'@@AbbieEmmonsOh, my Goodness, Abbie, uou replied! I didn't expect you to reply to my comment. You inspire me so much. You are an amazing writer and I... You told me that my world needs my stories. This means THE WORLD to me. You are in my heart. I love you, even if I unfortunately, don't know you in person. I felt represented by Tessa een because, at the beginning of the novel, she feels depressed, a handicap, and she asks why it happened to her. I am blind, and I live my disability with a little of pain. Of sorrow. There's a little part of me who asks to The Lord why. Why did it happen to me, to my family, why my parents had to suffer so much risking to see me dying in the first two years of my life. Why? I will never have an answer. And I had many writer's blocks. They are real. I had my first when my best friend committed suicide when I was twenty and she was nineteen. That was tragic and changed my life forever. I didn't write for a year and a half. I was in therapy for other reasons, and I was diagnosed with major depression, anxiety and panic attacks the next year, so I started taking pills and I still have to do that. But I had promised to myself: "I won't stop writing." So, when I felt ready, I started again, with fanfiction this time, in 2015, when I started outlining my first one. Then, in 2017, my Mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and she has it still now. She was operated twice, and sometimes she doesn't feel well (headacjes, head spinning, she doesn't know where she is ...). It breaks my heart to feel so powerless, to know that I can stay with her, hold her, comfort her, help her, but that, as doctors said, she probably will never heal. I didn't write for seven months from when we found out she was sick. And I started again. In 2020 my cat, Stella, died at five-years-old. She was hit by a car, and the rain damage was so severe she was in a coma, and we had to put her down. It was, another time, devastating. All of these things were devastating for me and my family. I didn't write for another year, I just wrote some poetry dedicated to her. I have her brother with me, er twin, Furia, and other two cats: Red, and we found him abandoned on a street and saved him, and we adopted Alba in 2022, a beautiful, fluffy, black cat whic was found abandoned on a street by a person my Mom knows. I love my cats, and I know you love pets too, Abbie. You have a dog, right? And because of my anxiety, and because my friends are in other regions (like Tessa, I know them online, but unlike her, I met one of them in person twice, one last year and one this one) I stay mostly at home, but thanks to my therapists I am starting to go out again, to enjoy things agaBut it's hard. It's still hard. So hard, every single day. in. The psychological pain is still here, even for other personal things I won't get into. Last year I had another writer's block because of an ended friendship, a block of almost eight months. But this year, despite the pain, despite my problems of mental health and physical health, too, because I'm not well at the moment and I will have to do some neurological tests to understand why I have such terrible headaches since December, headaches which mean that I have no choice but to stay in bed for hours even during the day, I finished a fanfiction,the first part of a duology, and now, as I'm outlining the second book, I'm writing another fanfiction. I will follow your writing sessions you did, Abbie, I just followed session 1, to go on and write that. I want to read other novels of you and the non-fiction project you are working on now. And you helped me through hard times since 2022, when I discovered this channel, with your voice and your sweetness, and your encouragement, and te fact you understand doubts and fears of us writers. Thank you for being the wonderful person you are. I would love to be similar to you, to be as positive as you. I love you so much! And I want to thank people in this community because they helped Abbie see my previous comment and for supporting me during a Livestream where I was feeling so depressed. You are amazing, guys. If some of you suffer from depression, anxiety and panic attacks, I understand you, I can imagine your struggles, how difficult it is to battle all of this every day. I'm with you. Snd all of you, with your stories, your novels, your writing of any kind, matter. The world needs your stories, too. But when you feel down, or locked, or you don't have the strength to write because you feel mentally or physically sick, take a break. Don't force yourselves, because you will hurt yourselves and the story, too. I'm so sick this week I jad to stop writing and outlining. I will try to start tomorrow, I jope it will et better.
I have an idea,you could make them seem like a Mary sue and after a while,the flaws of the character start to appear and the character can’t hide them anymore,so now everyone knows their perfect appearance was fake all along.
Love this video! More fanfic writers need to watch it. I do, however, want to argue that the person doesn't need to be humble or ask people for help. There are situations when a proud character struggle, but refuse to ask for help, that could actually make the character more interesting. (Imagine Han Solo asking for help, for instance. It would be out of character and a little weird.) (Not asking for help goes double for comedy moments, because there is few things more funny that watching a person who stubbornly refuse being helped being offered help, then refuse it, and keep failing until the mentor finally forces them to accept help before they kill themselves trying to do things the wrong way.)
Why do people fall in love with characters (mostly men) who are mean and uncaring, etc? #1 In the words of Taylor Swift: I can fix him, no really, I can. #2 A lot of people like the idea of chasing what they cannot have in order to prove they can. See #1 for why.
I don't think they like the characters themselves inherently; they know if he's being presented that way, there will eventually be a "I can't help but fall in love with you in spite of how mean I used to be" arc, so it's a vicarious wish fulfillment scenario that makes them feel better about guys who did or currently do treat them similarly. I think it can be natural to, if someone mistreats you, want to change the scenario rather than just kick them to the curb, to sort of prove to yourself that the problem wasn't you (even though we all know there's no shortage of unkind people and you usually are just better off moving on to someone else).
For whatever reason there's appeal to the narcissistic personality. I don't know why, because that personality has never held any appeal to me. The Christian God is one of the oldest Mary Sues and you still have lots of people that desperately pursue his love. And you don't have to go far to see narcissist people with cult-like followings in real life.
There is a difference between the "fixable" love interest and the one that simply treats a woman like she's a human, instead of placing her on a disingenuous pedestal (see: Mr Darcy).
I have a character that is almost the opposite: weak, crappy at most things and her life is riddled with struggles. It's great to have that character grow through all the adversity.
Those characters can be hard to swallow, too. They are negative and struggle constantly. You want someone to root for, but if they never improve and constantly spin their tires or need someone to save them... they become tiring to read or watch. You start rooting for them to be killed off. 😅
Oh, you have Sadness as your character. Nice! Did anyone like her? I certainly didn't. If Inside Out 3 become reality, Pixar, please please kick her (almost) worthless butt out of Riley immediately at the beginning of the film. She served her purpose in part 1. No more.
I've seen those types of characters become Mary sues too. They just end up being pity porn stories about boring Meg griffins with the world constantly beating them down for the sole purpose of making the readers "feel sorry for them" over and over and over and so on
A Mary Sue CAN be fun to write... especilly if they are self aware of the situation. Mary Sue shows up. faces off with a big bad monster, oneshots it without a trouble... the villages come running out to praise the main charcter... who pokes the body a few times... "Who are you?" "Umm, after that hit? call me Mary Sue..." Not getting the joke or reference... all the villages do start calling her Mary Sue. then she finds out once a week monsters attack and can she stay and keep defeating them? "every week? honestly thats going to get old.. fast..." where she decides to make a magic item to let the vilagers fight the mosters... "What kind of item?" "I don't know, some kind of mcguffin of power..." Yep, its Mary Sue and the Mcguffin of power.
@@sammylong3704 not quite. One punch, the op mc wants to be a hero... in this, the mc doesn't want to be... they suffer from being sarcastic about it... but since its isekai, no one knows and takes their statement as the real thing. Argh, why can't I have a nice slice of life episode, instead of the boring monster of the week.
1:50 the temptation thing isnt nessicarily true, but when faced with temptation, they dont even consider it, just resist as if it was as easy as breathing
I feel like an easy fix is to make said character THINK that they're perfect and that said character THINKS that everybody loves them but it turns out they're actually just arrogant. 😅
@@Lexthesilly techinally mary sues does not believe the world loves them. The accual issue is that they think they are always right. That they never make w mistake or have regrets
To expand on point one, when you give them a flaw it has to be a *real* flaw. It has to actually cause them trouble. Don't go with some cosmetic 'it's actually endearing' flaw (like "has a bad temper" == gets to sarcastically put everyone else down with zinging one liners, or "too much of a perfectionist" == you get to see them brooding about how doing something perfectly isn't good enough). You need a flaw that causes the character to actually create their own setbacks (like being so overconfident that they get themselves and their friends into trouble that they cannot get everyone out of OR lacking confidence to the point where they hold back from doing something they really need to do).
Yes, or perhaps, being so naive that she walks into trap after trap, everyone using her and taking her gifts without gratitude, then taking her friends as well, ostracizing her through lying, exaggerated gossip.
I used to work with a Mary Sue, wanted to correct my pronunciation of a name without even looking up that exception on Google just to double check. Nope! She already knew it all! No American exceptions (even though we heard the lady and her close friend pronouncing her name the same way I did), no exceptions in her perfect, narcissistic world!
@@brandic89on paper this sounds cool, then you take a step back and its just Isla from lightlark She's extremely naive, acts like a high school kid despite being a ruler of an entire country, is to a degree self-centered, and only seems to care about the people close to her while everyone else is invisible And with all of that in mind, she's never called out for it. There's even a case where she killed like a dozen people, and absolutely no one knew it outside of the love interest because he tried that hard to keep it away from the world
YES!! Reminds me of Percy Jackson where his fatal flaw is “loyalty: he’d give up the world to save his friends.” Like. Ummm. Not a flaw. If it was reframed as *selfishness*, as in “he’d let the world burn as long as those he cared about stayed alive”, sure. It would have been fine. Another not-flaw, in my opinion, is being cold and closed off. It’s just becoming shorthand for being “cool”
@arkkon2740 Wow! That is intense, and a lot of people would love reading that! I personally prefer more internal conflict and modern problems of at least halfway decent people, lol. To me, I'd rather read internal, emotional conflict (like coming-of-age stories, always so difficult) than killing and spice, which are way too heavy for my teen-angsty taste, lol.
I can not remember the book, but I recall one where the female character could do everything immediately, perfectly and was awesome with no effort. She thought this made her wonderful and cool and the most badass to ever badass. Meanwhile, every character around her was horrified and terrified and pointing out how unrealistic, illogical and impossible it was and that there must be a reason for it besides the MC is awesome. Turned out there was and she was being a naive ingenue and that's exactly why she was picked... turned out all her skill wasn't hers in the first place she had an eldritch abomination riding sidesaddle using her to get free of it's confinement and get loose on the world. I recall enjoying it because at first you really did think OMG another Mary Sue only it wasn't.
Fantastic! We deserve much better women characters! Can you do an analysis of complex famous male characters (like Gandalf) and how they don’t have these 7 warning signs. And some examples of non-Mary sue women characters.
I think Katniss Everdeen would be a good example of non Mary Sue. She has some great characteristics but she's also very suspicious of everyone and everything, can be very arrogant and cold. That led her to take bad decisions, hurt her relationships, be used and underestimate others - all of which had an actual impact on her story because those were actual FLAWS... Sometimes it's very annoying to read the books because she can be pretty insufferable at times
Love your content, Abbie. As an author myself, I love to watch other writers and author content to really hone my abilities. Like you said in this video, nobody is perfect at everything, even the things we are already passionate about. There is always more to learn and we will all make mistakes. I really tried to avoid all the clichés and stereotypes in my novel, and I feel I did pretty decently at that. The more I watch your content, the more I feel confident in some of my decisions for characters and stories. Please never stop posting your advice and tips for writing. You're one of the best ones to watch for this.
One trick is to get the Mary Sue issue out of the way right off the bat - do write your author avatar, but make them the comic relief, or the old mentor, but never the hero character. It's a lot harder to have two Mary Sues so having one in on purpose cuts down on that risk. Another thing I always do is imagine every character as a person I know (just the face, not necessarily the personality). If the hero/sidekick is someone other than you in your head, again, less risk of them turning into a Mary Sue.
I wouldn't necessarily call Bella a Mary Sue because she is clumsy, she's codependent with Edward enough that will neglect her safety, she rushes into things too quickly, etc. So she's far from perfect. She's more like an everywoman type character
hey Abbie! I always had a problem in understanding how to full fledgedly apply your advice to my writing and make it phenomenal. I recently read your book, and my god, did it help with that! Like, I can see all the advice you give applied so beautifully in your book! I have annotated the whole thing to the extent that now I'm slightly embarrassed to lend it to anyone!
Number 7 is literally just the tsundere trope. Tsunderes I genuinely have no clue why people would bend over backwards for, they are self-centered sociopaths most of the time, and they are usually accompanied by an MC that can't count to 5 even with fingers. They usually are just bitchy and annoying and would rather kill you than take responsibility for *their* flaws and mistakes, while simultaneously blaming you for Every. Little. Thing. They might grow as a character, but most of the time they are insufferable until they finally get it through their head.
About point number 2: On the other hand, you can make a character that is naturally better than everyone at something. Perhaps the thing you should do to compensate is to make them terrible or not as good as others at other things. A certain, purple-haired someone I know can fight really well… but can’t cook, for instance.
They did that in the Lara Croft films. She can't cook a microwave dinner without it exploding. Domestically, she stinks, which is why she has caretakers in her home
My friend and me wrote Fanfiction with 'our own characters' into this roll play world. I hated her character, She was an unmatched beauty of a queen, who struggled with everything from uncurable illnesses she ignored, because hey, she had to reign a planet/solarsystem to being the perfect mother even when her goregously handsome husband abused her, oddly enough she never showed any signs of those abuses ... (not that I wanted a detailed descripton). One of the worst Mary Sues I have ever read, but I did not know the term back then.
This reminds me so much of a superhero fanfic I read a while back. This hot, sexy, overpowered superhero who also has chronic illnesses and injuries that only affect him when the author wants him to be babied by the other characters. Supposedly he had practically been starving for 6+ months but because he’s a superhero he still has abs and muscle, but he’s also severely underweight to the point that he has osteoporosis that only comes into effect, again, so that he can be babied and does not affect the plot at all. He has a neglectful, overly harsh relative, as well, who’s only purpose in the story is to be a neglectful, overly harsh relative who makes the other characters feel protective towards the MC and hateful towards the relative. (As for abuse, there’s a side character who was supposedly abused but the trauma only surfaces once every blue moon when it makes for good sympathy material meanwhile that same character is incredibly abusive to other characters without any pushback from the others and anyone who tries to call it out is portrayed as being a bad person because how could you call out this character’s flaws when he’s suffered so much??)
I do understand what shes getting at however what annoys me is whem ANY central, strong female character is called a Mary Sue, even when the character doesnt meet the criteria mentioned. Also how often Gary Stews are excused as not being that because they have one line about not being sure or something similar.
Isn’t it interesting how Gary Stu’s are usually bought up up as a sort of footnote to show that this isn’t just a thing for digging into female characters… only for examples to not be given nearly as much time or flack as the female ones
I think that some writers write arrogant characters instead of confident characters because they don't really understand the difference between the two. Confidence is more internal and is a belief in one's own abilities while arrogance tends to be external and shows itself as a belief of one's superiority over others. The trick to showing confidence is through action but some writers try to do it with dialogue instead and it comes out as arrogance.
Great video! Thanks for sharing. As I was watching it, some examples of "Mary Sue" popped in my head: EVERY ONE of the main characters on Charmed, and Maggie of The Walking Dead.
@@Axxidous Yes, they are very flawed. They are treated as though they walk on water by others. Everything is somebody else's fault, even when they are in the wrong. Perhaps that's a Mary Sue characteristic?
@@GhostyGhouli Very true. But she is treated by others as though she walks on water. Even when she is in the wrong. Perhaps that is a Mary Sue characteristic?
@@dlamancha5697 never watch the show. But someone else commented a mary sue at its core is a narcissistic writer. The character can be talented but it is when the world seems to praise and worship a character feels like a mary sue
Thank you so much! You’ve helped me realize how much my main characters are kind of Mary Sues and how I can make them more humane. I never realized how some of them don’t even have real motives and some don’t have many personality traits besides pushing the plot forward. Now they feel like realistic characters who I can relate to and care about. You are so awesome! Keep up the amazing work and I hope any future stories you write are just as amazing as you are! ❤️
I always find it very amusing when the incredibly attractive protagonist, who is obviously very concerned about his good looks, tells other characters that it is only important to be a good person and that looks don't count. It has the same effect on me as when Christina Aguilera sings "You are beautiful" while she herself is breathtakingly pretty in this video. Always makes me laugh! 😂
Hey guys, tip: make your characters a dnd sheet. Idc if dnd has nothing to do with it, the point buy system could be so helpful with balancing a Mary sue.
This is why I always torture my main characters by adding angst and making them suffer, struggle, so they will try to grow from it . Anyway, I have this one character who is very arrogant , cold, intelligent, and handsome, but his painful past continued to haunt him till his adult years, causing him to struggle badly from it, and he tries to move on as he could…
Flat characters aren't necessarily Mary Sues. Main characters can't be entirely flat though, their arc may just be subtle, and they change things around them.
I usually prefer the term steadfast character arc over flat character arc, because it implies the character being challenged and remaining steadfast in her beliefs. It is important that they face real challenges with as high stakes and difficulties as growing characters do.
Thank you so much for your tips, Abbie. My WIP has two viewpoint characters, and I'll use these points to flesh them out more, and give them notable flaws.
Hyper-competent characters whose only personality trait is arrogance about their abilities drive me crazy. Characters being extremely skilled is great, even if they earned their skills before the story began, but nobody is good at everything, and nobody is undefeated forever. Give them a rival. Give them other aspects of their life that suffer through their devotion to their craft. Give them the insecurity that they won't be able to maintain their level of proficiency forever. Give them a crippling fear of failure that drives them to excel. All of these things allow them to still be awesome at something or even multiple things, but make them more interesting because their abilities stem from something other than the plot demanding they be good at the thing.
I think Rey is my favorite example, because of my fascination with just how the writing process might have played out with the Disney Star Wars films. How do you write a protagonist with no flaws, but then take a legacy character (Luke) who had attained iconic hero status and give him shoe-horned, character breaking flaws instead? Man, I wish someone would do a deep-dive documentary about how that all went down.
Well the short answer is probably that Rey was Kathleen Kennedy’s OC, she looks just like KK as a young woman and she seems to exist to show up every other character.
Always remember, when it comes to the two Star Wars continuities: It's called "Legends" because it's legendary. It's called "Canon" because it's fodder.
Remember: these negative traits can be good WHEN THEY ACTUALLY HAVE CONSEQUENCES FOR THEIR ACTIONS! When someone does negative things but doesn't get what they "deserve", it can be really annoying and frustrating to the audience!
Steven Seagal? You mean almost every Isekai anime main male character. The most extreme example I can think of is "I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in the Real World, Too". The main character literally becomes better at fighting than everyone else, everyone thinks he's the best guy ever, all the women want him and he's also better at other even simple skills like cooking.
Mirabel is arguably a Lin-Manuel musical character and not a Disney character. She raps like a Hamilton character, she honors her legacy and goes forward like a Lin-Manuel protagonist, she is Colombian reflecting Lin-Manuel’s focus on Hispanic narratives. If Mirabel is not a Mary Sue that is because Encanto is his and his team’s brainchild, not Disney’s, and Disney just trusts him after Moana. Furthermore, even given the hewing to traditional Disney narratives Moana is also not a Mary Sue in any manner. If anything Maui is trying to pass himself off as a Gary Stu and fails.
The only addendum I would make is: If you're starting out and getting into writing, and you're developing your writing style and getting used to how to craft a story, don't worry about Mary Sue characters. In such a case, they can be a stepping stone, they can be your rough draft, they can be your exploration of learning what you like or don't like to write, what you enjoy or find uninteresting, and what you should or should not do when creating characters. Mary Sues can belong in amateur writing, but not in any published media.
After 25 years of war, I never reflected on the horrors of it. I never once morned my fallen comrades. But it all changed the day I met Mary Sue. Her sword sliced through the orc army so elegantly as I was missing every arrow that I shot on this windy day. But then Ben, Mary Sue's most trusted companion, got hit by an axe while she was simultaneously chopping the head of the great 3 veteran generals. At which cost did we win this battle? As the victory chears were the only thing that we would hear, I heard a scream that I could never forget. Mary Sue (Ben!!!) At this moment, we all realised the horror of war while Mary Sue was wrapping her thorn robe around Ben's wound. We were all solemnly watching as Ben's life was hanging to a thread. What a tainted victory, who would have known that the war that the Empire led against the 3 southern kingdom would scratch a member of Mary Sue's entourage. I thought to myself that I did not do enough! If I had thrown myself at the axe, I could have prevented Ben's wound. On that day vowed to become better, faster, and stronger, so our only beacon of light Mary Sue could save us. If only I could have screamed, "Watch out, Ben! " and rushed to Ben's help...Maybe Mary Sue could have seen me, and my destiny would have changed. My life would have significance perhaps. Perhaps Mary Sue could have said, "Thanks. What is your name, by the way? "
Want to write a compelling character who is NOT a Mary Sue? Check out my ultimate character profile 👉 abbieemmonsauthor.com/store/new-character-profile-template
May "Rey" Sue Palpatine comes to mind.
I believe you know the huge difference between classic Lara Croft and rebooted Lara Croft. The rebooted Lara is terrible.
My brother and I were calling her MaRey Sue before the end of The Force Awakens. That's the last chance I gave modern movies and TV, and every strong female character since is basically the same tier of bad as her
Depends any movie/TV show or a certain movie/show
Back to watching Joffrey being slapped for being a Mary Sue
You know... A few of these Mary Sue personality traits are better suited for a villain: not owning up to their mistakes, putting down others, taking credit for success they had little to no part in. That's not my idea of a hero. It sounds more like a high school bully.
Yeah guess why.
I’d make a Mary Sue think that they are the center of the world when they’re actually horrible people
Great observation
I know right?? So true! So many of the Mary Sue character traits are toxic... definitely not something you want in a role model protagonist 😳
is there a "maru sue" version fo villians?, i feel plain and flawless villians are also boring imo, now days we want complex characters, we all know 100% goodness and 100% evilness is not a thing, so i think it goes both ways
It’s honesty kind of an interesting paradox that a character that’s liked by everyone (or at least every ‘good’ person) in the story is generally hated by the audience.
And the morally grey character that’s hated by (some) other characters is usually most loved by the audience 😂
The funny thing is, I am currently writing a character that I intended to be a complete wreck. I was trying to write her as a teenager full of selfconsciousness and anxt. She's bad at academics, too timid to get things done, keeps making dumb mistakes...
And now I was just in the middle of writing my 7th chapter in the story and I realized something. Way too many of these flaws I've layered onto her, and way too many of the problems in her life, are so identifiable with for the audience that I think I've just discovered the opposite of your statement is true as well.
The more messed up the character is, the more they are given a disserved hard time by the characters in the story, the more the audience will love them.
And no one likes the main character, only the side characters
To paraphrase what a better writer than me once explained: much like a tyrannical dictator that demands laws of civility and governance be rewritten to reinforce their own authority at the expense of the people's rights, a flawless/Mary-Sue character demands that the limitations of storytelling and suspensions of disbelief be redefined to reinforce their own literary importance at the expense of the readers' intelligence.
It makes sense actually. Cause most of these characters is created by the writers trying to TELL us not SHOW.
"No flaws or weaknesses" includes having "weaknesses" that are total b.s. like being "clumsy" or "awkward" in an endearing way that brings her to the attention of the male lead.
Alot of times Mary Sues are reinforced by absolutely imbecilic support characters. Like, Shes not superhuman, the badguys shes fighting are just dumb as dirt.
Shes not a hero, the people shes "protecting" are just too stupid to do it themselves.
It is as much a flaw of these badly written characters that some random male Flummox would get all "gushy" inside that your ditz heroin tripped over her own feet.
This is why I try to be careful when I write my OCs, to make sure they are not perfect or flawless where they become boring and unrealistic.
In the 1980s TV series "MacGyver", the title character isn't perfect. He has acrophobia. So he'll be climbing this oil rig hanging upside down from a beam hundreds of feet above the ground. He'll look down and mutter, "I hate heights". Then he'll continue climbing. That's not what acrophobia looks like.
Or "caring to much"/"being to kind"
And it includes having flaws and never being called out on them. Like friends just accept being cut down by them or them causing destruction with their (superhero) antics and for some reason that's just fine.
Don Quixote was the ultimate non Mary Sue. He was crap at everything and clueless. But we loved him because he was optimistic and kept trying.
The end where he is at his most rational is one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the book.
Agree before the ending part. Ultimately he's not based on his ending
Also written by an incredibly interesting character himself. Cervantes had an absolutely wild life - fought at one of the largest naval battles in history, was a slave, was at odds with the law since youth and had to move around Europe a lot, lost the use of his left arm, etc. Funny how the most self-deprecating and humoruous characters tend to come from extremely interesting and adventurous people, and the most self-absorbed and unlikeable come from sheltered narcissists.
I'm gonna read that book one day.
Oh no.....I just realized I'm Don Quixote
Thank you for showing clips from the Mulan live action remake. That Mulan was born with "chi" (or is it "qi"?) and is amazing from birth. The 90s cartoon, Mulan had to struggle and earn her skills, and was successful for using her brains and whit over braun and fighting ability. The fact the producers and writers didn't realize this was such a major flaw that resulted in a super boring remake baffles me.
Love this detail
I haven't seen the live one, but I don't plan on it. What's so interesting about a character who never has to fight for what they want/need, or find another way around a problem???
The very original fables of Fa Mulan did have her utilize some type of wind based magic, but she had to sacrifice a lot and take time to learn it. And she was always at risk of being discovered as a woman. I feel like Disney wanted to keep the "wind power' aspect of Mulan but failed at everything else.
There are several comparisons on YT between the two versions, and most of them just trash the live action version. For good reason.
Exactly!! I grew up watching the 90s version of Mulan (the only true version, in my opinion) and I was always inspired by the themes of quiet strength; how Mulan had to use her wit and quick thinking to succeed and help others. That's true character strength, right there! 💪 Don't even get me started on the ridiculous misuse of the concept of "qi" 🙄 like you said, the remake was bafflingly boring. 2 hours of my life I wish I could get back lol
Not Abbie calling out every main character on the booktok radar
Not all but most I think
@@JustAPotato13 All.
@@icarusthorn9739 What about Aelin from throne of glass? Wait is Romantasy considered booktok?
@@JustAPotato13romantasy is huge on booktok. Fourth Wing, Lightlark, SJM's entire gallery, Vampire Academy, Zodiac Academy, House of Night
Not all of these succeed from start to finish, but the fact that these books have come so far despite being so mediocre is absolutely saying something, both about the readers and the authors
Also i will say, I haven't read Throne of Glass, HOWEVER, I've gotten quite far into Fourth Wing and while the MC has a disability, its such a non-factor outside of character interactions that it only feeds into the idea that Violet is a self insert because the author has the same disability
@@arkkon2740 oh thanks for the clarification! I’ve also read fourth wing and I agree that every 5 seconds somebody mentions something about how short violet is or how week she is.
I think the worst part about Mary Sues is the fact that the story and plot itself doesn’t ever view them in a negative light.
Right? They could make it a character development (like the one Iron man had). They think they are unstoppable and "main character has no flaws" and they learn how that is not true and get better as the story develops.
@@alessandram.3289 its worse when its those y/n wattapad stories
@@alessandram.3289 Exactly!! Iron Man is one of my all time fav characters, and he was sooo bad in the beginning. Failed, arrogant, cocky, and privileged. But he becomes such a good person in the end.
Okay, please, give me a break. Let's use just the MCU examples. Ironman supposedly is a lot better than Captain Marvel, at least according to some of the commenter's. He was arrogant and other things, but he grew. Really? Did he? In some ways yes, but let's take stock.
His major issue right from the beginning was creating technology others abused and used to hurt people. His mission from then one was to fix the damage his ignorance wrought.
Yet, he helped build the Insight Carriers thar nearly handed the world over to Hydra. He played a significant role in creating Ultron. He pushed for the signing of the Sokovia accords which made half the Avengers and his friends criminals. He likely helped design and build the prison a number of them were held in.
He failed? At what? He made technological advances an armybof engineers would have taken decades in a matter of years. He broke time travel in a matter of hours in his downtime after putting his adorable kid to bed.
Then there is Captain Marvel. A character, pre-powers who was a female fighter pilot rated for experimental test flights of highly classified planes in the 80s and 90s. I don't know if you know what the military was like for women back them, but it was nearly impossible.
So, right off, her character is a mix of Top Gun and GI Jane. How was Tom Cruises character in Top Gun again? Cocky, capable of the impossible, or at least he thinks he is, and never shows weakness, or rarely. How about GI Jane? Back in the 80s, a women doing certain jobs was viewed as society as trying to do a man's job. As such everyone would be extremely harsh to them. Look at almost any powerful woman from the time and you would see a very contained person. A woman striving to work in a so called man's field couldn't show emotion, positive or negative. They couldn't cry, they couldn't show pain, they couldn't be exuberant or too happy. Any slight emotional outburst would typically be used as evidence against them that they were too emotional as women to do the job right. So while Tom Cruizes character could be wild and reckless, a women in his position couldn't or it would have been used as an attack on her.
That is accurate for the time.
Then, with Capain Marvel, she effectively gets amnesia and is gaslighted into being a soldier for one of the most arrogant armies in the galaxy.
Just look at every soldier in her group. They all act a lot like her, yet her character gets singled out for complaint as unrealistic.
She doesn't have flaws? The story may have not given the right focus, but her childhood is montaged several times where she is constantly failing. Constantly being told she isn't good enough.
Quite frankly, I think the better comparison is between her and Captain America. How many flaws did he have? He is very similar to her. He grew up failing all the time. Got powers from an outside source. How often did he get super emotional?
Yet, she's a bad character.
Let's face facts. The traits of this so called Mary Sue is the ones integral to almost any action movie main character. Anyone see Lethal Weapon, Total Recall, Demolition Man, Tango and Cash ,etc, etc.
Yet, when a women plays the part, even when her backstory fully explains her way of managing emotions and decisions, people feel the need to make it out to be a big thing.
It's funny how things don't really change that much. Wasn't it not thst long ago when a woman being called GI Jane as a joke was seen as a horrible insult? With this whole Mary Sue business, I think you really need to see just how much of this is because women have played the part men have been playing for forever and being successful at.
@@haddow777 You are the reason this video exists. Trying to excuse poor writing by calling it sexism. Iron Man really isn't self-less until Endgame. No one is saying he became perfect. But he does grow. Does he make similar mistakes throughout the series? Yes, because that's what humans do. We have strengths AND weaknesses, and though we grow, we tend to make the same kinds of mistakes, just hopefully in smaller ways or less consistently. How does Captain Marvel grow?
0:11 Putting Divergent and tris there actually hurt my mentality considering my obsession for years😭
Yeah I aslo think she is on this list unfairly. Because she is flawed. Especially in the books.
@@samsamelia3029 Real and she died at the end to save humanity?
Not listening to this lady.
@@monnica1862 So Real, like with peace and love, shut up
@@samsamelia3029 from what I can remember, she's still a Mary sue. At least feels like she was because she instantly goes up on the rank and attracted the hot popular guy. She's grown in a faction where she's supposed to be weak and focused on feelings and later choose the factions that valued bravery and stuff (forgive my memories).
In Ancient Greek stories Hubris (excessive pride) was the most fatal of flaws. Now it’s treated almost as a virtue.
Funny how pride was considered bad. Now we got outright parades regarding it 😅
Pride is the devil's vice.
Tbh pride can sometimes be entertaining if a character can back it up
Annabeth Chase? 😂
Looks like people from 2000 years ago were much more capable in creating real human stories
people who write mary sues probably say that their biggest weakness is working too hard and caring too much at job interviews
I mean… to be fair, being a workaholic can be a legitimate flaw if written correctly. Have them be sleep deprived and have a poor work-life balance. :p
@@DragonTrainer201And suffering severe insomnia... It might be interesting.
B@@CrystalWings12and they turn to alcohol and every person they choose to date is wrong for them lol
Im sorry, but the moment yiu said that, i thought of Asha from Wish
@@bigboomer1013Lmao same
It's so interesting how "damsels in distress" and "strong female characters" are both in this "Mary Sue" trope. I think people don't realize how alike they actually are.
"Mary Sue" basically boils down to "lead female character existing." All this bitching is just misogyny. No one ever complains about "strong male lead who's good at everything." Those dudes carried the Marvel franchise for what? 20 years? I don't think Disney's crying over it. Sorry, I don't consume media to watch some girl who's as dumb and incompetent as I am flail and fail. I want to watch her conquer everything with ease and snappy quips. "Damsel in distress" is boring AF. Give me Mary Sues all day. I don't want to watch a woman do her womanly duty and beg some stupid man for help.
Or it's so broad it doesn't mean anything.
I have an idea for the damsel- have her be a political hosta*e or something and she has to pretend to be meal and submissive to survive but she’s actually really smart
"Damsels in distress" and "strong female characters" are both "Mary Sue" tropes??
Good observation! Because both are passive characters, they're always the victim of what's happening, whether they muscle their way though opposition or let someone else come to their rescue.
"Too proud to ask for help" is actually an interesting flaw that I rarely see fully utilized. That way you hit points 1 and 2 at the same, and you can grow your character in two different ways: in skill, and in humility.
To me, it's always been that Mary Sue characters can be arrogant, but no one ever tells them they're wrong. They never have to face the consequences of their actions, and no one ever calls them out because even though what they do is bad, others perceive it as good. I feel like I'm being manipulated (even gaslighted).
And in cases where's there's a glimmer of awareness in the creator and others call them out, they're quickly beaten down by the football team of people who worship the Mary Sue. How DARE you hold her accountable????
**EHEM EHEM** Marinette **EHEM EHEM EHEM* Dupain-cheng
@@poppy4207lmao I was thinking about her and I saw this
It's weird. If this uploader was a man he'd be called sexist and right wing.
She best be careful sum1 might put a hit piece out on her 😂
@@meowmachine9147you forget they always need reassuring... like, oh wow u super intelligent
You forgot the classic 90's and early 2000's trope of a woman being so frumpy and unattractive to the characters in a film. But the moment she takes her glasses off, fixes her hair, and IDK wears things that show off her body more....she's automatically so much more attractive to everyone in the movie. This has got to be one of the funniest tropes that movies clung onto for way too long.
Yes I hate that. I love in cloudy with a chance of meat balls how they reverse this 😂
Literally Disney ahh "nerd" lol
@@SadieHolmes-cd7vk Yeah
That was basically she's all that, and then it was in not another teen movie.
Only one I can think of, and it only worked because it was Rachel Leigh Cook.
@@eddardgreybeard I mean, there were plenty more. But those are two famous examples
Oh my goodness, number 6 is the exact epitome of the new Velma.
She’s not conventionally attractive, she doesn’t take care of her own body, she constantly insults others, she believes she’s better than everyone, and she literally eats from the garbage despite living in a middle class home. Yet for some reason, several characters crush on her when there’s literally no redeeming qualities about her.
Original Velma was the nerdy character, but you could still tell how people found her attractive despite Daphne being “the hot girl.” She was smart, she was funny, she was cute, *and she wasn’t an a-hole to everyone.*
To literally quote Fred from the Scooby-Doo movie, “dorky chicks like you turn me on too.”
Then the producers be like: The audience haaates female/black/hbtq+/strong characters... *whines* It's amazingly weird to watch. Just make good, likable characters. XD
I think Jenna Ortegas wednesday is also one of the best examples of an infuriating MS ( although the fact they make her very conventionally attractive despite her not caring about such frivolity 🙄🤣 is even more obnoxious)
I really loved original Velma and scoobydoo.
The new velma leaves a sour aftertaste.
The could have created a new original character instead of changing an already well known and loved character
one of my friends actually fits the description you gave of velma very well, other than the eating garbage, yet according to her many people have crushes on her and even fight over her. Its not delusional though, she's shown me proof of this
@@KLD-es6ftbs, wednesday is a well written character, she acts cold because AGAIN she doesn't enjoy companion and had made it clear, several people in the show just had an i can fix her mentality, and even then she STILL tolerate them
My grandma is an example of a real strong woman figure. She raised 3 generations of children. Her siblings, her own children, and of course me and my siblings. She cooked, cleaned, worked 9-5 jobs most of her life, and did everything she could to ensure we had a childhood worth remembering. We were not rich, but we lived humble happy lives. I love my grandma so much. I owe everything to her and more. I hope one day more women can be like her. Hollywood doesn’t understand strong women.
Your example is of a real superhero and hence doesn't apply here.
Real life courage, grit, strength or anything else is nothing like what's shown in films. Most of the times i.e.
Some movies do show it incredibly well.
@
Read my comment again! I wasn’t saying all movies! I was referring to the bad ones where women are written into Mary Sues.
@@MrScaryPasta Only the last line mentions about Hollywood not understanding strong women. The comment doesn't mention about a few specific ones. 😬
Mary Sues also tend to warp the world and characters around them to behaving in ways that are not consistent with their own established character traits. The brooding male counterpart who hates everybody and never gives anyone an inch of leeway suddenly bends over backward for the Mary Sue for no reason, etc.
The brooding character who behaves differently when it comes to his romantic partner does not immediately make his partner a Mary Sue.
@@ExtremeMadnessXof course not! But this coupled with other factors absolutely does.
@@ExtremeMadnessX He's not her romantic partner at the time , how does she even get there to begin with , she just shows up and boom he loves more than his own mother , more than everyone he's ever loved befor
It sound as if the mary sue control the brooding male lead instead. Pretty horrifying. @@marshalsunrise6582
No one talking about the radical far left who have absolutely took over all things creative.
It's more political stances now than raw talent. Quite sad to watch just how bad it's gone.
Remember how Mulan the disney cartoon version was a crappy fighter and weak but practiced and never gave up to get better. Everyone remembers her. Remember how live action Mulan was so incredible ly good at fighting because magic or something. Of course nobody remembers, it was a forgettable movie.
I liked that movie
You should give the Chinese 2009 Mulan movie a chance. It's excellent.
I (F) won't forgive 2009 Mulan for excluding Mushu to "make it more realistic". Then inserting an effing witch who shape shifts into an eagle. And let's not forget adding in a culturally insensitive use of the phoenix. But yeah. Mushu too unrealistic.
Oh yeah and her character was perfect in every way and just needed to "find herself". It was the same damn trope that made me hate Captain Marvel
Actually it was incredibly memorable thanks to the sheer amount of rage it filled me with.
I don't think you can call something that has caused a hue amount of pure agony, as forgettable
I hate when there's nothing to like about the character BUT EVERYONE LOVES THEM. It makes me want to throw the book across the room 😭
I agree! And Charlie from hazbin hotel is definitely Mary sue she is the worst character....
@@Pomeranian690 I don't know if shes a Mary Sue, but she's definitely underdeveloped. She does struggle with the entire premise of the show, as nobody believes her ideas and her trust that others can change will do any good. She messes up a LOT because shes too enthusiastic and sometimes only thinks of herself, like with the Angel situation in episode 4.
But I can see why someone would think she's a Mary Sue, as she hasn't had to push herself too much when it comes to actually helping people, and almost everyone comes around to liking her eventually. So she's the worst character imo.
@@MusicKat217
Yes I agree!! But trust me she is Mary sue and I can say why she is the worst character.
I will give you one character, Zoe from miraculous ladybug
@@poppy4207 Oooh yes she is definitely the worst character as Charlie from hazbin hotel
Actually Marinette from miracolous is worst character too
3:51 "Let your character struggle with some things, okay? Let her not be perfect at something the first time she tries it. It's okay; she can be crappy at something and then get better, and actually have to, like, put in effort, and time, and blood, sweat, and tears to get better at a thing. I have more respect for a character who suffers to get better at a thing than a character who is just like, 'Step aside. I'm gonna do this better than anybody.' True strength does not mean knowing 100% of everything 100% of the time. True strength actually means having humility-right?-not being too proud to ask for help when you need it, and not being too proud to admit that you're a beginner at something, and laughing at your mistakes, being okay with failure. It shows that your character is strong because they're willing to learn and grow."
It would be fun if the character who was a "mary sue" realises the absurdity of it all and is very quickly loosing their mind cause the plot wont let them die, fail, or live as a "normal girl, with a normal life".
TLDR: Everyone around me is a certified idiot, and I'm slowly loosing my mind.
After a careful 2 months of re-evaluation and cool down time. I've come to the conclusion that Mari is a partial marysue. No ive not watched the new instalation yet. Yes i admit i got a bit too heated.
That would certainly put a twist on the cliche! 🤣
This is the exact plot of the anime, "One Punch Man." A character the defeats all his enemies with one punch. It's worth the watch if you're into that sort of stuff.
@@hardBoss damn, you beat me to it :D
Not the first Mary-Sue, but the character the term got the name from was kinda like this and the fanfic was a parody that played with that idea.
That would make an outstanding basis for an extremely meta movie. Something like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead.
About point 1:
I was really struggling with how to add "character flaws" in practice. I didn't want to just mark a checklist, because sometimes it made no sense to add a "random negative" quality to a character.
Then, some time ago, under another video, a commenter said: difference between "character strength" and "character weakness" is situational. Just give characters attributes and then figure out in which situations and how would these attributes cause conflicts. Which completely flipped this "character flaws" thing on its head and it makes sense!
For example: you have two characters, the first one trusts other people, the second one doesn't. Which one of those attributes is a character flaw? Well, that depends on who the character is dealing with. If they're dealing with someone who genuinely wants to help them, the second one causes conflict. But if they're dealing with an asshole, who plans to betray them, the first one causes conflict later on.
Real life example - me at work. My biggest strength and weakness is "attention to detail". Why it's strength? I often notice details that others miss. Why it's a weakness? I might get stuck on details and miss the big picture.
So, if you're stuggling with the "character flaws" too, ignore "flaws". Go for "attributes" and make those attributes cause "conflict".
That's a great concept. I have a character that's a lone wolf. He's learned to be self sufficient, even as a child, and he sticks to himself in his "pack." He's prideful and hubristic. I'm currently working through a subplot where he needs help, but he fears being weak, a burden, or casted out. It's interesting writing someone trying to help him, but it is fundamentally against his character to accept it.
You can also look from societal point of view. My character can't cook and she is a girl in a country where women are expected to cook well. She is stubborn - in a society where it isn't seen well. And she has difficulty of letting of the past.
Also, most virtues can easily turn into character flaws, so you can make a character have to walk a tightrope between the two.
For example, confidence can easily turn into arrogance, bravery can become foolhardiness, compassion could lead to either naiveté or cause your character to feel the need to set themselves on fire to keep someone else warm
This is really good advice. I'm currently writing a novel and my protagonist is a genetic experiment raised in a lab who spent most of his early years fighting and killing other test subjects. As a result, he's very good at fighting and has incredibly good reflexes, but this also makes him respond to any unexpected stimuli with violence. So a friendly pat on the bat could easily spook him into pulling a knife on the person who did it.
@@SharkaOfSea also you can give characters traits that seem very positive and then slowly develop them into flaws. For example ambition developing into obsession, kind character becoming too sacrifacial tc etc
I think Sherlok is a great example of how you can be perfect at what you do but still incredibly flawed because he is smart but struggles with opening up and connecting with others and we love him because we see his growth through his friendship with Watson.
His friendship with Watson is a fairly natural extension of his working relationship with Watson. I've hardly see any depictions of his character that made his character flaws seem anything other than trivial. Like his drug use is usually quirky.
So basically they just need a growth arc and the character is decent to great?
Yessss great example! 🙌 his strengths and weaknesses counter-balance so well and make him and Watson both feel very human
Awesome example! I would also put in this Sherlok's flaws in terms of how he becomes between cases - depressive, apathetic...
@@AshePBlack Sherlock was a prick, but he wasn't evil. At best he was neutral. However, if he completely didn't care he wouldn't have taken so many cases. Another example is Poirot - he is arrogant, but he is a great detective and he does not lack empathy and does form friendship with Hastings.
The only argument I have is that the "I'm good at everything right off the bat" trait is more common with female characters. I disagree. I think we *notice* it more with female characters. This trope is massively long lasting for male characters in action movies, but we don't notice it as much because we've been conditioned to see this as correct and normal. We notice it with female characters because the conditioning inflicted rose coloured glasses have been removed.
This. It's okay for the male characters. Been happening forever.
This. This. I was coming to say this too. The first part anyway. I just don't see this outcry against say, James Bond, who is a definite male Mary Sue
I don't need tons of growth and soul searching and development when I just want an action movie. We have not demanded it for men , but now we hold everything female
As a Mary Sue.
Their only flaw is that they are perfect 😂
It’s like when they ask what your weaknesses are in a job interview and you say “I care too much”
Yes, haha, don't we all want to feel better about ourselves by finding flaws in everyone else, which is little better than a "Mary Sue" whose parents cared and tried to raise her the best way they could, with multiple sacrifices along the way. We love the characters who throw this care away and find flaws with the care and reasons to be an ungrateful slob. I think the trick is to give the role-model-for-children character a natural humility, great goals, geek aspects like shyness, misunderstanding of the world based on inexperience, and love for others. Hmmm
@@StrawberryWaffles-h6t But you can care too much. There's an allegory about it in the first season of Fargo
@@brandic89I think you misunderstood the video. It's not like you can't make a character that doesn't have a healthy lifestyle-
I get what you're trying to say, but the point is that your characters shouldn't be perfect. No human is perfect, and if you want to make your character more relatable and sympathetic, you should add a few flaws to do so. Also, even if the character has kind and appreciative parents, they can still have flaws.
I don't know how to explain this but, "Whose parents cared and tried to raise her the best way they could, with multiple sacrifices along the way" isn't really a Mary Sue trait. And just because people don't want your/their character to be a Mary Sue, doesn't mean that they want the character to be an ungrateful slob.
(Sorry if i have bad grammar or anything. Also, I'm not trying to insult your comment)
@@brandic89Also i agree with the last part
The Last Airbender was great at writing characters. Despite his Avatar powers, Aang was still a kid prone to do stupid things here and there, Katara was a superb role model, Toph still had limits to her impressive self taught earthbending powers, etc
This is totally true
But you can't deny that if ATLA was new today there would be idiots freaking out over a 12 year old blind girl styling on huge muscle men
@@shawnamiller191 Yeah, just like the how the live action spoiled Sokka's development by not making him sexist in the beginning
you truly think people would be more upset at Toph doing that today? @@shawnamiller191
Toph immediately from the getgo shows herself as very strong, but still a kid and violent both physically, but also emotionally, feeling tied down. Mary Sue's would never get that
@@10thletter40 if you don't think certain mindless idiots would still freak out over a disabled girl pwning The Boulder so easily you're lying to yourself
The number 4 hits hard.Because just because someone had insecurities it doesn't mean they don't have confidence..You can be both insecure and still be confident...Real positivity isn't about denying negativity, it's about accepting what you feel
there's an old saying that REALLY needs to be remembered when writing: Bravery is not about lacking fear. Bravery is being afraid and doing it anyways.
Love this.
I like it, my main character is like this... both insecure and confident
@@cynxmangamy main heroine had the short end of the stick in a good chunk of her life, but at the end of the day she still tries to help people even if it's big or small. As a wise person once said "Being bad is easy. Being good is a challenge."
Exactly. I don't agree with so many points of this list! Pure writing relativism.
I found this video by accident and am now a subscriber. As a budding writer if high fantasy ans sci-fi I found it extremely helpful. Thank you!
Fun Fact: The term Mary Sue first appeared in a Star Trek Fan Fiction
As a Character pointing out the ridiculousness of the other Fan Fiction. :p
And funnily enough Star Trek has pretty much flawed characters. :D
@@aralornwolf3140 Written by the co-owners of the fanzine, as a send-up of the kind of original fiction they were so often sent for submission! It's online somewhere, and it;'s very entertaining... but my heart twinged a bit at the illustration that went with it. Of a girl of about 14 or 15, conventionally, boringly dressed, bobbed hair in an alice band... the kind of girl brought up to 'be good', do as she's told, get married and become a trad-wife, the property of her husband. No wonder she dreamed of adventure, male respect and admiration, and the intellectual and physical superiority that made it possible for her to be that dream. Heartbreaking really.
Paula Smith wrote 'A Trekkie's Tale', which introduced Lt. Mary Sue. Since then Ms Smith has said that it was not her intention for the term 'Mary Sue' to be used to denigrate ALL female characters who are depicted as competent or aspirational.
@@pollyparrot9447 I know, I ws just commenting on the motivation to write that kind of fanfic in the first place. And whether she intended the term to be offensive (I don't see it as such myself), she and her colleague were certainly getting enugh of them to want to lampoon them.
7 signs: Owned by Disney.
Most 80s and 90s action heroes match most of not all of these tropes.
@@TheLastSane1maybe? Even Schwarzenegger's character in Predator was likeable for caring about his fellow teammates. Competent, but had to learn to win. Ripley was bad ass but still very much a human woman trying to survive.
Seems like the female characters are more mean girl and arrogant than necessary in the past just 10-15 years.
Disney also seems like the face of this particular flavor of poor character design. Telling us to like the character instead of showing us.
@@Zyrean7007 Except that people call something a mary sue without ever seeing the media they are calling mary sue. I mean look at Prey, the main character of that movie is likeable and shows how she has her skills and even shows her training to improve them. But from the moment of announcement she was called a mary sue.
If Alien or Aliens came out today, Ripley would be called a Mary Sue immediately and you know it.
@@TheLastSane1 I wonder if there is a way to put that to the test. Good writing stands on its own which is why people still read Homer. "Well everyone will call someone a Mary Sue whether they are or not" sounds more like shilling for a corporation than demanding stories you pay for via movies, streaming or games be of quality writing.
@@robertparobechek6580 I mean you have people calling every story, movie, or show with a female lead a mary sue. Before the movie Prey even came out people were calling the main character a mary sue because "Well she has to be to fight a Predator" when she is 100% not a Mary Sue. Thats the problem, we have to many people who just use it to mean "Something I don't like or want to like"
What tickles me when I see Mary sue stories is when you can really tell what kind of person the writer is. Someone who needs to interact with people and understand how the real world works a lot more
True but from what I observe (experience from friends who writes stories when we were younger)
It also stem from massive bullying by other and insecurity from the author who are usually teens..in this case teen girls .
@@Blueming_345 interesting, I agree. Writing could be agreat way to cope with trauma like that. I guess if you're writing to heal your soul, you can do whatever you want. But if you want to sell copies and be a regarded acclaimed, gotta work on the amateurish signs and naive worldview. I think reading more from other genres and nonfiction and interacting with people casually could really help writers improve writing better stories
@@Blueming_345 Mary Sues are especially dNgerous for people who were bullied because they are a fantasy of "you dont have to do anything, people will love you just so and everyone who hates you is wrong, always". You can be bullied but that doesnt automatically make you a person who's justified in everything they do and who never will make a single mistake.
If you end up escaping into mary sues, and believe them, that's when they work against you and your recovery. Especially considering that bullies tend to have been bullying victims in the past, it can be a slippery slope the older you get and the more mistakes you make.
Or they’re writing what they think the audience wants to see in a strong independent woman - it didn’t hit me until watching this video how bland Captain Marvel is because she has no flaws and is so passive. Yes her powers are incredible and she undergoes an amazing journey to recover her lost memories and makes a selfless decision - but she’s not as interesting as Black Widow or Scarlet Witch who both have deep flaws to overcome.
@@louisefarrar6037 yeah... I tried not to say it but the new wave feminism was what I was talking about. Starking examples would be she hulk, velma, the acolyte, we could go on and on. Delusional writers make dumb stories people can't enjoy
I enjoyed watching this video. I read a lot, from fan fiction to published books. And you are all spot on with these. And when I write, I constantly review my characters to ensure flaws, strengths, and growth... even for minor subplot characters. To me, a Mary Sue is the perfect Green Tea Bish and White Lotus wrapped in one big bundle and served cold and tasteless.
OK, so now you are throwing a bit of mold on a cold dish that has no taste. Is that Michelin Star cooking? No, but you did reach the next level of crappy writing. You have devolved from not being able to write to not being able to write without the wrong recipe. Sound of one had clapping.
When I was producing a monthly podcast on bad movies years ago, my co-host and I would tie Mary Sue characters into a trope we simply termed "The Center of the Universe." These characters are the most important people in the universe, everyone loves them or wants to use them for their own ends. They have no flaws. They are usually gorgeous, desired by everyone of the opposite sex (and many of the same sex.)
They are the worst characters ever.
That's a fantastic trope name! Cool if I use this? What was your old podcast's title?
@@RobKristjansson Tranquil Tirades. Half the fun, and a unique aspect of our show, was our accompanying Wiki website where we made pages for all of the movies we covered, all the major characters, and our entire in-universe of tropes we invented, among tons of other pages. I can't post the link on YT, but just search for Tranquil Tirades Wiki on Google. It's a blast to just waste time clicking on 'Random Page' for an hour. 😂
@@RobKristjansson My first comment didn't post for some reason, but my show was "Tranquil Tirades." We have an accompanying wiki website where we made pages for all our episodes, the movie characters, etc.
@@OratoryJamesIV I'll check it out!
@@RobKristjansson Thanks! If you listen to the show, the best episodes were from Episode 20 on. We had a third host who we kicked to the curb after about the first 13 episodes because he was insufferable.
Not sure where this fits into the 7 above (1 or 2 maybe?), but another sign of a Mary-sue for me is a constant cycle of affirmation, whether to their face when they're "struggling" or when they're absent and others are gushing over how great they are; they'll immediately pull themselves together until the story demands more angst & then the cycle will repeat. Having repeated bouts of "self-doubt" that are immediately resolved with a pep-talk really irks me.
Yes.... self-doubt is not really a flaw when it's written in this superficial way! True insecurity and fear of making mistakes could be though!
@@angelaking9619 And it's only a flaw if it prevents the character from taking the right action. If it makes them make a mistake.
So true, I wonder if this mirrors their childhood and youth if every set back they got a saccharine pepe talk and then ignored or on the an over anxious adult helping out vs the adults in their life letting them fail and try again and showing confidence in them that theyll figure it out in the normal part of life learning without freaking out they fell down.🤔
So they are occasional strugglers for the sake of the plot?
@@marikothecheetah9342 Sort of, I think it's just a cheap way to give them a flaw. They'll win every battle, everyone loves them & then they'll get all angsty (for half a chapter) and get their importance affirmed or how great they are validated; then it's right back to not struggling or having problems.
I think the problem is less that they are perfect, and more that they are NOT perfect, but their faults are NEVER acknowledged.
Great video btw!
or their faults are immediately undermined by the actions of the whole world.
That is a version. Zoey Redbird from the House of Night series is an objectively awful person. She's extremely judgemental, shallow, misogynistic, hypocritical and extremely stupid. Hell she once blew two men into traffic to let them get hit by a car.
In universe though? A literal Goddess chose her as her avatar because she is so "kind, compassionate, wise and forward thinking" and all the characters constantly praise her for making the most baby brained decisions, and if they don't they are evil and wrong.
@@nightmarefanatic1819 you must have not read the parts where she gets punished for things she did in one book she's in jail. She is a good person that part with the man actually is when she wasnt herself get into the context clues she went mad with power.
@@benjamingoldstein9156 Yes Charlie from hazbin hotel is definitely Mary sue she is the worst character
12:43 I agree. Even if your character is a narcissist or a sociopath, you might show them lashing out by destroying things in their room or do a flashback to when they were a child that relates to the psychological explanation behind their behavior. Or even do a scene where they go visit their alcoholic parent or drug addict parent.
They lack authenticity, something the audience can feel identified with the character, like flaws, struggles, conflicts, a thing which shows that an average person can overcome things, thats a hero in my book.
IMPORTANT: Don't just give your character flaws, make them having flaws important for the plot. Doesn't matter if she's struggeling in training if she can do it in a real fight. It doesn't mattzer if everyone always makes fun of a character being "clumsy" (because this is extremely common for some reason) when it's just a joke all the time and never important. Like, this is the most pick me kinda thing. Especially when it's the "Oh no she's bullied for being different and she's so innocent and clumsy" BUT AT THE SAME TIME SHE'S A FUCKING ATHLETE IN SECRET AND BEAT UP EVERYONE WITHOUT TRIPPING ONCE.
(This is fine if it's adressed like if she only was ever clumsy because of her insecurities and it stopps as she becomes more aware of who she is and what she's good at because then it's actual character development and also an actual flaw)
Yeah, a flaw is only a flaw if it causes them to behave in a flawed and counterproductive manner, or causes them other problems relevant to the plot. If it doesn't, it's just cosmetic at best.
"Her only flaw is clumsiness" is probably pretty common with Mary Sues because it superficially makes her appear flawed and relatable without requiring her to take any moral strikes or requiring any great effort to write passably. For added Mary Sue-ness, there's a pretty good chance that this 'flaw' of clumsiness will only impact the story when she needs to trigger a 'meet cute' by tripping in the school hallway, causing her to bury her face in the chest of Hunky McStudson, quarterback of the football team.
Yes, so true. If the character's flaws don't get in the way of them accomplishing their goal, what's the point?? 🤣
Clumsiness can also be used to hide her identity.
My character can't cook for her life and in one scenes she is told by the other character she needs to cook for him (he is injured and can't do it himself, admittedly). That other character described her dinner as: the best and the worst: she really did her best, but the meal tasted awful :P She can't cook, no matter the circumstances. However - she does great statistics for her team and is even told by her ex-coach to do the scorer exam when she is eligible.
With clumsy but super Usagi Tsukino comes to mind. I watched Sailor Moon because there was nothing else to watch at that time but honestly - Usagi is a huge Mary Sue. :/
Abbie are you a Mary Sue? I can't see any flaws. What is your misbelief?
She is probably the only person I would permit to not have any misbelief
She won’t tell you her misbelief. She ain’t perfect. No one is perfect. Everyone should know that
Well she said herself most characters and most people are not aware of their misbelief
I'm not like other girls 💅🤪
bruh 💀 shes literally a youtuber, how are you going to "see" her flaws through the camera?
My wife is Chinese. She was so angry at the live action Mulan. She told me the final straw was how in order to become the best warrior on the battlefield was to remove her armor, let her hair down, and embrace her womanhood. She was so mad after watching the movie. She said it was a total insult to the entire mythology of Mulan.
There is a type of Mary Sue that wouldn't fall into those categories, the type that is such a good, amazing person who cares so much that she takes blame and responsibility for everything and everyone and magically manages to fix every situation and become a guardian angel to every other character. Granted, I see this more in fanfics than legitimate books, but I see it so much I thought it deserves at least an honorable mention.
This would show a person who is willing to let others take the credit for their great deeds. That is a rare virture in life or fiction.
That seemed like a controlling behavior to me. Taking responsibility of others means that they are taking away people's challenges from them. No one should make decisions for others, you can guide them, but you shouldn't do it for them.
Could easily make that a flaw, though. Coming from a former people pleaser, it becomes exhausting putting your own needs on the backburner to be there for people who usually don't reciprocate. Often forms toxic and/or abusive situations, so for sure, being the "I need to help everyone" is more of a struggle than it is good.
You are all misunderstanding what I'm saying. I mean the kind of character who takes on the responsibility to fix everything, everyone etc and succeeds every time because they are just so amazing and a flawless blessing to the world
I lowkey feel like this fits to the character of Perrito from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, he's this type of guardian angel, helps everyone, is a perfect role model and it can be a bit annoying how there's really no weakness he needs to overcome throughout the whole story
I like to call it the Zero's Journey. They don't grow, they don't fail, they don't have much personality (so the audience can project themselves).
What you defined as teh Zero's Journey is what a lot of youtube commentators call the HERoes journey.
However they do fail. They just fail upwards and called a hero for it.
Sounds like the average isekai protagonist tbh
I think the 8th point could be that the plot caters exactly to their needs. Like even mistakes play out as victories because the plot develops in the direction making them being right in the end. Like the counter part to Mary Sues get shoved around by the plot. They are the plot.
Yup, yup. When making a character it's important to ask what they want vs what they need.
My character Eleven is a demigod and wants to fit in somewhere, but what he needs is through a journey find the people who will accept him for who he is. It's writing 101
This generation of writers grow up by their parents always say, „You can do everything you want and be anything you want to be, because you are special. “. There is the problem. They don‘t have to take any responsibility until they get out of their house. Encounter First Hardship in life, they either behave like a Narcist or they break down and have a burnout.
Another thing about the Mary Sue is how only the villains hate her. Only a truly evil person could be blind to the Mary Sue's awesomeness, or jealous and intimidated by that awesomeness.
Exactly. It's reflected in how the creators react any time someone criticizes their creator's-pet character: "Well, anyone who doesn't like my Mary Sue is just a [___]ist!"
Oh, not even villains can hate her. Disney Star Wars, or the Rings of Power - where Sauron is simping for Galadriel
What you overlooked here is that it isn’t just the traits of the individual character that makes it a Mary Sue, but also the reaction of the world the character inhabits to said character - even if the Mary Sue does things that are glaring and obvious mistakes, the other characters in that world will pretend otherwise: they will invent any justification for their actions - no matter how unlikely or ridiculous it is!
You can have a character that never admits to a mistake and still avoids Mary Sue status so long as the other characters in that world recognize that it’s the character’s fault that things are going badly - for instance, one can create a prodigiously talented fighter that only just barely won a battle because that character failed to properly scout the terrain before the engagement: the character takes credit and bathed in the glory of victory, completely convinced that success was never in doubt, while other fighters that were on the battlefield comment quietly among themselves that this victory was way too close for comfort and that one more misstep by the prodigy among them could mean the death of everyone. Of course, they don’t share that information with anyone outside their close circle because they don’t want anyone to know just how precarious their situation really is and are instead hatching a plan to fix this problem (either by instructing the prodigy among them or getting rid of the prodigy somehow as the risk of keeping them around is too great).
A character who is always doing terrible things, while getting called out for it, but is ultimately right, is an infinitely worse character than the one you first described, because by the principle of "show don't tell" lip service is paid to the questionability or amorality of the character's actions while their behavior is sanctified by the divine right of the "word of God."
@@futurestoryteller You mean a character who never apologizes or admits his mistakes.
@@ExtremeMadnessXNo actually, I mean a character who is always 100% right regardless of how many times they are told they're wrong. This can include themselves. They can admit wrongdoing, but it's just to posture to the audience, to signal that they're such a good guy they're making the "tough calls."
This is why Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the furthest things from a Mary Sue. She really is a nearly perfect hero, but she makes mistakes and owns up to them, and you better believe that everyone around her blames her when she messes up.
@@rfresa Therefore, not a Mary Sue.
Jane Austen was a master at balancing strong and weak character traits.
The whole video I was thinking of Jane Austen characters and going "oh maybe that's why I love them so much!"
Jane Austen hated Fanny Price. She thought Fanny Price was a perfect ninny
@@MandieTerrier that sounds implausible. there is your evidence?
@@MandieTerrier I didn't know that but I actually liked Fanny Price. She was consistently undervalued and bullied but she held her own against her Uncle. I don't necessarily want to be Fanny but I admire her inner strength.
@@flowermeerkat6827 I also love Fanny Price. She has a lot of flaws, she isn't good in stuff (not playing music, not actually talented), introverted and shy, totally in co flict between what is proper and her feelings (love for Edmund, not loving mr Crawford), she may seem dull and is perceived as "dull nothing", only Edmund and William truly appreciate her, others either use her or neglect her or even bully her as mrs Norris did... Where is the said perfection, no idea. I have a great heart for her as I was a bit alike with my own shyness, social awkwardness, passion for reading (when normal young people preferred parties)...
Took MANY notes - thank you!
I truly don't understand the idea of creating a Mary Sue. The most beloved character of the MCU almost died multiple times in his first movie.
And half of those times were his fault because he prefers learning things the hard way.
Well, it doesn't always done on purpose. It's a common problem for authors, who try to create a strong/nice/handsome person, someone, who will be loved by people... and go too far. This authors just don't wanna let their heroes be "ugly" or "weak" even if they understand, that they must have weaknesses. Because, these authors can't let the readers or people, who will watch their movie, feel shame for their beloved character.
@@nastjafisunova7258 It's sad, because you can have characters who are beloved by the people and want to do right by them, and still give them flaws. Look at Liu Bei in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. He was such a virtuous person that his benevolence actually worked against him sometimes.
A lot of comes from the typical wish fulfillment stories. Your typical bodice ripper romance, for example, has the rich arrogant guy fall for the outcast girl who has strangely modern sensibilities. If you take that same story, but now have it written by a relatively passive individual doing a self insert, you wind up with a Mary Sue a lot of the time. Then factor in that "modern sensibilities" is a bit less inclined toward "damsel", you potentially get a character that is physically capable as well. And then you have other stories that are crafted with a relatively blank slate main character so the audience can project themselves into it. The more personality the main character has, the harder it is for the intended audience to project themselves into the character, so...
And note that this wish fulfillment exists in terms of "manly" stories as well. These, though, differ because, well, men. Hero is typically passive at the start, but once pushed too far, will become proactive or extremely reactive. He's not liked by everyone, but a bunch of women, or at least one, will fall for him. He'll also be an overpowered bad ass. It'll either be a variation of the hero's journey, with blank slate "farm boy" (aka generic every man) becomes the hero, the "retired bad-ass trying to live the quiet life" trope common to action movies, or else, as is common these days in anime/manwa/manga, the bullied nobody who becomes OP and the focus of everything in another world or otherwise goes on a murder spree against laughably evil types. Either way, though, the nobody special (at least not special in a good way) becomes powerful/relevant.
Basically, take your two standard genres (romance for women, action/adventure for men), and now have them written by someone who lacks life experience who either wants to be the focal point hero or is writing for those that do.
Because most authors create just a self insert. They don't care about the story itself, they just want to live out their fantasies and unfulfilled dreams, lol.
That's why we have romantasy with bad fantasy and no story and no romance, just erotica in a fantasy setting with a side plot. I'm so tired of this leak of effort. You don't even have to be a good author anymore to get published. Just have a bad boy with no character, sex, and an appealing frame around the sex.
A co-worker once told me that she hated a certain author because her characters were either completely good or completely bad. Id never thought about it, but she was so right. Any character who is perfect is boring. As are characters that are completely imperfect.
It depends on the quantity of the characters, when all can be put in one of those categories, that's bad. But when the main antagonist of a novel is this unstoppable evil, like a force of nature, it can be interesting. Sauron for example is this epitome of evil (at least in the Tolkien versions) which can create a compelling story, if done right.
@@DiePutzkraft well there's also superman but i dont know if people consider superman good or not. I just knows hes been around a long time.
One character who isn’t a Mary Sue I just love is Katara from ATLA. She wasn’t a master, wasn’t perfect and certainly had flaws. But she trained and trained for literally years and became a master. She could be crude or mean and she could be kind or loving. Definitely a favorite.
She was the last water bender. Yet she knew how to water bend without any guidance. Katara had no faults. She was a Mary sue.
@@yelhsanosnhoj6602Bingo. She was sweet and endearing but had minor struggles only, was naturally ludicrously powerful and only the bad guys hated her.
@ the fact she beat powered up blue lightning Azula was laughable
@@yelhsanosnhoj6602 It's pretty clear you haven't seen the series
@@yelhsanosnhoj6602 Azula was insane and no longer a threat. Even Zuko could've taken her alone
I love an interesting female character, but sometimes it’s ok for a character to be “basic” because they’re real-time virgins to the experiences they go through. That’s what makes it so fun. To feel what happening, in real-time, with them.
There are exceptions to every rule, even this one. A Mary Sue would come in handy when the events of the story are, themselves, extraordinary-to make them even more so in the eyes of the Mary Sue.
Tip: The Mary Sue trope is basically Steven Seagal's character in most of his movies, which seems to be written for the sole purpose of boosting his ego. Watch "On Deadly Ground", and if you can get through it without passing out from cringe, make sure your character is nothing like Forrest Taft.
Excellent example
If that's about an established expert being pushed to the limit, i can understand why it's at least likeable...otherwise, meh...
Reason : "Who are you and how are you so strong for no reason ?"
Believe it or not back up up 90s people believed his bullshit
Seagal is the ultimate Mary Sue.
Even the folk who write, direct and star in their own show whilst claiming to be god (coughBreenCough) don't have a chance of reaching his level of ego.
“Personality of a compost bucket” 09:31 made me laugh. 😆 Thank you for another great video!
That's an uncalled for insult to compost! Marjory the Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock had a great personality!
It's ŵhy Muriel in Muriel's Wedding was so popular. She was flawed and therefore relatable. She was selfish and shallow but also a victim of the cruel people around her. She committed fraud so she get away to Sydney where she started to thrive as she achieved her dreams. By getting what she wanted, she soon found what she needed instead, which was friendship not marriage. She was the opposite of a Mary Sue character.
That was my 1st introduction to Toni Collette. I remember thinking that was a great film- saw it in the theaters.
@agravery223 Mine too.
great point!
I think a big reason why arrogance is shown as a good trait in movies is because it can be seen and interpreted as confidence. Is it actual confidence? Of course not! But constantly telling everyone how better than them you are at everything is an act to seem like you have self-worth. It's why people irl do it, after all. And it's why movies do too. It's the movie trying to scream at your face, "Look at how much she knows her worth! She's confident and believes in herself, and we want to make sure you know that!" But it's completely counter productive because by having her herself telling us how awesome she is she does not at all have the positive confidence they want her to have. Actual confident people do not need to tell you how great they are, because all that matters is they just know that they're great, and they don't care if you don't believe in them, confidence comes from within after all.
It depends largely on whether the character is male or female. Male: confident. Female: arrogant. Male works too much: he’s such a hard worker. Female works too much: workaholic and needs to spend more time with her family. Traits seen as positive in men are often seen as negative in women, also because they reject conformist beliefs about femininity. There are so many male characters who are ‘Mary Sues’, but society sees them differently.
@amethyst-rp just out of curiosity, what male characters do you think are arrogant, but people view as confident and vice versa? I, personally, can't think of any, so I'd like some examples to understand exactly where you're coming from.
And confidence isn't even a necessarily good trait either. Most characters should doubt themselves or their abilities at some point. It's determination that sees them through.
@BrianWelch-vc7xy I think what you're trying to describe is arrogance. Someone can be confident and still admit when they're wrong or not the best at something. Confidence is knowing your worth and not letting your flaws diminish how you feel about yourself. You know you're flawed and can make mistakes, but you also know that you still have things you thrive in and can understand that there are things that make you unique and special. You don't view yourself as above everyone, you view yourself as a human worthy of things like respect and love. Arrogance is when you refuse to acknowledge being flawed. You do view yourself as above everyone else, and arrogant people tend to believe that doing things like making mistakes does diminish someone's worth as a human being, and the way they combat that is acting like they just simply never fail or make mistakes. Confidence and Arrogance are very much not the same thing.
The way i see pride and arrogance is like a bar. There is your power and then how you perceive yourself. If both are equal then you are confident. If you see yourself more than your ability then you are arrogant.
I have a male character who at first glance appears like a Gary Stew. He was a child prodigy, he's a scientist, a world traveling adventurer, experienced pilot, scion of a mega rich family.
But, he's lived a sheltered life. He is childlike, naive.
He tends to believe the best in everyone. He gets tunnel vision on whatever new challenge or discovery he's making. His experiments frequently fail. He risks his own life and his friends with a nonchalance that is dumbfounding to the female lead. She frequently has to save him from his blind spots with her brains and cynicism. But he in turn, saves her from becoming too jaded by life. They compliment one another.
I think Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions had the best way of explaining a Mary Sue. Mary Sues are people who warp the logic of the world around them in ways that don't make sense.
If a normal person is arrogant and refuses to apologize for anything (and there are people like that), that person will be disliked. If a Mary Sue is the same way, everyone will live him/her anyway, even though it makes no sense.
What's the name? i'd love to read/watch/listen to it if I can.
Reminds me of an oc I made
interesting
reminds me of my villain character
HAHHAHAAA IM GOING TO TAKE OVER THE WOOOOOOORLD!
and then he gets blown up by his own creation
its more of a comic relief from a particularly gruesome main plot
Hi, Abbie. I'm a 30-year-old blind woman and I want to thank you with all my heart and soul for having described so well a blind character in your novel 100 Days of Sunlight! I was born premature and my blindness is a consequence of that. Tesa is such a loving character, she is sweet and caring and she loves writing and she is a bit of a loner, like me, and she has friends online, like me. She also loves children, like me (I loved when she interacted with Henry, Noah and Aidan), and I would love to read a sequel set in the future in which she and Weston, another character I absolutely love, are parents. I also read The Otherworld and I loved it. Adam is such a great and mature character, Orca is weet and innocent and she learns a lot, and Jack is fun and friendly (not when he is angry with Adam, obvously). Orca's Dad loves her so much, and I adored Lucius. I hated her Mom and how she behaved. She didn't care about Orca at all. She didn't deserve to have such a beautiful daughter like her. And, speaking of Moms, I loved the conflict between Tessa and her Mom and, in the end, everything went well. Weston is so good with Tessa, and your stories have so much value with all the research you make. I do too, for my original stories and my fanfictions.
I adore your books, I adore your voice, I adore what you teach us and your passion for reading, writing and teaching. The Live Trainings are so incredible! And your voice is so sweet. I suffer from depression, anxiety and panic attacks, and when I listen to your voice, it helps me to calm down and I smile a little. You help me smile, sometimes. This means so much to me, Abbie! Your sister's meditation for writers are amazing, too, and even your podcast together.
I have many friends who write, and we do it with fanfiction mainly, and my family doesn't understand why I write fanfiction from when I was twenty-two (I started writing short stories when I was ten and attempted with two novels at sixteen and nineteen, but they were horrible). From 2016, I post my stories online on an Italian website where you can post fanfiction, poetry and original stories. I wrote original stories and poems, too. Anyway, even if my famiy doesn't understand this, they don't tell me I should not write or things like that.
I have doubts, lack of motivation, I have to take breaks, even for my mental health and, now, for some issues with my physical health. I take my meds and I have a few therapists who help me, and my Mom, my Dad and my brother, and my three, adorable, flyffy cats: Furia (almost nine-years-old), Red (four-years-old), and Alba (almost two-years-old). I love my cats, and they inspire me so much.
Even your writing sprints help me to focus and enjoy my writing more. I concentrate, I immerse myself in my stories and I am with my characters, or I feel like I am my characters, and I write. Not always Live, most of the time I have to do it on replay, but it's wonderful to write with so many other writers. Could you do them twice a month, if possible for you? Or three times? Also, could you do more writing sessions with fantasy music? Not always dark fantasy. I love writing with those, too.
So thank you, Abbie. Thank you so much!
Replying to this lovely comment so Abbie can see it 💕💗💗💗
Oh my goodness, I am so touched by your sweet message!! Thank you so much for sharing your story with me and for being here on my channel. I can't tell you how happy I am to know that 100 Days of Sunlight inspired you so much and that it made you feel represented 💖🥹 that means THE WORLD to me. I'm delighted to hear that you enjoyed The Otherworld too!! And it's so good to know that my voice soothes your anxiety, I couldn't ask for a sweeter gift than that. 🙏🏼 I understand what it can be like to have voices of doubt and discouragement around you as a writer, but I hope you will take heart from this vibrant community of writers just like you who have committed to their creativity, no matter the opposition! You can do this too! I believe in you and your writing. Keep writing fanfiction and original works and anything that makes you passionate to be creative! All of it is so important. You are bringing light into the world with every word you write and we need your unique voice 🙌 keep writing and rock on!
I ... I'm not the kind of person who says personal things online, but Abbie, I think, and I feel, I want to, at least for some things. Not because I want pity from you or the community, but ecause I would like you to understand my situation.
But first, oh, Abbie, oh, my goodnesss, you replied! I didn'@@AbbieEmmonsOh, my Goodness, Abbie, uou replied! I didn't expect you to reply to my comment. You inspire me so much. You are an amazing writer and I... You told me that my world needs my stories. This means THE WORLD to me. You are in my heart. I love you, even if I unfortunately, don't know you in person. I felt represented by Tessa een because, at the beginning of the novel, she feels depressed, a handicap, and she asks why it happened to her. I am blind, and I live my disability with a little of pain. Of sorrow. There's a little part of me who asks to The Lord why. Why did it happen to me, to my family, why my parents had to suffer so much risking to see me dying in the first two years of my life. Why?
I will never have an answer.
And I had many writer's blocks. They are real.
I had my first when my best friend committed suicide when I was twenty and she was nineteen. That was tragic and changed my life forever. I didn't write for a year and a half. I was in therapy for other reasons, and I was diagnosed with major depression, anxiety and panic attacks the next year, so I started taking pills and I still have to do that. But I had promised to myself:
"I won't stop writing."
So, when I felt ready, I started again, with fanfiction this time, in 2015, when I started outlining my first one.
Then, in 2017, my Mom was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and she has it still now. She was operated twice, and sometimes she doesn't feel well (headacjes, head spinning, she doesn't know where she is ...). It breaks my heart to feel so powerless, to know that I can stay with her, hold her, comfort her, help her, but that, as doctors said, she probably will never heal. I didn't write for seven months from when we found out she was sick.
And I started again.
In 2020 my cat, Stella, died at five-years-old. She was hit by a car, and the rain damage was so severe she was in a coma, and we had to put her down. It was, another time, devastating. All of these things were devastating for me and my family. I didn't write for another year, I just wrote some poetry dedicated to her. I have her brother with me, er twin, Furia, and other two cats: Red, and we found him abandoned on a street and saved him, and we adopted Alba in 2022, a beautiful, fluffy, black cat whic was found abandoned on a street by a person my Mom knows. I love my cats, and I know you love pets too, Abbie. You have a dog, right?
And because of my anxiety, and because my friends are in other regions (like Tessa, I know them online, but unlike her, I met one of them in person twice, one last year and one this one) I stay mostly at home, but thanks to my therapists I am starting to go out again, to enjoy things agaBut it's hard. It's still hard. So hard, every single day.
in. The psychological pain is still here, even for other personal things I won't get into.
Last year I had another writer's block because of an ended friendship, a block of almost eight months. But this year, despite the pain, despite my problems of mental health and physical health, too, because I'm not well at the moment and I will have to do some neurological tests to understand why I have such terrible headaches since December, headaches which mean that I have no choice but to stay in bed for hours even during the day, I finished a fanfiction,the first part of a duology, and now, as I'm outlining the second book, I'm writing another fanfiction.
I will follow your writing sessions you did, Abbie, I just followed session 1, to go on and write that.
I want to read other novels of you and the non-fiction project you are working on now.
And you helped me through hard times since 2022, when I discovered this channel, with your voice and your sweetness, and your encouragement, and te fact you understand doubts and fears of us writers.
Thank you for being the wonderful person you are. I would love to be similar to you, to be as positive as you.
I love you so much!
And I want to thank people in this community because they helped Abbie see my previous comment and for supporting me during a Livestream where I was feeling so depressed. You are amazing, guys. If some of you suffer from depression, anxiety and panic attacks, I understand you, I can imagine your struggles, how difficult it is to battle all of this every day. I'm with you. Snd all of you, with your stories, your novels, your writing of any kind, matter. The world needs your stories, too. But when you feel down, or locked, or you don't have the strength to write because you feel mentally or physically sick, take a break. Don't force yourselves, because you will hurt yourselves and the story, too. I'm so sick this week I jad to stop writing and outlining. I will try to start tomorrow, I jope it will et better.
This made me realize i was literally writing Mary sues for two months straight 😟
No probs! I've been doing it for almost 4 years 🤓👌 got redeemed last year and am now a child of the light, tho 🙏 no more pick me characters 🧚♀️
The point is... you realized it. Now you can fix it. ;)
I have an idea,you could make them seem like a Mary sue and after a while,the flaws of the character start to appear and the character can’t hide them anymore,so now everyone knows their perfect appearance was fake all along.
@@NEUVILLETTE500 yesssss slayyyy
Love this video! More fanfic writers need to watch it.
I do, however, want to argue that the person doesn't need to be humble or ask people for help.
There are situations when a proud character struggle, but refuse to ask for help, that could actually make the character more interesting.
(Imagine Han Solo asking for help, for instance. It would be out of character and a little weird.)
(Not asking for help goes double for comedy moments, because there is few things more funny that watching a person who stubbornly refuse being helped being offered help, then refuse it, and keep failing until the mentor finally forces them to accept help before they kill themselves trying to do things the wrong way.)
Why do people fall in love with characters (mostly men) who are mean and uncaring, etc? #1 In the words of Taylor Swift: I can fix him, no really, I can. #2 A lot of people like the idea of chasing what they cannot have in order to prove they can. See #1 for why.
I don't think they like the characters themselves inherently; they know if he's being presented that way, there will eventually be a "I can't help but fall in love with you in spite of how mean I used to be" arc, so it's a vicarious wish fulfillment scenario that makes them feel better about guys who did or currently do treat them similarly. I think it can be natural to, if someone mistreats you, want to change the scenario rather than just kick them to the curb, to sort of prove to yourself that the problem wasn't you (even though we all know there's no shortage of unkind people and you usually are just better off moving on to someone else).
As long as a man is "hot", women will throw away their standards IRL and in fiction.
For whatever reason there's appeal to the narcissistic personality. I don't know why, because that personality has never held any appeal to me.
The Christian God is one of the oldest Mary Sues and you still have lots of people that desperately pursue his love. And you don't have to go far to see narcissist people with cult-like followings in real life.
This is an extremely common IRL issue I see in women all the time.
There is a difference between the "fixable" love interest and the one that simply treats a woman like she's a human, instead of placing her on a disingenuous pedestal (see: Mr Darcy).
I have a character that is almost the opposite: weak, crappy at most things and her life is riddled with struggles. It's great to have that character grow through all the adversity.
Those characters can be hard to swallow, too. They are negative and struggle constantly. You want someone to root for, but if they never improve and constantly spin their tires or need someone to save them... they become tiring to read or watch. You start rooting for them to be killed off. 😅
Oh, you have Sadness as your character. Nice! Did anyone like her? I certainly didn't. If Inside Out 3 become reality, Pixar, please please kick her (almost) worthless butt out of Riley immediately at the beginning of the film. She served her purpose in part 1. No more.
@@Rose_C_Chyme the character is optimistic though, tries not to be a burden and at least tries to carry her weight; she's not some damsel in distress.
@@isaaclaughter Nope, not sadness. The character is optimistic and works hard to improve, fate just throws a wrench in the life she deserves.
I've seen those types of characters become Mary sues too. They just end up being pity porn stories about boring Meg griffins with the world constantly beating them down for the sole purpose of making the readers "feel sorry for them" over and over and over and so on
A Mary Sue CAN be fun to write... especilly if they are self aware of the situation.
Mary Sue shows up. faces off with a big bad monster, oneshots it without a trouble... the villages come running out to praise the main charcter... who pokes the body a few times... "Who are you?" "Umm, after that hit? call me Mary Sue..." Not getting the joke or reference... all the villages do start calling her Mary Sue.
then she finds out once a week monsters attack and can she stay and keep defeating them?
"every week? honestly thats going to get old.. fast..." where she decides to make a magic item to let the vilagers fight the mosters... "What kind of item?" "I don't know, some kind of mcguffin of power..."
Yep, its Mary Sue and the Mcguffin of power.
Perfect satirical plot!
One Punch Man be like:
The show exists, it’s called One Punch Man 😂😂😂
@@sammylong3704 not quite. One punch, the op mc wants to be a hero... in this, the mc doesn't want to be... they suffer from being sarcastic about it... but since its isekai, no one knows and takes their statement as the real thing.
Argh, why can't I have a nice slice of life episode, instead of the boring monster of the week.
1:50 the temptation thing isnt nessicarily true, but when faced with temptation, they dont even consider it, just resist as if it was as easy as breathing
I feel like an easy fix is to make said character THINK that they're perfect and that said character THINKS that everybody loves them but it turns out they're actually just arrogant. 😅
Gilderoy Lockhart!
As long as you pull the "it turns out!" Part, we're in for an awesome ride! 😊
@@Lexthesilly techinally mary sues does not believe the world loves them. The accual issue is that they think they are always right. That they never make w mistake or have regrets
To expand on point one, when you give them a flaw it has to be a *real* flaw. It has to actually cause them trouble. Don't go with some cosmetic 'it's actually endearing' flaw (like "has a bad temper" == gets to sarcastically put everyone else down with zinging one liners, or "too much of a perfectionist" == you get to see them brooding about how doing something perfectly isn't good enough). You need a flaw that causes the character to actually create their own setbacks (like being so overconfident that they get themselves and their friends into trouble that they cannot get everyone out of OR lacking confidence to the point where they hold back from doing something they really need to do).
Yes, or perhaps, being so naive that she walks into trap after trap, everyone using her and taking her gifts without gratitude, then taking her friends as well, ostracizing her through lying, exaggerated gossip.
I used to work with a Mary Sue, wanted to correct my pronunciation of a name without even looking up that exception on Google just to double check. Nope! She already knew it all! No American exceptions (even though we heard the lady and her close friend pronouncing her name the same way I did), no exceptions in her perfect, narcissistic world!
@@brandic89on paper this sounds cool, then you take a step back and its just Isla from lightlark
She's extremely naive, acts like a high school kid despite being a ruler of an entire country, is to a degree self-centered, and only seems to care about the people close to her while everyone else is invisible
And with all of that in mind, she's never called out for it. There's even a case where she killed like a dozen people, and absolutely no one knew it outside of the love interest because he tried that hard to keep it away from the world
YES!! Reminds me of Percy Jackson where his fatal flaw is “loyalty: he’d give up the world to save his friends.”
Like. Ummm. Not a flaw.
If it was reframed as *selfishness*, as in “he’d let the world burn as long as those he cared about stayed alive”, sure. It would have been fine.
Another not-flaw, in my opinion, is being cold and closed off. It’s just becoming shorthand for being “cool”
@arkkon2740 Wow! That is intense, and a lot of people would love reading that! I personally prefer more internal conflict and modern problems of at least halfway decent people, lol. To me, I'd rather read internal, emotional conflict (like coming-of-age stories, always so difficult) than killing and spice, which are way too heavy for my teen-angsty taste, lol.
I am SO relieved to proudly say that my main character is none of these things ^^;;
I can not remember the book, but I recall one where the female character could do everything immediately, perfectly and was awesome with no effort. She thought this made her wonderful and cool and the most badass to ever badass. Meanwhile, every character around her was horrified and terrified and pointing out how unrealistic, illogical and impossible it was and that there must be a reason for it besides the MC is awesome. Turned out there was and she was being a naive ingenue and that's exactly why she was picked... turned out all her skill wasn't hers in the first place she had an eldritch abomination riding sidesaddle using her to get free of it's confinement and get loose on the world. I recall enjoying it because at first you really did think OMG another Mary Sue only it wasn't.
This is why Wonder Woman (first part) was so love by people and Captain Marvel fell flat at the box office…
Excellent comparison. Yes.
I love the part where Diana is walking around London with her sword drawn ready to fight the bad guy in case he appears randomly.
The 1st captain marvel grossed over a billion
I really really HATE Captain marvel
Captain Marvel made $1 billion at the box office. Seriously, why do so many people forget that?
Fantastic! We deserve much better women characters!
Can you do an analysis of complex famous male characters (like Gandalf) and how they don’t have these 7 warning signs. And some examples of non-Mary sue women characters.
I think Katniss Everdeen would be a good example of non Mary Sue. She has some great characteristics but she's also very suspicious of everyone and everything, can be very arrogant and cold. That led her to take bad decisions, hurt her relationships, be used and underestimate others - all of which had an actual impact on her story because those were actual FLAWS... Sometimes it's very annoying to read the books because she can be pretty insufferable at times
Love your content, Abbie. As an author myself, I love to watch other writers and author content to really hone my abilities. Like you said in this video, nobody is perfect at everything, even the things we are already passionate about. There is always more to learn and we will all make mistakes.
I really tried to avoid all the clichés and stereotypes in my novel, and I feel I did pretty decently at that. The more I watch your content, the more I feel confident in some of my decisions for characters and stories.
Please never stop posting your advice and tips for writing. You're one of the best ones to watch for this.
One trick is to get the Mary Sue issue out of the way right off the bat - do write your author avatar, but make them the comic relief, or the old mentor, but never the hero character. It's a lot harder to have two Mary Sues so having one in on purpose cuts down on that risk.
Another thing I always do is imagine every character as a person I know (just the face, not necessarily the personality). If the hero/sidekick is someone other than you in your head, again, less risk of them turning into a Mary Sue.
What made The Pink Panther's Jaques Clouseau a beloved character, was that he was exactly the opposite of the Mary Sue -phenomenon.
I wouldn't necessarily call Bella a Mary Sue because she is clumsy, she's codependent with Edward enough that will neglect her safety, she rushes into things too quickly, etc. So she's far from perfect. She's more like an everywoman type character
hey Abbie! I always had a problem in understanding how to full fledgedly apply your advice to my writing and make it phenomenal. I recently read your book, and my god, did it help with that! Like, I can see all the advice you give applied so beautifully in your book! I have annotated the whole thing to the extent that now I'm slightly embarrassed to lend it to anyone!
Number 7 is literally just the tsundere trope. Tsunderes I genuinely have no clue why people would bend over backwards for, they are self-centered sociopaths most of the time, and they are usually accompanied by an MC that can't count to 5 even with fingers. They usually are just bitchy and annoying and would rather kill you than take responsibility for *their* flaws and mistakes, while simultaneously blaming you for Every. Little. Thing. They might grow as a character, but most of the time they are insufferable until they finally get it through their head.
About point number 2: On the other hand, you can make a character that is naturally better than everyone at something. Perhaps the thing you should do to compensate is to make them terrible or not as good as others at other things. A certain, purple-haired someone I know can fight really well… but can’t cook, for instance.
Are you referring to Raiden Ei? XD
Sounds like Raiden Ei 😂
I don't know math but I can draw❤
They did that in the Lara Croft films. She can't cook a microwave dinner without it exploding. Domestically, she stinks, which is why she has caretakers in her home
My friend and me wrote Fanfiction with 'our own characters' into this roll play world. I hated her character, She was an unmatched beauty of a queen, who struggled with everything from uncurable illnesses she ignored, because hey, she had to reign a planet/solarsystem to being the perfect mother even when her goregously handsome husband abused her, oddly enough she never showed any signs of those abuses ... (not that I wanted a detailed descripton). One of the worst Mary Sues I have ever read, but I did not know the term back then.
This reminds me so much of a superhero fanfic I read a while back. This hot, sexy, overpowered superhero who also has chronic illnesses and injuries that only affect him when the author wants him to be babied by the other characters. Supposedly he had practically been starving for 6+ months but because he’s a superhero he still has abs and muscle, but he’s also severely underweight to the point that he has osteoporosis that only comes into effect, again, so that he can be babied and does not affect the plot at all. He has a neglectful, overly harsh relative, as well, who’s only purpose in the story is to be a neglectful, overly harsh relative who makes the other characters feel protective towards the MC and hateful towards the relative.
(As for abuse, there’s a side character who was supposedly abused but the trauma only surfaces once every blue moon when it makes for good sympathy material meanwhile that same character is incredibly abusive to other characters without any pushback from the others and anyone who tries to call it out is portrayed as being a bad person because how could you call out this character’s flaws when he’s suffered so much??)
I do understand what shes getting at however what annoys me is whem ANY central, strong female character is called a Mary Sue, even when the character doesnt meet the criteria mentioned. Also how often Gary Stews are excused as not being that because they have one line about not being sure or something similar.
Isn’t it interesting how Gary Stu’s are usually bought up up as a sort of footnote to show that this isn’t just a thing for digging into female characters… only for examples to not be given nearly as much time or flack as the female ones
I think that some writers write arrogant characters instead of confident characters because they don't really understand the difference between the two. Confidence is more internal and is a belief in one's own abilities while arrogance tends to be external and shows itself as a belief of one's superiority over others. The trick to showing confidence is through action but some writers try to do it with dialogue instead and it comes out as arrogance.
Great video! Thanks for sharing. As I was watching it, some examples of "Mary Sue" popped in my head: EVERY ONE of the main characters on Charmed, and Maggie of The Walking Dead.
Huh… I don’t get it. Those characters are very flawed.
Maggie is very flawed in The Walking Dead
@@Axxidous Yes, they are very flawed. They are treated as though they walk on water by others. Everything is somebody else's fault, even when they are in the wrong. Perhaps that's a Mary Sue characteristic?
@@GhostyGhouli Very true. But she is treated by others as though she walks on water. Even when she is in the wrong. Perhaps that is a Mary Sue characteristic?
@@dlamancha5697 never watch the show. But someone else commented a mary sue at its core is a narcissistic writer. The character can be talented but it is when the world seems to praise and worship a character feels like a mary sue
There's a reason Rocky (1976) and Norma Rae (1979) still make best picture lists.
Thank you so much! You’ve helped me realize how much my main characters are kind of Mary Sues and how I can make them more humane. I never realized how some of them don’t even have real motives and some don’t have many personality traits besides pushing the plot forward. Now they feel like realistic characters who I can relate to and care about. You are so awesome! Keep up the amazing work and I hope any future stories you write are just as amazing as you are! ❤️
I always find it very amusing when the incredibly attractive protagonist, who is obviously very concerned about his good looks, tells other characters that it is only important to be a good person and that looks don't count.
It has the same effect on me as when Christina Aguilera sings "You are beautiful" while she herself is breathtakingly pretty in this video. Always makes me laugh! 😂
Hey guys, tip: make your characters a dnd sheet. Idc if dnd has nothing to do with it, the point buy system could be so helpful with balancing a Mary sue.
I like that idea enough. I'll do it. Great idea.
Character sheets are universal for RPG, so it's a good tip.
The greatest show of strength is the willingness to show weakness. -I made that up as far as I know.
Very good. 🤔
randomly clicked this and I’m still listening even tho I’m not a writer cuz ur voice is making me calm and happy and this is actually rly interesting!
This is why I always torture my main characters by adding angst and making them suffer, struggle, so they will try to grow from it .
Anyway, I have this one character who is very arrogant , cold, intelligent, and handsome, but his painful past continued to haunt him till his adult years, causing him to struggle badly from it, and he tries to move on as he could…
Flat characters aren't necessarily Mary Sues. Main characters can't be entirely flat though, their arc may just be subtle, and they change things around them.
I usually prefer the term steadfast character arc over flat character arc, because it implies the character being challenged and remaining steadfast in her beliefs. It is important that they face real challenges with as high stakes and difficulties as growing characters do.
Static character is the term you are looking for. They are not dynamic because they don’t grow and change.
@@derrickpaulson3093but they do grow and change maybe it just in your face also depends on the writer
Thank you so much for your tips, Abbie. My WIP has two viewpoint characters, and I'll use these points to flesh them out more, and give them notable flaws.
As I have said before, you are somehow everywhere at once. This is getting slightly ridiculous.
Really appreciate the Hunger Games. It bothered me so much that it was getting compared to Divergent - as if it’s on the same level.
Frrrr
If Mary Sue has a flaw, it's that she doesn't fully trust her perfection.
Hyper-competent characters whose only personality trait is arrogance about their abilities drive me crazy. Characters being extremely skilled is great, even if they earned their skills before the story began, but nobody is good at everything, and nobody is undefeated forever. Give them a rival. Give them other aspects of their life that suffer through their devotion to their craft. Give them the insecurity that they won't be able to maintain their level of proficiency forever. Give them a crippling fear of failure that drives them to excel. All of these things allow them to still be awesome at something or even multiple things, but make them more interesting because their abilities stem from something other than the plot demanding they be good at the thing.
I think Rey is my favorite example, because of my fascination with just how the writing process might have played out with the Disney Star Wars films. How do you write a protagonist with no flaws, but then take a legacy character (Luke) who had attained iconic hero status and give him shoe-horned, character breaking flaws instead? Man, I wish someone would do a deep-dive documentary about how that all went down.
Well the short answer is probably that Rey was Kathleen Kennedy’s OC, she looks just like KK as a young woman and she seems to exist to show up every other character.
She derailed Luke Skywalker's character in a way comparable to having Tsavong Lah working for Best Buy's Geek Squad!
Always remember, when it comes to the two Star Wars continuities:
It's called "Legends" because it's legendary.
It's called "Canon" because it's fodder.
Galadriel from the Rings of Power is even worse
Remember: these negative traits can be good WHEN THEY ACTUALLY HAVE CONSEQUENCES FOR THEIR ACTIONS! When someone does negative things but doesn't get what they "deserve", it can be really annoying and frustrating to the audience!
Can we have a Mary sue who’s hated by everyone, both in and out of the piece of media they’re in?
Mary Sue: basically all female Disney characters since 2015
Gary Stu: Steven Seagal
Steven Seagal? You mean almost every Isekai anime main male character.
The most extreme example I can think of is "I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in the Real World, Too".
The main character literally becomes better at fighting than everyone else, everyone thinks he's the best guy ever, all the women want him and he's also better at other even simple skills like cooking.
Hey! Don't bring my girl Mirabel into this!
Mirabel is arguably a Lin-Manuel musical character and not a Disney character. She raps like a Hamilton character, she honors her legacy and goes forward like a Lin-Manuel protagonist, she is Colombian reflecting Lin-Manuel’s focus on Hispanic narratives. If Mirabel is not a Mary Sue that is because Encanto is his and his team’s brainchild, not Disney’s, and Disney just trusts him after Moana. Furthermore, even given the hewing to traditional Disney narratives Moana is also not a Mary Sue in any manner. If anything Maui is trying to pass himself off as a Gary Stu and fails.
No
Moana is not a Mary sue
The only addendum I would make is: If you're starting out and getting into writing, and you're developing your writing style and getting used to how to craft a story, don't worry about Mary Sue characters. In such a case, they can be a stepping stone, they can be your rough draft, they can be your exploration of learning what you like or don't like to write, what you enjoy or find uninteresting, and what you should or should not do when creating characters. Mary Sues can belong in amateur writing, but not in any published media.
After 25 years of war, I never reflected on the horrors of it. I never once morned my fallen comrades. But it all changed the day I met Mary Sue. Her sword sliced through the orc army so elegantly as I was missing every arrow that I shot on this windy day. But then Ben, Mary Sue's most trusted companion, got hit by an axe while she was simultaneously chopping the head of the great 3 veteran generals. At which cost did we win this battle? As the victory chears were the only thing that we would hear, I heard a scream that I could never forget. Mary Sue (Ben!!!) At this moment, we all realised the horror of war while Mary Sue was wrapping her thorn robe around Ben's wound. We were all solemnly watching as Ben's life was hanging to a thread.
What a tainted victory, who would have known that the war that the Empire led against the 3 southern kingdom would scratch a member of Mary Sue's entourage. I thought to myself that I did not do enough! If I had thrown myself at the axe, I could have prevented Ben's wound. On that day vowed to become better, faster, and stronger, so our only beacon of light Mary Sue could save us. If only I could have screamed, "Watch out, Ben! " and rushed to Ben's help...Maybe Mary Sue could have seen me, and my destiny would have changed. My life would have significance perhaps. Perhaps Mary Sue could have said, "Thanks. What is your name, by the way? "
You’re funny