The Sword and Laser discussion

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but what does Sword and Laser consider to be the definition of a Mary Sue?

I went to look up a definition - http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php...
"Mary Sue is a derogatory term primarily used in Fan Fic circles to describe a particular type of character. This much everyone can agree on. What that character type is, exactly, differs wildly from circle to circle "

"The prototypical Mary Sue is an original female character in a fanfic who obviously serves as an idealized version of the author mainly for the purpose of Wish Fulfillment."
...exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas"

I think of someone like Honor Harrington, who is a military superhero with only a few strategic character flaws, and Mary Sue doesn't seem like an appropriate term. Must a Mary Sue specifically be an idealized version of the author? What do you call a superpowered, (mostly) unflawed character that isn't an avatar for an author?

Looking at tvtropes, I saw "Mary Sue as Idealized Character" and "Mary Sue as Infallible Character", but it didn't redirect to an alternate trope.

For me a Mary Sue/Marty Stu character is just go gosh darned good at everything and so gosh darned nice and pretty that every other character can't help but love them and every gosh darned thing they do.

They are so gosh darned perfect and have no character flaws and know exactly what to do and say in every situation.

They are the girl/boy that you know you can never have. They are the girl/boy you want your son/daughter to marry.

Lisa wrote: "What do you call a superpowered, (mostly) unflawed character that isn't an avatar for an author?"

“Boring.”

Superman is the archetype for this: he’s too powerful, he’s too good, he’s too earnest. That’s why his origin story is the only interesting story about him and why it’s been retold so often.

The male version of a Mary Sue is typically called a Marty Stu. I absolutely think that Mike in The Fold is a Marty Stu. Normally this would be irksome for me, but due to the fact that I had just read a genuinely terrible version of this story just a few days earlier (A Peculiar Peril by Jeff VanderMeer) *and* this book was so clearly in the vein of cheesy B-movie sci-fi flicks, that I graded it on a curve.

I did the same for books like Ready Player One, which also features an idealized avatar of the author, in that case a supergeek. If you do the math on all the trivia the main character of RPO needs to learn, it is literally impossible. There simply aren’t enough hours in the day to consume all of that media, nevermind retain it all well enough to take tests about it while people are trying to shoot you.

But it’s such a ridiculous popcorn-and-soda adventure that I don’t hold the Marty Stu-ness against it. I’m not going to read the sequels to either book, just as I’m not going to eat ice cream for every meal. But by the same token I’m not going to get annoyed at the ice cream for not being a steak dinner.

The only time I’m bothered by such things is when the author promises one thing but delivers another. In those cases I definitely sharpen my knives. To extend the food analogy, I hate food that tastes like other food. Seriously, I *hate* that. Potato chips that taste like pizza, or when your turkey sandwich tastes like banana because someone put a banana in your lunch bag, mom.

Trike wrote: "Lisa wrote: "What do you call a ... character...

“Boring.”


LOL. Agree.

I guess my quibble is that it bothers me to overload a single term with meaning both a character that is an author avatar AND too perfect. In current parlance, has the first part been dropped?

Lisa wrote: "I guess my quibble is that it bothers me to overload a single term with meaning both a character that is an author avatar AND too perfect. In current parlance, has the first part been dropped?"

I don’t think so. The term derives from Trek fanfic where a near-perfect character would show up out of nowhere and be the love interest for the main characters of the franchise but also be super-great at everything.

Author avatars who are plausible within a given world or are thinly fictionalized versions of the writer but aren’t hyper-competent or perfect human beings wouldn’t be considered Mary Sue/Marty Stu types.

For instance, James T. Kirk in his original guise isn’t a Marty Stu but the JJ Abrams version definitely is. Kirk is on the extreme end of the scale for intelligence and competence, but in TOS not unbelievably so. He was the youngest cadet to ever make captain in Starfleet history, doing it in a mere 12 years. In the movie reboot, he does it in 12 hours.

So I think Mary Sue/Marty Stu requires both the avatar and perfection aspects.

I go with rhyming over alliteration, so I prefer Gary Stu.

Phillip wrote: "I go with rhyming over alliteration, so I prefer Gary Stu."

*eye twitches in British English*

Ruth wrote: "Phillip wrote: "I go with rhyming over alliteration, so I prefer Gary Stu."

*eye twitches in British English*"

“I have with me in the studio Raymond Luxury-Yacht.”
“That’s not my name!”
“Sorry. Raymond Luxury-Yatched.”
“No, no. It’s spelt Raymond Luxury-Yacht but it’s pronounced Throat-Warbler Mangrove.”

(Just heard an Economist podcast where they had to clear up what sledging was in American English. Did not involve a sledgehammer.)

If I write a character with mighty thews who cleaves through enemy armies like a scythe through wheat, then gets it on with all the hot babes, and then sets up his mighty empire - that character might be boring, but I'm pretty sure it isn't an author avatar (unless I really don't know myself).

What's the term for that type of character? The "boring" superhuman who isn't an avatar?

Trike wrote: "Lisa wrote: "What do you call a superpowered, (mostly) unflawed character that isn't an avatar for an author?"

“Boring.”

Superman is the archetype for this: he’s too powerful, he’s too good, he’s..."

I think Superman written badly is the perfect example for this. He's too powerful, too good, and everyone likes him, and he can punch out every problem.

When written well, he's posed with problems he can't punch - Lex Luthor as a legitimate businessman with shady mad science operating in a deniable manner so Superman can't just punch him out (which also leans into the Daily Bugle side of things). Also, when written well, Clark Kent has plenty of difficulties of his own (like sports reporter Steve Lombard's constantly ongoing attempts to punk Clark in a variety of ways).

That said, I've found that "Mary Stu" has become... less useful as a term of literary criticism. Particularly since it's gotten more and more adoption by misogynists as a hammer to use against any woman in a protagonist role, whether it's Rey in Star Wars, Michael Burham in Star Trek Discovery, or what have you - so I'm more actively trying to avoid using the term when discussing works of fiction.

The Mary Sue/Gary Stu term, to me, has always involved the issue of author inserts. It's tricky because unless you know something of the author, you can easily fall into the 'author is a guy, MC is a powerful, smart, do no wrong guy, AUTHOR INSERT!!!" or the inverse (author is female, etc). But that way lies confusion.

An author insert should bear more than a very surface resemblance to the author. Making them both guys or both women isn't enough, but making them share many details gets there much of the time. An example would be the middle aged Literature prof at a small New Hampshire college... when that's precisely what the author is in real life.

So, I divide them into two:

1) Author Insert (just call it what it is). Very much like the author in detail as well as superficially, but without flaws and usually with super high competence/powers.

2) Mr/Ms Perfect. Like the above, either not obviously like the author or someone unlike the author, e.g. Lisa's example above.

Both tend to be boring and poor writing, but the Mr/Ms Perfect can be be put in situations where their power doesnt matter or is frustrated as Alex points out with Superman. Superman's one 'flaw' is that he's not a super genius. His powers are all physical. So if you put him in situations where the powers are not able to be used (again, as Alex notes) that can be interesting.

In the Silver Age stuff I read this was too often done by exposing him to some form of Kryptonite vs making the situation itself one where physical prowess wasn't important.

Alexander wrote: "That said, I've found that "Mary Stu" has become... less useful as a term of literary criticism. Particularly since it's gotten more and more adoption by misogynists as a hammer to use against any woman in a protagonist role, whether it's Rey in Star Wars"

Except Rey *IS* a Mary Sue. Which I think is down to it being a JJ Abrams flick: dude can’t help himself. (See: Star Trek, Alias, M:I 3, Armageddon, etc.)

I’m not defending the mouth-breathing misogynists — I mean, I got kicked out of another Goodreads group for going after the Sad Puppies/Rabid Puppies morons, so there are my bonafides — because they hated Rey because she was female, and Finn because he wasn’t white, and Rose because she was a non-white female.

That doesn’t change the fact Rey is a badly written superhuman and is exactly the kind of thing people object to when it comes to this whole Mary Sue business.

Trike wrote: "Alexander wrote: "That said, I've found that "Mary Stu" has become... less useful as a term of literary criticism. Particularly since it's gotten more and more adoption by misogynists as a hammer t..."

I think the key term there is "Badly written" - the term Mary Sue - from its origins, is a term normally applied solely to female characters in fiction - and originally in fanfic written by women. Yes, the terms Gary Stu/Marty Stu exist, but they are used much more sparingly. Even in the case of this thread, we're talking about a male character and using the feminine version of the term.

Terminology wise - it feels like just describing the character as "Badly Written" generally just works best, with the onus being on the person making the term to then expand on it in the particular relevant directions - they're badly written because they're overpowered or perfect, they're badly written because they're boring, etc. It strips the description of the baggage that "Mary Sue" is burdened with, and frankly has been attached to it for a very long time.

Alexander wrote: "Terminology wise - it feels like just describing the character as "Badly Written" generally just works best, with the onus being on the person making the term to then expand on it in the particular relevant directions - they're badly written because they're overpowered or perfect, they're badly written because they're boring, etc. It strips the description of the baggage that "Mary Sue" is burdened with, and frankly has been attached to it for a very long time."

I don’t know... going from a specific phrase to something more vague impedes understanding. I may be an outlier here but I don’t consider it sexist, and I’m not sure it originated like that since it was women editors mocking women writers.

Mary Sue/Marty Stu is useful shorthand, like “straight out of Central Casting” or “cardboard cutout”. Those are all referencing badly written characters but explaining them takes more time and slows everything down.

I have a problem with the term because it's often that female characters are branded "Mary Sue" while male characters are wish fulfillment or power-fantasies and have less judgement associated with them. James Bond isn't a Mary Sue he's an archetype. The Martian isn't a Mary Sue Story, it's "competence porn"...

Jan wrote: "I have a problem with the term because it's often that female characters are branded "Mary Sue" while male characters are wish fulfillment or power-fantasies and have less judgement associated with them. James Bond isn't a Mary Sue he's an archetype. The Martian isn't a Mary Sue Story, it's "competence porn" ."

Sexism definitely plays a role, as it does in everything, but I’ve seen both the Martian and James Bond labeled as Marty Stus. Any overpowered hypercompetent character gets that. John Wick, Ethan Hunt, Iron Man, Black Panther, Rocky Balboa in the 1980s, everyone in the Fast & Furious movies....

Trike wrote: "Jan wrote: "I have a problem with the term because it's often that female characters are branded "Mary Sue" while male characters are wish fulfillment or power-fantasies and have less judgement ass..."

I've seen James Bond described as a Mary Sue, but only in the context of people defending the term Mary Sue, never as a separate criticism of the character. I'm not saying it's not a reasonable crtiticsm - but I am saying that it's used very rarely in that context.

Part of the wiggle room on James Bond is that Fleming based him on real people who actually did the stuff Bond does, but also gave Bond his own tastes. The former because spies led exciting lives, so he borrowed their exploits, and the latter probably because it was easier to write a guy who likes the same food and alcohol.

I suspect that’s why Bond kind of coexists in those two worlds: taking only the highlight reels of actual exploits tends to create a superhuman guy, combining it his own interests makes it read like wish-fulfillment. It’s as if he gets classified as “Marty Stu with an asterisk”.

Characters such as Sam Spade are just like Bond in that Dashiell Hammett based him on several private eyes he knew, but Spade looked exactly like Hammett. Spade isn’t a superman, though, which keeps him from edging into full-on Marty Stu territory. When Humphrey Bogart played the most popular version of the character, it really separated Spade from the author, because Hammett was six feet tall and blond while Bogey was five-seven and a swarthy brunette. It’s such an indelible image that it helps keep people from thinking of Spade as a Marty Stu.

So, like people said in this thread, in the end the important part may just be that the Mary Sue is only a problem if they are badly written. Just like with everything else. A Manic Pixie Dream Girl isn't inherently bad if they are written with interest and care, but if they only exist to make the protagonist a better person it's bad. It may even be true for things like the "Noble Savage" trope, where the problem isn't in that such a character exists, but that they are laden with cliches and reduced to these aspects - so again a lack complexity and insight.

Jan wrote: "So, like people said in this thread, in the end the important part may just be that the Mary Sue is only a problem if they are badly written. ..."

They are, by definition, badly written. That's where the term originated. This wikipedia article is actually quite interesting and detailed about where the term came from:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

It also addresses why the term is feminine, which I didn't know.

Anyway, this is why made up terms are bad for discussions. People bring their own meaning to the terms and you end up talking about similar but different things. Trike notes that "...going from a specific phrase to something more vague impedes understanding...." but I think it's the other way around. Mary Sue isn't specific (is it just a flawless character that everyone loves? Or is it an author insert?) so you need to define what it means when you use it anyway. And the idea that you need to explain a term makes me shrug my shoulders. So? If there's any community that should be fine with more words, it's the reading and writing community.

PS: The wikipedia article above noted this and it struck me... Calling out Rey as a Mary Sue but not Luke is... silly at best.

If Luke were as good at multiple things the way Rey is, maybe, but he’s only good at one. Rey is good at everything immediately with zero training. She’s an expert pilot, a top-notch mechanic, a superb swordswoman, a perfect Force user.

If I stepped into the ring with Mike Tyson, two minutes later they’d put me in a body bag. If Rey did it, she’d win the fight. Same diff between Luke and Rey. If Luke went up against Vader, he’d die. Rey would win. That’s why she’s a Mary Sue and he isn’t.

It’s the same problem with JJ’s version of Kirk that I mentioned earlier: Luke became a decent sword wielder after 3 movies. Rey did it after 3 minutes.

Rick wrote: "They are, by definition, badly written. That's where the term originated."

I know and I disagree with that. It's just not a good idea to include quality in a trope definition because a trope should not be a value judgment, as it leads to situations like the whole Rey fiasco. We could discuss Rey's competency way better if Mary Sue was a neutral term.

I mean, I don't think having a very competent protagonist should be per se bad.

Jan wrote: "It's just not a good idea to include quality in a trope definition because a trope should not be a value judgment"

True. They’re usually badly written but it’s not a requirement. I recently read The Fires of Vengeance which is well written but the main character slipped solidly into the Marty Stu zone.

Trike wrote: "The term derives from Trek fanfic"
This is actually the source of my "stereotypical" Mary Sue definition. However, this was in an actually-published book: Uhura's Song. The Enterprise crew was trying to cure a disease and along the way they were joined by an archaeo-scientist-doctor-swashbucker (view spoiler)[who out-couraged (and flirted) Kirk, deeply emotionally connected to Uhura, vexed Spock repeatedly, gave Scotty an engineering problem he couldn't solve just to distract him, and was instrumental in gaining the trust of another alien culture and thereby curing the plague before revealing herself to be a galactic con artist just out to be tricky and flying off into the sunset daring Spock to hunt her down. (hide spoiler)]

I actually enjoyed the story, so it is important to note that a Mary Sue or Marty Stu doesn't necessary ruin a well-told yarn, but that is the example to which I hold every other potential Mary Sue against.

Awesome. 😁

Jan wrote: "Rick wrote: "They are, by definition, badly written. That's where the term originated."

I know and I disagree with that. It's just not a good idea to include quality in a trope definition because ..."

But that's why I said the rest of what I did... we can't all have our personal definitions of a term or we end up talking past one another.

NOW... by 'badly written' I don't mean the writing itself is incompetent, but rather that, because the character simply has no flaws, everyone loves them and they can do everything that they turn their attention to, the character is poorly imagined/constructed.

Rick wrote: "NOW... by 'badly written' I don't mean the writing itself is incompetent, but rather that, because the character simply has no flaws, everyone loves them and they can do everything that they turn their attention to, the character is poorly imagined/constructed."

Thank you for the explanation. I think this may be at the crux of the Mary Sue discussion.

Conventional wisdom and literary analysis agree that a character with no flaws who doesn't fail is bad/poorly constructed and leads to bad stories. And while that is certainly one way of seeing it and one that is definitely very helpful to make stories more interesting, I am not sure this dogma really reflects the diverse nature of storytelling we experience today. It's like with those people who press everything into the Hero's Journey and deem anything that doesn't fit as subpar.

I sometimes feel we as readers just buy into what some old guys defined as proper "literature" - and even in genres shunned by these authority figures like science fiction and fantasy we don't really reflect on them and try to find out where they apply and where not.

I would say: If everything else works, we don't care if a character is a Mary Sue. If it doesn't work, a Mary Sue is probably not what broke it.

Like... You can say that Indiana Jones doesn't influence the events of Raiders of the Lost Arc that much and that's bad storytelling - but it's an awesome movie, so nobody really cares...

And with that, I rest my case ;-)

I think the Universal Mary Sue Litmus Test is a very useful resource here, for describing what a Mary Sue character actually is, how to recognise one in your own writing, and also for recognising that the term can be problematic (the introduction to the test now says that the author no longer supports the use of the term Mary Sue). YOu can find it here: https://springhole.net/writing/marysu...

For people of my generation/background, probably the archetypal Mary Sue character is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, the protagonist of the (in)famous possibly-a-parody-possibly-serious-nobody-actually-knows-for-sure Harry Potter fanfic My Immortal. (which has spawned its own fandom and even has its own wiki https://my-immortal.fandom.com/wiki/E...).

What makes her so Sue-tiful is the way the author devotes so much time to describing her appearance and outfits, the way she completely takes over the story, elbowing aside all the established characters - and the way that her lovingly-described tastes in 'Goffik' fashion and emo music are obviously those of an American teenager, and are wildly out of sync with the Harry Potter 'verse (there's a branch of Hot Topic in Hogsmeade, apparently, and a venue that stages a concert by My Chemical Romance).

I find it harder to identify characters in original fiction as 'Mary Sues' because to me what makes a character a Mary Sue is feeling glaringly out-of-place in the setting - and if the author has created the setting, then that's much less likely to happen. One character I did find a bit of a Mary Sue was the protagonist of Throne of Glass - who's the world's greatest assassin at 17, can speak multiple languages and play the piano beautifully, and is so gorgeous the prince fancies her even when she's been working as a mine slave and is covered in grime.

As for The Fold, I found the protagonist just... flat. He has a sort-of superpower but he's working at a normal job, and he doesn't have much personality. I'd find him much more interesting if he had purple eyes and a tragic backstory and constantly wore Hot Topic corsets and eyeliner, tbh.

The tales of Ensign Mary Amethyst Star Enoby Aiko Archer Picard Janeway Sue are pretty funny if you like comic strips

Ensign Sue Must Die! by Clare Moseley, followed by Ensign Two: The Wrath of Sue and Ensign Cubed: Crisis of Infinite Sues

and you don't have to have copies of the books, since they were originally webcomics with art by Kevin Bolk

http://www.claremoseley.com/ensign-su...

Mark wrote: "The tales of Ensign Mary Amethyst Star Enoby Aiko Archer Picard Janeway Sue are pretty funny if you like comic strips

Ensign Sue Must Die! by Clare Moseley, follow..."

Oh. My. God.

It’s as if all the heart emojis came to life.
💖🥰 💕 💞

Trike wrote: "It’s as if all the heart emojis came to life."

...wearing fishnet stockings!

Had an internet outage last two days *twitch* so I'm just catching up...

Anyhoo, Luke a Marty Stu? As if. He gets his ass kicked by Vader in Empire and only lives because Vader let him. Could easily have died on Hoth had the big white bear thingie eaten him instead of trussing him up, or had Han not gone after him. Then he almost gives in to the Dark Side, and only prevails by doing the Jesus run and being prepared to sacrifice himself. Heck, he can't even get his spaceship out of a swamp when Ye Olde Tyme Jedi were lifting entire battleships. A retired near-death Yoda can do better.

Also, this:

I'd find him much more interesting if he had purple eyes and a tragic backstory and constantly wore Hot Topic corsets and eyeliner, tbh.

I would like to read this post haste, pliz. File off the serial numbers and goooooooo!

The Trekkie origins of Mary Sue as told to Smithsonian Magazine...

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-c...

Well that’s horrifying.