The "Real" Definition of a Mary Sue · 10:31am Dec 20th, 2013
Hopefully you watched the video above before reading this. If you did, you will understand that a Mary Sue is not a "perfect" character, but rather a character who faces little challenge and all issues they face are resolved quickly with little to no effect on the main protagonist. There is a common misconception that it is a simply a very powerful character like Goku from 'Dragon Ball Z', or Superman.
So why am I making this blog post? Well it actually started a while back when one of my characters was accused of being a mary sue. I was naturally curious about this so I put the character through a mary sue test. This was the result:
So as you can see by this test, and the fact that if you take in the facts from the video, Mr Carnage is not even close to a Mary Sue. He is Luna's son, he is very powerful, but he consistently faces new problems and situations that he has trouble overcoming. Arguably, his own worse enemy is himself and his other personality. He's paranoid, grumpy at times, but does endeavour to show some class. I worked very hard to make sure he wasn't a mary sue, and I feel like I succeeded in that.
What really frustrates me though is that this sort of thing is still happening. People going on stories and declaring characters are mary sue, just because the character is powerful or some other twisted take on the notion. I've come to hate this term as it's thrown around WAY too easily. If you get the chance, I would like you guys to link the video above on one of your future blogs. I ask this because people need to understand this concept better, and constantly get it mixed up. It's annoying to writers like myself, and it doesn't help you guys either. Have you ever seen a case like this? Let me know down below.
1627481 What you say confirms my belief that the term is used far too often in the wrong context.
Finally, something to prove my characters aren't Mary Sues like they've been accused of many times.
Huh..I took the test too, and got 29. See here for the whole spiel it gave me: blog post.
Anyone who ever accuses anything of being a Mary Sue probably does not understand the term, simply because they are accusing a character of doing their job.
A protagonist is supposed to win, not lose.
Seriously, think about it, they have to overcome all challenges, otherwise they would not be a protagonist, and if they overcome all challenges, then they are technically perfect because they don't lose.
Even when they do, it's only one battle out of a war.
1628349 Absolutely, spot on.
1627607 interesting
1627589 Hooray!
I've had characters of mine be classed as Mary Sues, primarily due to the fact what I prefer to write in terms of species tends towards being more powerful than average. That said I just took this for the character I'm working with at present and she got a 22 overall, granted that's before finishing her story so if I'd done it based on current story it might be higher for winning all of the 2 fights she's been involved in so far.