Hello everypony,

I've been kinda bouncing back and forth on this topic a bit and would like some constructive input. After reading through How To Avoid Mary Sues, I still don't know if the character I've made is a Mary Sue.

The character in question is from my story 'Dreams of Forever' (embedded below). Her name is Somnia Temporus, and is the main focal point of the story. There's a lot of details regarding her that I spread out over the first 16 chapters (even more details later on), so I don't think I can completely summarize her without this post taking over an hour to make.

If any of you could simply read the first three (four, if you include the prologue) chapters (up to 'Chapter 3: Give and Take', everything BEFORE it gets sexual, since I know some people are squeamish about foalcon) to give me a short review on the character as she is at the start of the story, I would appreciate it. I've tried to avoid making her a Mary Sue, although she still ended up with some traits listed in the thread linked.

[Adult story embed hidden]

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Remember that a character being a Mary Sue is not an inherent issue of the character itself. Does the story twist and bent just so that it can serve as a showcase for your character's greatness*? If yes, then the character is a Mary Sue. If not, then it doesn't matter how many skills the character has, how edgy her design is, or what's her ancestry.

*Including a sort of 'reverse Mary Sure' where the story demonstartes that the character is poor and good at nothing and should be pitied.

7692153

That's kinda the problem: I don't know. I've designed the story in such a way that her actual capabilities are only marginally helpful to her goals up until the end.

EDIT: 5 paragraphs of super-duper major spoilers cut for anti-spoilering and because I got my answer (see below)

Based on all that (spoilers cut, sorry anyone who reads this), is she a Mary Sue? This hits nearly every major plot point in the story right up until the epilogue. She does go through hardship, roadblocks, loss, and betrayals in the story, which makes me THINK that the story isn't bending to serve her 'greatness'. I certainly hope that my readership doesn't see her as a 'good' character by the end, given what she ends up doing, and to say she's 'great' is only really in terms of power. She may not force others to bow to her (minus the one spoilery thing), but she certainly does get a lot who do simply by her actions.

So what do you think? Should I go back to the drawing board or keep pushing on?

7692290

Based on all that (assuming you wanted to spoil yourself), is she a Mary Sue?

The thing is, as stated before, it's pretty much impossible to tell if a character is a Mary Sue based on their characteristics or a summary of their actions, since this issue can be revealed for sure only if one sees how the character actually works in the story itself. That is, the character can be showing off her inteligence and not be a Mary Sue, though the character may also go through hardships and be a Mary Sue. The issue only becomes apparent if one actually reads the story, which I haven't managed to do yet.

However, I'll add a little something that I threw together some time ago. Hopefully it'll help demonstrate the issue a bit more clearly, given how exaggerated the original Mary Sue was:

The original Mary Sue is the protagonist of A Trekkie’s Tale written by Paula Smith as a parody of a bunch of bad fanfiction tropes. If you read through her very short story (you can find it at the end of this post), you’ll notice that Mary Sue is adored by everyone from the get-go, nobody really questions what she does, and she has so many skills and special abilities that she is much more than your average prodigy. These are the traits that many people deem as defining features of a Mary Sue, and some even think that any character that shows a hint of special skills or has some interesting ancestry has to be a Mary Sue. Well, nope.

The traits listed above are indeed common in Mary Sues, but to be fair, these are more like consequences of the main trait that defines any Mary Sue—and that’s the fact that a story with a Mary Sue in it is constructed so that it can glorify and show how great the character is in every sentence or so. That’s also why everyone loves the character and benevolently overlooks their flaws, if they have any. (On a side note, you can also encounter stories where the character is hated by everyone—however, it only serves to illustrate how great they are in comparison to the rest of the world who are then portrayed as useless morons.) There might also be some self-inserts and wish-fulfillment involved, though these aren’t present in all stories featuring Mary Sues.

Here’s the promised story of the original Mary Sue, A Trekkie’s Tale by Paula Smith.

”Gee, golly, gosh, gloriosky," thought Mary Sue as she stepped on the bridge of the Enterprise. "Here I am, the youngest lieutenant in the fleet - only fifteen and a half years old." Captain Kirk came up to her.

"Oh, Lieutenant, I love you madly. Will you come to bed with me?"

"Captain! I am not that kind of girl!"

"You're right, and I respect you for it. Here, take over the ship for a minute while I go get some coffee for us."

Mr. Spock came onto the bridge. "What are you doing in the command seat, Lieutenant?"

"The Captain told me to."

"Flawlessly logical. I admire your mind."

Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy and Mr. Scott beamed down with Lt. Mary Sue to Rigel XXXVII. They were attacked by green androids and thrown into prison. In a moment of weakness Lt. Mary Sue revealed to Mr. Spock that she too was half Vulcan. Recovering quickly, she sprung the lock with her hairpin and they all got away back to the ship.

But back on board, Dr. McCoy and Lt. Mary Sue found out that the men who had beamed down were seriously stricken by the jumping cold robbies, Mary Sue less so. While the four officers languished in Sick Bay, Lt. Mary Sue ran the ship, and ran it so well she received the Nobel Peace Prize, the Vulcan Order of Gallantry and the Tralfamadorian Order of Good Guyhood.

However the disease finally got to her and she fell fatally ill. In the Sick Bay as she breathed her last, she was surrounded by Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Scott, all weeping unashamedly at the loss of her beautiful youth and youthful beauty, intelligence, capability and all around niceness. Even to this day her birthday is a national holiday of the Enterprise.

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Okay, yeah, I can see the issue. It's extremely exaggerated in the original story, but I can see where you are going with this.

Based on your explanation paragraph, I would be inclined to say that my character isn't a 'Mary Sue', however it does give me some pause about how exactly I've been presenting her in the story. I'll reread some of the later scenes keeping this in mind, and maybe give her a few more flawed moments (some are pretty obvious such as in Chapter 33) or to give her foes better characterization.

Thank you so much for the advice!

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You're welcome! Glad to help. Taking the focus off the character for a short while--if possible--also helps.