As a writer, any writing community will warn you about not making your character into a Mary Sue. Today however, I came across a blog post that gave me a different view about it. Instead of putting the mary sue in a world she(or he) is too strong for, give her(or him) a world that can match her.

A less popular oppinion on Mary Sues.
I went on about this at some length during a stream today, and I figured, for the hell of it, I would consolidate my thoughts. THIS IS NOT A RANT ON HOW BAD MARY SUES ARE. If this is a rant at all, its about how we need to stop using the term.
“mary sue” is bullshit. not the characters, the concept. its like blaming a sports car for outperforming a bunch of jeeps on a freeway race. That’s not the fault of the car, that’s the fault of the race organizer.
Characters in a story are not meant to be ‘balanced’, they’re meant to be interesting. there is no adding to one trait and taking from another, there is no “laser vision automatically makes your character bad”. Its writing. you cant just make a character and drop him into a setting, you have to craft the two of them together.
Building the character and dropping them into a prefab is how tabletop RPG’s are made, and that’s how you end up with true power-players and mary sue situations. Crafting the setting and character together is just interesting writing. Dr Who is kept in check because he’s written well. Superman, in his good comics, is GOOD, because he’s written well. blaming the character is accusing a symptom while ignoring its cause

Semantics is important. we think with language, and how we phrase a situation contributes to how we look for a solution. “the character who can fix the problem and save the day just cause of how great and awesome and totally rad she is.” Is a general definition for a Mary Sue, and suggests that to solve the problem we have to re-write the character. in turn, that also suggests that any ‘overpowered’ character is flawed and must be toned down. but it DOESN’T. its possible to have magnificent stories with godlike characters in them.
Consider instead: “the character who can fix the problem because all the problems have been written below that which the character needs to strive for”. the writing needs the change. the setting needs to change. this issue isn’t the character, is where they’ve been placed. but we keep ignoring that because its easier to say ‘that character has more powers than this one, and that’s bad”.

in both these situations, the end appearance is the same. it looks like you have some soopercool dood who can do anything. the difference is the approach taken to solve the problem. one (the “you’re a mary sue and need to die” technique) results in a fake standard for characters who must be confined to certain arbitrary ‘rules’ independent of their contexts in order to fit in some make believe mental RPG power balance system that has no business in story.
The other results in tailoring character and setting together so that its story (while admittedly more stand-alone and less able to accommodate visitors) caters specifically to its own rules and presents challenges unique to the features of its character.
Ill go back to superman, he tends to be a good one because he hits both sides of the Sue line depending on who’s writing him. a perfect example of how the character himself isnt to blame, but his situation is.

the best superman stories let him use all his powers and end with him realizing just how powerless he is. Red Sun featured the most powerful superman yet, but was a great story about the dangers of one man with good intentions trying to save the world from itself. his power is REQUIRED for that story to work, but theres nothing mary sue about it.

Red sun was wonderful. but red sun was a STORY, and it happened to feature a supremely powerful character than no one could touch. So did Watchmen. that these characters are gods doesnt make them bad. but you know it would, if someone wrote down thier abilities next to say, a pony, and called it their OC.

we’re applying the label to the wrong side of the equation is all

to really do this right, you dont just hit one side or the other. you establish who the character is, and build the setting appropriately to it. and if you have other characters who aren’t as strong that’s fine, so long as they contribute successfully to the narrative. its only when you have other characters who are made entirely useless by the main one that things have gone wrong. at that point you’ve written outside of the zone you established.
TL;DR: You’re not building a character for a D&D game, you’re writing a story. Abandon any preconceptions about ‘balance’ and instead consider appeal and interest, and the conflicts that produce those traits. your mary sue isnt bad, bro. its just in the wrong story. take it out and put it in a setting that can support it. You may find that means you cant really accommodate other people’s characters alongside your own and still write a good story. This is not a bad thing. this is a true thing.

This comes from a guy called Sevartz on Tumblr, but I can't link to it, since it features x-rated imagery.

What do you guys think about it?

Well, it is true. Characters can be massively overpowered in their respective worlds, as long as they're done well, and don't constantly steal the spotlight.

Take, for example, Albus Dumbledore. The most powerful wizard in the Harry Potter universe. Only wizard more powerful than Voldemort, and we didn't see a single flaw out of him until the seventh book. No one complains about how he was a Mary Sue. It just depends on how you flesh him out and all that stuff.

Technically they have a point. The problem as I've seen it clearly stated isn't whether the character is overpowered or supercapable (protagonists are used all the time who are Perfect or irritatingly close).

The question is how the world around them reacts to them. Does it love them unconditionally, or keep throwing tanks and goblins and monkey crap at them? Do people hate them for being invulnerable? Blame them for not saving the right people? That sort of thing.

IMO, no weaknesses = invulnerable. No challenges = Mary Sue.

I could be wrong. Just my pair of pennies.

I've always thought the term "Mary Sue" gets tossed around a lot.

What it comes down to is telling an interesting story. As long as the character has some kind of a struggle and solves problems in a satisfying way, it doesn't matter how powerful they are.

Still, please don't begin your story by listing off all of your character's weapons and powers.

907303
Can I reblog this later?
PS. This is an alt. My main account has many more followers k.

907303

There are varying degrees of Mary Sue, without a doubt.

Superman is normally considered a Mary Sue because he is completely overpowered compared to everyone around him, is always the goody-two shoes, and is always right.

The best stories about him are the ones where this isn't the case, and these stories are where he isn't actually written as a Mary Sue.

The worst Mary Sue I've seen probably has to be Richard Rahl from the Sword of Truth series.

907320 lol I have read a few here recently that gave a full tactical read out of everything the character could do at any given time. Thought it was interesting to get all of the character development out of the way on the first page

This has always been something that I've tried desperately to avoid but always seem to run into either from genuine critics who just really aren't that good at what they do, trolls, general mean-spirited commenters, I get flak from all sides. I have my story here, and I hope someone can tell me that my characters don't come off as overpowered: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/94474/the-phoenix. My biggest problem isn't that their overpowered, it's that everyone in most every other universe is so underpowered so I tried to remedy this by cutting their power levels in half. Did I make the right decision or was there some other way I could've fixed this?

Your point is decent. there are quite a few overpowered characters in many different realms of fiction. Two examples I can think of off the top of my head are Q from Star Trek and Aslan from The Chronicles of Narnia. But the reason these characters don't suck is because they're not self insert and they're not essential to the storyline. If you're going to have a god character, they should not be the main character in writing. That's been the writing convention since ancient times, like Homer with The Iliad. The Gods are important, but not the main focus of the story. Stories about many sues suck because noobie authors don't know how to use them properly.
There is an exception, though. Mary Sues used for comedy and parody are funny as hell

907303 I can certainly understand where you're going on this.

I'm a D&D DM and I try to inform my players to help one another out when one falls behind, I consider a story quite close to a D&D game in my opinion... just without the players running off to a plac that I have yet to flesh out. A powerful character is just that, a powerful character... they just need challenges that give them problems or at least some reasoning behind how they have such a grand power.

907313 I kinda have to agree with ya on the "No Challenges" thing. I mean, even Superman had his hard times, either through his personal life or being outmatched, yet he's arguably the most powerful being in the DC Universe. But contrast him with Spider-Man, who's life practically abides by Murphy's Law, even when things seem to go right for him. While Spider-Man was obviously created with a crapsack life, he always found a way to overcome his problems in a satisfying way (The only exception being the "One More Day" story arc.... A deal with the devil? Seriously, Pete?!). However, sometimes solving a problem would create a new one for him.

Example: Aunt May asked Peter to keep an eye on a friend of hers because she thought something was going on. Peter accepts, but his Spider-Sense warns him of imminent danger, thus diverting him from his original priority of following May's friend, to saving someone from getting killed.

When he returns home, May tells him that her friend was hospitalized after getting jumped by a group of thugs. Peter then felt guilty over letting his aunt down, as well as letting her friend get beat up. However he also knew that if he continued to follow Aunt may's friend, the people he saved likely would've been killed, thus leaving him conflicted over his responsibility as Peter Parker, and his reponsibility as Spidder-Man.

Excluding powers, I think if a character is virtually perfect in every way, and can solve any problem waaay to easily, that's a Mary Sue. (who came up with that term, anyway?!) Spider-Man is probably one of the most extreme inversions of a sue, but he's a good example to follow on how conflicts can shape and diversify a character. And, as 907340 pointed out, there's many variations of a Sue.

I think the guy has a point, even if it's done in a sensationalist way, but I think he's missing the bigger point here.

Power does not a Mary Sue make. It's when they stop being organic; though this often happens when they become too powerful. I've gone on a full rant about OCs which touches on this. I saved it here, but the bottom line is that the character must make sense within his world. So, yes, balance is important.

I once knew a guy who said "It's like Zoidberg!" when I described the idea to him. It's really hard not to use some examples from the site, but just the same:
This guy has a power on par or greater with the main characters, why not?
and he's an amazing cook, why not?
and gets along with everyone, why not?
and has a disability that is completely negated and hasn't actually affected him negatively in any way, why not?
and can repair the gate, why not?
and has learned to ride a horse in hours, why not?
and Twilight Sparkle has fallen for him, why not?

This applies to "regular" people too. A number of popular stories here have that happen and I lose interest because the character just isn't believable.

The garbage man from Dilbert (the cartoon especially) does this for comedic effect as well. In Card Captor Sakura, the main character's brother's super power was to always have a part time job wherever his sister was. It got funny, then it got creepy.

So, yeah, power doesn't always enter in. A character that's just too perfect or capable, especially outside what shoul dbe his area of expertise wouldn't work in any setting.

To use this guy's statement, I'm not a fan of Superman. I have other issues with him, but where I see him becoming a true Mary Sue is much the same.
I have date-rape kissing powers now, why not?
I also build hyper advanced robots in my spare time, why not?

I can't really disagree with that person's rant.

And honestly, the stigma isn't really with the powerful characters themselves. You certainly can write a story about a godly character facing godly challenges. No problem. It can be positively badass, if written well.

The stigma comes from the fact that uberpowerful characters are often associated with very amateur, usually very young writers. In other words, writers without the experience to avoid being... well... terrible. It's because a super-mega-amazing character is wish fulfillment, and easy to write, able to solve problems without the writer having to think about it much. Heck, like, fifteen years ago, when I first started making up characters, the first one was super-powerful too. It's just a phase. I got over it quickly, and so do most others.

Let's admit it, the first or second time someone puts the figurative pen to paper, that work isn't really fit for public consumption. So is there any surprise that the characterization sucks?

907402

The real point with Superman (so I've been told) is that Superman stories are about being an outsider and still wanting to Do Good Things even if you're not exactly part of 'normal' existence. Personally, I've never gotten into Superman stories.

907378

that's a Mary Sue. (who came up with that term, anyway?!)

Mary Sue was the name of a character in a Star Trek fanfic in the early 70s that was the younges lieutenant in the fleet as well as having romantic liaisons with established canonical characters.

The name started from there as a critique for characters that were self-important, in love and attractive to canon characters and prodigies in nearly everything they did. Nowadays, instead of being used as that same critique, it became a way for people to hide behind an excuse to hate characters they don't like.

Superman could be considered a Mary Sue to a certain extent but let's just remember that he's extremely vulnerable to kryptonite and often requires the help of others in his weakened state.

Nix could be considered a Mary Sue to a certain extent as well. However, let's just remember that she was at her peak, caught the princesses by surprise and sealed them away and yet, she was lonely, sad and she regretted her actions, often wondering if she was doing the right thing.

It doesn't matter what kind of struggle a Mary Sue character goes through as long as there is struggle that makes the character develop. It can be physical or psychological but if the character struggles to do something, there is a challenge that the character has to go through and that makes them developing characters that have overpowered abilities but are still held down by some other factors.

907419
A point I get, I really do, but it's not something I've seen much of in what I've seen and read, and I have no interest to read more, besides. I went on a spiel about this once too, but my bigger issue with Superman in general is that there's no getting away from the Messianic message of the character.

By which I mean that basically none of the stories I've read ever did, unless you count the Superdickery stuff, but that's just as bad the other way.

That's interesting (original post). Have a heart.

907445

No, I get you. And as much as I don't want to defend them, I simply felt I should point it out.

Like I said -- Superman stories are nothing to me, either.

907378

(who came up with that term, anyway?!)

Quoting from Wikipedia's article on Mary Sue:

The term "Mary Sue" comes from the name of a character created by Paula Smith in 1973 for her parody story "A Trekkie's Tale" published in her fanzine Menagerie #2. The story starred Lieutenant Mary Sue ("the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet — only fifteen and a half years old"), and satirized unrealistic Star Trek fan fiction. Such characters were generally original female adolescents who had romantic liaisons with established canonical adult characters, or in some cases were the younger relatives or protégées of those characters. By 1976 Menagerie's editors stated that they disliked such characters, saying:

Mary Sue stories—the adventures of the youngest and smartest ever person to graduate from the academy and ever get a commission at such a tender age. Usually characterized by unprecedented skill in everything from art to zoology, including karate and arm-wrestling. This character can also be found burrowing her way into the good graces/heart/mind of one of the Big Three [Kirk, Spock, and McCoy], if not all three at once. She saves the day by her wit and ability, and, if we are lucky, has the good grace to die at the end, being grieved by the entire ship.

"Mary Sue" today has changed from its original meaning and now carries a generalized, although not universal, connotation of wish-fulfillment and is commonly associated with self-insertion. True self-insertion is a literal and generally undisguised representation of the author; most characters described as "Mary Sues" are not, though they are often called "proxies" for the author. The negative connotation comes from this "wish-fulfillment" implication: the "Mary Sue" is judged a poorly developed character, too perfect and lacking in realism to be interesting.

That's the origin of the term "Mary Sue" for ya.

907402

The garbage man from Dilbert (the cartoon especially) does this for comedic effect as well.

I love the Garbage Man.
He needs to be in Equestria so that he can be BEST PONY.

A lot of what makes a Sue is that character's relation to others, particularly canon characters. There is a tendency to give everything to your character, but you have to let the other characters do their thing. No mater how badly you want to give all the best dialogue to your character you can't. If there's a great line that sounds more like something Fluttershy you need to let Fluttershy say it.
You want to always let your character get themselves out of trouble. But if it makes more sense for another character to rescue them that's how you should write it.
To avoid making you a Mary Sue you have to learn to share.

907373

I wouldn't say that Q and Aslan aren't "essential to the storyline." They're very important, they just don't step in and use their power all the time to solve all the problems with no effort.

Also, Q was a villain in his earlier appearances. Overpowered villains are definitely okay, since it gives your hero a greater obstacle to overcome and therefore gets readers more invested in the story.

907592
Oh, they're very important when they come up, but you can't argue that they're the main character (although one of Q's appearances in the Voyager series could be argued as a main role, that's only one exception.) The focus isn't on them, they use their powers to affect the main characters, whether positively or negatively, or in other cases to provide humor.

But I liked the other point you brought up. Another difference is that omnipotent beings like Q and Aslan do follow a sort of prime directive, to make yet another reference to Trek. The Greek Gods in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and the three "angels" in A Wrinkle in Time also seem to follow a similar pattern. Only help the hero, don't do it for them.

I think the best way to completely ruin the Mary sue concept for you forever is to actually track down and read the Star Trek story from which the name comes from.

What you'll find is that she doesn't actually have many of the traits people consider as Sueish. The character was a parody of a particular type of stories, one where the characters suddenly meet some random new character and goes on adventures with them in a way that almost scream "wish fullfillment!"

What I think happened to the Mary Sue concept is a rather bizarre set of evolutionary pressure as fanfic writers grew younger. First of all, it was necessary to have the terms encompass more over-the-top self-inserts, who aren't just self-indulgent, but total and complete screen-hogs. Secondly, as fantasy became more popular, a genre very much based on power-fantasies, similar thing happened with powers.

Thirdly, and this is prolly the point most people ignore, writers started having some extreme cognitive dissonance as they where still inexperienced enough to wanna write Sues, but get bombarded with messages why they shouldnt. Making it very attractive to latch onto the idea that MSs are these uberpowerful camera-hogs and not the boring little self-indulgent characters they ACTUALLY are.

The result is a concept that started out as a parody and turned into a parody of itself. It's to the point where I think most of the bad trends in fanfics comes from a REACTION against Sues, not the tendency to make them.

The rant, while true, leaves out another aspect of story-telling: the conflict needn't revolve around the martial supremacy of the Mary Sue. You can have a character that can will dangerous situations away with pure badassery, and have that character far exceed the capabilities of every other character in the story.

And then you can make that story focus on character interactions instead of beating the crap out of the big bad, and things change. Side characters may initially welcome this benevolent god for saving them from their numerous contrived demons, only to find out that the protagonist is kind of a dick and maybe they really don't wanna be around him even if he did save their asses.

On the flipside, you can have said character fully cognizant of their own ass-kicking abilities. But how do they react when they still fail to salvage the things that are most important to them? Is being overpowered a blessing, to them as individuals, in that they might save a great many more lives through their power? Or is it instead a curse, the weight of their failures dragging their blackened talons through the character's psyche as they realize they had no right not to succeed, but failed anyway?

There are a lot of ways to create conflict in a story and still have it be interesting. In regards to the original rant, I'd replace 'setting' with 'context'; a god-like Mary Sue might require similarly powered adversaries in an adventure/action story, but if the intent of the story is not adventure, and instead character interaction? All the powers in the world won't make an awkward Sunday brunch among distant relatives less awkward, for example.

But I'm really drunk, and a terrible writer.

Power isn't an issue; if you have a cast of super powerful characters, then excellence is par for the course. It's when one character becomes more powerful than the others (coughtwilicorncough) that the narrative becomes unbalanced in favor of that character.

One of the draws of this show is its ensemble cast where nopony stood above any other cast member (until recently). "Mary Sue" is effectively a character that disrupts the ensemble cast to the point where it is no longer about the characters as a team and more about the super special favorite princess. Balance within a cast is essential for good storytelling and the "mary sue" character constantly seeks to pull the spotlight on to him/her. They get abilities the rest of the cast don't, they get special preference by authority figures, they get elevated and rewarded for trivial things until the ensemble cast becomes supporting characters in a vanity play.

Keep the balance in a story; as long as one character isn't held above the others the story remains balanced

907647 The subtlety of your bitterness is astounding. I daresay no one would have caught on to the subtext of your post had I not valiantly pointed it out.

Really, though, does Twilicorn doom a story and/or cartoon series? Or have I missed a really clever joke in your post that's playing off of the purpose of this thread? (Again, I'm drunk.)

907657
Not necessarily but it can if the writers start to treat her differently than the the rest of the cast. So far Twilight hasn't really failed or even been challenged by a heck of a lot (her lack of non-magical skill is rewarded in Winter Wrap Up, the events Lesson Zero are never brought up again and Twilight's paranoia and distrust of Cadence is justified). Compare that to the bevvy of "Rainbow Dash is an arrogant jerk" or "Fluttershy is really shy" or "Pinkie Pie is Super Random" episodes and you start to see a preference shown to one character over the others.

Yes, you can argue that Twilight is the "main character" but I'm not so sure about that. We've had entire episodes where Twilight hasn't even made an appearance so I've always felt that the cast has had six main characters instead of just one. Everypony has had their own stories but none of them were more "important" than any other. What worries me about Twilicorn is that the writers are now elevating Twilight to the main character and relegating the rest of the cast to supporting roles

907689 A fair enough evaluation, but in light of Twilight's virtues as a character–or lack thereof–allow me a rhetorical question, here:

Do you like the show?

I think the term Mary Sue gets thrown around way too often when it comes to OCs. I swear, if a character isnt either a loser, ugly, weak, lazy, lonely or a complete bastard, someone out there will claim that theyc're a Sue in an instant.

Oh, and people shouldn't be afraid of making alicorn OCs, or using the colours black and red. How that suddenly became a no go area is completely beyond me.

907695
No I just devote huge swathes of time to writing fanfiction and hyperanalyzing the character arcs. Truth be told, I can't stand this show

In all seriousness I think you're going to say "trust the writers" and I might have made that same argument before S3 came out. In my opinion, S3 was rushed, sloppy, and boring compared to S1 and S2. I realize this is likely a result of the show changing hands, Hasbro intruding on production like the worst of micromanagers and the staff trying to cater to the periphery demographic more and more but I still feel like the quality of the writing is slipping a bit. Even people who liked Magical Mystery Cure generally think it was rushed and half assed (Producer claims that it is the first of a three parter aside).

I'll trust the writers when they prove that they know what they're doing. They could seriously blunder with this Twilicorn thing and I think they've blown through their fandom line of credit with S3. All that's left to do at this point is wait and see.

I don't think Twilicorn is a horrible idea (I wouldn't be writing a story featuring her if I did). I just thought that it would be an endgame thing. MMC might have been a good series finale with a little more care but since we have at least another season to go, I'm worried that Princess Twilight is going to steal the spotlight more and more if the writers aren't careful about how they handle her.

907758 Right, that's why it was a rhetorical question.

Don't worry, I'm not gonna use the "trust the writers" argument. Arguments from faith really aren't my cup o' tea, especially considering the main character in my current story killed God.

I just couldn't help but notice you mentioned Winter Wrap Up, Lesson Zero, and the S2 finale in your arguments against Twilight as a character, all of which happened before season 3. And yet you still watched and enjoyed the show (which, considering both of our presences here, was a given).

So you admit that the show was good in spite of Twilight being a, err, Mary Sue-ish character. (I don't think so, but that's not the point of this thread.) Why was the show good in spite of Twilight's flaws in her character design? And, by extension, would you agree that a well-written story with an obvious Mary Sue might also be worthy of praise? Or is the presence of a Mary Sue the death knell of any story, and is the argument of the OP's acquaintance a semantic misunderstanding of the term "Mary Sue" to begin with?

The rant seems to be spectacularly missing its target. It starts out by saying that "Mary Sue" is a worthless term, but then spends its entire time shooting down what is a misapplication of the term. It doesn't just mean "powerful", even if many people seem determined to use it that way.

Being powerful doesn't make a character a Mary Sue. It can contribute, but it doesn't manage it all on its own. What makes a Mary Sue is when a character significantly outshines the other characters in some key way. Often times it is in the character's ability, but other times it may simply be the way the story itself handles them: the world bends over backwards to help them, their challenges are conveniently well within their ability to solve (Even when they seemingly shouldn't be), and anybody who opposes them are shown to be completely wrong (And likely suffer some fitting and unexpected fate for it).

It gets even worse when they're a completely superfluous character (And this often crosses over heavily with self-inserts). One I've been seeing a bit of lately is some OC being introduced as a replacement for Princess Twilight: she gets her wings, moves off to Canterlot, and some OC that happens to be just as magically powerful, has similar social awkwardness and bookishness, and quite likely was the unmentioned student of another princess, shows up to fill her place. She becomes instant best friends with the other five of the main cast, and possibly even demonstrates some magical talent that she's better at than Twilight. At this point, one has to wonder... why? The author took away Twilight just to introduce... well, Twilight. That's basically what she is. So why do it? Why take a character away just to introduce a character that is basically the same but with a new name? The character feels remarkably out-of-place. And that's what ultimately makes a character a Mary Sue: it feels completely out-of-place.

Very powerful characters can be in a story without being Mary Sues, but they need to actually fit the story. Dr. Manhattan is an excellent example. He's practically omnipotent. He can shape the world however he wants. He's immortal and invincible. He's basically a living, breathing god. But hoo boy is he flawed. Seriously, deeply flawed. His flaws take what could have been a perfect, idealized godlike Mary Sue (Or Gary Stu, I guess), and instead make him just as subject to the flow of the story as even the weakest character. Hell, he gets played, completely.

To a lesser extent, Twilight and Celestia are both quite powerful characters, but they have their flaws and limitations that make them fit. They can be wrong. They can fail. They can be defeated. Despite being so powerful, these flaws and limitations make them fit in the story, rather than some overpowered character that simply doesn't fit. It makes them interesting characters, rather than Mary Sues.

As for the Jeep/race-car analogy, of course I wouldn't blame the car, any more than I'd blame a Mary Sue for being a Mary Sue. I'd blame the race organizer, or in this case, the author, for doing something so eye-rollingly stupid.

Short version: Mary Sue is a perfectly useful term for pointing out a particular type of poorly-written character.

907700

Oh, and people shouldn't be afraid of making alicorn OCs, or using the colours black and red. How that suddenly became a no go area is completely beyond me.

I love playing with and subverting tropes, and this one (The black/red color, that is) is one I just had to play with. One of the characters in my current story is a dark charcoal-gray pony with a fiery-orange mane. It was as close as I could get to black/red without actually using those words. So far, nobody's noticed.

This is helped by lacking all the "I'm so cool and badass" mannerisms that often seem to go with those colors. In fact, the character swings pretty well in the opposite direction from that stereotype. Wouldn't be much of a subversion, otherwise.

So pretty much, it's the same as the advice for powerful characters. They're not an automatically bad thing. They just have to be handled right.

Its hard to do. Often times writers in fan fiction have to adjust their characters to fall in line somewhere in the context of the characters in canon. This means they might be more powerful than others, and so "OMG Mary Sue"

Someone said it above, but as long as a character works in the story well enough and doesn't overshadow a main character (in a negative way) then it generally should be okay. Also, challenges should be faced and you shouldn't be afraid to let a character fail.

Also, there are a TON of blogs and little tests out there to determine if your character is a mary sue or not. My advice is to stay the heck away from them. There is no true/pure definition of a mary sue, just what other people think, and I don't put a lot of faith in people who go about complaining about it.

IMO Dumbledore and Gandalf are some of the Maryest Sues in the world and nobody ever talks about them.

I worried about one of my characters being labeled a mary sue, and maybe he crosses the line a bit. But I try to make my characters have flaws and be easy to relate to. Seeing the future and being a paragon of virtue can be pretty bad though, so watch out when writing characters that venture into that territory.

907700

Oh, and people shouldn't be afraid of making alicorn OCs, or using the colours black and red. How that suddenly became a no go area is completely beyond me.

It's like a lot of other things.

Main character has a katana in a western setting
Uses a sword in a modern setting with guns
A girl named Raven
Red eyes
(lesser extent) green eyes
Naming a character Dragon or Phoenix
Or just names like Edgar Friendly (seriously, to this day I'm not sure if Demolition Man was a stealth parody or not)

While they don't immediately mean things are going to be bad, they'll immediately start setting off warning bells. These and countless others frankly reek of people trying to write in things they think are cool for the sake of being cool; which generally means they're going for personal wish fulfilment or the lowest common denominator. Neither bode well for an audience's opinion of the work or the author.

And yes, thinking "I want everyone to think my guy is an awesome badass" is both LCD and wish fulfillment.

Put differently: for those people who use alicorn OCs or characters with a red/black colour scheme: did they do it because it was vital to the story? Or did they do it because they thought it was cool? If the latter, then the story and world are a vehicle for the character to be showcased; or at least serving him/her.

If the story is serving solely as a vehicle, then the story's less important than the character and it takes a truly skilled author to keep things on track. Generally, though, things then start to work to showcase the character's awesomeness rather than being an ordeal or, often, even a narrative.

If this happens, all tension, investment and structure to the story wander off and update their resumes.

Frankly, colour scheme is immaterial in the Equestrian world, so it's something that will be done solely to have the character look cool. (Unless an intentional subversion, or the character himself thinks it looks cool and is doing the semi-normal thing teenagers do of trying to dress (dye) themselves to look cool and generally failing.)

More often than not, if the story's worthy on its own merits past the above, then these can be lost without losing any of the substance, and will often tighten the story by their absence. If nothing's lost by avoiding these problems, then nothing's lost. If problems are avoided by avoiding superficial things that don't affect the story, but will brand the story as immature for having them, then including them will only harm your story.

People tend to know this stuff, or learn it after a few rounds of seeing it, even if they can't put it into words. Since there are only so many hours in the day, we're not willing to spend time on stuff that has the warning signs.

In mental shorthand, and this takes about a second while reading synopses:
Red and black colour scheme = look at me, I'm cool = immature = not worth my time.
Alicorn OC main = self insert = wish fulfillment = not worth my time
OC x Mane 6 ship = self insert = wish fulfillment = not worth my time

These can all be done well. I like to reference The Glass Blower as an example of that last one done right. The Sisters Doo used Alicorn OCs very well, though they were an antagonist and an ally to the main characters. But, unless you want to wave a giant red flag in front of your story, it's just best to avoid these and you seldom actually lose anything for doing so.

907657 I really don't think Twilicorn will be a doom. Trusting the writers sounds cheesy and bad, I know, but I think that they've earned my trust at least, with how well (imo) they handled season 3.

I generally (even from the start) didn't understand why everyone was fussing about her stealing the spotlight. She is the main character of all the ponies, and her being a princess won't add too much imo, at least not as much as people seem to think. Its like having a king pass away and his only living heir is an 11 year old boy. That boy is the king, but he doesn't rule the kingdom all by himself, if he rules at all. Often a steward or regent would be appointed until his comes of age, or if he did happen to rule, all his decisions would be filtered through advisers. Twilight being a princess doesn't mean she's going to run Equestria, and I don't believe for second she is anywhere near as powerful as the royal sisters. She still has a lot to learn.

908030
So if she still has a lot to learn and she isn't nearly as powerful as the Sisters, why make her an alicorn in the first place? What does making Twilight an alicorn accomplish in terms of the story?

Oh, right, because Hasbro

908030 I agree entirely, and that was the point. To use a non-fanfic analogue, Rand al'Thor, of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time universe, is without a doubt the very definition of a character that exceeds the capabilities of every other character in the story. He's effectively the Messiah of his universe. And, to me, he's also a very bland character.

What interests me in Robert Jordan's series isn't the main protagonist, it's the way the story and the numerous other characters are woven into it. Rand is the linchpin of his world's survival, but the world's salvation depends on so many different factions that even being the most powerful being in existence doesn't really affect the narrative's overarching aims.

Of course, the Dragon Reborn also isn't a Gary Stu in the proper sense of the term; he just is in the sense of readers seeing a character with immense power amidst those with a lot less power, and crying "Mary Sue" to their heart's content. People bandy the term about with reckless abandon; a Mary Sue can be far more impotent than the supporting characters.

By the same token, Alicorn Twilight introduces so many different possibilities of conflict into the MLP universe that I feel the writers of the show may have too many ideas with how they may approach her newfound identity.

The issue isn't the relative 'power' of a character in relation to others, but how that power is wielded when it comes to conflict resolution. (The OP's quote hinted at this by suggesting changing the entire world to better suit an 'overpowered' character, but that really isn't necessary in a well-written story.) If a character can overcome a conflict with little difficulty–and with no interest to the readers–don't change the world.

Change the conflict.

908067 Yes, why? I'm terribly interested in how her story plays out, now, and will continue watching to sate my curiosity.

Funny, that.

908067 well yes, Hasbro.

But from what I take from the story it just seems like that was the natural progression for Twilight. I think Celestia saw her potential and saw that it could only lead to her eventually becoming something greater, and under Celestia's tutelage, that something is an alicorn.

She isn't as powerful as the sisters... yet. She probably will be in time though. Alicorns seem to be powerful magic users. They can influence love, move celestial bodies, etc.

Twilight's talent is magic and she was already very talented before her transformation. Serving as a conduit for the power of the elements of harmony and entering a "god mode" when using them. All this being done through friendship, because lets not forget, "Friendship is Magic"

Transcendence just seemed where she was headed, only thing is it happened in a season finale, not a series finale.

907592 That's not neccesairly true. Q from what I know was esentially chaotic neutral, he walked the fine line between protagonist and antagonist. His reason for his first appearance was supposedly to convince the ship crew to turn back because the continum believed they had inflitrated the galaxy too far.

907973

Not sure how red eyes/green eyes could possibly set off warning bells. In a world of technicolour ponies, any eye colour is viable. (And I thought Vinyl had red eyes? Or is the argument still raging?)

As for the rest, I understand what you're saying. To be honest, I've never actually read a fanfic with an alicorn OC for a main character, but now I kind of want to read one. The OC X Main I think is only a problem if we're talking about the cliche 'boy meets girl' love story with a predictable outcome, which can usually be seen coming a mile away.

I get the feeling that maybe I've just not come across much bad fanfiction in my time, at least not the types that you seem to be referring to. Although I've come across authors who explicitly say "I based this OC on myself and I have tried to make them a pony version of myself," and that kind of thing... well...

908159
I don't think anybody doubted that Ali!Twi would be endgame and her becoming a princess is the natural conclusion of her story arc, the ultimate end of her abilities. The problem is that it didn't come at the end; it came with more story to go. She's effectively at the end of her story. Sure, you could continue to do stories with her but she's got nowhere else to go. She's hit a character plateau; it would be like Luke Skywalker becoming a fully realized Jedi knight by the end of A New Hope.

The problem is not what Twilight became, it's when. My concern is that Twilight has nothing left to work for yet is in a position to continually outshine the rest of the cast is written improperly.

907893
A thousand times this. The blog post is a wonderful argument for telling a story about a character facing challenges difficult enough for them to be interesting, but it doesn't address a Mary Sue.

A Mary Sue bends the universe to her whim. Everything revolves around her, and boy is she special. To take an example from Incognito Brony: a guy who uses a sword in a world filled with guns might be a Sue. If he's skilled enough to take on most gun users, he's probably a Sue. However, if he's useless in a fight against a guy with a gun, he's probably not.

More interestingly, and getting to the "the character must fit the world" argument, if plenty of people use swords against gun users and it breaks down to your skill with your chosen weapon who will win, then you're just writing a less realistic genre. The character fights gun users with his sword, sure, but so do plenty of other people.

The important part is that lots of people have the same skill he has, and it's not some super-secret order of ninja assassins who raised him after his parents were killed by the big bad because he's the chosen one meant to restore justice to the world.

908542
You've hit the nail on the head with the cliche 'boy meets girl' love story thing. Intentionally or not, original characters tend to be based off either personal experience, or ideals. Without either experience or training, you have to pull from personal experience. If you're doing a love story, chances are you're interested in the character on a personal level, and so on and so forth.

Same issue for the others. Different circumstances, same issue.

Can be done. I've seen it done. But if the selling point is OC x main, the odds are pretty good you're reading a self insert. So, most will just avoid.

The red/green eyes thing is a 'rule' about creating characters, though talking about humans. If the eyes are green, they'll be deep, and clear straight to the soul. So deep that a person could lose themselves... and so on. Red is generally angry or unnervingly piercing. Shorthand supernatural or unnatural. In either case, it's a minor, but listed as a reason for the author to take a step back and re-examine why it was done, for the same reasons. Shorthand seldom helps. That said, the suggestion often given is to keep them that colour in your mind, but not put it on the page.

908568

I've never been a fan of Twilicorn to be honest, but I could've very well seen them implement it as a series finale. In my mind, I'd have liked to have seen Twilight help all her friends achieve their destinies, (Help Rainbow with a written exam for becoming a wonderbolt since all she ever cared about was flying and looking cool, helping Rarity with budgeting for a new fashion line, help the CMC understand what true special talent is etc. etc.) and then become a princess of friendship on the basis that she did all this for her friends and totally deserves it. Something like that, I'd have been much, much happier with. (I was not a fan of MMC)

As it stands, I can definitely understand that she will have more character development, but it will have lost the 'struggle'. Twilight is now a princess, the most prestigious title in existence. Barring a royal cock-up of global proportions, she's never going to lose that. I see it almost like an RPG character with maxed-out stats finding slightly better armour. Sure, they can make some minor improvements, but it doesn't matter because they're already better than everything else.

Also, I prefer her as a unicorn. Don't ask me why, but from a purely aesthetic point of view I just like her better without wings.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see what season 4 brings us. I'm hopeful that our fears will be settled, but even if S4 sucks to high heavens I know I'll still have seasons 1 and 2 to re-watch and all the glorious fanfiction.

907973

Naming a character Dragon or Phoenix

908693

In my mind, I'd have liked to have seen Twilight help all her friends achieve their destinies, (Help Rainbow with a written exam for becoming a wonderbolt since all she ever cared about was flying and looking cool, helping Rarity with budgeting for a new fashion line, help the CMC understand what true special talent is etc. etc.) and then become a princess of friendship on the basis that she did all this for her friends and totally deserves it.

This would have been so much better; she gets promoted because of what she helped her friends accomplish rather than for her magical talent. She would be the Princess of Friendship rather than the Princess of Magic and I think that would be more in tune with the theme of the show. Instead of doing another run of the mill hocus pocus spell that could have been in any other episode, Twilight's ascension to princesshood is a season long affair where she grows as a person, overcomes obstacles and helps her friends achieve their goals. Instead of getting wings because destiny, she actually earns her crown and resolves her storyline by helping her friends resolve theirs.

But Hasbro just had to be Hasbro

908568 I understand your point but I have to say I disagree completely. There are lots of things that could happen to her and tons of other lessons to learn. I just can't be arsed to care that she became an alicorn early. Twilight becoming an alicorn was an affirmation. The closing of that chapter in her life and the start of a new one. I was skeptical at first, and indeed, I shared some of those very same views but then I realized something. A series finale where her story ended with the transformation would have been safe and boring. (Not saying it would have been bad)

So many shows cling to the status quo and do everything in their power to twist and turn through loopholes to leave every plot point the way it was before the episode started. This happens in more than just cartoons. Any cop show where the main character(s) have some sort of personal vendetta against a killer. They have a conflict and at the end of the episode nothing has changed. They are still out for revenge, and the killer is still out there. bleh.

This cartoon has a sense of genuine progression, and not just with Twilight. Rainbow Dash and Rarity seem to be realizing their dreams too. I just find it refreshing, but hey, its not for everyone. Different strokes for different folks.

With 26 episodes, I see a good chance that there will be several episodes where Twilight is either barely featured, or completely absent.

Personally, if it's fanfiction I'm working with I'd rather limit myself within the limits given by the world of the source.

One of the reasons why I absolutely refuse to finish Fallout: Equestria.
While it might be a good story, I don't know, its premise doesn't feel like it's the same Small Horse Land I know.
Sure, it's an alternate setting, alternate universe, what if situation, whatever; but I don't want the setting to be turned upside down, doing some gyration, beaten, stabbed, getting a shave, mutilated, going for ice cream, get rebuilt as a cyborg and coming back named Susan.
I want it to feel like I'm watching ponies because as it is, I might as well just be reading a Fallout fanfic about a lesbian ex-con with stumpy hands and permanent night terrors.

As for original fiction and possibly crossovers, anything goes; but when I write poni or fanfiction at all, I feel that what's best to do is to get into the setting, watch their world, thinking from inside of their heads if you will.
Then, grimdark is forbidden, gore is forbidden, swearing is forbineneded, most ponies are cowards, pretty things and food are the most important parts of their culture and everyday life, they eat silly stuff like dandelion subways and humus, friendship is a bigger deal than most thigs, etc.

I love it when someone takes this world of Equestria and expands on it rather than altering it altogether
It shows a more mature approach to writing as creating tension and danger inside a story when you can't have explicit death is pretty darn hard.