I found a lot of information that people were providing in my previous thread regarding how one defines a character on the use of the terms Mary Sue and Gary Stu.

However, lets look at another take on it.

What defines a good character that feels believable and not OP or whatever?

This doesn't matter if we're looking at OCs or canon characters from any forms of media, not just MLP.

To me, I can define a character that looks believable in a few departments: challenged, conflicted, and learning.

What is causing the character to be challenged? What is their obstacles? What do they need to do that solves the problem? How can they possibly resolve the problem with thinking logically, let alone reasoning?

Same goes for confliction. Maybe the character is having a moment where they are arguing with themselves. In their mind, they aren't sure if they should commit or refuse to do something that could end well for them or end very badly. It drives them to a point where they question if they even trust themselves with what is going on.

Then there is learning. Perhaps you have a case where the character is trying to learn something that is completely foreign to them or its something they already know, but they have to learn something else to build up from previous experiences.

This is another extra take on the basis of Mary Sue/Gary Sue, but with using the OP term and other concepts and ideas I thought about for a few days now.

Who here understands what I'm trying to say so far?

Look at the X-men comics, here you have a lot of characters with very unfair abilities and yet it has plot and development.

That might give you an idea.

I have no idea what you're talking about!
jokes aside, just look at the guy that killed 7 in one hit and how he was made to not be OP or take a look at the male lineage of Zeus, himself included, who even if OP by most standards still have to find a way to get out of jail free from some annoying situations and fail spectacularly most of the time

7970274
What makes character look believable is coherent storytelling. Characters don't exist in vacuum, it's all about how you use them to tell your story. As an author you set the stage and the rules and then follow the logic you've established. If you don't break the readers trust then you're golden.

If you make the conflict effortlessly solved that's going to be boring. If the conflict results in no experience or consequences it's boring. You have all the tools to make it not boring, and it's not just the main character. And it depends entirely on the story you are trying to tell, there are no easy solutions that fit all scenarios.

Oh, and the last thread if anything just cemented that Mary Sue term is useless. Original definition has been lost in time long ago and everyone now has different ideas what it means. Maybe there wasn't ever true definition in the first place.

7970274

I saw that Mary Sue thread, and to add to what 7970306 said that I didn't see that past thread go into, another thing about the term Mary Sue (or Marty Stu) is that it's sometimes a synonym for "I really hate this character but don't want to sound like a hater". It's kinda like how OOC/out of character can sometimes be a synonym for "this character pissed me off for how they acted." Note how you pretty much never hear anyone call a character OOC when said character did something that they enjoyed seeing; in cases like this, they'd usually say "this is how this character should be/have been written."

But back to Mary Sues. They can vary greatly in what makes them a "Mary Sue" (some are OP, some are forgiven when a non-Mary Sue wouldn't be, still others have no flaws and thus never struggle, are "forced" into a story, derail pre-existing dynamics and come off as a badly done self-insert, etc) but one thing they tend to have in common is that they are, for one reason or another, an unlikeable, badly written character, unless the character was meant to be a Mary Sue and thus the writing is written with this in mind. This also means that a legitimate Mary Sue or Marty Stu can be liked or even beloved if they manage to not come off as unlikeable. They could even become an escapist character, which can be something of a Mary Sue that you're too busy putting yourself in their shoes and imagining yourself as to hate.

So, any character a fan doesn't like that happens to have one or more Mary Sue-ish traits can easily be called a 'Mary Sue" by them, but this tends to have some inmate hypocrisy. For example, a fan who hates Starlight Glimmer might call her a Mary Sue for being so powerful but not call Twilight Sparkle one if they like her, but another fan who does hate Twilight might call her a Mary Sue for being so powerful. Another example is Discord's actions in the season 9 finale, If Starlight had done that for the same reasons as Discord did, a fan who hates Starlight might have used it as proof that she's Mary Sue even if they forgave Discord for doing it. It works in reverse too: a fan who hates Discord unsurprisingly hate that he got off easy and might even be calling him a Marty Stu, but if they like Starlight and she had done it, they might have given her a pass and not call her a Mary Sue due to it.

More of that characters do not exist in a vacuum thing, it’s all about context. Put your character in a world that is prepared for them, even in some small way. OP does not mean bad, OP with a cringe-worthy hate of the world, a constant feeling of ‘not enough’ and a notable preference to emo and dark colors? That’s an MS/GS situation. It’s a plus when a character may be slightly informed of happenings in the world, and isn’t the End All Be All pony to solve these issues. A character who sometimes loses grip on the situation and has to make do with subpar solutions is a character who can genuinely impress, no matter how much they toe the line of generic Mary Sue
Honestly, a good example there would be Phasma from Changing Expectations. Given a certain situation and told to plan for it, does so extremely successfully, only for a change he could have never predicted tossing him for a loop he can’t account for.
A closer toe to the line I really enjoy is Cure Wave from Life Finds a Way. It’s harder to explain that one without spoiling, but Cure actively avoids meddling with certain events, even if his abilities could solve the issue in record time.

7970274
None of this actually matters by itself. All that really matters is a character's context. Characters are bad characters because they're not the character the story needs, or they're good characters because they are the character the story needs.

It's simpler than most people realize: a Mary Sue is just any character that the story is bent into serving because the author is really prioritizing writing a character and not a story.

This isn't determined by any particular attribute, and it's not preventable by "building" characters to particular specifications. It's all in the reason for a character being present in the story and the reason for the author to be writing in the first place. Mary Sue characters being "OP" is a symptom, not the cause, and trying to treat symptoms alone doesn't cure a disease.

7970274 Focus on fundamentals. There's no magic trick to avoiding having your character get called a Mary Sue other than just writing a good story. As I mentioned in a recent thread on the topic, the term is so watered down that as criticism it barely means anything.

What are the fundamentals? Have a narrative conflict, and apply it consistently.

7970454

This is the correct answer.

If someone asks, "How do I make my character not a Mary Sue?" the answer is, "You already failed by asking that question." That person is trying to make their boring character interesting because their goal is centered around the character and not the story.

Writing Mary Sues is not a problem in and of itself. We all love wish fulfilment author avatars and I am totally not judging you. I'll be honest here, I myself have written a bunch of stories about a fairy princess who is perfect and literally the most beautiful lady in the whole world while being the the most powerful magician in the whole world who is also awesome at cooking, fashion, and had loads of hawt boys and girls in love with her.

The problem is that authors who write their Mary Sue often want lots of readers to like them. And this is basically impossible because the truth is, a character like that is designed to be the author's ideal self and hence appeals only to people who have the same ideal self as the author and also want the same wish-fulfilment fantasy as the author. Another important thing here: writing is a very poor medium for action scenes, unlike a movie where you can just have 90 minutes of action with no plot. There is nothing more boring than a long essay about how great someone is and how they never face a single real challenge in their life.

If you want to be a good author, write a story. It is the story that has to be interesting and moving and you only add in characters that the story needs, and stories almost never need Mary Sue protagonists.

-------------------------------------------

But let us be honest: this is not what those authors want to hear. They want to make their wish fulfilment avatars and they want people to like them and heap praise on their self-insert and by extension the author. By definition you want to write a character and bend the story around that character. Okay. Let me help you a little, because there *is* one story that gets repurposed over and over for this kind of character: the Monomyth. Write THIS story, because it is the story DESIGNED for heroes.

This is important: do not mess with the formula. Everything I put in is very important, because the recipe is very precise. Leaving it out would be like trying to make carbonara without pepper because you hate pepper and then realizing afterwards that it is pepper that gives carbonara that subtle deliciousness and now all you have is a bowl of rapidly congealing pasta and cheese and eggs. And your dinner guest likes pepper.

1) Your character has to start by being like your audience. You need sympathy. And here's the hard part for you, because you want your Mary Sue: it means your character has to be a loser to start with. In case you didn't figure this out, in Isekai anime/manga this is the part where the protagonist is a hikkikomori NEET who got to age 30 with no girlfriend and no job. Exactly like the average manga/anime otaku who will watch that kind of anime. Note: It is very important to actually SHOW your character like this for at least a few paragraphs. Show, not tell, people.

Why is this important? Because your audience must FIRST get emotionally invested in your character, and if your character starts as a super-handsome Olympian martial artist Super Saiyan pornstar, the audience is not going to see themselves in him, they are going to see the jerk who dated the girl they liked in high school. Do you understand why lots of readers hate Mary Sues? They remind them of the winners, and most people are losers.

The main thing you need for your hero is a real, bona-fide character flaw. Like something that will really harm him, that regular people suffer from. It must be rooted in selfishness - arrogance, bigotry, addiction, cowardice, all are good candidates. It is very important that the hero get called out on his flaw. This is so you, the author, are making it clear that you are not supporting the hero's behavior. The reason for this comes later.

2) Your protagonist has to get knocked out of his boring life and started on the call to adventure. This is often done by truck-kun, but also by certain merchants at conventions. Or a wizard comes by with a bunch of dwarves. That sort of thing.

3) The hero meets his sensei. The sensei's job is to make the hero a Mary Sue. This might be the god in the white room that hands the hero his cheat, or the aforementioned wizard, etc. But this is important here: The sensei has to stick around. This is the part that isekai anime flunk at; the sensei is usually a jerk or disappears right after the cheat is given, meaning that there is no growth process; the hero goes from zero to hero in seconds and the audience disconnects because it feels too much like wish fulfilment, like the character didn't earn or deserve his OP.

4) The hero flexes his OP. This is the bit where the sensei accompanies the hero and the hero starts his adventure and shows off his OP powers on mooks while practicing them. This is the payoff for a lot of writers, BUT! This is not where the hero should become a god. The people he beats should be nobodies. The hero should be beating up diamond dogs, not King Sombra. Ideally, what you want is for the villain (Sombra) to have the same character flaw as the hero - this is because the villain best serves the monomyth as the physical representation of the hero's real enemy, his flaw.

Now I am gonna tell you a secret. Most crappy stories will mess with that formula at this part. The next bit is the part lots of Mary Sue authors HATE and try to avoid. This is why lots of isekai manga start interesting and then become boring halfway, because they abandoned the Monomyth halfway. In fact, most Mary Sue stories only have a part 4 with not much else, nothing but the hero beating everything with zero effort. These stories are the ones that are boring from the start.

5) THE HERO MUST FALL AND LOSE ALMOST EVERYTHING. This is the bit that establishes the villain as credible. This is the part where the audience REALLY hooks onto the hero, because everyone has failed at least once and it is the ultimate sympathetic resonance. This is also where the sensei dies or leaves. The hero's girlfriend will get captured, so he must rescue her. His friends die or are separated or leave. S**t has got real, yo. And the villain has shown he is playing for keeps. This part MUST happen because without it there are no stakes - the hero has no credible challenge and therefore no drama.

The best versions of this should occur because of the hero's main character flaw - his personality weakness, his main bit of jerkishness that he has to get rid of to become a mature, adult human. This is because in real life, people's failures very often come from their character flaws. If you can work this you get extra points because it will hit the audience right in the personal experience. But failure from flaw is optional - the important thing is to fail.

I get that this is hard for authors because the one thing they really do not want their self-insert to do is lose. But if it makes you feel better, you can mollify your ego by making the villain unfairly OP. Maybe he killed the mentor to get their superpowers or something. What's important here is that the villain must be much more OP than the hero.

There is also another reason the villain must crush the hero here, because it give the hero motivation to become even stronger, to defeat the villain - the hero must become a god.

6) The hero must seek redemption. He goes and trains by himself now that his sensei is gone, or maybe gets a new, dramatically different sensei. He reflects on his actions and mistakes and realizes what is wrong with himself. If his girlfriend left in part 5 rather than get captured, then this is where he apologizes and proves that he has changed for the better. It is important here that the hero must not finish overcoming his flaw yet. This is because drama. He gets much stronger, but is not yet ready to face the villain. Until he is forced to.

7) The hero faces the main villain again. The hero has closed much of the gap in power, but the villain still has the upper hand. This is where the villain, on the cusp of victory, should make an offer to the hero - give in to their flaw and get a pretty good second place. If it is arrogance, the classic is, "Join me and we will rule together!".

BUT! The hero, 99% on the path to redemption, ticks off the final 1% and realizes the power to win was inside him all along. Alternatively, the hero gets tempted by something else besides the villain, like his addiction. But he rejects it. This is where he finally unlocks his ultimate attack that he was trying to get to work. HE BECOMES A GOD, and rejects the villain's temptation with a BLAST TO THE FACE.

8) Conclusion, and happy ever after.

Does this sound familiar? Of course it does. It is literally every single hero's journey. From Luke Skywalker to Frodo to Po to Neo to Katniss Everdeen, it is the basic structure of the hero's journey - it works because it basically hacks the human personal growth motivation and turns the process into a story. If you have to write a story that is about ONE CHARACTER AND HOW GREAT HE IS, WRITE THIS ONE.

I'm still waiting for an answer to where those terms originally came from.

7970762
If I recall correctly it originated from an old Star Trek fic that parodied overpowered OCs

7970927
I wonder if Mary Sue and Gary Stu were their actual names when used to describe that.

7971094
Wikipedia says that it originated from the fic, “A Trekkie’s Tale,” written by Paula Smith in 1973.

The fic itself is actually pretty short so I’ll just copy and paste it:

"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.

7971127
That's actually hilarious.
Interesting that it was actually based on an oc name.

7970473
Yep, there's even diagrams of that process out there

7971127
I think the big thing to take away from A Trekkie's Tale is that Mary Sue is not 'overpowered', in fact she does almost nothing. What makes Mary Sue a ... well ... Mary Sue is how all the other characters (and, in fact the entire plot) react to her.

7970274
Be mean to your OC, make sure that the plot doesn't protect him from consequences or failure. Give him flaws that cause him to occasionally make a poor decision, make him occasionally stumble.

7970454
This, the presence of a Mary Sue is a narrative problem, not a characterization problem.

Basically, if you have a character who's strong and capable, SHOW the reader how they got that way. Show them learning the hard lessons that made them stronger.