This lecture starts with Tony Stark, because everything is better with Tony Stark introducing it. Even Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

...especially Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.

Anyway. Tony Stark is, in his own words, a "genius billionaire playboy philanthropist." He built a world-changingly powerful piece of technology in a cave, with a box of scraps, lugging around a car battery attached to his chest. He invents a superweapon so he can drunk-drive without consequences. When the element powering his superweapon starts to poison him, he makes a new fucking element. He created a stunningly powerful artificial intelligence and made it his butler, because why not? If he needs to learn a new field of science, he does some reading in the evening and has a doctorate by the morning.

Now, you will hear that a Mary Sue is a super-powerful character who everyone is really attracted to and can do just about anything and has no limitations because they're just that good.

Tony Stark is not a Mary Sue.

Buck Williams, the protagonist of the excrable Left Behind series, is an awful journalist, a terrible writer, a coward, a virgin, wears a denim tux, can't flirt, can't communicate like a normal human, bullies people when he can't get his way, is obtuse and uncurious, and is generally a terrible, pathetic human being.

Buck Williams is a Mary Sue.

A Mary Sue is more than just the character, it's the way the character fits into the story. Buck Williams is a Sue, because despite the fact that he can't write, that he has no nose for a story and that he frequently misses important deadlines after world-shaking events, everyone else in the story treats him like the Greatest Investigative Reporter of All Time. He can't talk like a normal human being and his jokes are terrible, but every other character thinks he's charming and hilarious. The antichrist meets him, thinks he's a wonderful person despite the fact that Buck acts either like a cowardly anus or a petulant tosser every time they meet, and hires Buck as his press secretary.

Everyone loves Buck and treats him like a wonderful person for no good reason whatsoever, and this is the core of Suedom. The author declares that everyone is going to love his character and that the character can do whatever he or she wants, and the author makes it so. The visceral antipathy that readers feel towards a Sue is because of this disconnect, both between the actions/attributes of the character and the reactions of everything else in the story, and of the abilities and powers of the character with the lack of logic or coherency behind it.

Most of the cosmetic attributes of a Sue (in ponyfics, dark coats with scintilating manes, non-pegasus wings, alicorns, freaky eyes, changing cutie marks etcetera) are simply markers of bad taste, which goes hand in hand with Sue creation. The true nature of a Mary Sue is the fiction black-hole they create, where everything revolves around and is sucked into them. Rainbow Dash falls in love with them despite the Sue being a whiny tit. They're better than Twilight at magic despite having none of her training and never being noticed for their abilities. Everyone really really likes them for no reason whatsoever. It's like hearing your sister gush about her horrible idiot slob of a boyfriend, forever.

In conclusion, I hate writing conclusions. Thus ends the lecture.

this was a wonderfully hilarious read.

so mary sue's don't just have to be the automatic retainers of great assets and abilities. It's also if they gain them with minimum effort and merit. Correct?

Thank you for providing me with another argument as to why the bible is a terrible read.

I would like to commend those of you who know what I'm talking about cause you actually read about it but that means the river Styx is filled with Mary Sue water

368044
Wait, what...how does that...he didn't...even.... never mind,

Anyway, interesting lecture.

537782 Because it's fun to think that you/your character is omnipotent and awesome. It's great to have all your favorite characters lust after you. Etc...

It may be fun, but it's also too easy, as well as boring.

540343 I never said that it was a good thing.

540560 Of course, and that's why it's a bad shortcut to take in writing, but a shortcut nonetheless.

540608
Shortcut... Huh...
What if make a story that features Princess Celestia as Mary Sue?
I mean all the gathering of powers that she wasn't that much Goddess from start and now she is loved by everypony and everything.
It would be a troll fanfic, but still. Think about it.

If I am rambling.
Celestia born -> Gaining powers -> Time passes -> Becomes Mary Sue like.

540614 Shortcut as opposed to actually building a character.
Hm.

A perfect example of Mary Sue is a horrible series of stories written by CassandraMyOCisBestPony. Cassandra is apparently the long lost sister to Celestia, seventh element of harmony, and "best pony in all of My Little Pony, possibly entire world." All I could get through was the first few paragraphs of the Hunger Games crossover. Cassandra gives Katniss the mockingjay pin and Katniss "gushes" over how Gale will love it. No, I just can't see Katniss doing that. I wish I could pretend it was just written by a five year old, but then again, why would a five year old have read the Hunger Games? The whole thing is just awful. And to put the cherry sprinkle icing on the cake, EVERYONE loves her.

4151117
Just checking, but you do know that those stories are complete and utter trollfics, right? They're really funny, actually!

Finally! A definition that makes sense!

4153589 Eh. I just don't get humor from them.

367552
I absolutely agree, that is definitely half of what makes a Mary Sue; allow me to show you the other half:

Another way to avoid a Sue is to suitably challenge your character.

Superman, and Twilight Sparkle, are not Mary Sues because they're always challenged and not everybody likes them; most do, but it's for good reason. Buck Williams sounds half-Sue or two-thirds Sue because he is challenged, but everybody worships him. For no good reason. Which tends to reduce challenges in the first place and always gives him what he wants after a struggle. As for Ebony, pure Sue, she goes through every conflict with no actual challenge, only instant gain.

This reminds me, many writers of fanfics these days try so hard to avoid Mary Sues that they make the something even more obnoxious, the Anti-Sue, a character who is a bad attempt to avoid a Mary Sue by making the character as boring and unlikeable as possible, but the Anti-Sue can be a Mary Sue or a half-Sue at least because he or can still be written as obnoxious, but everybody worships him or her, and the character always gets what he or she wants. In fact, Buck Williams might be a really bad attempt to avoid a Mary Sue, an Anti-Sue, that's almost a Mary Sue anyway.

Also:

Everyone loves Buck and treats him like a wonderful person for no good reason whatsoever

That sounds like some people I know!

540326
that depends kn if the fics gimmik is that but if itd not then it makes them look bad

367552
question but would a insanly op character who has severe depressis tendencies mania and bound to litteral demons and reality hops but is somwhow always known by only a relative in that reality a mary sue since they have to activly work at having friends like and accept them.

and would regressing there age to a younger state meaning they grew up with characters count?

367552
Great explanation.
I don't know how many Mary Sue explanations I've read that failed to realize why (Star Trek) fanfics got annoyed with various extra characters.
It wasn't about their power, lack of flaws or odd quirks. It was how they broke all realism by not fitting in, making all the surrounding characters break whatever lore they had accumulated through the years as they had to bend over backwards to adapt to the goofy insert that some author figured was new, fresh and exciting.

367552
So most MLP characters in a nutshell?

Just saying it's a really low threshold, to have a issue prone character that everyone likes for no good reason. It seems to me a Mary Sue would have to be more to qualify.

For me, it would ultimatly boil down the way the creator views them. Are they focused on to the exclusion of all else? Are they portrayed unironically? If not, it might be they are a example of satire.

368044
You realize that Left Behind isn't actually biblical right?

7613806
Correct! Both in universe and on a meta...

(Though i disagree with the opening poster in that skills should be included; if the setting and characters have to bend over backwards to make mary sue awesome you have a mary sue)

Twilight is a mary sue. She uses the "want it need it" spell on part of an entire town for malicious reasons no less. She wanted a friendship problem and she was going to force one. Its like a bored firefighter starting fires to fill his fire fighting quota. What does Celestia do? Seemingly stops all law enforcement once it is clear Twilight feels bad about it. We have had villains do less and get punished more. When she needs five friends five friends just fall into her lap. When she swaps the cutie marks of her friends what happens? She gets wings and a crown.

MLP:FiM is cringe.

I started watching just to get context on who Twilight Sparkle was when i stumbled across a fic on the web looking for something related to the title. By the end the most believable characters were villains and the heroes sues...

7613983
Funnily enough, I was actually thinking of Lesson Zero when I wrote that.

By the end the most believable characters were villains and the heroes sues..

Spot on with your assessment. It was baffling just how much some characters got away with, especially in Season 8.