Rethinking the Mary Sue

Sat Nam! (Literally "Truth Name"--a Sikh greeting)

The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew was a big success in its day too. Sometimes it's a pleasure to read books that aren't filled with messed up people. And it's sometimes a big bore to read books that dutifully check off every box in the authorial rules list.

Blessings,

Siri Kirpal

The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel was hugely successful, and Ayla is a Mary Sue if there ever was one. But the story has a powerful emotional core, plenty of conflict and high stakes, and Ayla does suffer.

Laer, you seem to be a logical person, and if you're anything like me, you're constantly analyzing cause and effect. Here, you're worried the cause of your improved sales was your Mary Sue, and you're worried not writing a similar character will make your sales drop again. Logically, though, the most likely causes of your improved sales are a) you have a long publishing history, which gained you some traction among your potential readership; and b) you wrote a damn good book.

We can never know what will and won't make a book work for our readers. But thanks to your successful Mary Sue book, you've got a larger pool of readers waiting for your new work. That's not a bad place to be.

I think as people discuss things on the internet, the idea of what makes someone a Mary Sue has evolved.

The first Mary Sue I ever really noticed in the wild was sometime around '98-- Miaka from Fushigi Yuugi. Miaka was very clearly a wish-fulfillment character. She wasn't pretty, she wasn't athletic, she was pretty helpless, and she was as dumb as rocks, but she had an entire harem of guys who were in love with her, whether secretly or openly. The two top characters were a top warrior-fighter-guy and the Emperor of the country she had been summoned to, but there was a long laundry list of others as well.

But I think that was what made an impression--- everyone looooves this character, and their worlds revolve around her, even if it doesn't make sense. They stop being themselves, and start redefining themselves in that character's light. Even if part of the plotline is, "We exist to serve you," there's plenty of warriors/courtiers/servants in tv/literature who are able to serve their masters without totally losing their minds and independent identities.

Fast-forward 20 years, and now, it seems that Mary Sues are more hyper-competent characters. So now, instead of defining a Mary Sue by how others react to them, people are defining whether someone meets Mary Sue territory by their own intrinsic qualities/perfection and lack of negative traits.

I think I kind of disagree with the current definition, as it's evolved, but everyone's mileage may vary.

Whether your mc is super competent or even a superhero or demigod, there must be some kind of conflict or the story is dead. Internal conflict counts. Doesn't Jane want something and then struggle to get it? In a lot of these stories, the same super abilities or whatever also make the character's life difficult, the fact that they are different, misunderstood by others, etc, something that makes us root for them.

If someone I'm beta-reading for wants my unvarnished opinion, I have no problem pointing out (carefully, I hope!) that a character is 'too perfect'. I definitely prefer characters that are hot messes, and realize it's all subjective and everyone needs to take me with a grain of salt.

But I've turned against the Mary Sue Rule pretty hard because of the way I see it used. That's a shift for me from past attitudes, but it's kinda pointed against female authors, female characters and oftentimes YA in general. Not too long ago a video popped into my Youtube feed (and I have no idea how, someone needs to talk to Youtube about their algorithm) with the title "Why Do SJWs Always Write Mary Sue Characters?" and that was damn well enough for me.

I don't have a problem with Mary Sue characters. I just want to see a direct weakness caused by their greatness. For example, perhaps their frequent successes earns them enemies and false friends. In my current WIP, one of my protagonists is a form of Mary Sue. He is hyper competent but ruthless and cold about it. This earns him enemies even amongst his friends and his subordinates even his own family find it difficult to trust him. My opinion is any archetype can work. Just throw your unique spin on it. If it works, as was the case with your first two novels, people will pay to read about the character. If not, then it's back to the drawing board.

I remember reading somewhere that a character can be super-competent, or can be relatable, but not both. Characters like James Bond are the former, but you never really necessarily like them. Even when Bond has a character arc, it doesn't fundamentally change him.

On the question of Mary Sues and Gary Stus, I think they fail when they're written primarily as the author's wish fulfillment. Written as something the target audience would identify with, they can be hugely successful.

If the character's perfection (or difference from what is normal for most people) is what drives the stories and its conflicts, then it makes sense for them to be perfect. Ultimately, you need an emotionally compelling arc with obstacles for the character to overcome. A highly capable character will have different obstacles than a more ordinary one.

There are plenty of novels with characters who are incredibly gifted who still struggle, hurt, and mess up. Someone already mentioned Ayla in Clan of the Cave Bear. Also, Kvothe from The Name of the Wind comes to mind (and he is one male character accused of being a "Gary Stu," but the series was still very popular). River in the Firefly series was a genetically engineered superhuman, but she was also a hot mess, so maybe she doesn't count as a Mary Sue. But superheroes are very popular in their larger-than-life struggles, and they are unrealistically strong, very smart and almost always of flawless physique.

I think overpowered characters are problematic when their gifts allow them to effortlessly surmount every obstacle in their path, it makes for dull reading. Also, even extraordinary people have things they want but can't have, at least not easily.

I don't think the "Mary Sue-ness" of your protagonist is the reason your latest novel is more successful. There's probably something about her situation and about the way you are telling her story that appeals to your readers or makes the character appealing.

On the question of Mary Sues and Gary Stus, I think they fail when they're written primarily as the author's wish fulfillment. Written as something the target audience would identify with, they can be hugely successful.

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This too.

Kjbartolotta said:

If someone I'm beta-reading for wants my unvarnished opinion, I have no problem pointing out (carefully, I hope!) that a character is 'too perfect'. I definitely prefer characters that are hot messes, and realize it's all subjective and everyone needs to take me with a grain of salt.

But I've turned against the Mary Sue Rule pretty hard because of the way I see it used. That's a shift for me from past attitudes, but it's kinda pointed against female authors, female characters and oftentimes YA in general. Not too long ago a video popped into my Youtube feed (and I have no idea how, someone needs to talk to Youtube about their algorithm) with the title "Why Do SJWs Always Write Mary Sue Characters?" and that was damn well enough for me.

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YESSSS. Because Rambo, McGuyver, and all the many many male Mary Sues (Gary Sues? Gary Zeus?) before and after were PERFECTLY FINE AND ACCEPTABLE.

My first experience with Mary Sues (and Gary Stus) was in fanfiction . . . it almost always seemed to be someone who was an original character who was always smarter, more athletic, more attractive, more everything than one of the canon characters. I remember reading a Star Wars fanfic back in the early 80s, where the author introduces Luke's sister (before they knew about Leia), and by the end of the story, not only was she a perfect character and a highly competent Jedi Warrior without ANY training, she took pride in making Luke look bad and was romancing Han (mainly because Han was the author's favorite character). It was an obvious author self-insert.

Having a super-powerful character is NOT a Mary Sue/Gary Stu -- Doc Savage/Pat Savage sold a ton of books based on the child who'd been trained since birth to be a brilliant surgeon, mathematician, engineer, crime fighter, and philanthropist by his father. No one has ever called Doc a Gary Stu to my knowledge.

A Mary Sue/Gary Stu is regarded as an authorial insert by common definition.

Stytch said:

YESSSS. Because Rambo, McGuyver, and all the many many male Mary Sues (Gary Sues? Gary Zeus?) before and after were PERFECTLY FINE AND ACCEPTABLE.

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I think the double standard is because many people (most of whom seem to be men) still see highly competent and powerful women as being too inherently unrealistic to allow them to suspend disbelief. Rambo can take on an entire squad of soldiers, but if a woman beats even one man, some guys will howl about how impossible that is. Some have an actual agenda in that respect (think of how most of the people arguing innate brain differences and never the twain shall meet in threads about gender-driven personality traits are guys), while for others it is more subconscious. Note that highly gorgeous, strong women are suddenly okay when they're scantily clad superheroes catering to male gaze.

We still have a long way to go as a society.

Note for the OP--a lot of how a character flies depends on the target audience and on how she is presented. Lots of description about how her body looks and feels to her as she does high kicks, and it's probably a "male gaze" audience. Focus more on the character's struggles and internal conflicts, and the target audience is likely more female and men who are interested in character development, regardless of character gender.

Stytch said:

YESSSS. Because Rambo, McGuyver, and all the many many male Mary Sues (Gary Sues? Gary Zeus?) before and after were PERFECTLY FINE AND ACCEPTABLE.

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Until recent I would have never thought of The Mary Sue as particularly pointed against female MC because there are select examples of female Mary Sues and a million billion male examples. It's a double standard and I don't wanna play anymore, write your Sue and if you ask me to beta I might point out ways to add more nuance if it's helpful.

I definitely refer to characters as Mary Sues and Marty Stus all the time, but mostly just descriptively. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with the trope; like with most tropes it's all about the execution. The protagonist of Patrick Rothfuss's Name of the Wind, for instance, is one of the most massive Marty Stus ever written, and I love those books despite Kvothe's frequently comical degrees of charm, competence, and luck. Stus and Sues might not be super relatable, but they can be lots of fun as pure avatars of escapism.

(Actually I guess I mostly just refer to Marty Stus because I'm having a hard time thinking of any recent Mary Sues I've read off the top of my head. Maybe the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl? Her unflappable unstoppability is a huge part of what makes her so funny and likable)

Do we have a word for reverse-Stu characters who are soul-suckingly awful and incompetent and rely constantly on their more talented / well-adjusted friends to bail them out of trouble?

I suppose we could just take to calling them "Harry Potters."

pharm said:

Do we have a word for reverse-Stu characters who are soul-suckingly awful and incompetent and rely constantly on their more talented / well-adjusted friends to bail them out of trouble?

I suppose we could just take to calling them "Harry Potters."

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Severus Snape, is that you?

(Actually, I was thinking of Harry Potter while reading this thread ).

pharm said:

Maybe the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl? Her unflappable unstoppability is a huge part of what makes her so funny and likable)

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She is the most powerful character in Marvel U, but I tend to think of Doreen as delightfully normal.

lizmonster said:

Laer, you seem to be a logical person, and if you're anything like me, you're constantly analyzing cause and effect. Here, you're worried the cause of your improved sales was your Mary Sue, and you're worried not writing a similar character will make your sales drop again. Logically, though, the most likely causes of your improved sales are a) you have a long publishing history, which gained you some traction among your potential readership; and b) you wrote a damn good book.

We can never know what will and won't make a book work for our readers. But thanks to your successful Mary Sue book, you've got a larger pool of readers waiting for your new work. That's not a bad place to be.

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+1 to this.

I don't know that a character can be a Mary Sue in her own story.
The original of Mary Sues in fan-fiction were author-inserts who were better than all the canon characters at all the things they were best at. Smarter than Spock, better at engineering than Scotty, could treat things that left Bones baffled, and better than Kirk in every way. This is maddening if you want to read a Star Trek ff story with all your old faves, and this brand new character is taking over everything.

But, if the book is clearly a story about Mary Sue and her world, she can be almost perfect. Emma Peel from 'The Avengers' (old British TV show), Supergirl, Pippi Longstocking, etc.
There's a saying "Be the hero of your own story", and I think that's what fixes a Mary Sue. Make her as perfect or as powered as you like, as long as her opponent, or whatever she is facing, provides some actual opposition.

The term "Mary Sue" bothers me so badly.

The reason I think your stories sold just fine is because there is no such thing as a Mary Sue.

Bear with me here, I wanna throw an example you way.

So, there’s this girl. She’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects them all because she dedicated to what is Pure and Good. She has genius level intellect, Olympic-athlete level athletic ability and incredible good looks. She is consumed by terrible angst, but this only makes guys want her more. She has no superhuman abilities, yet she is more competent than her superhuman friends and defeats superhumans with ease. She has unshakably loyal friends and allies, despite the fact she treats them pretty badly. They fear and respect her, and defer to her orders. Everyone is obsessed with her, even her enemies are attracted to her. She can plan ahead for anything and she’s generally right with any conclusion she makes. People who defy her are inevitably wrong.


God, what a Mary Sue.


I just described Batman.

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I didn't write that deliciously perfect example, this person did, and I highly recommend reading the linked article. It gives the best breakdown of all the problems with the concept of Mary Sue that I've ever seen. I'll also rephrase a little of it here.

Mary Sue at her base is little more than a power fantasy.

We see them all the time with male main characters--Batman, James Bond, Luke Skywalker, John Snow, Doctor Who, and almost any superhero or shōnen protagonist ever created, or even the average everyman who gets the super-accomplished and super-hot chick. Heck, Superman's entire shtick is he is super-powerful, so super-intelligent/competent that he can understand and use alien tech he only saw once as a baby, and is beloved by his entire city but also his whole danged world (barring a handful of supervillains). Superman is pretty much the original Mary Sue.

Well, I mean, aside from Dante in Dante's Inferno, which really was just bible fanfiction with the author as the main character. He even included his favorite author as the dude who saved him from hell, and his guide was the woman he'd loved and lost. Really, it doesn't get much more self-insert, power-fantasy fanfictiony than having that girl you have a crush on lead you through unlocking the secrets of the universe while a famous idol swoops in to save your butt. And this has been a classic for centuries.

No one has ever blinked twice at these male power fantasies--it was only when females entered the arena that suddenly the backlash became extreme. Even now male characters are allowed to be as overpowered as they like while female characters written in the same vein are quickly slapped with the Mary Sue label.

It has to be said--and another commentor here already said much the same--this is very much due to gendered views of the world, where men are still seen as people who do, while women are seen as people who are done to. Therefore women characters are asked to justify every gain they make, every power they're handed, and they have to work twice as hard and go through twice as much as a male character to convince certain segments the audience that the character earned the right to her victories.

And the gendered part of it really cannot be ignored.

When discussing Rey from Star Wars, her first movie is seen by many to be deep in Mary Sue territory, her victory unearned, despite the fact that her childhood background would easily have set her up for most of the skills she displayed, and she could believably have picked up the rest along the way (we actually saw her in the situations that would have done it). Contrast with Luke--definitely not a Gary Stu, just ask anybody--who in his first movie was put in charge of a squadron of fighters despite the fact that--as a farm boy--he never would have learned battle tactics, military terms, or even flown that style spaceship before. And the reasoning behind it? "Eh, he shot vermin down on the farm; seems like leader material to me." And this is considered more believable than Rey picking up the trick of influencing minds because she got an up close and personal demonstration of it when another force user tried to mind-rape her.

No one can say Rey is universally beloved (she has friends and enemies), that everything goes her way (she has a pattern of loss-overcome loss-loss-overcome loss, which is typical for chosen-one hero stories), or that she's overpowered (except for her hero's ending, she spends most of the movie floundering, on the run, and often outclassed). She's not even too pretty (attractive, but not hot-sexy-supermodel levels of attractive--and it's a movie, even "ugly" is attractive in Hollywood). But she was quickly decried as a Mary Sue by a lot of people, including--and yes, it needs said--a number of folks who were not misogynistic twits.

I believe--beyond gendered expectations--this is because no one has the slightest idea of what a Sue actually is anymore. The definition has changed too often and become far too broad.

Mary Sue traits have been redefined so often--including calling something a Mary Sue even when it doesn't meet all the criteria--and has been misused so often (which has helped muddy the waters) that, even if she ever had been useful as a feedback tool (and I'll fight'cha on that point), she really isn't any more. She's just too amorphous, too confusing.

In fact, most of her traits could actually be explained much better by other, already existent terms. For instance, instead of calling a character who always has everything go their way a Mary Sue--a characterization critique--it might be better to find out if the author is afraid to hurt their characters (a common newbie error). The latter would be a plot mistake, or even a frame-of-mind mistake, and feedback targeting that issue would help a blossoming author a lot more than telling them they have flawed characterization.

Plus, it does lead to conversations like this one where, when a character that falls under some or all of the classic Sue traits is successful, people can't understand why. The reason is that there's no issue with the character itself. Women can be powerful, intelligent, beloved, attractive, and competent--even all in the same story--and it's fine so long as the character is written well and believably. There is no hard-and-fast universal law that says female characters must earn their right to these things; yes, they can be these things when the story opens, just like men can.

And it leads to people--women especially--being afraid to write the kinds of hero characters that are so easily accepted when they're male. People second guess, self-censor, worry about, and even scrap female characters who seem "too good," just to avoid the Mary Sue label.

Now, some people love this term as strongly as I hate it, so I can't tell you never to use it. If it's really, truly useful to your writing, well...you do you, boo. More the power to ya.

But if you're doubting or questioning your characters because you can't understand why people actually liked the despised Mary Sue...maybe consider that the problem isn't the character or the way you wrote her, but the term itself, and all the baggage it lugs around with it.

So, there’s this girl. She’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects them all because she dedicated to what is Pure and Good. She has genius level intellect, Olympic-athlete level athletic ability and incredible good looks. She is consumed by terrible angst, but this only makes guys want her more. She has no superhuman abilities, yet she is more competent than her superhuman friends and defeats superhumans with ease. She has unshakably loyal friends and allies, despite the fact she treats them pretty badly. They fear and respect her, and defer to her orders. Everyone is obsessed with her, even her enemies are attracted to her. She can plan ahead for anything and she’s generally right with any conclusion she makes. People who defy her are inevitably wrong.

God, what a Mary Sue.

I just described Batman.

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See, I don't care in the slightest about comic books or superhero stuff, but even I know that in a lot of Batman fiction, it's acknowledged that he's a psychological wreck only held together by an adamant adherence to his "no killing" rule—a rule that, while noble, is shown to have its flaws when the villains he refuses to kill end up continuing to cause death and destruction. Like, Superman has an extremely-high power level and strong sense of morality and justice—and thus is pitted against adversaries that have a power level or factor that threatens Superman (kryptonite and magic) or is put into situations that challenge his code of ethics.

Frankly, what makes a Mary-Sue/Gary-Stu is rarely the character themselves, their power level or talents. It's how the story and other characters wrap themselves around a character that can make them a Gary-Stu/Mary-Sue. It's the difference between a story where the villain remains an imposing figure against the protagonist, often requiring the aid of others to overcome or even triumphing over the hero at times, versus a story where the villain becomes completely incompetent in every instance they're pitted against the protagonist.

katfireblade said:

The term "Mary Sue" bothers me so badly.

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Same. I'm old enough to remember the original usage, which was authorial insertion into fanfic.

And you know? It's fanfic. Author wish fulfillment by definition. So what's the harm? Oh, wait, I know: it's female wish fulfillment, and we can't have that, because it's "unrealistic."

"Gary Stu" bugs me just as much, because it's clearly some lame attempt at equivalency that manages to doubly disparage the original usage.

The backlash at so-called Mary Sue characters today is indeed 100% the problem certain elements of SFF fandom have with non-male-centered stories.