@Bone2pick Thank you, and yes I agree, tropes evolve and sometimes devolve over time or die out completely and imagining it as a gradient or spectrum is easier than assuming a perfect example is the only example. That leads to the "purity spiral" when we have to then question what is "perfect", what is pure, and there are flaws however immaterial in every example so in the end there is no "perfect" example. Although I would argue, like I said earlier, that Wesley Crusher is perhaps the closest to a pure, undiluted Mary Sue, the literal archetype of the trope, that we could ever get--I mean if memory serves this trope used to be called "The Wesley" on Tv Tropes for fucks sake. The idea of a dial is very on point here, as I'd say Wesley Crusher is close to or at a 10 on that spectrum, and Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim vs the World is probably a 9.9 out of 10. In both cases you're dealing with what could only be called archetypal examples (PROTOTYPE examples, in Wesley's case, I'd wager) which are as close to the extreme end as you can get. I'd also argue that basically the entire idea spirals out of attempting to write Paragons, but like many things in the hands of a terrible writer, the idea ended up getting shit on. Again using the archetype here, Wesley Crusher was an attempt at a idealized, Paragon-type character who was Gene Roddenberry's author insert...and because he sucked at writing (yes I went there Trekkies) then he failed miserably and created the go-to example of how to write an irredeemably shitty character no one likes which eventually evolved into the concept of a Mary Sue as we see it today. A cheap knock off of the original, who was himself a poor imitation of another, older character concept. @Fallow Well first off I'd point out there are literally a dozen different types of "Dragons" in mythology so the idea that "Dragon" just means "big monster" has existed since Greek myth. Hydras are technically dragons by any logical examination, they're gigantic fire-breathing lizards with quasi-immortality, but there was also a creature Hercules fights after that which is LITERALLY called a dragon--and is also a giant lizard with napalm breath. Then you have the Asian Dragons which are giant snakes more closely associated with nature spirits than kidnapping princesses, and about a dozen other examples. The concept of "the dragon is just a big scary animal, typically reptilian" has existed for millennia and again there is an entire trope to this where they go into different types of dragons. But regardless, I did provided examples, which are as close to perfect as possible outside of fanfics or literally perfect, but again if we go down the purity spiral then we start moving to such an extreme example even the ORIGINAL Mary Sue wouldn't count as a Mary Sue. Which I have a feeling is the point, to erase the concept from existence because it's too easy to point out how most modern characters, especially political soap boxes, are just Mary Sues. Someone posted a video where they point this out but the fact the characters are, now and then, almost overwhelmingly female and in modern times almost exclusively part of some kind of "oppressed" minority group, real or imagined, isn't a coincidence. Or how any accusation of being a Mary Sue immediately is met with "oh you don't like X character because they're Y minority/gender/etc". I honestly don't understand why people can't call a spade a spade and just say they're an attempt by certain authors to create idealized Paragons belonging to some group, likely one they belong to, and because they suck at it the characters come off as grating and annoying to the viewers or readers and the writer falls back on throwing the race/gender/etc card. That's all it is, there ain't no more. The official definition of a Mary Sue, one that basically everyone agreed on, stood for decades and it's only in the Current Year that people started trying to WHEEELL AAAHKTUALLEEE that well-understood definition into the ground because the powers that be realized the "characters" they created to "represent" them were actually just Mary Sues and not even very imaginative ones. Kamala Kahn--finally looked her name up--is effectively a perfect example of a Mary Sue and were she not a Muslim character, would have been labeled as one and discarded as such years ago, but now she's wrapped in plot armor because of her religion despite being a poorly thrown together mishmash of ideas built on a Paragon archetype and given Mister Fantastic's stretchy powers. Rather that admit the character is at best a token and at worst a poorly disguised author insert (or in this case literally both) they WHAAAL AHKATUALLLY any dissenters into submission and try to logically contort the definition of Mary Sue such that it ceases to exist. It's literally Socialism Is Good In Theory as a character study--under this definition "no one" has tried "real" socialism before, despite the fact that the groups who DID actually called themselves socialists in their party name. It's a purity spiral meant to force people to divorce themselves from what socialism is or what it means or how it failed and instead try to say The United Socialist Republic of X wasn't "actually" a socialist republic, a logical contortion to keep the plebs at bay.
I like Patrick Rothfuss's writing style - maybe one of a few authors that could open a book with half a page of talking about silence and not bore me to death. His actual writing is good, but I struggled with his main character a bit. Although, I don't know if I agree that he was a "Mary Sue". He may of had elements of that but I think quite a few characters do when you look closely.
Correct - dragons are a real thing in fiction, with a multitude of solid examples. And only one real Mary Sue, from a parody. In a fan fiction. Parodying other badly written fan fiction. It isn't a "well, actually" situation when someone creates what is essentially a warning against bad writing that no published work before or since has really violated. Of course, since you have "Mary Sue" to use as a one size fits all complaint, you want to use it on a Muslim character that displays none of Mary Sue's faults. Primarily, because she is so imperfect - like the Peter Parker character she's modeled on. But you don't care, because there is no clear other (publicly acceptable) way to complain about a Muslim girl character.
Comparing a subgenre like post-apocalyptic fiction to a character type like Mary Sue is really disingenuous. One is obviously going to be very broad, the other much narrower. Finding character types that are similarly narrowly defined isn't hard. So yeah, it's impossible for a character to be a Sue if they fail to meet the requirements for being such. That's how labels work. I don't see author insertion as a necessary aspect of Sues. It's a common root cause, but so is the desire to make a "cool" character, or a reluctance to make things hard on a character you've come to like as you developed them. Political soapboxing and strawmanning are mostly separate from the Sue discussion, as far as I'm concerned. Especially when accusations of soapboxing seem to amount to "politics I don't like are portrayed positively". There is occasionally some overlap, but those egregious cases are pretty rare. Turning to Katniss: 1) she gets adoration because she's the first non-career tribute to win in a while, and even better she won on her terms, not the Capitol's. The exploited districts see her as "someone like us". The carefully woven narrative pushed by her handlers surely helped, too. 2) I don't see any coddling. She's a clear underdog throughout the first book, and the rest of the series puts her through the wringer. By the end, she's traumatized and disillusioned. 3) It's not like Katniss overthrows the Capitol on her own. That was the result of a large scale rebellion. One in which she had more power as a symbol than as a fighter. Katniss primarily served as a focal point for decades of pent up angry at exploitation and repression. You can look at Jan Hus for a real life parallel. 4) How exactly is she a "blatant" self-insert? In summary, she doesn't look like a Sue to me. She looks like a fairly standard hero. Who's defending the character archetype? I just don't see anybody doing that, here or elsewhere. I've seen people shrug, because the accusations are so common they've lost all meaning. I've seen people say a character isn't a Sue in the first place. But I think you and OP are the only people who've put up anything even resembling a defense of the archetype here. Oh, come now, Sues are hardly a left wing thing. You can find plenty of far right ones in bad military sci-fi and the like. Victoria is a standout example, and has one of the only Sues I've ever seen in original, published fiction. Nothing says Gary Sue quite like fighting modern armor with WW2 era tanks and winning. On a side note, is it possible for you to stay on topic and not lash out at your favored political targets all the time? It's exhausting and adds nothing to the discussion.
The requirements for what constitutes a Mary Sue are as subjective as the requirements for what constitutes purple prose or info dump. And there's no getting around that.
Which is why I'll say once again that subjective criteria like "does the character soapbox?", "is the character a self insert?", etc. ought to be ditched in favor of more objective ones like "does the character ever lose or suffer setbacks?" or "do the character's flaws, weaknesses, or limitations ever cause them difficulty in pursuing a goal?".
I don't believe the majority of people can ditch subjective criteria, because it's just as much of the subjective criteria that conjures impressions of a Mary Sue, as anything objective does. For example: having unearned admiration or love from other characters. That generally happens in subjective territory. I might argue that, in some Bond films, 007 doesn't earn the near instant attraction he gets from the movie's most beautiful women. And you, in return, might try and argue otherwise. The fact that we can have that argument in no way means that quality (unearned admiration/attraction) isn't a characteristic of a Mary Sue. It is, and it's almost always going to be debatable. You can't sensibly divorce the subjective from Mary Sue, anymore than you can sensibly divorce it from purple prose or info dump.
You can articulate the admiration angle in objective ways, though. For example, is there a stated reason for why the character is admired? Does everybody else admire this character? Etc.
Then there could never be any legitimate criticism of a character being a Mary Sue ever (which I assume is the point) because EVERY character has some minor "setback" or a immaterial "flaw" that impedes them just to have tension in a fight scene. Even Snow White who was LITERALLY physically perfect and her only "flaw" was being too trusting and kind and her only "setback" was falling asleep for a few hours until her perfect boyfriend kissed her and then carried her off to rule the Seven Kingdoms beside him--presumably she was an relative of Margaery Tyrell. Which would also handily explain why a crazy vain bitch in a castle tying to kill her. Actually...holy shit I think I just found a spoiler for Season 8... Anyway... Those concepts are so sweepingly broad as to be non-existent. And even then, as I said, I offered an objective definition and one which stood for literally decades: a Mary Sue is a character who has all the shimmering beauty of a Paragon, the impeccable perfection and flawless execution, but we're never given any reason WHY other than the fact they're blatant author inserts or political mouthpieces for said author. Which is why, as I pointed out, Twilight Sparkle and Rey are polar opposites. Both are irrationally kind, loving, adored by everyone, have otherworldly powers they pull out of their asses at JUST THE RIGHT SECOND and never fail at anything in any material, realistic way--but one is also given a legitimate character arc, realistic flaws that only the viewer may pick up on, and logical reasons for why they do what they do...and the other is Rey. So naturally one, Twilight, is beloved by the fanbase to the point of being idolized, and the other is hated by a huge majority of long time fans.
It's often difficult to do so. More importantly, the "ruling" in those cases will always come down to a subjective judgement call. In that respect it's similar to a court of law - the evidence and arguments are presented, and then a judge or jury has to decide if the defendant is innocent or guilty.
Alan Moore actually wrote Watchmen intentionally to subvert Grimdark. Ozymandius is supposed to be wrong. In the comics, there is an interacial friendship between this old black man and a white kid and when Ozymandius destroys New York along with other cities they are depicted with the old man, Bernie, attempting to shield his friend with his last breath. A tragic but potent expression that there is some good in humanity. Much as the superheroes attempts to stop him show that people are still willing to hold to their ideas, and Manhattan who has abandoned humanity is the only one who really agrees with him. Adrian Veidt is a psychopath with a thought-provoking but ultimately immoral plan to create peace that has no guarantee of lasting as much as he thinks it will. I agree with your distinction between Grimdark and anti-heroes done well but you misunderstand Alan Moore's career, which has been misused as a justification for the likeableness of ham-handed Grimdark. Tropetalks has a good video about this as well.
I just read all 307 words of A Trekkie's Tale, the infamous flash fanfic that supposedly has the perfect Mary Sue. And in it, Mary Sue gets overwhelmed, captured, and imprisoned by "green androids," which is a setback... That means that even the original Mary Sue isn't, in fact, a Sue by X Equistris standards.
None of what you're venting about has anything to do with Mary Sue anythings. Not your hate for Islam, not the character's familiar powers or not unique history. Those have zero to do with the thread topic. Zilch, nada. It just doesn't sound like you have made any actual connections between the Mary Sue thing and Ms. Marvel at all. But it does sound like you have a lot of misdirected rage, which might be clouding your judgement. Either way, the more you explain your position, the less likely you are to get ANYONE to agree with it. Even if someone felt a vague connection to some of your arguments, all the hate speech makes you a pretty unlikely ally because no one here wants to be thought of as a bigot, or the bigot's pal. You are the guy calling all Muslims members of a "murderous doomsday cult". No one wants a piece of that on a website catering to the thoughtful use of language.
Shameless Plug: I just started a new web serial about a bunch of people born special. Come critique in the comments and tell me they are all Sues: https://johncalligan.com/2019/03/31/wayfaring-princess-chapter-1/
I take it you've not encountered many fanfic Sues, because they never suffer those setbacks or have those flaws. There's no tension in the fights. This is the reason Sues are so garbage in the first place. Something tells me you're not familiar with the story of Snow White. Not even the Disney version. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Seven_Dwarfs_(1937_film) To summarize: 1) forced into drudge work by a hateful step mother. 2) step-mother orders her death for being more beautiful 3) the assassin doesn't go through with it; Snow White has to flee into the wilderness 4) poisoned 5) cursed into a comatose state for a year That's a fair number of setbacks. And while we often jeer at flaws like "too beautiful" or "too kind", that's because those traits rarely cause the character who has them troubled. But if your looks spur someone to kill you, if your trusting nature nearly leads to your death, thos can rightly be argued as flaws. You offered a definition, often not objective...and most of the characters who supposedly fit it don't. Looking at Rey: 1) She's not perfect/flawless. She's got trouble letting go, and many of her choices early on are based on the delusion that her family is ever going to come back for her. As I pointed out, this ends up getting her captured. She's also rather ignorant, as the scene where Luke asks her what she knows about the Force shows. 2) She has failed. The confrontation with Snoke is merely the most clear example. 3) She doesn't pull powers out of nowhere. Her abilities are in line with other force users we're shown. Rey only consciously uses them after finding out she's Force sensitive, and then uses them in a way she's heard stories about. 4) There's no trace of author insertion or political soapboxing. Rey's in the clear, by your own definition.
Of course she doesn't fit it. That's because the word's usage evolved a great deal before it left the Trek fandom. Originally, Sues were self insert main characters in fanfic. And only fanfic. By that standard, none of the Sue candidates presented in this thread fit.
@X Equestris "Caring about people too much" isn't a flaw, and "missing your parents" isn't either, and the only reason she gets "captured" is to create tension which is immediately dismissed when she OUT OF NOWHERE uses telepathic powers she never demonstrated previously to escape. And for all her alleged "ignorance" about the Force, she seems able to use it with little to no training and outdo people like Kylo who were trained their whole lives to do so. And for someone who "failed" to stop Snoke, convincing his primary general to help her overthrow him and then kill him sure seems less like a failure than you make it out to be. And yes she does pull powers out of nowhere and we have never seen anyone do some of the crazy shit she did, since we see people like Count Dorky in the prequels barely be able to crack some concrete and Yoda, FUCKING YODA, have trouble lifting it...then she moves a mountain. Fucking whuh? As to the "no political soapbox" the actual writer of the movie specifically said that he intended the movie, and by extension the main character, to "subvert" the previous films, and given some time I could find quotes so give me a few minutes and I'll look it up. So no Rey isn't "in the clear" unless you're referring to how thinly veiled a political insert she is, in which case yes she's all but transparent. @Fallow Of course, sidestep all you want, I had a feeling you didn't read a word of that past "I don't like Islam"so whatever. Ok I'll drop the "hate speech" and repeat my points again: "Which goes back to my point that the reason everyone is so butthurt about the standing definition and substrata which has existed for DECADES about what a Mary Sue is bothers Liberals so much, because EVERY character they create is a Mary Sue since they simultaneously lionize and infantilize minorities and giving minority characters ACTUAL legit flaws (not "she's too nice" or "he's just so damn kind" but like alcoholism or racism, etc) would break their narrative and we can't have that. Which isn't inherently a problem, because as I said, the impeccable Paragon is a stock character too and a far older and more widely seen one. However, this combination of "don't hurt the oppressed peoplez" and "I want *insert they/them pronouns* to be awesome" created bizarre, bastardized versions of the Paragon which are the Current Year, political soapbox Mary Sues which in turn are just a de-evolution of the older author insert Mary Sues from which the concept originated. Again, a bootleg of a bootleg wrapped in an enigma. Originally, all pretenses of "parody" aside, author insert pseudo-Paragons were a dime a dozen for years, still are, and all the original concept of a Mary Sue did was give it a name that's easier to say. And even if we go with this "omg it all started a parody omg" logic, a parody can only EXIST if there is something TO PARODY, i.e. something to make fun of so the reader knows what you're talking about, which means it must have been something omnipresent enough in fiction to be recognized and called out by someone to write parody in the first place. So even if it started as" just a silly parody" it must have been, by definition, recognizing a preexisting concept FIRST. There must have been some kind of a shitty Paragon rip-off template used as blatant author inserts, and that is what a Mary Sue is, or was, until it became more recently supplanted by the new political soapbox Sue. Same shit, different orifice."
And now it's evolved to mean something that makes you uncomfortable. Still, it's hilarious that your standard not only excludes every popular fiction character, but also the original Mary Sue! I mean... That's an absurd standard if there ever is one.
Having absolutely no setbacks isn't the thing. It's when the setbacks feel unsufficiently consequential and most of the story seems designed to advance the sue's image, whether through their misery, sympathetic villain awesomeness, or typical hero coolness. Sueness in relation to their unstoppability and overpoweredness can occur in different ways.
This thread is an excellent example of how to belittle others and push your agenda under the pretense of being "on topic." Edited to fix error
No, it was just a parody of bad writing, not a thoughtful criticism of fictional archetypes. Mary Sue isn't a character but a badly written story.
Of course not, because it's a purity spiral, they want to get more and more and more nitpicky and technical until NOTHING can fit the definition to make the bad words go away. This is, literally, how Newspeak is described by the way. Slowly mutating and erasing well-defined concepts and terms to replace them with increasingly meaningless definitions until the word disappears entirely, all to prevent anyone from seeing how it realistically should be used. Because if they did, they'd use it realistically, and the people pushing the Newspeak would be the main target of the criticism.
