Is this a good Mary Sue Test?

Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Prettyinpnk, Apr 1, 2018.

  1. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    I've never read the book, but I enjoyed the film :D (Interview with a Vampire that is)

    As for that guy there, I thought that was Frodo.

    Sorry... :whistle:
     
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  2. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    Maybe that's why there hasn't been another Jack Reacher film though. Not only was the character miscast, but the entire film was terrible. Sometimes holding onto your artistic integrity has its advantages...

    That said, yeah, I'd have said yes too for that amount of cash. And he probably thought it was sure to be a success with Tom Cruise behind it - he's a pretty big star, regardless of how people see him nowadays.
     
  3. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Yeah, for a second I thought he was Frodo as well. :)
     
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  4. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Harumph. He's a lot younger than me. :wtf:
     
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  5. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Frodo? Elijah Wood? :bigconfused:

    Wounded.

    Fatally wounded.

    Don't even bother taking me to the A&E. Just call the coroner. :dead:
     
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  6. Odile_Blud

    Odile_Blud Active Member

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    This looks like one of those sites where any mumbo-jumbo with a computer can make a quiz (Quibblo.com)--so I'm gonna say no. Honestly, I wouldn't worry about it. Create the character you feel works best for your story. Online quizzes can't tell you whether or not it works.
     
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  7. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    Had you read the book before you saw the movie? I can see how he might be an okay Lestat in a vacuum, but he was just so TOTALLY not what I was picturing for the character that I could never really get past it.
     
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  8. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    No, I only saw the film, and then more or less by accident. It's not the kind of book or film I normally read or watch as I'm not a fan of vampires. But I happened to be home and when the film came on I started watching it ...and got hooked. I thought it was an excellent and extremely quirky film, but again, I'm not really a person who 'knows' this genre at all, and I hadn't read the book.
     
  9. 123456789

    123456789 Contributor Contributor

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    Tom Cruise is awesome, not over the hill at all.

    Neither is Christie Brinkley, at 63...
     
  10. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    awwww....
    frodo.png
    frodo2.png
     
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  11. LastMindToSanity

    LastMindToSanity Contributor Contributor

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    http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm

    If you're still looking for a test, then the rules of this one imply that it would be far more accurate and fair than the one you put up originally.
     
  12. EstherMayRose

    EstherMayRose Gay Souffle Contributor

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    That quiz did make me laugh. One of my MCs is in danger of being a Mary-Sue because she owns a (cheap) leather jacket, is modest, and dares to share my religious views. What that person has failed to understand is that individual traits alone cannot be good or bad (rather like eating healthily), and that there are some circumstances that make so-called Mary-Sue traits more acceptable - for example, if they lived in a world where hybrids were very common. (And, I have to say, I got in a massive tangle over the question about knowing their birth parents at the beginning of the book - the girl I'd chosen to put through the wringer knew her mum but not her dad!)

    @LastMindToSanity read my mind - I was going to link to that too! It's a truly great test that - provided you read the instructions carefully - lets you develop your character/plot even as you take it. ("Hmm, I've never thought about that, does she play an instrument?") It also takes into account special circumstances, like the ones I mentioned earlier, and seems to have been really well-thought out. I run all my characters through it. In fact, I'd recommend clicking around the entire site, it's got a great section about characterisation in general, as well as loads of other great articles, which I find really entertaining. So yeah.

    And leave Korra alone! :)
     
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  13. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    There has - they made 'never go back' - it wasn't as bad as 'one shot' but yeah not great.
     
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  14. Mckk

    Mckk Member Supporter Contributor

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    The fact that I have actually never heard about the second one tells me something of its success. Is Lee Child still writing Reacher these days? I remember seeing someone in Facebook who was actually called Jack Reacher lol.
     
  15. TheRealStegblob

    TheRealStegblob Kill All Mages Contributor

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    I didn't watch Legend of Korra or anything, but I'll just say that a character can be all of those things you described and still be a Mary Sue. Just because a character has flaws or weaknesses doesn't absolve them of other Mary Sue-isms.
     
  16. John Calligan

    John Calligan Contributor Contributor

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    A mary sue can lose fights in a world that's rolling on without her?

    What's a mary sue?
     
  17. John Calligan

    John Calligan Contributor Contributor

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    I watched them both after a surgery while on tons of pain medicine, and I loved them both lol
     
  18. TheRealStegblob

    TheRealStegblob Kill All Mages Contributor

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    This can be a difficult question, because not all Mary Sues are inherently obvious (even if most classically are). Just because a character loses fights or gets hurt doesn't necessarily mean they can't be a Mary Sue. If Bella Swan from Twilight, for instance, lost fights and ended up in the hospital, would you no longer consider her to be a Mary Sue? It might seem contradictory that a Mary Sue, someone who is supposed to be perfect in every way, would lose fights or be weaker than other characters, but the best (worst) Sues are the ones that, at passing glance, seem to just be normal characters.

    I didn't watch Legend of Korra or Avatar the Last Air Bender but I know Avatar was all about the main character being "the chosen one" and stuff like that, so if that was present in Korra, perhaps people complain she's a Mary Sue because there's too much 'chosen one' prophecy surrounding her? I'm just mindlessly speculating, of course. It could easily be that people calling Korra a Mary Sue are doing so totally baselessly. My point is just that a character can seem imperfect or even have flaws but still be a Mary Sue. Just because your Mary Sue loses fights and sucks at some stuff so the author can try to conveniently avoid writing a character being a Mary Sue doesn't mean it's mission accomplished.
     
  19. Azuresun

    Azuresun Senior Member

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    I think this thread (and many others like it) demonstrate why such tests are usually useless, because MS is very much in the eye of the beholder, and is often shorthand for "character I dislike for any number of reasons".

    If I had to choose, I think the common trait of Mary Sues is that the author tries too hard to force the reader to like the character rather than letting it happen naturally, and is refusing to accept that the character won't be everyone's cup of tea.
     
  20. LastMindToSanity

    LastMindToSanity Contributor Contributor

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    Don't mind this. I ranted for a bit, but I lost interest after I posted it.
     
    Last edited: Apr 2, 2018
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  21. EstherMayRose

    EstherMayRose Gay Souffle Contributor

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    First off, you are missing out, my friend! :) ATLA focused largely on the difficulties of being the "chosen one" - I.E., that he has to fight a very powerful man with a large, highly-trained army behind him, and save the entire world from a war that has caused a century's worth of devastation and bloodshed by training in skills that have taken his predecessors years to master and defeating said army by the end of the summer with five friends to help him - and did I mention that he's twelve years old?

    Korra went the opposite way. While Aang didn't feel up to the task of being the Avatar and needed lots of successes to boost his confidence, Korra couldn't wait to start her duties and was certain of success at every turn, and so she needed to be taught that life wasn't that easy. In the very first episode, she beats up some thugs, trashing a street as she does so, and is shocked and appalled when the police arrest her too. It's not just that she loses a couple of times and breezes through the other fights, it's that she loses all the time, and even when she wins at the end of each season, she has suffered a heavy loss. It's got a darker tone than ATLA, and even the mooks can deliver a good beating, and yes, at the end of season three, she is poisoned and has to take three years out to recuperate while a dictator rises to power. She then has to prove that she has recovered while fighting off PTSD and losing an important battle because of the above. There was no more "chosen one" prophecy surrounding her than Aang - in fact, it was more sort of a "you're the Avatar, do your job (and accept blame for my problems)" type of thing.

    Rant over. With that batch of spoilers, I'd recommended watching both series. :)

    Yeah. That was very off-topic. Sorry, guys.
     
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  22. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    Which is why I gave up on Lestat somewhere around Memnoch. He was turning into a comic book character.
     
  23. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Yeah there's about 25 of them now ... and cruise has allegedly paid an option fee for first dibs on movie rights on all and future Reacher books.
     
  24. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    I don't recall Reacher being particularly good looking in the novels, and I never considered him charming, but he's pretty much a Mary Sue. He's smarter, faster, and stronger than any of the bad guys. The books are fun reads, which is why they're popular. Deep literature, they're not.
     
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  25. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    I thought he'd gone DC or Marvel long before that ;) , but I finished Memnoch the Devil and then, some time later, read The Vampire Armand. It was interesting to watch Rice go through her phases of on-again, off-again Catholicism (is it wrong to reach through the words and try to touch the author?) and in Armand, she abandoned any pretense that all these novels weren't mild erotica and went full-bore Venetian-youths-in-a-decadent-palazzo torrid.
     
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