So for the OP, if you want to analyze marysueness/garysueness, watch Star Wars I guess. And isn't Anakin like the most ridiculed protagonist in the universe? Again, I've only observed the fandom from the sidelines and people seem to have a lot to say, for better or worse.
And here's where the 'individual opinion' comes in. I like Anakin, Luke and Rey as Jedi protagonists. I know the 'Chosen One' is one of the more disliked tropes but they invoked it, and Anakin's skills may have been exaggerated but they stuck with what was established. Anakin was an immature person but I think it worked for his character arc.
Another possible argument for Rey coming up to speed faster than Luke could be her background. She had, as far as I can tell, an almost entirely unprotected childhood and adolescence, so she had to use every talent she had, and take big risks and have a lot of faith in herself in that risk-taking, just to survive. There was a lot of that Yoda-esque "there is no try" in her life. Luke, on the other hand, had a fairly conventional, safe, if anything over-protected childhood. A lot of his story in the movies is about him having faith in his own abilities; that appears to be his block in learning the force. Now, the movie didn't, as far as I can tell, make that argument. I'm making it for the movie because I want to like the movie.
He's ridiculed, but his Episode 1 version, wasn't and isn't called a Sue or a Gary STu like Rey is, showing how gendered the insult is.
I don't really see "mary sue" or "gary stu" as insults. I think they're terms we use to identify specific tropes in fiction, similar to "white savior" or "hooker with a heart of gold". I'd venture to guess the reason it was applied to female characters at first stems from fan fiction centered around the kind of female characters @jannert described above. Having said that, I often feel like female characters are judged more harshly than males. Sure, Ellen Ripley and Sarah Connor are universally loved, but perhaps male heroes get more leeway because they exhibit qualities we associate more easily with men than women.... But this is getting a little OT.
I think the Mary sue trope is way more prevalent than Star Wars. I haven't read all of Dan Brown's Robert Langdon novels (and probably shouldn't have read any) , but let me just say, that character who is supposed to be some hot shit historian doesn't do anything without having it practically handed it to him first. When I think of a Mary Sue I imagine what it might be like if a prince were to insist he be allowed to enter a duel. He'd be given the best crafted sword of the finest metal and the best armor on the planet. His "opponent,", naked, would have a short wooden sword, be drugged, and told privately if he doesn't let the prince kill him his entire family gets their heads chopped off.
Nothing wrong with Mary-Sue if the read is fun. [?] I spent two days reading a mid-level anthology, all the writes were so very well crafted but they were so boring, you could see the safe little worms at the keyboard, seemed like the editor was in the same game. It confused me.
I looked up "Mary Sue character" on google, and got this Wikipedia entry. Interesting in itself, but near the end it has a section on Rey, and various viewpoints on whether she is a Mary Sue or not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue
White saviour and hooker with a heart of gold have concrete meanings. Mary Sue is an insult because unlike legit tropes and writing practices, it's meaning is whatever the critic wants it to and is used on female characters who get too uppity. As far as I'm concerned, if you have a female lead and she's called a Mary Sue, that's just a rite of passage at this point. It just means you've arrived.
I don't quite see it this way, and I find no problem attributing 'Mary Sue' characteristics to males as well as females. (Patrick Rothfuss's main character in the Kingkiller Chronicles, Kvothe, is a case in point.) I don't see it as a point of argument, actually. It's simply a useful thing to think about, as a writer. As a writer, are you making a character who is too perfect? Who has too much going for him/her? Whose problems almost seem to solve themselves? Whose skill sets are many and advance more quickly than is believable? (Believability can be achieved many ways. For example, child prodigies do exist. However, they are not just somebody who sits down at the piano for the first time, and in an hour or so can produce a classical concerto to rival the best pianists in the world. Prodigies are people, who, as children, are extraordinarily talented, but they don't just achieve perfection casually. They are generally very VERY focused and work very hard.) It's something I think about as a writer, now that I have learned what a Mary Sue is. In fact, I actually like many 'Mary Sue' characters ...including the infamous Wesley Crusher from Star Trek, whom I found perfectly acceptable. He was just very intelligent, and we've all known people who are intelligent. In some ways, he was socially inept, and that kind of made up for his extra smartness. However, I don't like Mary Sues when their storylines make everything too smooth and too good to be true. They get out of scrapes far too easily, and suffer few consequences. It makes for a boring story, if the characters aren't challenged enough. I think that makes the topic a good one for writers to be aware of.
If someone spends two paragraphs going into problems that may well be legitimate, than tacking on the term "Mary Sue" adds nothing but antagonise the writer, because you're calling the character illegitimate and lumping the character with such luminous company as Eragon, Sonichu, Rose Jamie Potter, Dementia Ravenway, and Bella Swan. Here we come to what is the purpose of literary criticism? Is it to engage constructively or vent? Mary Sue belongs in the category of angry readers who want to vent their frustration at the writing. It is a catharsis and a form of social bonding among anti communities and sporkers, which is meant to be for entertainment.
I watched the above video motherconfessor linked to and I actually agree with the video's definition, even though I hadn't thought of it in those terms before The main points I took away from it (and these are direct quotes from the above video): Mary Sues are symptomatic of a strain of poor writing where the author prioritizes the glorification of a specific character over the story they're actually trying to tell The story only exists to serve the image of the character The Mary Sue distorts the world around them, changing how characters act & reality works to put the focus on them The Mary Sue is the center of attention at the expense of everything else 「she explains how this can be with either positive or negative attributes」
In terms of the original question, I think the dividing line between a standard unlikeable character and a Mary Sue is author intent, or at least the perceived author intent. Sometimes authors set out to write unlikeable characters. They may be unlikeable because they're spoiled, things come too easily for them, etc - a lot of the same qualities as a Mary Sue. But the author intends (or seems to intend) that the character be disliked. A Mary Sue is a character the author seems to want readers to like, or even love.
I guess we could argue 'til cows come home what trope constitutes as legit, or if this is something that's just subjective? If it's in TVTropes, it's legit? Etc. "Mary Sue" has baggage, it's loaded, and it may be thrown around too lightly, and some people might even use it to insult writers -- I acknowledge that. I also wouldn't necessarily use it when I give serious critique because of all the negative connotations attached to it. We could replace it with some other word (power fantasy, wish fulfillment etc.), but on the other hand, it kinda feels like replacing 'idiot' with 'retarded', 'retarded' with 'intellectually disabled' and so on, so I wouldn't throw it into the bonfire yet. But since the discussion is "What's the difference between 'Mary Sue' and an unlikable character" and by proxy, how we define "Mary Sue", we kind of have to focus on that specific term, and it's another topic whether or not it should ever be uttered or typed when critiquing another writer's work. Personally I wouldn't be offended or insulted, but that tends to be the case with anything controversial; offense is often taken, not given.
Rogue one is by a significant margin the best star wars, at least to me. The most realistic and meaningful I felt. As they say for a series with "wars" in it, it is very clearly the first one about actual war. Things go wrong, people die, people aren't perfect and strategy is more important than being brave which normally somehow makes the hero super useful. Fully recommend.
The same tv tropes that calls it a derogatory term in the very first sentence of the article? Let's start with this on whether it's an insult or a legit trope: Would you tell it to a writer on this forum? Would you call their character a Mary Sue and expect a constructive interaction?
Looking up Kvothe gets me results about him being "reckless" and "quick-tempered" as substantial character traits. Doesn't sound too bad even if the character is exceptionally lucky.
People's problem was he was TOO whiny. He felt like you were supposed to like him; other better characters did, but he just seemed like an idiot.
I just checked my Goodreads comment on that book... DNF at about 40% listened to. This book is DRAGGING. I don't like the MC (he's just way too much of a Marty Stu)... So, yup, I'm with you on that one!
I never felt like Eragon was perfect. He's actually pretty goofy and impulsive regularly. And he gets all kinds of physical trauma and grief so he's not aggressively lucky either.
