What Even is a Mary Sue?
Creating a strong character who is strong and compelling is difficult work for a writer. Main characters are expected to be likable, which often means they’re expected to be competent, smart, and to have some unique characteristics that make them important enough to be worthy of being the lead. But fiction, especially the fantasy genre, tends to be about escapism as much as it does about expression, for both the readers and the writers. The desire of writers to project onto characters may manifest itself a lot through the creation of the Mary-Sue characters, but what exactly is a Mary Sue?
There are plenty of litmus tests that writers are advised to use to figure out if their character is a Mary Sue, but the problem with these is that the term “Mary Sue” has mutated over time to the point where many label any character that overindulges in any of the traits found in these tests as a Mary Sue. They do so regardless of this character’s importance to the story, often because they simply don’t like that character. Yet a character can have traits like being incorruptible, or powerful, or hypercompetent, and still avoid being a Mary Sue if there is a good enough explanation as to why they have these characteristics. A character can seem overpowered and maybe read as “too good to be true” in theory, but in the context of the story, they can actually be well-developed and three-dimensional characters.
We see this issue come up with characters like Rey from Star Wars. Some are of the opinion that Rey showed little growth throughout the series and is too perfect being able to fly the Millenium Falcon better than Solo and be a better Jedi than Luke with little to no training.
Yet there are other analyses of her character that posit that she actually does have good reasons for being so incredibly powerful including the fact that she trained under Leia for a year and that she absorbed some of Kylo Ren’s powers. She is also established early on to be living as a scavenger = in the harsh wasteland of Jakku and therefore needed to learn how to fight and disassemble spaceships for survival. If her skills can be justified, does that give her a pass, and is her being considered a Mary-Sue sexist?
There is no denying that the Mary Sue character has some very gendered origins. The name was originally given to a female character in a 1973 Star Trek parody story “A Trekkie’s Tale,” written by Paula Smith and published in the fanzine Menagerie. This publication served as one of the original platforms for fanfiction, and this story highlighted a growing trend found in many of the stories submitted to the publication: that of unrealistic and idealized characters often serving as wish fulfillment for the authors. These characters were often women who were created by women.
The Harry Potter fanfiction My Immortal has one of the most notorious examples in the character of Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way. She’s stronger than Voldemort while putting no effort into anything, every male character is in love with her, and she is so beautiful it almost inconveniences her. It’s been speculated that like the trope originator, the story was a parody of all the self-insert fan fiction that usually featured this type of character.
One of the best-known published examples of a Mary Sue is Bella Swan of Twilight. Bella is noted for her lack of personality and her informed attributes like her maturity and intelligence that don’t really play out in the story but merely serve to make her seem impressive. She is able to get both Edward, a century-old vampire who hasn’t shown romantic interest in any prior to her, and Jacob, a local werewolf, to fall in love with her without being particularly interesting. She shows no growth as a character and when she turns into a vampire she becomes one of the strongest vampires in the series, despite her youth and previous weakness.
But just because the term Mary Sue is often applied to women doesn’t mean the trope is reserved for women. The term Gary-Stu is applied to over-idealized male characters with all the same traits designated to a Mary-Sue. A generally agreed-upon example of a Gary-Stu is Star Trek’s Wesley Crusher. He is inexplicably smart for his age, serving as a boy genius, and is often relied upon to solve problems but shows no growth throughout the show.
Some have speculated that Geralt of Rivia from The Witcher games qualifies as a Gary-Stu because he is incredibly strong and skilled and manages to attract a lot of women. But in video games, the plot is required to revolve around the protagonist by necessity, and the character is going to achieve a level of surrogacy for the audience by virtue of the fact that the player is controlling them. The story and huge events that take place and important characters are expected to interact with a video game character to keep the plot moving, and the character is generally as strong and capable as the player is. As such, video game characters may well be exempt from criticism as Mary-Sues.
This complicates what actually constitutes a Mary Sue. Certain genres may be considered exempt from such criticism by virtue of what they are. Escapist works like fairy tales and superhero comics feature princesses like Belle of Beauty and the Beast and Superman. These are certainly idealized characters in their beauty, intelligence, powers, and general goodness. Yet their genres dictate that this may very well be the point of such characters, they are catalysts for audiences to experience fantastical, romanticized stories through.
There are many different interpretations of what a Mary Sue actually is. The label may be slapped on characters audiences simply dislike. It may be used for poorly written characters, cliched characters, author inserts, or power fantasies.
Their role in the story may be what actually defines the character as a Mary Sue. If they are the center of attention, or if they are original characters in fanfictions, they may be dubbed a Mary Sue. The character being infallible might be the typical Mary Sue yet overloading the character with flaws doesn’t necessarily remedy the issue, they can still be characterized as a Mary Sue. Really the term can mostly be defined by example, because ultimately whether or not a character is a Mary Sue is up to the audience and their judgment of the writing.
