Dispelling the myth - the Mary Sue problem.

By some people's criteria, if you based a SW character on Robert E. Lee, he'd be called a Mary Sue.

Consider: Born into a well-known family, descended from a revolutionary war hero. Graduated 2nd in his class from West Point without earning a single demerit, and also considered the most handsome man of his class. Married a wealthy woman who was descended from Martha Washington. When the Civil War broke out, General Scott and others wanted him to lead the Union army because he was regarded by many as the most promising officer in the country.

He was regarded as the best commander of the Civil War, often winning battles by taking unconventional chances and known for his almost uncanny ability to percieve how enemy commanders would react in a given situation. He was revered by the Confederates and respected by his enemies. Even in defeat, he was still gracious and bore no ill will against his former enemies.

Now...if I wrote such a character, would you call him a Gary Stu? I happen to think you might.

Interesting thought, eh?

-Tim

 

No. But if he turned out to be Abe Lincoln's brother, saved Sherman's life, turned down the presidency of the U.S. and then actually convinced all those other great Confederate generals that their cause had been fatally flawed and they should henceforth and evermore devote all their skills to the betterment of the union... yadda, yadda, yadda. Then we'd be in Mary Sue territory.

Personally, I don't find child prodigies Mary-Sue-ish. I've always had a lot of bright kids around me and having a story in which some of that potential actually is used has always struck me as perfectly normal. Nor do Chosen Ones bother me--in fact, I think they're necessary to a good story. The Hero needs to be Chosen by fate or whatnot for the adventure, otherwise he always strikes me as something of a usurper. My problem comes when you have a story with a defined chosen one, then someone else comes in and tries to undermine that chosen-ness. (Eg, in the example above, Mary Sue turned out to be as good a captain as Kirk, and to teach Spock something about being half-Vulcan... you know, the things that those characters are destined to do. Another good example was a parade of characters who appeared in Xena--she was supposed to have been redeemed by her own moral conflict, with a big assist from Hercules, then with Gabrielle to help her stay on the path. But all the sudden, fifty million other characters in her past were supposed to have almost redeemed her, only to have her backslide at the last moment... which undermines her actual redemption immeasurably.)

Okay, that's off-topic.

All I meant to say is that I don't like to say a certain class of characters (child prodigies, relatives of canon characters, chosen ones, redheads, whatever) are inherently Mary Sues. All of these can be well-written and integral to the story. The problem isn't a character class; it's the way the character behaves and is reacted to in the course of the story. Does the character undermine the heroic status of the actual protagonist? Duplicate it in some way? Does s/he receive important gifts/boons that s/he really hasn't earned, with no special explanation? Does she take them as if they are pretty much owed to her without saying, "Wow, this means a lot--I'll try to be worthy of it"? Do the heroes automatically accept her and look up to her without sufficient reason given in the story?

Is it possible for the originator of a story to do a Mary Sue/Gary Stu? Metza-metza. I don't think the hero can really be a Mary Sue because it's his story, and therefore the main character, whatever his nature, is the flavor of the thing. Superman isn't a Gary Stu and neither is Spiderman, though I'm sure there was plenty of authorial wish-fulfillment going on. However, I have seen authors who get enamored of characters who don't really justify the amount of time spent on them. Achilles, in Orson Scott Card's Shadow series, is about as much of a Gary Stu villain as you can get. He appears out of nowhere, is invisible to the original story, and yet emerges as a virtually all-powerful bad guy. The heroes, who have already faced the challenge of an enemy who would destroy Earth and the viciousness of the defense, run in fear from a mention of his name. All his schemes work, and a better character (Peter) is sacrificed to make them look like equal competitors. Peter even muses on how much alike they are--did anyone notice, huh, huh? That, to me, is the most annoying part of Gary Stu/Mary Sue--that older, canon characters are pretty much deliberately belittled and miswritten for no reason other than to make Mary look good--hence, a Jedi who is better than Luke and wiser than Yoda, who is able to travel on the dark side and be redeemed more splendidly than Anakin, who is always compared favorably to Leia in beauty and wit (and Leia, of course, is made to think how wonderful she is), and who knew and rescued Padme and the twins when that oaf Obi-Wan messed it up.

Grrrrr....

 

(moans in despair)
I see that the moderator-ship has a tendency to bestow Jedi wisdom on one... The answers given, while true and wise and all, have a tendency to be also absolutely useless.

No, excuse me for these words, JG, I know they are unfair. Only that's, unfortunately, how I feel right now.

I guess I will simply have to learn how to distance myself from my fics myself. Hard thing to do... Any tips on that? Because even when I reread what I write several months later (which appears the most popular advice), I still remember, and see, what I wanted to write into a scene, and not what I actually managed to write. The curse of a good memory, I suppose.

I must say that I suppose we probably have similar tastes, JG. Mara and Thrawn are... Well, to me they are actually worse than some outright bad characters from the outright bad books: because some people I spoke to have this odd tendency to speak how good they are, how proficient they are - as opposed to that fool Vader/Luke/Leia... or, especially, Han, the poor, useless, Force-devoid Han (how did that guy manage to do anything in the movies, anyway?).


Urgh.

(returns to moaning)

 

Could I ask a question about my original work?

I have a character who is well liked by all the other characters. However, none of them really take her seriously because they think she's just a child. Am I treading in Mary Sue territory?

 

daughter of yub yub, that sounds very human to me. i've met many people similar to what you've just described.

 

Chosen ones? By this logic, does that Anakin Skywalker is a Gary-Stu? As a child, yes, but in Ep2, he makes many mistakes and is very human.

Child prodigies are the absolute worst. If I read one more fanfic, flip through one more book, or watch one more movie where there is a perfect, flawless, always-saves-the-day child, I will shave my head and join a cult.

Avoidance of a Mary-Sue? Well, I'm probably not the best person to help you here, but... Just remember that your character is a sentient being, and all sentient beins are not by any means perfect. Just write the character as if you were writing a human being (unless, of course, that character is an alien -- then you'll have to draw on alien logic, which is quite difficult). Hope that helps someone, at least.

 

I see that the moderator-ship has a tendency to bestow Jedi wisdom on one... The answers given, while true and wise and all, have a tendency to be also absolutely useless

You have it backwards. It's not a result of the job. It's a pre-requisite for it.

Anyway, what I was trying to say is that there isn't any particular group of characters that Mary always exists in. Any character-type can be written well.

Like I said, Mara and Thrawn are very popular characters, so not every character I would look at and say "Mary Sue" would automatically be rejected by readers.

For myself, I don't think it's something that you can really do a litmus test for. The more you write, the more you'll get a sense for what works and what doesn't. I gave someone something to read that I wrote about seven years ago, and after I re-read it myself, I just cringed at a bunch of scenes. I remembered what I wanted, but I kept wanting to go back and re-write what I had. If what you've written still seems okay to you after you've had a couple of years of development as a writer, then it's probably okay.

 

Ah yes, I remember my first (and last) Gary Stu.

This one was a cyborg-mandalore warrior who killed his creators in a fit of rage (surprise surprise) and decided to go out and become a bounty hunter, saving a beatiful maiden in the process who was immediately smitten despite the fact that he was normally a remorseless killer who had god-like strength and survived a crash with a METEOR. Yeah, I know. Ew.

Did I mention he went to dathomir and killed a rancor for training?

Those were the days, yesseree.

I agree though, Mara Jade is definitely a Mary-Sue. I personally can't stand her.

 

If what you've written still seems okay to you after you've had a couple of years of development as a writer, then it's probably okay.

Which means, alas, that I will have to wait several years. And I'm impatient, oh-so-impatient! I want to know now,


Like I said, Mara and Thrawn are very popular characters, so not every character I would look at and say "Mary Sue" would automatically be rejected by readers.

Yes, I know. The trouble is, while I can spot what I, personally and for myself, call a Mary Sue in other people's writings, it is, of course, much harder to do for myself - and now. Just not enough distance.
(Not to go too far on a pseudophilosophical - or is it merely physical? - tangent, but, after all, even the person I will be several years hence will be different from the person I'm now.)

And I would like to write characters that would not appear to be Mary Sues to me, if I were the reader of the fic. I know that de gustibus non disputandum est, but I would like to cater to people who share my own, personal tastes.


Aah. I've just experienced a most peculiar feeling: for a week, I've been trying to write down the ending to the fic I've mentioned in my first post here; the ending dialogue that was really nicely outlined and detailed and all, with a really nice forgiveness scene, and an almost happy ending... only it was the ending I somehow could not bring myself to write. So I took the directly opposite approach, scrapped ten pages, and decided to simply have the main female not even be able to explain her motives at all, and the male kill her in a fit of rage, and not even care. Now, once I wrote down this half page of anger and destruction, I felt so perfectly well, because suddenly they both were in their proper characters, and I was no longer trying to push them into being something they were not, and the ending was fitting with the general storyline of the world. (Although, heh, I really wanted them to make up, despite there being not a hint of a plausible reason for that...)

Mmm. Pure bliss. I feel so wonderful now. Although, LOL, a one-and-a-half-page ending chapter stuck on top of story chapters which are on average eight pages long looks pretty... odd.

 

Personally, I think that If someone argues alot, and has a hard time getting along, then they cannot be a Mary Sue. [I have no idea if this has anything to do with what is one the board as I have limited time on the internet so I haven't read all of this thread but anyway...]

Mara, by all definitions would technically be a Mary Sue. How she isn't not, I don't know. Maybe its because for the longest time she wanted to kill Luke, one of the Main Characters, maybe its because she used to be the Empires right hand. Maybe is because its really hard for bad guys to be MAry and Gary Sues because they are normally evil. [unless you are involved on one of those amusing storys forma t he bad guys perspective where they are the evil ones]

Of course although he is a huge SWs fan himself, me and my sister have had quite a few arguments with my brothers friend who doesn't like Mara.
We have decided that he is intitled to his ideas just as we are intitled to hate Corran and he is the oppisite. We consider him worse then a Gary Sue.

So I am not altogether certain what makes a person A Gary or a Mary Sue. Because different People hate or like different characters.

I will say that I personaly consider Jenna in one of the SWs books, and even Calista somewhat to be far to perfect for their own good...

 

And I would like to write characters that would not appear to be Mary Sues to me, if I were the reader of the fic. I know that de gustibus non disputandum est, but I would like to cater to people who share my own, personal tastes.

The best thing to do is to write the story you need to write with the characters you need to have in it. Mara found a home (not mine); your character, even if she would be what I'd consider a Mary Sue, may find one as well. Finding the audience is sometimes tricky with original characters. We really should get a little OC support thread going, so that people starting OC stories can tell other OC fans about them.

Chances are, looking back a few years later, you may find some character you let out into the world who is a Mary Sue. But if you're not spotting it now, give it a shot. The worst that will happen is that this single story won't go over very well. Shrug and move on to the next one if that happens.

 

I confess to getting very nervous as I read all about ?Mary-Sues? ? tbt I rarely bob in here, so the most I knew about them was Mely?s article. Here?s some info on a character I created, I?ll just give you the run-down; is she a Mary-Sue? She was basically my first attempt at an OC (I do love writing OCs lol!) - WARNING: CONTAINS DARKNESS SHAPED SPOILERS LOL!

Name: Alyx (no surname). We?ve slowly learned that, at least according to the legends of Andralis, there?s a ?key? to every situation, a single person who quietly alters events, placed there by the Force. Alyx has this position.
We first meet her on Andralis, her homeworld. The entire world has been mentally enslaved by the Yuuzhan Vong, using a creature related to a yammosk (known as an ynvaroth). Alyx was on the streets, and along with other street-people was simply ignored by the Vong.
The reason she was on the streets, is tied to the Force that flows through her quite easily. It gave her visions of her father?s death, and she couldn?t change it so she panicked and ran away. Ultimately, though, Alyx is captured by the Vong who intend to Shape her. She resists the Shaping and is rescued by a group including Anakin Solo, who she gets a little bit of a crush for.
One of Alyx?s key roles is to help Anakin settle down after his death and some dangerous events that have befallen Tahiri; also to work with Master Skywalker as a friend and student. We quickly learn she has almost no starfighter skill whatsoever, hitting things mostly by luck, although she can sense the Vong in the Force somehow (how is a separate aspect of the story). Meanwhile, Alyx struggles to learn of her Force-vision gifts, but they keep on tearing her apart. No sooner does she consider forming a relationship with Anakin, than she sees he?s destined for Tahiri and is heartbroken. Further, she learns her planet?s been wiped out; she?s feeling more and more ?outsider?. Worse still, the Force carries on giving her insights, and she sees the future final battle with Overlord Shimrra ? and knows she can?t change it, otherwise it could go wrong. She can?t take risks, in case she changes the future, and this nearly tears her apart.
The sense of destiny even causes her to do several stupid things.
Finally, in this final battle with Shimrra, Alyx plays her ultimate role ? saying the right things to help the Jedi survive. At the end, she saves all her friends, taking a lightsaber she knows has been sabotaged. She triggers it, killing Shimrra ? and herself.

Thoughts?

 

Hmmmmm, seems I have done the opposite of what I wanted to do!


I wanted to 'dispell' the myth or make it not as scary. I was watching people run around getting scared that every character they created was a Mary Sue and I wanted that to stop, so I created *this* thread. Simply put, although I find Mary Sue's annoying, I also believe they are part of the learning process and you've got to create at least a few of them in your life time At the same time I do believe that Mary Sues are a subjective thing - what one person sees as a Mary Sue another may not.

A good rule of thumb that I've found is: Does your character have bad personality traits, are there major life concerns they stress about? Can they not cope in a certain situation? Do they have personality problems??? Do they keep most of these problems for life or only overcome it when the time is right (that is to say when the character has developed to the right point and not just because your plot line commands it?). If you answered Yes in any major way to one or more of then above then No, (to my mind) you don't have a Mary Sue.

The minute a character wrests control away from me and takes the story over - usually (to me anyway) means that I don't have a Mary Sue anymore. However, I have to let them take control and do what is right for them and not just the easiest path for me.

Okay, going to stop now. Blabbering all over the place and I know it. Apologies if this whole post sounds a little strange - it is too late here and I've been writing assignments all day. I'll revise it in the morning

Kithera

 

Tx Kit - hey, no worries, tbt I was starting to wonder a little bit anyway and this thread gave me a nice opportunity to ask lol!

You're right; they ARE a step in character development (I wrote Mary Sues in my old Doctor Who's - the Doctor basically *is* a walking, talking Mary Sue lol!) - but you can never be entirely sure..!

At the same time I do believe that Mary Sues are a subjective thing - what one person sees as a Mary Sue another may not.

Very valid!

Understood, Kit, tx for the thoughts - and I agree with the points. Fact of the matter was, tho', before I could talk about Mary Sues or OCs, I had to be convinced I hadn't just created one myself by accident

(Not that I could care less, for me that particular character has become quite delightful and I know one reader was very upset over her having to die)

Have a good night's sleep!

 

No, no. Wise is Jedi Galadriel! Remember that before there was the essay on Mary Sue (and in some writing circles) Mary Sue's other name is: Mary Jane. Change a few vowels, and decide whether Tim Zahn didn't go from being tongue in cheek to getting full of himself.

Mara Jade is THE prime example of Mary Sue (hey, she was bad, but became good, stopped wearing the black leather catsuit, and was as good with a lightsaber as Luke from the get-go. Not to mention being over 40 with a mysterious terminal illness, and not only giving birth to a healthy baby but MIRACULOUSLY going into remission!!!) Proof that EU authors are basically overpaid fanfic writers.

Where were we?

 

Just a question: Is it possible to have an OC who is purposely annoying as all get-out (a horrible, know-it-all brat), in close proximity to canon characters, but not a Mary Sue? Does some sort of relationship with a canon character immediately make a character a Mary Sue, or is there more to it than that? I'm hearing lots of things in here and it's kind of confusing! I'm totally frozen with one of my stories because I'm petrified that I can't write it without creating a horrible Mary Sue. Even if Mary has faults and isn't perfect I still think she's Mary.

Should I just finish the story and let the people who don't mind her being Mary enjoy it, or should I just scrap it because it would be nauseating to some?

Jae Angel

 

I'm totally frozen with one of my stories because I'm petrified that I can't write it without creating a horrible Mary Sue. Even if Mary has faults and isn't perfect I still think she's Mary.

I don't think that just being related to a canon character or in a relationship with one is an automatic qualifier that that character *has* to be a Mary Sue....it is one of the main points that I disagree about!

I'd say keep going. The fact that people are enjoying it is probably an indication that she isn't a Mary Sue. However, if you are really, really stressed then why don't you contact someone on the beta list and ask them to look the character over? They might be able to give you some pointers if you are really stressed about it.



Kithera

 

I would point out, btw, that literature is crammed with Mary Sues... Sherlock Holmes was close, Leslie Charteris' writing of The Saint (read the boox, they're very different to the TV series) was SO Gary Stu, and of course on film we have the ever-popular...
"The name's Bond, James Bond."
So they certainly seem to be a valid literary aspect to me...

 

I have nothing substantial to add to the topic now, just wanted to say thanks to everyone for helping me. Especially - of course - Jedi Galadriel for patiently answering my posts, but also others for sharing your thoughts.

Thank you!

 

I have in a small way a Mary Sue or Gary Stu how ever you want to call it. Yes his parents are Anakin and Padme.

But his problems are very hard to over come. I'm not even sure he will.

To me though add himself in as the 3rd kid. because it is a lot easer to write about myself then coming up with a whole new person I know nothing about.

But I have my self having more weakness then power.

That's because I never think of my self as a hero. Just someone who would help out. But not a hero.

 

I found this so I just HAD to up this thread. The above link is actually about X-men, but it contains many of the aspects people seem to associate with Mary Sues.

Kithera

 

I cannot believe I didn?t respond to this thread earlier. I?m sorry, Kit sweets.

I haven?t got much to say in the way of pointing out new methods to look at the ever constant Mary Sue problem, but I do have my opinion. I feel that Mary Sue and Gary Stu are more than likely the result of an author?s overactive imagination and their adoration of Star Wars. You?ve all seen users include themselves in their stories and end up looking ?dorky? in the process. Another point is when a character wanders, and you end up with a completely different persona that you first planned to create. This is my biggest fear in writing, and I cannot emphasise enough how it worries me. Experienced, practiced authors end up with a Mary Sue of a character, which they never imagined they would. I?ve seen this barely only a few times; however the cause isn?t due to rather a lack of control on the author?s part, but their total immersion into the SW galaxy. I know that when I write, I devote myself to the work and place myself in the shoes on my characters.

This only proves the presence of a very thin line between good character and Mary Sue character.

Am

 

*peeps in*

Sad as it sounds, I think about Mary Sueness quite a bit. I write fics in several fandoms and most of my stories are either set in an unusual time period or in an alternate universe (or both!), and these are genres that tend to necessitate more OCs than most. Of the six or seven central characters in my fic here on the JC boards, four are complete OCs and one is very loosely based on an underdeveloped canon character (Valin Horn). All of these OCs have mysterious pasts, most are relatives of canon characters, and most have some kind of connection to the Force. Did I mention there was a prophecy involved?

*bangs head on desk*

Needless to say, as I work on this fic, I'm terrified of slipping into clichédom. It's easy. Trust me. I know. *coughs and pushes assorted five-year-old Mary Sue fics under the bed* I guess what I'm rambling toward is whether or not there's any way to judge your own characters. The litmus tests can be misleading, and I don't want to spoil my story for my readers by ruining it. I know authors can't be objective about their own work, but I'm wondering if there's any kind of self-beta reading that you lovely people would recommend?

Gah. It is 4:30 in the morning, I have class in 5 hours, and I still haven't done my reading. Procrastination is my friend.