DIS: “Will You Take My Hand?”

[Karha of Honor]

I mean you could probably call Orville as fanficy in the same vein as The Force Awakens. But it's clear that the symbolic aspects are on purpose for specific effect.

That is good fanfiction compared to TFA.

Whatever people were saying about MCU being too formulaic and hoaky with the jokes can be chalked up to Disney convention. I mean probably. It's like pointing to a life preserver jacket at someone stranded out in the middle of the ocean and criticizing it for being orange.

They did it to characters that lend themselves to that for the most part. I am sure there are plenty of Marvel runs like that. Minus making Iron Man interesting. And a godamn libertarian hero for a short time.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I mean you could probably call Orville as fanficy in the same vein as The Force Awakens. But it's clear that the symbolic aspects are on purpose for specific effect.

That is good fanfiction compared to TFA.

Perhaps, but we have very naturally steered the subject away from Rey and on to the general writing conventions.

[clearspira]

Mary Sue is shorthand for ''too perfect''. Whatever it was originally, that is what is has evolved into. Rey is too perfect. Micheal I would say isn't. And yes, A Mary Sue is not automatically a problem, but it is a definite multiplying factor. Tbh, the female character in Trek that gets the closest is probably Kes. Beautiful, loved by all, friend to all, powers of a god, modest of all of these things.
And to respond to a previous comment, whilst it is true that Mary Sue is applied to women more often than Marty Sue is applied to men, it is not sexism. It is because women are more often portrayed as more perfect than men are due to ideological and political agendas. Neo in the Matrix sequels could probably be called a Marty Stu for example.

[Karha of Honor]

I mean you could probably call Orville as fanficy in the same vein as The Force Awakens. But it's clear that the symbolic aspects are on purpose for specific effect.

That is good fanfiction compared to TFA.

Perhaps, but we have very naturally steered the subject away from Rey and on to the general writing conventions.

Conventions, what they forgot about when writing Rey for the sake of ideology.

Mary Sue is shorthand for ''too perfect''. Whatever it was originally, that is what is has evolved into. Rey is too perfect. Micheal I would say isn't. And yes, A Mary Sue is not automatically a problem, but it is a definite multiplying factor.
And to respond to a previous comment, whilst it is true that Mary Sue is applied to women more often than Marty Sue is applied to men, it is not sexism. It is because women are more often portrayed as more perfect than men are due to ideological and political agendas. Neo in the Matrix sequels could probably be called a Marty Stu for example.

People stomach women suffering harder anyways.

[Jonathan101]

I'd say better examples of Marty Stus would be Eragon or Richard Rahl. Neo is overpowered but he is still somewhat flawed, especially in the first movie but even int he sequels he makes mistakes or is outmatched or outthought at times.

Though I'd say that defining a Mary / Marty Sue as "too perfect" is an overgeneralisation; at least, there are broader definitions of the term than that. TV Tropes alone has about a dozen variations of the concept.

[clearspira]

I'd say better examples of Marty Stus would be Eragon or Richard Rahl. Neo is overpowered but he is still somewhat flawed, especially in the first movie but even int he sequels he makes mistakes or is outmatched or outthought at times.

Though I'd say that defining a Mary / Marty Sue as "too perfect" is an overgeneralisation; at least, there are broader definitions of the term than that. TV Tropes alone has about a dozen variations of the concept.

Another good example would be Golden Age and Silver Age Superman (by the standards of the day - they were often bigoted as heck by today's standards) as he had no flaws. Bronze Age onwards such as All Star Superman would start to explore and deconstruct what if means to be so outwardly perfect by adding far more humanity to him. They would then take it too far with New 52 Superman of course as he was a bit if a prick.

And whilst there are variations, I maintain that most at least have ''too perfect'' as a foundation.

[Jonathan101]

Ah, I've found the variation for Michael that I was looking for:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ ... tralitySue

Not very fleshed out, but fits her pretty well. Again, I don't think she's a full-on Sue, but she has Sue-ish traits and just seems like a poorly conceived / executed character.

Anyway, I think we would need to get a list of common Sue traits and start comparing certain characters against them if we wanted to debate this properly, if anyone even does.

[SuccubusYuri]

I'd just leave it as she comes off as an OC, but hey argue the minutia xD

To me it's just completely down to "different for the sake of being different". Like in an RPG where someone makes a character that is the anti-trend just cause, because they don't want to use the general personality guidelines in the player's handbook. And when amateurs dig into that hole too deep, they accidentally make a character who doesn't want anything. And I'd go one step further than Chuck, we can't get away from Michael, and that "dumb contrarian attitude" permeates the entire Federation as well, so we don't even get a break from the attitude.

Humans lead the Federation with their heart? Nah, our character was raised by Vulcans so she's super logical. Feddies are virtuous and egalitarian? Nah, our character has a utilitarian streak. The Feddies don't sneak around? Nah, our ship is a black ops research platform. Michael? That's a boy's name! Our captains use nukes into volcanoes to break the prime directive and save species? Nah, our Federation is gonna use it to destroy a planet!

It's like someone on top looked at an early screening of the show and wanted EVERYTHING to have a twist to it so it didn't line up perfectly with pre-existing notions of Trek, and it's so basic and self-assured about it it is a 17 year old's fanfiction. It's like a recipe with one-too-many substitutions, eventually it's not looking like a stir-fry and now it's more like an egg-sandwich.

[Worffan101]

I'd say better examples of Marty Stus would be Eragon or Richard Rahl. Neo is overpowered but he is still somewhat flawed, especially in the first movie but even int he sequels he makes mistakes or is outmatched or outthought at times.

Though I'd say that defining a Mary / Marty Sue as "too perfect" is an overgeneralisation; at least, there are broader definitions of the term than that. TV Tropes alone has about a dozen variations of the concept.

This. Mary Sues/Gary Stus are basically wish fulfillment characters written badly.

There are, broadly speaking, four elements that together generally make a Sue:
--Character shilling: The Sue is always shilled to us as an inestimably important and (usually) virtuous character, by pretty much everybody else. Anybody who doesn't like the Sue is usually evil.
--Character focus: The Sue is the main character to the point of sucking time away from everybody else.
--Protagonist-centered morality: The Sue is always or almost always morally right, even if what they do is fucking evil. If a Sue does do something that they think is immoral in the story, it will typically be a relatively neutral thing that everybody will immediately jump on to tell the Sue that he/she is great. The Sue's evil actions (for example, Eragon's creepy fixation on his love interest, Richard Rahl's Objectivist black-and-white moralizing and kicking children) will be treated as neutral or morally right. Punishment of the Sue will typically be portrayed as unjust.
--Extreme power: A Sue will usually succeed at whatever they do, be a better fighter than everybody else, kill more bad guys, kick more ass, etc., typically without help and often helping others succeed in their own field.

Eragon and Richard Rahl are both Sues. Michael Burnham--shilled, focused, hypercompetent, and with some protagonist-centered morality--fills most of the criteria.

I would say that calling her a Mary Sue is HARSH but not necessarily entirely inaccurate. She is fairly low on the protagonist-centered morality bit, though.

[Worffan101]

Another example of a borderline Sue would be Kelvin!Kirk in Into Darkness. Though he lacks the hypercompetence, he DOES succeed fairly easily at whatever he does, generally through sheer luck.