The Mary Sue: History and Context

[clearspira]

Regardless of th original meaning of the term, it has become to mean a character that is too perfect to be believable. Everyone likes her except jealous bitches - even the villain, she does not have to work for her skills and status all that hard, she is beautiful yet humble about It etc. That does describe Rey.

And it isn't only women. There are many who call Eragon a Gary Stu. The difference is that men tend to be allowed flaws, whereas nowadays we are into the women need role models bs.

To make sure I don't duplicate points, did you watch the video?

No, I will admit no. That is more my opinion and of others I have heard.

[Makeshift Python]

It's a ten minute video, check it out.

[Cylus]

It's an interesting video. As mentioned, some people use the term Mary Sue as a way to criticize a huge number of protagonists who can overcome their enemies and win, sometimes too easily, but that's not really a useful understanding of the label. It becomes just another word for "overpowered" and the nuance is lost. Female characters do seem to get the worst of it, no doubt.

[clearspira]

Watched the video. Interesting enough, but I find my opinion just as valid as this one. Too Perfect describes the bulk of the usage of the term - including the original Mary Sue tbh. And nothing is changing my opinion that the reason women get hit with it more often is that they are all too often not allowed to have flaws.

And there is a big difference between overpowered and a Too Perfect. The Doctor and Rey are both overpowered, and yet if you list his flaws to hers the former will trump the latter by a page. The same goes for most overpowered Shonen leads too for that matter.

[MixedDrops]

The "not allowed to have flaws" argument I feel always comes from people who proceed to move the goalposts a lot about what a flaw actually is. As you said, Rey is definitely a supremely powerful force-user, but she has numerous personality traits that lead her to make mistakes, especially in The Last Jedi. Do you have some kind of standard for how many flaws are actually required before you stop calling someone a Sue, or is it some kind of contingent quality based on how much you like the work of fiction surrounding it?

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

The "not allowed to have flaws" argument I feel always comes from people who proceed to move the goalposts a lot about what a flaw actually is. As you said, Rey is definitely a supremely powerful force-user, but she has numerous personality traits that lead her to make mistakes, especially in The Last Jedi. Do you have some kind of standard for how many flaws are actually required before you stop calling someone a Sue, or is it some kind of contingent quality based on how much you like the work of fiction surrounding it?

*DJ Airhorn Noises*

[clearspira]

The "not allowed to have flaws" argument I feel always comes from people who proceed to move the goalposts a lot about what a flaw actually is. As you said, Rey is definitely a supremely powerful force-user, but she has numerous personality traits that lead her to make mistakes, especially in The Last Jedi. Do you have some kind of standard for how many flaws are actually required before you stop calling someone a Sue, or is it some kind of contingent quality based on how much you like the work of fiction surrounding it?

I note you said ''trait'' not ''flaw''. Very interesting.

And clearly no, I don't have a spreadsheet that I am gradually filling out. A Mary Sue is an audience reaction. If I think she is then she is. Maybe there should be a government mandated check list that I can post online to satisfy you?

[MixedDrops]

I'm not trying to force your hand here, but rather demonstrate my earlier point of how it's basically a useless term if the requirements are different for everyone and we can't gleam any sort of solid criticism from it. It ends up being a useless snarl word, something used to immediately associate a work with negative feelings without having done any actual analysis. And as mentioned, it can derail a discussion into just a debate about what a Sue even is instead of actually talking about the work itself.

Like others have said, using the term seems pointless in a discussion when you can instead cut to the heart of the matter and just talk about whether a character is well-written or not. On that note, most definitions I've seen would consider Superman a Sue- but I don't think anybody would say you can't write a good story about him. So if that's the case, what use is the term?

Also, I used the word traits, but they can be considered flaws (Rey was impulsive about her decision to try to save Ben Solo, which blew up in her face, for example). You're just being pedantic there.

[Jonathan101]

Usually the flaws of a Sue are considered trite or meaningless, or somehow serve to put them in a better light anyway- for instance, Rey impulsively going to save Kylo might suggest poor judgement on her part, but it also shows that she is a good person who believes that even Kylo can be saved, and in a way her going made things better because it led directly to Kylo killing Snoke as well as Rey herself showing up later to save everyone.

"No flaws" is probably a bad way to phrase it, since every character has flaws, but it's a question of what those flaws are and ow negative they truly are, especially in the context of the story.

Besides, a Sue-Stu is about more than whether they have flaws or not; it's about a list of traits and how many they have.

[Jonathan101]

The bigger problem with Rey (and some other characters) seems to be that Abrams, Kennedy, Johnson, Ridley et al not only think that "Mary Sue" is a sexist trope or term, but that by extension they don't think it is a bad archetype in the first place, so when they hear people use the term as a criticism they actually double-down on her traits rather than even trying to address them.

In other words, they want Rey to be a Mary Sue, but just don't want her to be CALLED a Mary Sue. Rey is SUPPOSED to be an overly-idealised, implausibly talented character for particular types of fans to latch onto, and they don't appreciate being told that this makes her bad.