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Post by Skaathar on Sept 8, 2020 20:41:09 GMT
So what is the right definition of a Mary Sue? It's not easy to define, simply because there are multiple ways to describe it. JudgejosephDredd and Lord Death Man have provided pretty good definitions. Dredd describes the Mary Sue as being extremely good at everything without any proper explanation being given to back this up. Death Man described the Mary Sue as a place holder for a compilation of different admirable traits one can aspire for instead of being a realistic character. Both are correct. Personally, the easiest way for me to describe a Mary Sue is that it's a character where the in-universe laws are constantly broken in order to make this character look good. There's no rhyme or reason to it, just the story bending backwards on itself in order to give this character preferential treatment. Because what's more important to the writer is that they're able to make this placeholder character look good (since you want to highlight their traits), they don't give it the same limitations as more realistic characters. The main mistake that modern audiences make is that as soon as a female character is powerful or competent then she gets labelled as a Mary Sue. That's not correct. To be a Mary Sue, she needs to be powerful and competent without making sense. Or she needs to be shown preferential treatment even if it breaks logic. It proves that the writer is more interested in shining a spotlight on her (and her compilation of attributes) instead of giving her a proper, realistic story.
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Post by thisguy4000 on Sept 8, 2020 23:03:23 GMT
Didn’t ‘Mary Sue’ begin as a nickname that someone used to make fun of self-insert Star Trek fan fiction characters?
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Post by Lord Death Man on Sept 8, 2020 23:14:40 GMT
Didn’t ‘Mary Sue’ begin as a nickname that someone used to make fun of self-insert Star Trek fan fiction characters? Lt. Mary Sue was an actual character used in a satirical Star Trek fan-fiction story. In the micro-story, Lt. Sue is the youngest Lieutenant in Star Fleet, who finds herself admired by the crew of the Enterprise and the object of the Captain's desire. IIRC, she saves the entire crew from a lethal plague by the end of the piece. The name stuck as a pejorative for any overly idealized female Star Trek character. It then later spread to other fandoms.
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Post by Skaathar on Sept 9, 2020 0:12:03 GMT
Didn’t ‘Mary Sue’ begin as a nickname that someone used to make fun of self-insert Star Trek fan fiction characters? Lt. Mary Sue was an actual character used in a satirical Star Trek fan-fiction story. In the micro-story, Lt. Sue is the youngest Lieutenant in Star Fleet, who finds herself admired by the crew of the Enterprise and the object of the Captain's desire. IIRC correctly, she saves the entire crew from a lethal plague by the end of the piece. The name stuck as a pejorative for any overly idealized female Star Trek character. It then later spread to other fandoms. And while the name is fairly new-ish (I think it was first used around 1970's), the trope it describes is found even in older literature.
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