The Mary Sue ……
We hear that name and we cower in terror. These three seemingly harmless syllables provoke instant anxiety into the hearts of every reader and writer.
Here’s one way to tell if your character is a Mary Sue or not ……
Do they have any flaws?
Yes?
Your answer: not a Mary Sue! J
Flaws in character or personality; that is what makes your character an anti-Mary Sue. Forget the looks. A character can still be called butt ugly by everyone else in the book and still act like she is the most righteous chick in the world.
This links hand in hand with Mary Sue shaming. In other words, shaming published authors’ characters and pointing out the worst things about them to try to paint them that way.
Which is ironic. If you hate them so much and then proceed to point out their flaws, does that make them a Mary Sue? Isn’t Mary Sue supposed to be flawless?
Let me assure you there are no Mary Sues in published fiction, or as little as can be. Editors are trained to look out for that. Editors will read the novel, say to the author, “how come this character is so perfect?” and hence the author will seek to improve it to make the character seem more real. Sure, you can have a character who is secretly deceiving people the entire book so they may appear to be perfect but underneath are actually suppressing something about themselves.
Bella Swan is not a Mary Sue. Repeat after me. Bella Swan is not a Mary Sue.
Bella is passive, often stubborn, has a tendency to let her thoughts overwhelm her and has trust issues even in her own friends, due to the secret vampire life she is involved with. That makes Bella Swan an imperfect human being and therefore, not a Mary Sue J
Believe it or not, you can evaluate Katniss Everdeen in the same way.
Katniss Everdeen leads a life of hunger for peace. She hunts solely for her family, selflessly steps forward for her sister in the Hunger Games and kickstarts the revolution against the Capitol. Yet looked at in a very different way, she could be seen as just a pretty face who has an ignorance of the boys around her. (rest assured you I don’t think of her in that way).
Therefore, neither character is better than the other, and neither is a Mary Sue because even when you try to describe a character in a scathing way, pointing out their flaws = pointing out what makes them human →not a Mary Sue.
There is no place for Mary Sue shaming in this world. The fandom world deserves a makeover just as much as society.
Who even came up with the term “Mary Sue” anyway?? They’re two nice names put together to form a symbol of alien-ness. Not really fair to someone whose poor parents heard this name and didn’t bother to look it up before giving it to their kid.
Person 1: Hi!
person 2: Heya!!
Person 1: I’m doing an interview about stereotypes! Would you like to take part?
person 2: Sure! Miss …
Person 1: I’m Mary, by the way. Mary Sue – isn’t it funny to have two first names?
person 2:
person 2: OMG are you making fun of me?!You’re not even human!
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