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SECTION: GENERIC RANTS RANT TOPIC: MARY SUES WORD COUNT: 1050 WORDS
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YOU'VE READ them, you've probably written them. Trust me I've been guilty of this in the past, but hey, we learn from our serious mistakes. Anyways, Mary Sues. The bitchy and overrated —overpowered characters that just so happen to be made by authors who either have no idea what they're doing or think that the best way to write their character is by making them have no flaws whatsoever. Let me stop you right there, the last thing I need to see added to my year is some more Mary Sues.
To be honest, the only reason why I read stories with Mary Sue characters is for two things 1) the laugh 2) the cringe —but mainly for the laugh. It's a way of assurance that some books are better than others and some characters are better than others. And it's probably one of the reasons why I don't like looking into some of my very old drafts because my writing skills were questionable at that time. Yet there's a difference between learning character development and leaving your character to be super-powered with little flaws itself.
There are so many things wrong with Mary Sue's which —if I wanted to— I could type a damn essay about what bothers me about these characters, but let's just cut down to the brief points about what's wrong with Mary Sues's. Even the idea that some people write characters like this nowadays sends a shiver up my spine. In my mind it's either you learn about this by having someone else tell you that Mary Sue's are annoying or being spammed by a whole bunch of users saying how much they hate your character. Anyways, let's continue the rant, shall we?
NUMBER ONE: they're overpowered bitches.
It's one thing to have a powerful character. But it's another thing to create a character who can wield ten different types of weapons, learn martial arts in just one day and has three types of superpowers. Not to mention, they don't have any flaws whatsoever. These types of Mary Sues are annoying on another level and essentially destroy the purpose of character development.
I've read some questionable fanfics in which the main character has like ten different types of superpowers, for example, super speed, x-ray, laser and infrared vision and they were able to control any element. Not only do these superpowers not complement each other but it's just even messy for the reader to keep track of how many powers your character possesses.
Let's not forget my favourite part wherein this forty-chapter fanfic, the Mary Sue has no weakness. The rare occasion consists of their weakness being one person, their love interest. I'm not saying that having your love interest as a weakness is a bad thing. Take for example my character Marinette Agreste in my new fanfic: Perfect Harmony (yes, this is a self-promo, please check it out), Bucky is her weakness but it's more than just losing him as a person. My character already has a lot of weaknesses that she struggles with internally, but losing Bucky is the tipping point because he's this beacon of light that she needs. It's not that Bucky is physically her weakness but that broken scale that sends her to madness.
Putting aside a spoiler to my fanfic (oops, my bad) I just reminded myself of one more point to add to this section. Mary Sue's can never save the world by themselves. Has anyone else noticed that or just me? If your character can run as fast as the speed of light, shoot ice out of their hand and can switch to x-ray vision why can't they save the world themselves?
In other words: an overpowered bitch, is an overpowered bitch.
NUMBER TWO: their backstory makes no sense.
You're telling me your main character is Hermione Granger's long-lost sister but they're also a demigod who's a demigod? So does that make them half-witch half-demigod? Oh, wait, I forgot to mention that your character is also a meta-human who has the same backstory as Bruce Wayne for some reason? HOW IS THAT FUCKING POSSIBLE?
If you've concocted a backstory as confusing as the one I mentioned above, I have a lot of questions to ask. One of them being, if your character's backstory is like Bruce Wayne's, both of your parents died? You're telling me that neither a witch/wizard nor a god/goddess couldn't protect themselves from the imminent danger that was in front of them? No offence, but how did your main character's parents graduate Hogwarts or become a damn god if they can't even protect themselves? That's fucking stupid.
That is one of the many intricate backstories that authors feel the need to give to their Mary Sue. Do us a favour and just stick to the basics, please. There is so much more that can happen to your character than making them a third, witch, demigod and meta-human. There's so much more creativity in exploring a backstory that can be just as tragic but without so many crossovers! There is no flaw in backstories where the characters are introduced to how overpowered they are, not to mention it's not exactly tragedy material.
Not to be rude, but I find myself laughing when other authors think that I'll find some sympathy for their Mary Sue when they wrote their character to have the same backstory as the Flash and Harry Potter. Sucks to suck, I'm not feeling any sympathy for a character whose a literal copycat.
NUMBER THREE: everyone loves them.
Let's get one thing straight. If I was a character in your story, you could bet I would be the one trying to kill that Mary Sue you call a character. As much as you can make other characters in your story love your character, respect your character or even (dare I say it) worship your character, the readers won't have the same mentality as the characters.
Feel free to comment your pet peeves about Mary Sues in the comments or any books about Mary Sue's character too!
