Writing Tips and Reviews

Continuance of the Mary Sue Trope

I thought Mary Sues died off years ago, but then I was reintroduced with Captain Marvel, the Mulan remake, and new Star Wars movies. And honestly, nothing has changed. Despite the protests against them, Mary Sues seem to be prominent in today's work, and somehow, even more than before. What used to be small writers on the internet has become studios from big name companies.

Allow me to tell you about the first Mary Sue I encountered. Her name was Frost Winter and she was by far the most sad character I've ever seen. Mastered every power and weapon in the universe within four months, is the most powerful being in the existence "for some reason," has a "tragic" backstory of "my sister disagreed with me," never has any conflicts, rules do not apply to her because she's that amazing, and the best part... her only flaw was that her soul was "broken." I could sit here and fix her character, but that's not what we're here for. It's not good writing to have your main character be like that, it's not entertaining to read how the main character is above everyone else but their only flaw is "being broken on the inside." I don't even know if I could call that a flaw when it doesn't affect them beyond getting "cool" points.

And it never got better. The next Mary Sue I found was a girl, Raine, who complained about how everyone who disagreed with her was evil and the story made them evil so she didn't have to face any consequences for her demonizing them. Sure, it wasn't the power fantasy type, but it was the relationship type. And the next one, Amber, was a mix of both. Being powerful enough to defeat enemies with no effort and the story treating everyone who disagreed with her as evil. The school bully, the teacher who didn't like her breaking the rules, the headmaster who caught her breaking the rules, all were portrayed as these horrible people who beat on this "poor innocent angel" for "no reason."

And now look at what we have today. Those traits that I just listed are prominent in many Mary Sues in recent media. Someone who is perfect, more powerful that everyone else, who determines the good and bad guys depending on if they disagree with her or not, who has no flaws or flaws that are "you're not reaching your full potential," and who are widely regarded as the most boring characters in media.

At least the few Mary Sues who I described had a personality. The first was an annoying little brat who threatened to kill anyone she met but crumbled into pieces when someone poked her. The second was a spoiled rich girl who thought too highly of herself. And the third acted like a kid who was never told "no" in their life. They're not good personality traits, but they're better than being defined as "the center of the universe with no interesting traits."

Characters need to be interesting to get the audience to like them. Someone who has no other traits than "being better than everyone else" is not interesting. Imagine if Frost had a power that made her stronger than the others but also corrupted her, making her relationship with the other characters strained. Or if she was just an arrogant asshole who got a lot of power but had to learn power wasn't everything. Imagine if Raine had to learn how hard the world was and that the tiny bit of pressure her parents gave her was nothing compared to the suffering of the people outside. And imagine if Amber had to learn that she couldn't get away with anything through making mistakes and being called out for them. Each one of these would make the characters more interesting and give them depth.

"I want a perfect main character who is always right, never faces challenges, and is the center of the universe." That is what I hear when I read about Mary Sues. And I get it's easier to write yourself as a flawless being who's always on top, I've seen too many real life people think of themselves as that way that I've become desensitized to it. But at least when you're writing, you have creative freedom to do whatever you want. It's easier to change a character's story than to talk a person into realizing they're not the center of the universe. 

That's all I have to say. I'm not happy about the recent media making more and more Mary Sues and it's not helping that they're getting worse.