Writing Tips and Reviews

Mary Sue Revisited

We all know what Mary Sues are, we can see them from a mile away and can call one out from a first moments notice. So what constitutes a character being a Mary Sue? The answer I like the most, is that the world's rules bend to the character rather than the character bending to the world's rules.

OCs:

Often ocs are the main culprit of this trope. Mostly because they're used as a way to insert the writer into the story. What happens when a small child makes an oc is much different than someone with experience in writing. A known Mary Sue feature is simply "no flaws." All flaws and realistic features are wiped clean for a perfect representation of the writer.

Whether or not that dark edgy feature is added is inconsequential. Putting down "I like drugs and smoking" or "murder is fun" doesn't take away from the character being a Mary Sue if the world's rules bend to that character. Saying things like "my oc is 1000000% stronger than everyone else" is just another feature to place onto the Mary Sue cake.

CCs:

CCs are much harder to make Mary Sues of. Being that they are for a story the writer created, they end up bending to the world's rules most of the time. If treated like the standard oc, then they can become a Mary Sue.

But let's give a few examples. Milla Maxwell from Tales of Xillia is the Lord of Spirits, she rules the spirits and has power over the four elements. Total Mary Sue right? Wrong. She's powerful because that's her role in the story, she was born and trained for a single purpose and plays her part just as everyone else does. As a spirit, she abides by the rules of one and is shown to not be perfect. Her personality is enough to keep her from being perfect.

Tales of Zestiria's Shepherd Sorey. He can use the armatus, he controls the power of the seraphim in his party, mostly, and he can stack their power. Total Mary Sue right? Again, wrong. It's stated that Shepherds can do such things and if we're comparing him to the Lord of Calamity of the time, he's not all that. Heldalf beat his ass in during their first encounter and he had to grow stronger.

Anecdotal evidence. Origin, or Atsushi as she's known to a few friends of mine. She's the overseer of the universe. Originally the ruler before the creation of the "Order," which is an organization of powerful beings who rule side by side. She's the strongest in the world, so does that make her a Mary Sue? Well, no. Unlike the trope of being born the most powerful being in the universe, she trained for years, not five, thousands. There's more I'd say, but it'd be spoiler to Legends of Serpheria.

Power Playing:

Another common Mary Sue trope. The want to be the strongest being in the universe and treat everyone lower than them. Mary Sue. I've role played with many who have this "I'm better than you" complex and played with an oc who's just the most powerful being to ever exist. I remember role playing with someone, using an Order member known as "Shadow," and they were like "well, unfortunately, I had five years of street fighting."
"So you think you're better than me?"
"Yes."
Like five years was anything compared to billions of years real training.

The updated bio was worse, they were born the most powerful being to ever exist and destroyed the world in seconds. Now, this can be turned into a good story. I can imagine a good character arc about how they feel ashamed of their power, found out where they got it, then tried to become a better person. Or the opposite, they feel like the only solution is death and want to destroy all worlds to end suffering.

Did they do that? If that person was a good writer would we be here? Instead, the person power played their oc, made every other oc they had fear this oc (as they did nothing), and bragged about much better they were than everyone else. Then on top of it, added what they think is "cool" and destroyed the character so far that I can't think of a single person who can bring it back from the dead.

Power playing and bragging about being awesome while having nothing to back it up is pathetic. If the part about destroying the world was ever used beyond "I'm so amazing," then maybe someone could save this character from the trash can.

Gilgamesh from the Fate series is this down well. He power plays, but one, he's a god, two, he's a servant, three he's a king, four, his ego is massive. The first three save him.

Perfect:

Being perfect is what Mary Sues are known so well for. It's why everyone has to state at least one flaw, or else the character will be marked as a Mary Sue. Can a character be perfect but not a Mary Sue? It's hard but it's possible. I'll go into that later.

What's an example? "Mary is the smartest, most beautiful girl in school, she's well educated and her parents are rich." Then the writer tries to save their ass and says "but she needs a magic pencil to do everything for her." Excuse me, did I read that right? Did I just read an oxymoron? She's well educated but relies on a magic pencil to do everything for her? Please try harder than not at all. What happens next? Random magic book plot the writer uses all the time to make two more chapters of virtually nothing happen then cancels the story. Writing at its finest.

Being perfect is basically "no flaws." It's wiping everything realistic from the character to make this perfect image of the writer. Like I said, ocs having this problem is more common, I've actually never seen a CC have this problem.

Conflict:

Connecting to the power playing, Mary Sues dispose of conflicts so easily it makes little sense. The Mary Sue is so strong that the enemy means nothing. There's no fun battle scene either. This isn't Overlord the light novel. They aren't shown to grow or established to have grown in the past. No, they're powerful to start off from and they're loved by everyone so when conflict arrives, the only ones worrying are the others while the Mary Sue takes the conflict in two seconds.

What about inner conflicts? What inner conflicts? These are Mary Sues we're talking about. They're perfect remember? If they had an inner conflict, they wouldn't be Mary Sues, they're always right and everyone who disagrees with them is the bad guy. Just like those entitled kids.

Plot Device:

So, what can we do with the trope to make it good? I've stated before that I like to take bad tropes and make them good. Take the dumbest ideas possible with pieces of the worst execution and turn it around. So what would I do with Mary Sue? Well, here's my idea.

A girl, let's call here Jen, is perfect. She's loved by everyone and is the best person whose ever existed. But what people don't know, is who she really is. There's a war just outside the border and Jen is a warrior. She puts all the attention on herself to keep the attention from the oncoming war that might threaten the city. Jen has to fight and gets her ass kicked, but she's able to keep the enemy at bay. Sometimes, she wonders if keeping it a secret is right and if the war is with fighting for. She starts to have the conflict of which life she wants to live. Her real friends are also fighting and she doesn't want to leave them, but her other friends all love her and adore her. Will she choose a perfect life? A lie. Or a life of fighting to protect those other friends.

This internal conflict shows she has flaws, and her fighting while getting beat at many times shows she not the strongest being in the world. She trained, so she doesn't have the "born as one" feature either.

This is just one way to do things. Comment if you any other ideas to use the Mary Sue trope to your advantage.

Conclusion:

Mary Sues are terrible. Small children making ocs are the biggest offenders. Sometimes, instead of trying to fix a character, maybe try to weave them into the story and make them realistic throughout their arc. They can start off as a Mary Sue, then change as more is revealed. And no, "being too perfect" is not a flaw honey.

My hand is about to die.

Look, avoiding making a Mary Sue is so easy my four year old cousin made his first oc and it's was just fine. I've had ten years of writing, I think I can have a say.