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Define a mary sue

Not. Even. Close.

That said, I despise the Sequel Trilogy for other reasons, and do not care enough to defend Rey from your misrepresentations.
 
Rey is difficult as she is the character in universe that is supposed to have Chosen Ones and it's hard to argue whether Chosen One should or shouldn't this and that power if you aren't really told any meaningful information about the force (or rather The Force) creating them.

I mostly think Star Wars as something that has been purposefully badly written for political reasons. As badly written character, Ray may be defined as Mary Sue, but this bad writing is far beyond being restricted to a single character

And there is a thing where canon characters obviously can't be Mary Sues as Kylia mentioned before.
 
I find the "canon character= Not sue" Defence to be extremely abstract and Superficial, as when most people are using the term nowadays they are referring to the more modern, common and broad use of the word which concerns the attributable traits and implementation of a character within any given story and not the surrounding context concerning the abstract illusion of 'canon'
 
Just because people have historically used a word wrong doesn't mean the word's real meaning is lost. The problem with your 'modern' use of Mary Sue is that it has been stretched and over applied to cover so many characters as to have lost all meaning entirely, much like the word 'problematic' or 'awesome', becoming merely an empty buzzword.
 
Just because people have historically used a word wrong doesn't mean the word's real meaning is lost. The problem with your 'modern' use of Mary Sue is that it has been stretched and over applied to cover so many characters as to have lost all meaning entirely, much like the word 'problematic' or 'awesome', becoming merely an empty buzzword.
Okay

1
I never said the real meaning is lost, Communication is an incredibly expansive subject I don't think things are that simple.

2
There is no such thing as a wrong use of a word, simply a different use (In the objective sense of course, not the contextual subjective sense), you are not the arbiter or definitions no one is, I've yet to see the objective metric of which to judge language, One can perceive more or less value in the meanings of the same word with different definitions (Perhaps to such a degree you could see the best option is to course correct people) but there is no real claim to either being wrong or right in a true sense.

3
The word has not lost meaning, maybe it has broadened but when people hear the word, if they know of it, the word generally imparts some communication of information through its use. Words become complicated, no one can always quite nail down what any word means for everyone at least with more complicated terms.

Your 'real meaning' is not lost, as it exists within your own interpretation, but it's silly to claim that your interpretation is correct simply because it is chronologically first I guess? Otherwise one could make the argument that a Mary sue is either: A human name. Or A character within a star trek fanfic.

If the common use of the word "Bee" Came to mean "Man with long toes" By the year 2022, that is what that word means to people, that is their use of that word and how it imparts specific information, no that doesn't mean 'my meaning' is gone, but what I see in the word doesn't mean I can see 'this might be how you interpret this, but your wrong, even though language is the audible transferal of information based on subjective interpretation my version is correct so please stop understanding this word as such thank you'
 
No hardships ever and designed to win everything all the time. May or may not be author SI, always right.

Overpowered doesnt always mean mary stu.
 
A character that faces no difficulties and has no flaws where whole stories revolve around
 
This is my favorite essay on the term:

Mary Sue, what are you? or why the concept of Sue is sexist (LINK)

So, there's this girl. She's tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects them all because she dedicated to what is Pure and Good. She has genius level intellect, Olympic-athelete level athletic ability and incredible good looks. She is consumed by terrible angst, but this only makes guys want her more. She has no superhuman abilities, yet she is more competent than her superhuman friends and defeats superhumans with ease. She has unshakably loyal friends and allies, despite the fact she treats them pretty badly. They fear and respect her, and defer to her orders. Everyone is obsessed with her, even her enemies are attracted to her. She can plan ahead for anything and she's generally right with any conclusion she makes. People who defy her are inevitably wrong.

God, what a Mary Sue.

I just described Batman.

It does seem like people jump on female characters a lot just for being competent, wish-fulfillment characters and not getting metaphorically or literally shit upon every other minute by the plot. And, hell, sometimes, they get called Mary Sues even when the plot goes out of its way to shit on them. A perfect example of this is Blackjack from Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons. Is she really pretty and does she have a nice, flowery, likable personality? No, neither. She's a violent, foul-mouthed, self-righteous, narcissistic, alcoholic murderhobo. Her only real skill is killing people. She doesn't have friends, she has a roving band of sycophants who are afraid of her. She also got shit on worse than any fictional character I have ever seen. She was shot, stabbed, shot again, blown up, struck by lasers, struck by lightning, shot some more, got mega-cancer and had one of her eyes turn into a tumorous tentacle, blinded by shrapnel, nearly drowned more than once, gang-raped, became a quadruple amputee, and all sorts of other horrible things, and there are people - a lot of people, actually - who will insist that she's a Mary Sue.

Really, if you dare to have a female action protagonist in your story who's depicted exactly the same way as John Wick, you're going to have a bunch of critics who will insist that she's too central, too important to the plot, or that she's some sort of vile reality-warper who doesn't deserve all this attention.

When I hear Mary Sue, these days, my mind just kinda automatically replaces it with the word "witch", because it has pretty much exactly the same meaning and intentions behind it.
 
This is my favorite essay on the term:

Mary Sue, what are you? or why the concept of Sue is sexist (LINK)



It does seem like people jump on female characters a lot just for being competent, wish-fulfillment characters and not getting metaphorically or literally shit upon every other minute by the plot. And, hell, sometimes, they get called Mary Sues even when the plot goes out of its way to shit on them. A perfect example of this is Blackjack from Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons. Is she really pretty and does she have a nice, flowery, likable personality? No, neither. She's a violent, foul-mouthed, self-righteous, narcissistic, alcoholic murderhobo. Her only real skill is killing people. She doesn't have friends, she has a roving band of sycophants who are afraid of her. She also got shit on worse than any fictional character I have ever seen. She was shot, stabbed, shot again, blown up, struck by lasers, struck by lightning, shot some more, got mega-cancer and had one of her eyes turn into a tumorous tentacle, blinded by shrapnel, nearly drowned more than once, gang-raped, became a quadruple amputee, and all sorts of other horrible things, and there are people - a lot of people, actually - who will insist that she's a Mary Sue.

Really, if you dare to have a female action protagonist in your story who's depicted exactly the same way as John Wick, you're going to have a bunch of critics who will insist that she's too central, too important to the plot, or that she's some sort of vile reality-warper who doesn't deserve all this attention.

When I hear Mary Sue, these days, my mind just kinda automatically replaces it with the word "witch", because it has pretty much exactly the same meaning and intentions behind it.
I think the best response I've seen to 'what is a Mary Sue' is that no one ever really hates them and everyone adores and thinks the world of them. Everyone is always impressed by whatever they do. Even if someone else can do far more.

Even people that should hate her/him (for Gary Stu).

It's come up a few times for one of my characters, but I tend to be mean to characters and I like writing people that just don't like heroines at times.
 
Basically, more supernatural or fantasy elements story have, or more unrealistically it handles things, more likely it is your character is going to be called Mary Sue.
 
Basically, more supernatural or fantasy elements story have, or more unrealistically it handles things, more likely it is your character is going to be called Mary Sue.
I disagree. It's just as easy or easier to have a mary sue in modern settings. What matters is how the setting reacts to them, not the nature of the setting
 
I disagree. It's just as easy or easier to have a mary sue in modern settings. What matters is how the setting reacts to them, not the nature of the setting
There are easiest way to get Mary Sue label: Self-inserts, universally. Original characters added into pre-established setting too, even if they aren't explicitly self-inserts.

But this isn't limited to fan-fiction, original works, amateur or professional, can get those too

Supernatural creatures can potentially have a lot of magical or otherwise unrealistic abilities that will check at least one or more boxes without even trying too hard. Especially those which are given some supernatural charm, those literally affect minds of others around them.

An average action hero can check multiple boxes too especially when it comes to ability to survive dangerous scenarios without any serious injury or them having actual proficiency in combat.
 
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