why r mary sues bad?

[ホアー ビち]

i get that an author writin for wish fulfillment isnt a good thing. but what if hes just trying to write an idealized woman for escapism (of the audience, not his). do mary sues rly hurt the story? if so, prove me. cinderella from disney can be considered a mary sue, yet it is critically acclaimed. hows that?

[Decay]

There's nothing to prove when it comes to personal taste. A perfect heroine can be pretty boring. If you don't find it boring, then that's fine, too.

[ホアー ビち]

2 hours ago, Decay said:

There's nothing to prove when it comes to personal taste. A perfect heroine can be pretty boring. If you don't find it boring, then that's fine, too.

im not talking bout taste. i wanna know how it hurts a narrative and why it is considered bad as a pattern. like, ppl never see mary sue as personal taste, its always considered inherently bad.

 

2 hours ago, Palas said:

How is Cinderella a Mary Sue?

she knows how to sing, she cooks, she can do all the house stuff, shes pretty, shes good, animals like her, shes gentle, and very innocent. hows that not a mary sue?

[ホアー ビち]

2 hours ago, Palas said:

And yet she can't go to the prince's ball. No amount of abilities or good nature help her solving her conflict, which is why she isn't a Mary Sue.

A Mary Sue isn't a character with good values but a character that can always overcome any obstacle. And characters that can always pull solutions out of their asses don't need the story to grow, so they make the whole setup feel worthless. Why bother if she can defeat any villain and solve any problem at the snap of a finger?

i didnt kno that was a mary sue. is it rly that? i thought mary sue = flawless and perfect girl

 

this is from the laconic tv tropes:

"An implausibly flawless character and/or an idealized stand-in for the author."

there aint anything about overcoming whatever obstacle

[Abyssal Monkey]

Mary Sue/Gary Stu by itself isn't bad.  It's a trope/archetype just like everything else.  Similarly, just like how having a character be tsundere isn't bad, it's the way they are used.

The Mary Sue character is generally considered bad because when the author runs into a problem, they can deus ex machina it away with the idea that this character can do absolutely everything.  It's a story crutch and most authors when trying to justify any sort of character development for that character run into the problem of them having to solve an issue.  Then you now have two conflicting forces: character development requires the said Mary Sue to confront and the fact that she will always get what she wants anyway.  The easiest conclusion to make is that because she gets everything she wants anyway, there was no problem in the first place, and if there is no problem in the first place there can't be any character development.

That is the primary reason why people don't like characters that can solve everything/get anything they want: there is no conflict in the first place to actually warrant any development, and when there is, it can only be construed as arbitrarily contrived.

[ホアー ビち]

2 hours ago, Palas said:

It's... controversial. Indeed, Mary Sue means flawless and perfect, but this is hardly the reason why a character would be hated for being a Mary Sue. Instead, it's about being flawless and perfect in what concerns the story: Cinderella, perfect as she is, can't fulfill her wish, around which the story is built.

 

A Mary Sue never fails and her success is so implausible that you end up seeing the strings behind the puppet. 

ok, ur helpful. so lots of ppl when they actually call something mary sue and thus criticize it for it, its probably cuz they didnt like the character and r tryin to find something to blame. 

now whenever some1 tries to criticize a character i like calling gary stu/mary sue i will tell him the reason mary sues are bad is cuz they can overcome any obstacle and that makes the plot pointless, not cuz its just a perfect character.

 

2 hours ago, Abyssal Monkey said:

That is the primary reason why people don't like characters that can solve everything/get anything they want: there is no conflict in the first place to actually warrant any development, and when there is, it can only be construed as arbitrarily contrived.

but character development isnt necessary to any story. most ppl when talkin bout char development actually mean just character depth (like showing more bout said character), which is needed. now, development is just change; a story can survive perfectly without char development.

[Nosebleed]

Mary Sues are considered bad because if your character can already do everything from the get go, there's no real development to be had later on.

This in turn makes the character less believable and unrelateable, which is why people cite the trope as a complaint for a character.

You can't claim a character has depth when they have no real struggle whatsoever in the whole story, the fact that they don't have to overcome anything makes them shallow by default.

[Abyssal Monkey]

1 minute ago, ロル ビち said:

but character development isnt necessary to any story. most ppl when talkin bout char development actually mean just character depth (like showing more bout said character), which is needed. now, development is just change; a story can survive perfectly without char development.

Yes, but you can write anything about any character and they can have depth.  Take superman and take away his kryptonite weakness. You now have a Gary Stu, the male counterpart of the Mary Sue.  Superman still has his back story and motivations that drive him to do what he does for character depth.  Character depth and character development are two different things.  Mary Sue/Gary Stu only ever hurts the character development portion of those two aspects.

[ホアー ビち]

23 hours ago, Abyssal Monkey said:

Yes, but you can write anything about any character and they can have depth.  Take superman and take away his kryptonite weakness. You now have a Gary Stu, the male counterpart of the Mary Sue.  Superman still has his back story and motivations that drive him to do what he does for character depth.  Character depth and character development are two different things.  Mary Sue/Gary Stu only ever hurts the character development portion of those two aspects.

in this case, mary sues dont rly hurt much, since character development isnt always a must. whats the problem of having a story in which the characters never change?

[Nosebleed]

1 minute ago, ロル ビち said:

in this case, mary sues dont rly hurt much, since character development isnt always a must. whats the problem of having a story in which the characters never change?

Once upon a time there was a woman.

She never struggled with anything

The end.

....yeah doesn't seem like a very compelling story.

[Abyssal Monkey]

Just now, ロル ビち said:

in this case, mary sues dont rly hurt much, since character development isnt always a must. whats the problem of having a story in which the characters never change?

There isn't one.  My favorite example of such a story that I'm currently reading is Death March.  The main character could literally lie to someone and they would believe him, he created a railgun in a fantasy setting, and killed the demon lord with meteor showers.  The story is entertaining because you get to see him romp around in a fantasy world doing stupid shit and solving every problem while thinking of how to turn said problem into food. The character himself doesn't develop, he is basically forcing his modern world ideals on to a fantasy universe and you get to see that universe and his harem develop instead.

[ホアー ビち]

23 hours ago, Nosebleed said:

Once upon a time there was a woman.

She never struggled with anything

The end.

....yeah doesn't seem like a very compelling story.

 

the woman had her friends who struggled and also a dark past that motivated her to win against any obstacles. 

[ホアー ビち]

1 hour ago, Abyssal Monkey said:

There isn't one.  My favorite example of such a story that I'm currently reading is Death March.  The main character could literally lie to someone and they would believe him, he created a railgun in a fantasy setting, and killed the demon lord with meteor showers.  The story is entertaining because you get to see him romp around in a fantasy world doing stupid shit and solving every problem while thinking of how to turn said problem into food. The character himself doesn't develop, he is basically forcing his modern world ideals on to a fantasy universe and you get to see that universe and his harem develop instead.

conclusion: gary/mary stus arent necessarily bad. MAL anti-sue pattern is questionable.

 

1 hour ago, Palas said:

Who cares about her dark past? It's not the story. The story is the story. If her friends have struggles, she can always just... solve them. No mystery. No setup. No looking forward to what's going to happen because you already know. A Mary Sue is, basically, the author's will manifested. And it destroys our suspension of disbelief.

u have a point tho. 

[Darklord Rooke]

Like every writing rule, it's not so much a 'rule' as it is a guideline for beginner writers who aren't sure what they're doing. As people above have said, Gary Stus and Mary Sues limit the opportunity for character development, limit the opportunity for tension within a story, limit the opportunity for growth, that doesn't mean a person can't still write entertaining stories but obviously you are limiting the tools available to you. Beginner writers, bereft of these tools, will often write incredibly boring stories and therefore people have reacted by telling them 'stop creating Gary Stus and Mary Sues' but it's not an iron clad rule. James Bond used to be a Gary Stu (the new movie was supposed to change this, but that doesn't change the fact that he spent decades being a Gary Stu,) Jack Ryan is a Gary Stu, and these are very popular characters from very popular stories. Even Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird, a piece of literature, has been said to be borderline Gary Stu (and even if he's not, he's awfully close to being one. Yes his daughter's point of view and all that, still, awfully close.) 

There are plenty of examples from many successful novels, so obviously you can work a perfect character into your story if you wish. Doing so and creating a compelling story is harder though which is something you need to take into account, and you should really know what you're doing. They can easily bore readers but I wouldn't call them all 'bad' right off the bat, Gary Stus and Mary Sues can also be very entertaining.

[babiker]

This is an interesting discussion. Another great example of how to use a perfect character well: One Punch Man. Yes, you're probably sick of people praising that show left and right but it's worthy of praise. Saitama is a character that can beat anything and anyone by one punch, that's about as lame as it gets. If the story was just watching villains show up and get punched, it would be a bad story. But the story cleverly creates a new conflict: Saitama climbing the ladder of heroes. Despite his strength, Saitama's considered a very low ranking hero, and struggles quite a bit to get the recognition he deserves. Pretty much most of the good parts of the anime revolves around this struggle, and it's where the show shines the most. So the problem isn't perfect or "Mary Sue" characters on their own, it's how stories use them

[Abyssal Monkey]

4 hours ago, babiker said:

This is an interesting discussion. Another great example of how to use a perfect character well: One Punch Man. Yes, you're probably sick of people praising that show left and right but it's worthy of praise. Saitama is a character that can beat anything and anyone by one punch, that's about as lame as it gets. If the story was just watching villains show up and get punched, it would be a bad story. But the story cleverly creates a new conflict: Saitama climbing the ladder of heroes. Despite his strength, Saitama's considered a very low ranking hero, and struggles quite a bit to get the recognition he deserves. Pretty much most of the good parts of the anime revolves around this struggle, and it's where the show shines the most. So the problem isn't perfect or "Mary Sue" characters on their own, it's how stories use them

I'd argue that that isn't really a Gary Stu, due to one of the attributes of them being they can always solve every problem.  In this case I would include "climbing the ladder" of hero rankings to be a part of that problem.  Saitama is just really really OP, which should be differentiated from a Gary Stu.

[Nimbus]

Like Rooke said, the Mary Sue/Gary Stu rule is neither inherently good or bad. what matters is the execution and the context that it is taking place.

One of the biggest flaws I see with this troupe is that it makes a story completely pointless. If a character has the means of solving a conflict from the very beginning then everything in between the very beginning and the very end is just padding. The reader will go through all of this story that adds nothing to the character and fails to build tension and when the climax comes the reader will be asking "Why the hell didn't they just do that from the start?"

[Okarin]

On 22/2/2016 at 2:17 AM, Abyssal Monkey said:

Mary Sue/Gary Stu by itself isn't bad.  It's a trope/archetype just like everything else.  Similarly, just like how having a character be tsundere isn't bad, it's the way they are used.

Mary Sues, and probably tsunderes, generally hint at the story or author being shit. They're overused tropes that aren't innovative anymore.

Also, Mary Sues, and tsunderes, are extraordinarily limited by their very nature. There's narrow room for improvement of the trope.

What's better, a fantastical overpowered character to pander to your loser audience, or a realistic character that faces his/her problems with his/her own abilities? You may be willing to accept fantasy, but quality lies on the latter example. The other is just a sort of mental masturbation.

[Abyssal Monkey]

1 minute ago, Okarin said:

Mary Sues, and probably tsunderes, generally hint at the story or author being shit. They're overused tropes that aren't innovative anymore.

Also, Mary Sues, and tsunderes, are extraordinarily limited by their very nature. There's narrow room for improvement of the trope.

What's better, a fantastical overpowered character to pander to your loser audience, or a realistic character that faces its problems with his/her own abilities? You may be willing to accept fantasy, but quality lies on the latter example. The other is just a sort of mental masturbation.

This is in general, but isn't a set fact.  Character tropes are there to bring in a preconceived notion of how a character should act for the audience by the author.  If the author then fails to justify any reason for why a character is that way, or doesn't use that trope to bring about other consequences then it is a failure of on the writer's end.  The fact that they are there doesn't inherently mean the author or story is shit.  Also, everything isn't innovative anymore, and innovation in writing is pretty much dead. Everything is derivative of something else, so asking for innovation is is like asking someone to solve quantum mechanics: you'll only get a few every generation of authors.  The last few that I can even think about that would fulfill these requirements would be Tolkien and Lovecraft who managed to create and popularize entirely new mythologies which EVERY fantasy since has been based off of.

For your second statement about being limited by nature, every character is limited by their nature once you characterize them to that degree.  Giving someone a personality is a really strong thing, no surprise huh? It would be like Deadpool suddenly acting like a fucking average joe, it would be fucking absurd and wouldn't work.   "But he can develop!" you may cry, well so can every other character. There's a magnitude of tsundere's or Mary Sues, or any other character trope that can change tropes or develop. This statement is broad blanketing disguised as negative fire.

That final point is pure opinion, I don't feel or need to even fight it. Feel free to be entitled to it.

[Okarin]

Don't confuse fantasy the genre with fantasy the act. As a genre fantasy doesn't necessarily involve leaps of faith and suspension of disbelief, if done right -especially with human characters that should be like us. There can be conceivable fantasy. As a resort fantasy can mean pandering to people that can't materialize the thing in real life -womanizer characters for people with no love life, strong characters for weak people, and so on.

The most suspicious thing in fantasy is magic, because we don't have a proof of it existing in real life. But still, if properly explained and bound under some definite rules, it can be conceivable.

Every character is defined within his/her own range (everyone expects something concrete of Deadpool) but there are still well and badly written characters. Mary Sues tend to be poor characters and terrible to read about. And even if the fantasy factor is important, you can end up frustrated because you can't relate to him/her -you can't be as perfect as him/her.

I thought that the heavy use of tropes indicated lazy writing, as well as everything having been exploited before -which is kinda a fact. Probably you can't innovate with a story, but you can with characters. Supposedly the diversity in people is immense and so should be as well with characters.

[Abyssal Monkey]

41 minutes ago, Okarin said:

Don't confuse fantasy the genre with fantasy the act. As a genre fantasy doesn't necessarily involve leaps of faith and suspension of disbelief, if done right -especially with human characters that should be like us. There can be conceivable fantasy. As a resort fantasy can mean pandering to people that can't materialize the thing in real life -womanizer characters for people with no love life, strong characters for weak people, and so on.

The most suspicious thing in fantasy is magic, because we don't have a proof of it existing in real life. But still, if properly explained and bound under some definite rules, it can be conceivable.

Every character is defined within his/her own range (everyone expects something concrete of Deadpool) but there are still well and badly written characters. Mary Sues tend to be poor characters and terrible to read about. And even if the fantasy factor is important, you can end up frustrated because you can't relate to him/her -you can't be as perfect as him/her.

I thought that the heavy use of tropes indicated lazy writing, as well as everything having been exploited before -which is kinda a fact. Probably you can't innovate with a story, but you can with characters. Supposedly the diversity in people is immense and so should be as well with characters.

I don't think you quite understood why I brought up fantasy.  I used fantasy genre as an example of how difficult and rare innovation is in writing, not as a form of justification for how a badly written character can be written off.

As for the last point about every character being innovative, refer to the above point.  If creating an infinitely random setting that can contain literally anything is difficult enough, creating an innovative character personality is even moreso.  Hell, we even classify personalities in psychology, which brings everything down to a common denominator.  I could make the claim that that alone would completely undermine any sort of character innovation you may be able to create, as our personalities themselves aren't infinitely varied.

And trope usage doesn't equal lazy writing. Character tropes are tropes because they are ubiquitous to human nature, and even if you try to make a fantasy/scifi race that isn't human, our interpretation of those characters is still going to be bound by our way of interpreting them, so calling character tropes lazy writing is like calling using human nature lazy writing.  Character tropes are only lazy writing if the author doesn't expand upon them, just like using static one dimensional characters is lazy writing.

[Okarin]

I disagree that there are limitations for human beings. Maybe it was the fact that I was taught that every person is *unique*, *irreplaceable* and special. Not two people are exactly the same, no matter how alike. I see it constantly when getting to know other people. Nobody is exactly like me, nobody has had exactly the same experiences. How can they know what I know, how can they think exactly along the same lines? But then again, on this shitty age where our hubris leads us to think that not even free will is real, everything is possible I suppose... 

And I don't quite think that tropes are actual reflections of human nature. They probably use it as a basis, but they end up being handy personality quirks (when applied to characters), and end up overused and boring. A human being is *not* a collection of given tropes. A badly written character is.