Mary Sues, Why do people hate them?

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Poor old Mary Sue, once upon a time you were the toast of the town (in fiction) and now everyone hates you!

Why should this be?

I mean think about it for a moment?

The likes of 'Pollyanna', 'Superman' (more or less), 'Tintin', 'Red Barry', 'Flash Gordon', 'Dan Dare' and many others are all 'Mary Sues' as they are all squeaky clean moraly perfect heroes and herones a I've heard few people complain about it!

Sure making someone (in a work of fiction) pure, good, good, good is seen as cheesy by many nowadays but this need not be the case!

In every story I've ever written I must confess I've made a point of putting at least one 'Mary Sue' character it the storyline but so it does not look too cheesy I always suround him/her (in most cases it's a she as I often like to put in pollyannaish girls in my epics, who are lets face it, Mary Sues!) with other flawed characters (namely baddies and other heroes/herones that are always shown to be in the wrong as they are not perfect) and make a point of teling the reader....

"This is how you should be, look how sucsessful he/she is in getting the guy/girl and winning that all impotant victoruy!" (in the case of the Mary Sues I write about) and (in the case of anyone who act's in a manner I, and most others I've met don't aprove) "This how not to lead your life, look how bad everything turns out for them!"

Many of the characters I invented over the years are Mary Sues, (Lukki is one for a start!) And for me they are my fave charcters!

So what are your views?

Goodbye Till Next Time.

In my opinion, I don't appreciate Mary Sues, because a character, whether in a fantasy or a piece of realistic fiction, should be, well, human, in the way that they have flaws and strengths, victories and vices. It's alright if the character is only bordering on Mary Sue, but I don't think that it would be necessary to turn your character into a perfect little hero/heroine.

It depends on which characteristics are used to define Suehood. Sues are not necessarily pure and good and right. The primary attribute of a Sue (for me, at least; opinions vary wildly as to what does or does not constitute a Sue) is that they are characters, usually introduced characters, who have the plot focus too strongly upon them to the exclusion of other characters (especially in fanfic, where a Sue will generally bend the entire universe out of shape... )

Sues also have a nasty tendency to function as wish-fulfilment author-avatars, and that just ain't enjoyable for many people (apart, of course, from the author) to read. You like them; fair enough, but I don't, much.

Supes isn't a Sue (or Stu), because he's the star of the show. You can't write an invincible flying superhero story without an invincible flying superhero. Boring, perhaps, but not really a Sue. Tintin and Polyanna fit the "world bending around them unreasonably" category a bit, so maybe. Flash Gordon is silly, but I wouldn't call him a Sue; the whole premise is too ridiculous. Dan Dare is an audience-avatar for teenage boys wanting to fly rocket ships, but it's his story and it's about flying rocket ships so that's fair enough; I wouldn't call him a Sue. I dunno about Red whatshisname (apart from being mildly annoyed when every videogame and its dog references Red friggin Ryder.)

None of my people are Mary or Gary Sues. They all have something wrong with them, they are human after all.

One of the biggest reasons why I don't write my fantasies on paper (much less post them on the Internet) is because I'm worried that my author avatar character would be seen as a Mary Sue - which, I admit, she very well could be. She's not perfect by any means (I gave her a lot of my own flaws), but a good chunk of the story revolves around her and she's friends with a lot of canon characters and is even related to one of them. The story in question also involves other no-nos of fanfiction, such as being a huge crossover and involving slash pairings. I know that these things (especially in combination) would anger a lot of potential readers of my work, so I prefer to keep it to myself rather than risk getting chewed out over it.

It's been many years since I was involved in the fanfic community and it appears that the definition of "Mary Sue" has shifted during that time. "Mary Sue" used to mean when the author inserted a character that was obviously intended to be themselves, interacting with Forever Knight or Superman or whatever fanfic universe the individual was writing about.

I can understand how the definition might shift, because people who inserted themselves into the fanfic universe (and it was generally frowned upon to write yourself in to the story) often portrayed themselves as shiny, perfect, and flawless. It's still a bit disorienting to see the definition shift. And does all this talk of the "author avatar" mean that it's no longer considered bad form to insert yourself into the stories? Or does "author avatar" mean something different?

I think "author avatar" has been a part of literature since the beginning of time - if it's done with subtleness, usually the author can get away with it. The reason that I find Mary Sues so annoying is that they usually aren't necessary to the plot, but are written in such a manner that the plot is hijacked into the readers being forced to focus on Mary Sue's endless list of perfections. Characters and plot should have a symbiotic relationship, not one where the entire point of the writing is to highlight one character(who the readers probably want dead after a few pages so they can stop hearing about how wonderful they are).

Mary Sues are too one dimensional.

So (seeing if I've got the idea right) Nick Carraway in "The Great Gatsby" would be an author avatar? Basically a narrator who is also a character and filters what we see of the story through his/her eyes, personality, and judgments?

i dont hate them.

i just think there a bit to plastic (for my interest - not liking)

i think someone once said that such characters are a form
of wish fulfilment for their creators. that these gents (and
its usually men who create these characters) just want to
live their lives vicariously thru that of these perfect lil dolls

my own theory is that the author might be more story or
plot driven rather than character driven (ie, building their
characters around the story or as the perfect vessels to
drive the authors preset plots;

(rather than creating chars 1st & building plots round em)

that or they may just be more focused on other things,
such as creating the perfect imaginary world, descriptions
et c and leaving off complex characterization completely
and thus having a pretty / well-described world populated
by shallow shells of characters.