Mary Sues and Their Exemptions

[thezorch]

It began with the post of a short review of the movie "Twilight" submitted to the social news website Reddit.com. Like Digg.com, Reddit.com lets you post articles and websites, users can raise or lower the post's score and when it gets a high enough score or is looked at by enough people it moves to the front page. People can leave comments and the comments can be scored positively or negatively just like Digg.com. Well, someone commented with a link to the first wiki article and inside that article I found the second.

They are very good wiki articles about Mary Sue and Marty Stu Characters in fiction and their exemptions. This I think should be a require resource for every fan fiction writer on TFF. It could be used as a guide to avoid creating such characters or at least make such characters more believable like the ones listed in the Exemptions article.

Mary Sue and Marty Stu Characters (Not Wikipedia)

Mary Sue and Marty Stu Exemptions (Not Wikipedia either)

 

[grant]

I disagree with the inclusion of Motoko Kusanagi as a Mary Sue character. She's one of the toughest and most intelligent characters in the series, but I always felt that she was a believable character.

 

[Carrotglace]

I disagree with the article in general.

The term 'Mary Sue' has been over expanded. It pretty much covers any and all characters.

It's gotten to the point that any character anyone dislikes can be called a Mary Sue, and the claim validated by a website that lists that character's traits under the label.

It once had a particular meaning, now it's just a general insult to describe any character that anyone dislikes for any reason.

The description for the term is so vague and all inclusive that there isn't a character in fiction [or even non-fiction] that doesn't meet the standards anymore.

It's been overused, expanded upon, and redefined to the point it's pretty much lost it's usefulness as a term or valid complaint.

It's just a general insult with no real value as a literary critique anymore.

Mary Sue killed herself by becoming the all inclusive jack of all trades descriptor for any character an individual dislikes for just about any reason.

Mary Sue fails as a complaint or criticism because she's every character now. Lead or supporting, Original or canon. There isn't really a character that doesn't fit some description or definition of the term on some website somewhere.

It's nothing but a meaningless insult now. Just a way to complain when there's nothing to really complain about. A shame, because it was once a term that could point out valid flaws, but since it's definition has been over expanded and made to fit any character, it's no longer useful.