- Red hair that looked like liquid fire cascaded gently down her back to her waist; the lighting hitting it making it seem alive. Her hair and grown considerably it was now just bellow her ass. Her long dark red hair cascaded down her body as she let her dress fall to the ground. Her fiery emerald eye’s linked with his as she licked her lips, staring into he’s big brown orbs.
—Description of Dita Sue
This page discusses the term Mary Sue as used by the PPC. Other people may use other definitions, but we've had ours for quite a long time, so we think we'll keep it.
Definition
A Mary Sue is a pet character that the author exempts from realism and/or rules that otherwise govern a fictional world. The more that the author exalts this "darling" at the expense of the rest of the story, the more of a Mary Sue the character becomes. Mary Sue is impervious to failure and resistant to all in-story attempts at criticism and humiliation; any attempt at an external critique usually provokes an authorial temper tantrum. With a preference for style over substance, attitude over empathy, and romantic relationships above all others, the Mary Sue is nevertheless a popular character type due to her function as cheap wish-fulfillment.
The Mary Sues (or Sues) that the PPC deals with are all in fanfiction, but unfortunately, they also abound in print. (See Canon Sue.) The term originated in fandom, where the female Sue is omnipresent, but there are male varieties as well. Mary Sue's XY counterpart1 is called Gary Stu, Marty Stu, or Marty Sam; all of these are synonymous plays on the feminine blanket term.
1 = Please note that the term "masculine counterpart" is intentionally avoided here, as it would be a misnomer in many cases.
Etymology
In 1973, Star Trek fan Paula Smith wrote the parody "A Trekkie's Tale," starring a flawless character named Lieutenant Mary-Sue. The term became popular in Star Trek fandom to refer to author-inserts of this variety, and later spread to fandom in general.
Sues in Fanfiction
A fanfic containing (and therefore starring) a Mary Sue is known as a Sue-Fic or Suefic. The one characteristic common to almost all Suefic (apart from the Sue) is being poorly written with regards to spelling, punctuation, and grammar and/or more complex aspects such as characterization, plot, and even internal consistency.
Because of the above, and because of Mary Sue's inability to share the spotlight or follow the rules of a given universe, her appearance in fanfiction inevitably warrants PPC intervention. Mary Sue's most common crimes against canon are:
- Warping canon characters
- Forcing Twu Wuv between the Sue and a canonical
- Killing, banishing, or embarrassing rival characters for no good reason
- Twisting the geography, denizens, or timeline of a canon universe for her own ends
- Ignoring, or more frequently, trampling over the ideas or spirit in which a canon universe was created.
Why Hate Mary Sue?
First, a personal statement:
"I really LIKE feel-good stories. I feel that they are a very necessary thing to have in a world as depressing and unfair as this one can be. That's part of the reason why I almost exclusively read high fantasy or science fiction - I want to escape from my dreary reality for just a little while and be allowed to believe in heroes and villains. HOWEVER I don't like Mary-Sues, either. Why? Because she's not a hero. She usually doesn't have one single thing going for her that makes me respect and adore her, the way that the author OBVIOUSLY expects me to do. I don't find these supposedly perfect people who get all good things without so much as struggling for it interesting. I never got anything for free, why should they? A reward, or a victory, is so much sweeter when you've fought for it - I know this from my own, personal experience - and THAT'S the sort of feel-good entertainment that I want! I want to see the long struggle. I want to be inside the character's head as he's overcoming all his difficulties... at the end of the book, I want to cry with happiness. I want to feel that all that hard work, all that suffering and struggling, PAID OFF! Mary-Sue has too easy a time - as much as I might LIKE to identify with her, I can't. I want my heroes to EARN their feel-good, like I've done, because that's an INFINITELY greater feeling than just getting everything for free... like Mary-Sue does. Also, when I read fanfiction, I do it because I want to read about my favourite character from the show/book, interacting with the other characters from the show/book, because I liked the show/book and the characters therein. If Mary-Sue pops up and hogs all the spotlight, pulling all my favourite characters OOC, I WILL dislike it, and I WILL whine about it." —GAFFer
To expand upon this eloquent commentary, we have several reasons, but they are all driven by the same thing: respect for a published author's work. We got into fanfiction because we fell in love with a book, a movie, a TV series, etc. We love the characters, we love the writing, we love the acting. We love the craftsmanship (or -womanship, if you like) that went into making it. We wanted to find more people who shared our love and had something just as deep and interesting as our own feelings to say about it. We wanted more craftsmanship. We wanted more of the characters, the stories, the settings we had come to love.
What we found was Mary Sue.
Mary Sue is not deep, she is shallow: she cares only about herself and "getting" the hot guy of her choice. Neither is she interesting to anyone except her author and her author's adoring friends, because, as stated above, she has no real conflict. Neither is she well-crafted, but almost invariably written at though at one o'clock in the morning on a sugar high. And, the worst, she warps or shoves aside everything we love about the canon in order to put herself forward. Mary Sue has no respect for the work into which she intrudes.
And that is why we hate Mary Sue: lack of respect. Not for US. We don't care a lick what Suefic writers think of us. We just wish they showed some sign of caring about the tremendous creative effort put forth to make the worlds they so casually trample on. To use an analogy, the canon is like someone's home. They worked hard to build it and to get everything just how they like it. Other people admired it, and so, being generous, they invited the others over to enjoy it with them. Now, when you visit someone else's home, isn't it polite to leave everything as it is and to follow the house rules? Of course it is. Anyone would say so. But not Mary Sue. She doesn't take her shoes off when she comes in and tracks glitter mud all over the carpet. She doesn't like the fact that the table is in the dining room, so she drags it into the attic. She doesn't like the color of the bedspread, so she tie-dyes it. She doesn't think the basil should be next to the thyme, so she pulls up the garden. All the while claiming to love the house and everything in it (except that nasty basil, who obviously isn't nearly good enough for the thyme).
Wouldn't you get angry, too, if that happened to the home of someone you respected deeply? Wouldn't you think how terrible you would feel if it happened to your home? We do. That's why we hate Mary Sue.
Sub-concepts of Mary Sue
There are many different varieties of Mary Sues, all with different strategies for getting control of the story. They can be divided up both by fandom and by Sue-type. Recently, many have been classified and organized. (Note: All classifications listed below are may not apply to every single Sue of the same type. It depends on the sporker or the PPC-er to determine the classification.)
Description!Sues
Sues are commonly described using the convention description!Sue, e.g. evil!Sue or emo!Sue. This is an easy way to categorize the different varieties.
The original type of Sue is sometimes described as Bubbly!Sue or Purity!Sue (Puella perfecta). She is very social, helpful, kind, and caring. The canon characters are won over by how perfect she is in every way. At some point, she usually reveals some tragic past.
One newer variety of Sue is the group of Emo!Sues (Mulier doluta), Goth!Sues (Diabola gothica), etc. While it has always been common for the Sue to be something of a rebel, these take it to a whole new level. They generally wear stereotypical goth make-up and clothing—or, some have remarked, like a twelve-year-old's idea of goth—and have pale skin and black hair. Emo!Sues, as their name suggests, attract a mate by angsting almost non-stop throughout the story. She always has some sort of tragic past. Other common traits of these Sues are cutting and drug use. The future mate usually starts out feeling sorry for the Sue.
Evil!Sues (Diabola insolentis) are often the close relatives of the main antagonist in the fandom. She often has pale skin, black hair, and black or red eyes, and dresses in dark red or black. Part of the way through the story she meets her future mate, she learns the error of her ways, and he redeems her through his love.
Warrior!Sues (Miles medimundi) are peerless fighters and bristle at the suggestion that they might need help from anyone. They frequently make their first appearance in the story when their future mate is about to be killed by bad guys. A mysterious cloaked and hooded character rides up, kills the bad guys, and then, to the other characters' astonishment, reveals herself to be a woman. In other words, she's a really horrible rip-off of Eowyn. This type of Sue also often means that there is at least one Designated Misogynistic Bastard, often Gandalf, Aragorn, or Boromir in Arda Suefics. He questions the Sue's ability to come along, often making comments about how women are only good for making babies, and then is dramatically proven wrong.
Grrl!Sues (Muliercula insolentis) are über-feminists, sometimes downright misandrist. They are out to prove that a woman is at least as good as a man, and nearly every male is a Designated Misogynistic Bastard. Of course, they fall for the one who isn't. Quite often they manufacture misogyny in not only the characters but the whole society of the continuum, claiming oppression and abuse in order to angst and/or throw hissyfits, which, for example, requires one to ignore that two of the Hogwarts founders were women, or that the very first official Patrol General of the Long Patrol was a female.
Anti!Sues (Puella imperfecta) take the typical Mary-Sue traits and invert them in an attempt to avoid being branded as Mary-Sues. They still dominate the story like their idealized cousins, so instead of the cast fawning over a perfect angel of a woman, they fawn over an ugly idiot with a horrible personality- in other words, she's a Mary Sue which doesn't even try to hide her true nature.
GodMode!Sues (Miles supremus) are an extraordinarily powerful relative of the warrior!Sue (although they can exibit any combination of Mary Sue traits possible) capable of pulling whatever power they need out of their asses to beat the bad guys, save the world, etc. This incredible adaptability is commonly combined with near-total invincibility-agents forced to fight them find that nothing can kill them short of total disintegration. Extreme caution is advised when she appears in a fic. Calling for back-up (e.g. agents from the Eclectic Subdivision of Advanced Species, which is set up to deal with especially powerful Sues) is highly recommended.
Their even more dangerous relatives are known as the Black Hole!Sues (Miles supremus omnipotens), named because their abilities are so strong that the laws of reality are distorted by the very fact of her existence, causing the plot to be centered around her in a way that other Sues can only dream of. Finding one in a fic is considered grounds for an Emergency and should NEVER be taken on by even the most experienced agents without backup.
It isn't uncommon for one Sue have characteristics from different categories. For example, they may swing wildly between angst and bubbly joy.
Possession!Sues
Possession!Sues (Regula fictus) are created when a Suethor takes a canon character and gives them Sue-ish characteristics. This process is often referred to as 'Sueing' (or 'sueing', but the lower case can cause confusion with lawsuit "suing"), for example: "She Sued Hermione." Different fandoms have characters that are commonly Sued: Harry Potter and Hermione Granger are common victims in the Harry Potter Fandom, as is Legolas in the Tolkien Fandom. Sue!Hermione is given sleek hair and overall beautiful looks—often in a "summer make-over"—or she'll turn out to have been under a spell to mask her true beauty. Legolas is given perfectly blue eyes and golden hair, as well as a tragic past, usually in the form of an evil!Thranduil fanfic.
This is especially common in slash badfics—the typist doesn't want to create a new character, so he or she just makes one of the canons perfect. Sue!Hermione and Stu!Harry often show up together in badfic written by Harry/Hermione 'shippers. (Of course, this isn't to say that all Harry/Hermione 'shippers write badfic—at least one Boarder is a 'shipper.
Canon!Sues
Canon!Sues (Regula canonica) are a unique type of Mary Sue: unlike other Mary Sues, they are also canon characters in spite of the Mary Sue traits they possess. Although they can be very annoying, they are harmless and will have no negative effects on their canon.
Common Sues in Different Fandoms
Especially large fandoms, like Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings, have certain types of Sues that are very common in them. Harry Potter often has an exchange student (Discipulus translatus noxious), usually from the USA, who arrives and falls in love with one of the students; another common one is the Defense Against the Dark Arts Teacher (Magus supervacanea) who falls in love with another teacher.
The Tolkien fandom is plagued with Sues who "fell into Middle-earth from our world," often as the result of a car crash. The most common type, however, is the Tenth Walker (Miles vagus numeroconfracta), who joins the Company of the Ring.
In Percy Jackson and the Olympians fandom, the Sue is usually a daughter of one of the Big Three (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades) who falls for one of the main characters (often Percy or Luke). If she's a daughter of Hades, expect her to be an emo teen girl with a tragic past. And if she isn't a child of one of the Big Three, she'll probably be Annabeth's long-lost twin sister, Luke's daughter, etc.
Gary Stu
The male version of a Mary Sue is sometimes called a Gary Stu, Marty Stu, or a Marty Sam (Diabolus cupidus). He is often tall, dark, and handsome, and spends much of the story brooding. He is also the perfect warrior, has all the best toys, and is awesome at everything with an absolute maximum of one (1) dramatic training montage, at the end of which he will invariably best his master. (Eragon, we're looking at you.) The main exception to this is when he is a canon character re-created to be the perfect mate of the main Mary Sue; then he can be however complements the main Sue the best.
Litmus Tests
Occasionally, if an agent's CAD breaks, they may have to use a Litmus Strip on a mission.
Various tests have been written wherein authors can test their original characters for Sueness:
- The Original Mary Sue Litmus Test by Dr. Merlin - designed with Gargoyles fanfic in mind, but applies widely.
- The Universal Mary-Sue Litmus Test - contains different sections for original fic, fanfic, and RPG characters. Also has some "de-Suifiers" to give back points.
- The Original Fiction Mary Sue Litmus Test - for original fiction, but works with many fandoms as well. Based on Dr. Merlin's original litmus test.
- Harry Potter and the Mary Sue Litmus Test - based on Dr. Merlin's original litmus test.
- LotR Mary Sue Litmus Test - for Lord of the Rings fanfic, oddly enough.
See Also
Mary Sue Types
- Sue-wraith, a non-corporeal Mary Sue
- Marty Stu, a male Mary Sue
- Character Replacement
- Factory Sues, from the Mary Sue Factory
Mary Sue Abilities
- Suefluence
- Pulling canons out of character
- Aura of Smooth
- Sueing agents
- Possession
- Canon Rape
- Temporal distortion
- Bad Geography
- Bad biology
- Language Butchering
- Summoning Random Orcs
- Being speshul
- Trans-Dimensional Hopping
- Being a Tenth Walker or Uncanonical Daughter/Sibling
- Creating one or more Cute Animal Friends or Mini-Sues
Mary Sue Theories
- Andromedan Relation Theory
- Eldritch Theory of Suvians
- Scientific Theory of Suvian Origins
- The Spectrum of Suvian Species
- The Suvian Proteome
Substances Made of Mary Sue
Mary Sues in the PPC
- Reformed Sues
- The DIO, which, if it existed, would deal with Sues who have infiltrated the PPC
- Charges which agents use to sentence Mary Sues
- The Department of Mary Sues, who specialize in assassination
- Sue Support Group