Mary-Sues And The Dangers They Pose To Society

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Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears! I have called you to this guide to warn you of a great and terrible danger that hangs as an eternal threat over this and all writing forums. A force of destruction and woe so formidable, so widespread, so utterly terrifying that the very mention of their name sparks horror (and more than a little annoyance) into the hearts of RP-ers the world over:

You've all heard of these literary terrors, and if you haven't, then you should both count yourself extremely lucky and come to the realization that you WILL encounter many at some point in your life. That's why this guide is here. Mary-Sues are a lot like Zombies. They're infectious, dangerous, and generally unpleasant to be around. I have created this guide as a sort of survival handbook to help you avoid being taken into the brain-hungry legions of the undead the Sue Army. We'll call ourselves the Anti-Sue Army for semantics purposes. So, let's start off with knowing your enemy, troops! Exactly what is a Mary-Sue? According to Wikipedia, a Mary-Sue (referred to hereafter as a Sue for short) is defined as the following:

A Mary Sue (sometimes just Sue), in literary criticism and particularly in fanfiction, is a fictional character with overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for the author or reader. It is generally accepted as a character whose positive aspects overwhelm their other traits until they become one-dimensional. While the label "Mary Sue" itself originates from a parody of this type of character, most characters labelled "Mary Sues" by readers are not intended by authors as such. Male Mary Sues are often dubbed "Gary Stu", "Larry Stu", "Marty Stu", or similar names.

While the term is generally limited to fan-created characters, and its most common usage today occurs within the fan fiction community or in reference to fan fiction, original characters in role-playing games or literary canon are also sometimes criticized as being "Mary Sues" or "canon Sues" if they dominate the spotlight or are too unrealistic or unlikely in other ways.

(Source - Read more about Sues and their traits/actions/history here)

So, now that we know what a Sue is, it's time to learn how to identify one. Sue tendencies can be found in a character's appearance, personality, history, or some combination of the three. Generally, a Sue can be best described as an archetype of perfection. Let's start at the part of our Sue ID crash course where flaws are most generally found:

Typically, a Sue's appearance is "flawless." They have perfect skin and are stick-skinny with buxom curves for girls and an eight-pack for guys. THE BEST WAY TO MAKE A NOT-SUE IS TO GIVE YOUR CHARACTER PHYSICAL FLAWS. In the following list, I have written some ideas for potential physical flaws, as well as what the Sue-version of these features typically looks like. Most of the time Sues have some sort of "exceptional" quality to their appearance, which is easy enough to avoid.

SKIN - Skin ranges from alabaster-white to almost-black and everything in-between. When describing your character's skin, take into account the various qualities it might have. Is it rough or smooth? Freckles? Do they burn easily or tan? A personal choice of mine when writing a character's appearance is to make their skin part of their story. Example: you can tell a lot about Kaelen from looking at his skin. He's pale, which means he spends a lot of time inside/in the dark, he has a lot of scarring from Marks, which means he's out doing Shadowhunting things quite often, and his hands, while delicately built, are rough and callused because of all the work he does with them. See how much you can tell about someone by just describing the condition of their skin? Sue skin is usually one end of the spectrum or the other (extremely pale or extremely tan/dark), and is often baby-smooth and blemishless despite the amount of work they do or what their physical environment is. A ginger kid with freckles in the Sahara desert who never gets a sunburn and maintains soft skin without a drop of lotion? Sue. Most people have blemishes of some sort; acne for most teenagers, callused or rough places from work or exposure, dry or oily skin, scars of all shapes and sizes. Make sure you take all of these factors into consideration.

HAIR - Hair is one of the biggest Sue-indicators out there. Without using any sort of hair product or tools, you can have different kinds of natural hair (straight, curly, wavy, thick, thin, frizzy, etc.). Hair length varies as well. REAL hair colors are blond, red, brown, and black, and the various shades in-between. Sue hair is identifiable as standing out from the norm of a character's race/species, such as being the only one with unnatural color at the roots (some Fae and Warlocks might have naturally blue hair. Your werewolf, however, cannot). Sue hair is also typically long, flowing, and silky-smooth at all times in girls, and the sort of shiny-flippy JBiebs-ish coiffure in guys. Potential flaws in hair can be frizziness, greasiness, dandruff, the tendency to dry out and break (this happens when people dye their hair often), maybe premature balding in males, or general disarray and the tendency to become tangled. Also, girls, just saying: you don't see many Sues with a crew cut. Keeping the 'do short is a good way to avoid writing huge paragraphs about your character's lovely lavish locks.

FACE - There are a lot of little sub-sections in this, so I'll just throw out the Sue traits and potential flaws for each.

Eyes - Eyes. Eyes. EYES. Eyes are the worst Sue-trait in the known world. Sue eyes are big and amazing and reflect hidden depths of torture and pain and woe. They are typically an abnormal color (exceptions can be made for Warlocks and Fae, who might have different-color eyes, and vampires, who always have brighter, jewel-toned irises), i.e. some random chick who just happens to have bright pink eyes. Natural eye colors are brown, blue, gray, green, and hazel. Intermediate shades are possible, and hazel eyes often do shift color, typically from amber-brown to green-brown depending on what the person is wearing, but drastic changes like blue to brown aren't realistic. Heterochromia (ex: one blue eye and one brown) is rare, but it does exist. Basically, just stay true to your character's race/species when deciding on an eye color, and don't write five paragraphs about how they're tortured windows to the soul.

Nose - Noses come in all shapes and sizes - button, bulbous, hooked, Roman, turned-up, just to name a few - and are a great way to make your character's face distinctive. Flaws can sometimes tie into history or other fun facts - Kae's nose has a pretty big bump in the bridge because of a bad break when he was fifteen involving a pissed-off succubus and Riley being a pacifist, for example. Sue noses are typically in perfect proportion with their face and have nothing odd or unique about them. Pretty boring, really. I actually think Roman noses are really cool and very distinctive, so if you're looking for specific traits you might want to try that.

Lips - Sue lips are full, lush, and always incredibly smooth. Try for maybe too-thin or too-full (Trouty Mouth?) lips, and take into account that most of the time people's lips will become chapped if they don't keep up a vigorous lip balm routine, especially in the winter. Maybe give your character a lip-biting or lip-picking habit; as this adds an interesting dimension as well as a physical flaw all in one.

Teeth - Okay. Hate to break it to you, but no one is born with perfect teeth. Most of the time teeth are crooked in some way, be it buck teeth or twisted incisors or crowding - that's why modern orthodontists make the big bucks. So unless your character has just finished a rigorous regimen of braces, their teeth are not perfectly straight (omg, someone make a character with braces, that would be awesome). Other potential problems include cavities, gum problems, yellowing (either from smoking or drinking a lot of coffee/soda), and sensitivity.

ARMS/HANDS - Like I said earlier, Sues usually have baby-soft hands no matter what the work they do with them. This isn't realistic. A Shadowhunter's hands are going to be really rough and callused from training and constantly handling weapons. A Werewolf's hands are going to be cut and scarred from running around on the ground in wolf form. A vampire's hands might have blood caked under the nails. "Pretty" hands aren't necessarily a Sue trait (I almost always write characters with skeletal, delicate hands and long, spindly fingers), but it becomes one if you decide to give a scullery maid the smooth hands of a baroness. Another potential stumbling block is musculature. A character with stick-skinny arms isn't going to be able to lift incredible masses (exceptions for Shadowhunters who have Marks for that and Vampires/Werewolves who have naturally occurring superhuman strength). If you want a character who can bench press their own weight without any magical aid, you better be giving them some guns.

TORSO - Again, watch out for musculature. Your character isn't going to have an eight-pack unless they've worked to get one. It's realistic for Shadowhunters to be pretty fit, obviously, but I mean... you really have to work to have visible abs. Some very skinny characters have naturally occurring "skinny abs," which is basically just being able to see the lines of their abdominal muscles because they're so thin, not necessarily because they're in shape. Boys are more likely to have visible musculature, girls are less likely unless they do extremely heavy physical activity a lot.

LEGS/FEET - Same as arms/hands. Be realistic with their musculature/athletic capability. Feet are a cool place to add flaws. Gross toenails, smelly feet, all that fun stuff. I also usually write characters with disproportionately big feet, just noticed that.

SCARS - Okay, here's a problem. The way I see it, scars don't count as a physical flaw unless they're unusually grotesque. This is because most of the time people view scars as "mysterious" or "cool" rather than as something of a physical detriment. If you throw in a scar just to make your character look like a badass, it's a Sue trait. Scars on Shadowhunters aren't physical flaws, they're a fact of life. A Shadowhunter having scars is like someone having freckles. They're commonplace. So yeah, unless a scar majorly messes up your character's looks, it's a no-no. Also, if a scar is your character's only physical flaw, you won't get a very good reception.

Basically, you need to realize that a character must have flaws to avoid being labelled as a Sue. Perfect people don't exist, and even if they did, they'd be horribly boring. Francis Bacon once said "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion." Make your character unique in fun, quirky ways! Why would you want a cookie-cuter Sue when you can have a custom-made appearance all your own? Uniqueness is key in everything about a non-Sue character, which brings us to common issue with...

Personality-wise, Sues can be divided into three sub-categories. You've got your Positive (Hero) Sue, your Neutral (Mid-Range) Sue, and your Negative (Villain) Sue. There is not one type of Sue that is better or worse than the other - they're all horrid. Here are the basic defining characteristics of the Sue sub-categories.

THE HERO SUE - This Sue is the embodiment of all that is good in the world. She is sweet and funny and everyone loves her. She is head cheerleader as well as captain of the Mathletes, and she volunteers at a soup kitchen for five hours every day. Her IQ is 350 and she always has the cutest clothes. All the boys want her. Hero Sue is gentle and kind, but surprisingly fierce when standing up for the weak and the bullied. She has no negative qualities at all, and is literally the textbook definition of perfection. This is the type of Sue you see most often when people are just starting to write/RP. They want to have a character that people can root for, and in the process of trying to make that happen their desire for a "good" character gets over-inflated and they end up with a caricature of benevolence that makes Glinda the Good Witch look like Regina George. Also, the good-at-everything hallmark of Hero Sue is usually a subconscious quirk of the author, putting themselves into the character's place and living vicariously through them. After all, who wouldn't want to speak five languages and run a unicorn farm on the weekends when they're not busy saving the world from invading aliens?

THE MID-RANGE SUE - Shy, awkward, quiet, strange, this Sue has a host of traits that society sees as not-quite acceptable but in reality actually aren't that negative. Many times you will see a Hero Sue with a few Mid-Range Sue traits thrown in as her "negative qualities." This, my friends, is a load of bull pucky. Mid-Range traits and Negative traits are not the same thing at all. Example: Mary Sue is sweet and loveable, but oh no, she's painfully shy. Why is her shyness a bad thing? It isn't detrimental to her, or anyone else for that matter. Not unless you put a spin on it to make it so. Mid-Range traits are unique because they can be tweaked to either a Positive or Negative alignment. Mary Sue's shyness could have a Positive alignment if, per se, it allowed her to pursue a lifetime of reading books and acquiring knowledge instead of being a social butterfly. However, it could have a Negative alignment if she was so shy that she never talked about her problems to anyone and caused herself significant emotional damage from keeping everything pent up. Mid-Range traits are important in any well-rounded character, but you MUST make sure to explain whether they have a Positive or Negative connotation to them.

THE VILLAIN SUE - This is the Sue that is hardest to avoid writing, simply because writing them actually is a lot of fun. Villain Sue has absolutely no redeeming qualities. She is vengeful, bloodthirsty, vindictive, and just plain mean. She'd stab you in the face and not even feel the slightest inkling of anything. She's a psychopath, sociopath, narcissist, bipolar, and has multiple personalities. Villain Sue is the antithesis of Hero Sue, evil in every way with not a single spark of good in her entire being. Maybe she was abused as a child and is taking it out on the world. Maybe she's getting revenge for a past injustice. Whatever it is, Villain Sue is the last person you want to meet in a dark alley. The main problem with these Sues is that, like Hero Sues, they don't have a balanced, realistic set of traits. Even the "villain" in a story cannot be entirely evil and debauched, just as the "hero" can not be entirely good and pure of heart. Think Loki, guys. Total villain, but you feel sorry for him. You sympathize with him. You know his motivations.

Basically, what you're looking at with all these types of Sues is a case of extremes, like this illustrated contrast between Hero Sue and Villain Sue. No character can realistically be inherently good or inherently evil, simply because people as a rule aren't inherently good or inherently evil. We all have a mix of good and bad in us, and yes, many times some people have more good than bad or more bad than good, but the fact that they ally with one side of the spectrum doesn't erase the fact that they do have traits from the other side. I find that the best way to make a good, well-rounded, multi-dimensional character is to list out their Positive, Mid-Range, and Negative traits. If they're more bad than good, they can have a few more Negatives. If they're more good than bad, they can have a few more Positives. But basically, you're looking for a close-to-even distribution. Here's an example:

KAELEN DEMPSEY

Positive Traits:

• Loyalty
  
• Tenacity
  
• Intelligence
  
• Selflessness
  
• Excellent Shadowhunting/Combat Skills
  
• Good with cars/mechanical things as well as piano/singing
  

Mid-Range Traits:

• Anti-Social Behavior (Negative alignment, keeps things pent up and lets them fester until he blows up)
  
• Wittiness (Negative/Positive Alignment, can be funny sometimes but more often uses words as a weapon or as self-defense)
  
• Desire for Approval (Negative Alignment, often makes him do things that put him in harm's way for the sake of being validated)
  
• "Nerdy" Hobbies (Positive Alignment, if he lets himself be vulnerable enough to let people see him walking around in his Doctor Who shirts with an old school Gameboy in his hand, he's actually kind of adorable)
  
• Stubbornness (Positive Alignment, keeps trying until he gets what he wants/needs, his stubbornness is what it takes to keep him going)
  
• Perceptiveness (Positive/Negative Alignment, quick to see when something is wrong but also quick to judge)
  
• Trust and Vulnerability Issues (Negative/Positive Alignment, never lets anyone in but at the same time protects himself from being hurt)
  

Negative Traits:

• Passive-Aggression
  
• Unnecessary Cruelty
  
• Bitterness/Cynicism
  
• Pessimism
  
• Anger Issues
  
• Self-Pity
  

See? That's a well-rounded character with many different facets. By looking at that list, can you tell if he's a "hero" or a "villain?" If not, then I've done a good job making a non-Sue. Notice how I've given him checks and balances between his Positive and Negative traits (he's selfless but often cruel, hardworking but trapped in a constant pity party, intelligent but bitter and angry), and then gone back in and put in some Mid-Range stuff so he isn't just a bipolar mess of a walking contradiction. You shouldn't make a character with "good" or "evil" in mind, although as far as "character types" go, I find this Alignment Chart very useful. Make a person, not a stereotype, and most of the time you won't have to worry about making a Sue. And what makes a person? Well, people are generally considered to be products of their circumstances, so that leads us to...

I'm guilty of occasional Sue-histories myself. The vast majority of Sues have some sort of cataclysmic tragedy in their past. Misery! Woe! Famine! Plague! More often than not, one or usually both of their parents are dead. Again, this is the author having a misguided desire to make a character that people can "root for." Yes, people like to read about a character overcoming adversity. However, if you're reading about a character whose parents died in a space shuttle explosion when they were two, leaving them to be raised by their evil uncle who made them sleep in a closet and never fed them, it's not believable to think that character would A) not be an absolute emotional/mental wreck, and/or B) would grow up to be Hero Sue, perfect at everything and universally adored, happily ever after. Past tragedies are okay. They make for interesting development, and honestly histories can get kind of boring without them. But there are a few loose, general rules to indicate what might be a Sue history.

• If someone reads it and rolls their eyes, it's a Sue-history.
  
• If it closely resembles Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty/any other classic Disney princess movie, it's a Sue-history.
  
• If it over-dramatizes past events to justify present behavior (Ex: "Oh, woe! Cruel fortune! When I was five my cat got run over by a truck and now I have vowed to hunt down the driver and carve out his intestines with a dull, rusty butter knife!" _Villain Sue) or otherwise blows stimulus/response out of proportion to garner sympathy, it's a Sue-history.
  
• If it involves dead parents and the character MIRACULOUSLY learning to fend for themselves/younger siblings at a ridiculously young age (teenagers like the Ripley boys on this site doing this is fine, a seven year old is not) to avoid the orphanage/being taken away/etc., it's a Sue-history.
  
• If your character has succeeded in every endeavor no matter how difficult or unrealistic, it's a Sue-history.
  
• IF YOU SUSPECT IT MIGHT BE A SUE-HISTORY, IT'S A SUE-HISTORY.

There's not a lot of instruction I can give you on how to make a good, non-Sue history. All characters need a little drama in their background to make them interesting, but there's a fine line between the realm of interest and Suetopia where history is concerned. Just... use your best judgement when writing a history, and if you think something in a bio sounds a little Sue-ish, it most likely is.

Now that we know what a Sue is, what it looks like, what it acts like, and where it comes from, we have the all-important question: Does your character match this description? It's hard to tell by looking at your own writing sometimes, so don't be afraid to ask someone, or better yet, make use of this handy-dandy Online Mary-Sue Litmus Test to see if your character is leaning towards Sue status. If the test tells you that you've got a Sue on your hands, don't be discouraged! Practice makes perfect, so just go back to your character and edit, edit, edit!

The main reason we want to avoid Sues is simply because they make for a boring story. They're generic, flat, and typically just really not something you want to have on an RPG. This guide is here to tell you what NOT to do when you make a character. Elegant, however, has an awesome guide about how to make a good, multi-layered, multi-dimensional character. That's where you should go to find out about the things you want to do in order to make a character who could never be called a Sue. I hope this has helped! Class dismissed!