The Infamous Mary Sue

Well, I guess it’s time to have a good ol’ chat about Mary Sues: history, definition, discussion, and ranking out of ten.

So let’s go.

HISTORY

In 1973, Paula Smith wrote a parody fan fiction called “A Trekkie’s Tale” making fun of the typical Star Trek: The Original Series fan fiction of the era.  Her protagonist’s name was Mary Sue, and she personified what we now think of as Mary Sues.

Originally, though, the term only referred to fan fiction characters.  It wasn’t until Star Trek: The Next Generation rolled around that the term began to be applied to canon characters as well.  It happened like this:

In TNG, the Enterprise is strictly run, and Captain Picard has very firm views on bridge protocol and who is and is not allowed on the bridge.  He also doesn’t like children.  Then 15-year-old Wesley Crusher comes along (“Wesley” being the show’s creator’s middle name).  Within short order, he’s not only frequently on the bridge, he’s also sometimes saving the Enterprise and Captain Picard seems fond of him.

And there was an outcry.  “Mary Sue!” the watcher’s screamed.  “He’s unbelievably talented and perfect.  No child could save the Enterprise!  He’s knocking Picard out of character! We hate him!”

Now, as a Trekkie myself, I don’t agree with this label, because I believe there are valid canon reasons why Wesley might be a special exception to Picard’s rules—specifically, that Wesley’s father was Picard’s friend and then died in circumstances that made Picard feel guilty.  As for him being perfect—well.  He is very skilled, but he also makes stupid mistakes sometimes.  As for him saving the Enterprise—who hasn’t saved her?  It makes sense that aliens might overlook a child or that the ship might have an unlikely hero.  Happens every other episode . . .

So I don’t think Wesley is a Mary Sue.  But I do believe that if the accusations were correct, he would be, because I’d define a Mary Sue like this:

DEFINITION

A Mary Sue is a character who is meant to be perceived as flawless and who warps the universe of the story around her.

So this is in two parts.  A character can’t be merely flawless.  Characters like Admiral Thrawn (the beloved baddie in several of Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars books) are flawless but they can be beaten or defeated, because they can’t warp the universe of the story.  Besides, people act in character around them: Luke Skywalker is clearly the same character regardless of whether he’s in the same scene or even in the same book as Thrawn.

“Mary Sue,” by the way, is the gender non-specific term, and “she” the gender non-specific pronoun.  You can also say “Marty Sam” or “Gary Stu” or other variations for the male version—but here, I’m using the generic. 

There’s this idea that Mary Sues are overwhelmingly female, but I haven’t found this to be the case.  True, females are more likely to write female ’Sues and there are more females in the literary world than males . . . but at least from my personal experience with popular published books, the male-female Mary Sue split is 50-50. 

BLAND VS. INSIDIOUS PART ONE: POSITIVE VS. NEGATIVE FANTASIES

Mary Sues are written as self-indulgent wish fulfillments and therefore the expression of fantasizing rather than imagining.  Since Mary Sues exist on a broad continuum of characters and writers, it’s hard to split them up into easy categories.  But I would like to briefly go into the concept of positive and negative fantasies. 

Positive fantasies are fantasies in which no one gets hurt: “I entered the piano competition and played perfectly and won and everyone loved me and then I got a record contract and toured and was rich and happy forever!”

Negative fantasies are those in which someone gets hurt—the protagonist, love interest, or villain.  So: “I entered the competition and played perfectly but the judges were unjust and I didn’t win and I’m terribly put upon” or “My love was kidnapped by a baddie and hurt and now I have to comfort him,” or “she was mean to me so I got terrible revenge, as was my right.” Generally, these are much more psychologically harmful to the fantasizer than positive fantasies. 

CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MARY SUE

Something you might note about these examples is that the protagonist is always in the right.  This is one characteristic of the Mary Sue: she is always right and good and if you don’t like her it’s only because you’re mean or jealous or don’t know her well enough.  She deserves to have the world wrap around her, and so it is right that it does.

If this is sounding like the wish fulfillment of a narcissist, there’s a reason for that.  We all of us have some level of narcissism; and youth, inexperience, and thoughtlessness can make that manifest in ways we’ll later perceive as embarrassing.  Yes, I have written a Mary Sue.  She had fabulous red hair and color-changing eyes.

The more extreme and unhealthy the Mary Sue, the more the author personally identifies with them, because in many ways the author is (usually) the Mary Sue, and it’s her wishes that are being fulfilled.  Mary Sue authors therefore take personal offense at any indication that their character might have character flaws.

Ironic, yes?  Good characters are always flawed.

Mary Sue authors will also often become jealous of their love interest Mary Sues—but let’s give an example of that.

THE LOVE-INTEREST MARY SUE

There’s this book.  It’s very good—maybe 4 stars out of 5.  In it, we have a fabulous villain.  He’s the sort of villain who just enjoys being wicked.  And because he enjoys it so much, we the reader enjoy watching him.  We don’t want him to win—we like our protagonist too—but we want to read more with him because he’s just a terrific character.

Unfortunately, it seems the author felt so too.  My theory is that she fell in love with him.  You should always love your characters but never fall in love with them, or you might do what she did . . .

She wrote a sequel that was the villain’s backstory.  Turns out, he’s just a watered-down version of the protagonist from the first book.  "He’s not really bad.  He’s just misunderstood because he’s so extra special that he has to keep his specialness secret."

In short, he went from fabulous villain to Blandy McBland Bland.

And if that weren’t enough, the author retroactively reinterpreted the events of book one to totally discredit all our good guys because she couldn’t stand anyone, even her own characters, saying mean things about her Mary Sue.  And she’s very jealous of her relationship with her ’Sue and doesn’t want other readers getting too close . . .

See?  This is why people hate Mary Sues.  Not because they’re bad characters, but because they ruin what would otherwise have been good.  But let’s get back to—

BLAND VS. INSIDIOUS PART 2: DEFINING PERFECTION

Here’s the thing: I don’t hate the mild Mary Sue—i.e., the flawless character with positive fantasies.  She’s not good writing and doesn’t have much worth, but she’s not particularly harmful unless the reader takes her to delusional extremes.

But then you have the other sorts of Mary Sues.  The sorts that encourage people to revel in unhealthy, negative fantasies.  And that not only encourages bad traits; it’s simply not truthful.

You know that time someone said something mean to you and you later thought of a comeback and wish you’d said it?  Well, your Mary Sue always has a comeback.  She is constantly cutting people down.  And we’re meant to regard this nasty piece of work as “flawless”!  Or she’s captured and tortured and it’s so unjust.  And we’re meant to regard her torment as beautiful!  She’s the sort of person who is always right and so never has to learn from her mistakes.  The world revolves around her, and if anyone disagrees with her, it’s because they’re evil.  What a hero!

I’m sorry to say that I’ve known people who think they are always right.  They are just poor put-upon souls who are never to blame for anything.  And that's . . . not good.  It’s not good for them, and it hurts the people around them.

Mary Sues who are like this are insidious because they encourage and reinforce this type of behavior and thought-pattern through mental repetition and indulgence (in reader and writer).

So no, I don’t have a big problem with the occasional self-indulgent positive fantasy Mary Sue any more than I have a problem with occasionally eating a piece of cake.  But if you live off rotting cake that you scraped out of the Dumpster?  That’s a problem.

RANKING OUT OF 10

With all I’ve said, you might imagine that I’m going to rank the Mary Sue 0 out of 10, since she ranges from bad writing with no real benefits to bad writing with real detriments.  But I’m actually going to give her 2 stars out of 10.  Why?

Because for readers who haven’t yet become discerning or stopped to think about the real impact of Mary Sues, reading Mary Sues can be fun.  And this “fun” factor has brought people to reading who might never otherwise have read.  If it ended there—if people never read anything but Mary Sues—I wouldn’t account this a bonus.  But many readers then go on to read actual good books.

And so, Mary Sue, not for your sake but for the sake of you unintentionally doing some good, I’ll throw you a bone.  2/10.  You’re welcome.