Mary Sue

[@Roric_The_Red]

On the question for suggestions on how to avoid writing a Mary Sue... If a character has a flaw and you want to try to avoid writing a Mary/Gary Sue, a really good way to do that is to have their flaws cost them something dear. And then they have to go through the consequences of their flaw manifesting at the worst possible time, not just for them but for the other characters around them. Can't just blow it off the next chapter after introducing it. As you were stating in the video, character development and growth setbacks all stop Mary Sue's from existing. Everyone wants to cheer the hero as they overcome things. Sometimes those things can be manifested by their own flaws.

[@CarrowBrown]

Good insight!

[@JoeyPaulOnline]

I read a lot of Mary Sue's in my fanfic days, and I sometimes cone across them in published books, but for me the problem comes when I can't suspend disbelief anymore and then they just become annoying and ruin the story

[@pixiebubbles2628]

In a past project, I wrote a minor character intentionally made as a Mary Sue (she has the same name & her power is called The Mary Sue), in a story about super powered heroes & villains. She's a trichiary character, and meant for comedy because she interacts with the Narrator since her own introduction. Then the story's subplot changed, because the Narrator was so fed up by Mary Sue, she kept demanding the Narrator's attention and praise, while existing in a story that wasn't meant for her as the lead role. The real main story was for a different character and his mission of exposing their city's veteran superhero, who got away with murdering his mother. Mary Sue was split into 2 new characters: Marhey (mar-hey) & Susie. Nobody else in the story ever notices the change as if this has always been the case, despite Susie trying to convince her friends, otherwise. Not even the MC or his girlfriend, both having super intelligence + the girlfriend is a mind reader, are convinced by Susie about the Narrator and how the Narrator made the change. Nobody but Mary Sue/ Marhey & Susie are aware they're in a fictional story. Marhey became the physical embodiment of toxic behaviors in women + anti- femininity, and is the "kill all me" type of feminist. Susie is the embodiment of positive behaviours in women + pro femininity, and traditionally womanly. Marhey is now a big antagonist helping THE villain of the story as his prodigy, and only Susie has the ability to defeat Marhey, because since splitting they've been handed the same limited power set. They can't do an ass-pull of a power or ability anymore, instead have the "generic" power set made by the Narrator. (Flight, super strength, and energy/laser blast) Towards the end, the main & sub plots have met together, with the team of leading characters fighting their villain (the crooked hero), and Susie + her team fighting Marhey, all together in a huge brawl. The MC team gets their happy ending by defeating / exposing the murderer; and Marhey is defeated by Susie + her team.

[@CarrowBrown]

Oh wow. What a tale.

[@darkengine5931]

Deliberately trying to come up with shortcomings for characters definitely helps to counteract designing ones so idealistic that they become unrelatable, but I'm of the thought that the most empathetic way to design a relatable character is to avoid even thinking in terms of flaws. Every single character trait can become a potential strength or flaw depending on the context. For example, you mentioned impulsiveness. Impulsiveness is usually a negative trait (especially in the types of societies we live in today where people are generally afforded a lot of time to think before they act and need to make very complex decisions). Impulsive people tend to make poorer decisions overall because they fail to utilize the extra time afforded to mull over their possible actions; they make split-second decisions when such hasty decisions aren't needed. Yet impulsive people can excel at making those split-second decisions when that extra time is lacking while others might hesitate. So I think the most empathetic mindset towards characters we design, although I'm not much of a writer, is to try our best to avoid even thinking of traits as strengths vs. weaknesses. We just try to design them to have a set of traits and habitual tendencies that plausibly fit together, and those traits might serve them in certain situations and hinder them in others.