Mary Sues and Gary Stus-Legit complaints or misplaced insults?

[SpiderClops]

Second: You actually WATCHED that Adam Sandler movie?!

I watched it because

1. I don't really hate Adam Sandler movies like most people. Are they good movies? No. But they get a couple of chuckles out of me, so they're ok for passing the time.
2. I was in the mood to watch a spoof movie.

Sad to say, TR6 turned out to be absolutely god awful. That was a terrible movie even by Adam Sandler movie standards. Sandler just sleepwalks through the whole movie, whereas in other movies while his performance isn't good, at least he was trying. And his character turned out to be a complete Mary Sue.

[Panic]

"Ace" Rimmer from Red Dwarf episode Dimension Jump:

What a guy!

[Innocent Bystander]

Not sure about the others, but I was always under the impression that Squirrel Girl was kind of a parody character, and the writers are just running with the joke.

Squirrel Girl was a memetic creation who was turned into a parody, yes, specifically to troll those people who argue endlessly about power levels and who is the strongest. Slott made that answer a teenage girl with a knuckle spike who can talk to squirrels and it was glorious. And then he started trolling himself by having her beat Thanos (with the Watcher confirming the victory) only to later have Thanos say he could make clones so good they could fool the Watcher.

I always felt the confusion about Rey was caused by J.J. Abrams trying to hide information in his "mystery box" method of filmmaking. And the real mary sue of the new Star Wars is clearly BB-8.

[PyroTwilight]

Honestly since the term Mary Sue is so generalized depending on what you mean I do ultimately think the term doesn't really mean anything.

Especially since skills in most of these settings are highly based on what the author wants to do in a story.

If a character is considered the best at something and shows it over and over is it a Mary Sue or just an established trait?

If a character takes someone way above their apparent power class is that a Mary Sue? That's most fiction in a nutshell.

Protagonists in stories are almost always so powerful or skilled or well equipped or supported by others to cover what abilities they don't have to make themselves seem even better.

It's really rare to even find a character that fits criteria of being overpowered or underskilled and still doing way better than normal.

Folks like using Rey as an example but her entire battle with Kylo i the Force Awakens was after he received the equivalent of a death blast bringing him down to her level.

And by Last Jedi for better or worse we have actual confirmation that the Force itself is essentially super charging her to let her do whatever she'd need to equal the dark side/Kylo. Is it still being a Mary Sue (if she ever was) if there's an explanation for it?

[SpiderClops]

And the real mary sue of the new Star Wars is clearly BB-8.

[Jackalope89]

Honestly since the term Mary Sue is so generalized depending on what you mean I do ultimately think the term doesn't really mean anything.

Especially since skills in most of these settings are highly based on what the author wants to do in a story.

If a character is considered the best at something and shows it over and over is it a Mary Sue or just an established trait?

If a character takes someone way above their apparent power class is that a Mary Sue? That's most fiction in a nutshell.

Protagonists in stories are almost always so powerful or skilled or well equipped or supported by others to cover what abilities they don't have to make themselves seem even better.

It's really rare to even find a character that fits criteria of being overpowered or underskilled and still doing way better than normal.

Folks like using Rey as an example but her entire battle with Kylo i the Force Awakens was after he received the equivalent of a death blast bringing him down to her level.

And by Last Jedi for better or worse we have actual confirmation that the Force itself is essentially super charging her to let her do whatever she'd need to equal the dark side/Kylo. Is it still being a Mary Sue (if she ever was) if there's an explanation for it?

How about the mind influencing trick, when she's never seen it, let alone been trained to use the Force? Or, knowing more about the Millennium Falcon after a couple minutes then Han Solo after decades?

Haven't seen The Last Jedi, but I have heard from those that have, that the film made Rey into a Mary Sue (and this was from defenders of hers from before it came out). And ham-fisted explanation for her suddenly being the best at everything doesn't make her less of a Mary Sue. Having raw power is one thing, magically knowing what to do with it without any training whatsoever is something else entirely.

[PyroTwilight]

How about the mind influencing trick, when she's never seen it, let alone been trained to use the Force? Or, knowing more about the Millennium Falcon after a couple minutes then Han Solo after decades?

Haven't seen The Last Jedi, but I have heard from those that have, that the film made Rey into a Mary Sue (and this was from defenders of hers from before it came out). And ham-fisted explanation for her suddenly being the best at everything doesn't make her less of a Mary Sue. Having raw power is one thing, magically knowing what to do with it without any training whatsoever is something else entirely.

Well, she used the mind influencing trick just shortly after Kylo used it on her. Which made it make a bit more sense to me. And given her whole thing has been she's EXTREMELY powerful with the force I never really was bothered by it.

I mean The Force itself is essentially a magical lets you know things sort of macguffin when it wants to be. And while she picks up on stuff really quickly ,her background as a scavenger seemed like a good explanation enough.

I know it's a big YMMV in the end thus why she's brought up but I never really thought her actions WERE all that much.

With maybe the exception of her back to back fight with Kylo against the guards.

[wjowski]

Mostly it's used as a way to whine about capable women in fiction without sounding sexist.

[Jackalope89]

Well, she used the mind influencing trick just shortly after Kylo used it on her. Which made it make a bit more sense to me. And given her whole thing has been she's EXTREMELY powerful with the force I never really was bothered by it.

I mean The Force itself is essentially a magical lets you know things sort of macguffin when it wants to be. And while she picks up on stuff really quickly ,her background as a scavenger seemed like a good explanation enough.

I know it's a big YMMV in the end thus why she's brought up but I never really thought her actions WERE all that much.

With maybe the exception of her back to back fight with Kylo against the guards.

Kylo KO'ed her. Rey then basically used mind control on the Stormtrooper without EVER having used the Force before. That's quite the difference.

Being a scavenger is one thing; suddenly knowing the ins and outs and being a better pilot than Han of the Falcon is something completely different. Being a scavenger means you're looking for something that could be worth some money, and then you pop it off of whatever it is you found it on. Being a mechanic means knowing how something runs, and knowing the exact components you need to make it work. The two are NOT the same. At all.

And being powerful is not an excuse. Luke is powerful, but it took him 3 movies before he became proficient enough to actually challenge Vader and finally graduate from being a jumped up farm boy. He wasn't some great mechanic, he was a rookie pilot (having at least SOME experience with speeders and whatnot on Tatooine, whereas Rey didn't even do that), and at least had a little training from Obi-Wan before actually doing anything with the Force.

Mostly it's used as a way to whine about capable women in fiction without sounding sexist.

I've also seen a fair share of Gary Stues in fanfiction, and I call them out. And they have the same problem as Mary Sues, as has been gone over in this thread.

It is VERY possible making a strong, capable woman without making them a Mary Sue. Same goes for male characters. But you can't simply brush aside such criticism of characters just because you like them or whatever.

Calling a character out as a Gary Stue or Mary Sue has nothing to do with being sexist; its pointing out that the character fits the trope.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue

[Sacred Knight]

She was never a better pilot than Han. She impressed him with a piece of knowledge about the Falcon and knew how to work on it. And being a scavenger could easily lead to one also learning mechanic skills. They're not the same thing but they can very much be utilized together. In any case, neither thing suddenly makes her better than Han. I get the arguments with the Force use. The arguments about her piloting skills are weak though, we've seen many examples of characters, not even Force-sensitive ones, being naturally skilled pilots, or being able to fix things. This is just a nitpick to boost other, better arguments for her being OP (and even there, she's not the first character to be OP; the rules of learning the Force have always been rather ill-defined and contradictory).

And you're wrong about Luke in the piloting and mechanical sense. He was ALWAYS good at that. From the very first film. We didn't see him gradually get good, he was always really good. And we didn't need to see it to understand he just learned outside of being Force-sensitive. Just like we don't need to see it with Rey.

[Starter Set]

Those appellations are used in a similar fashion than "fanfiction" for example. It has become just a handy way to criticize a character without having to develop much your argumentation.

In some cases i can see why it is used though. I like Rey fine...Well, wait, no, actually i don't feel a thing about that character, good or bad. But that character is written in such a fashion than yes, it's hard to not feel weird watching her owning the galaxy with her delicious British accent.

Can't help but think : "gee, some writer is living his or her fantasies through that character". Which is by the way the original meaning of that Mary-Sue thing, what really matters is not that much that the character is flawless, but that the writer of the story is projecting himself into that character.

That's written masturbation if you will.

[Alan2099]

And then he started trolling himself by having her beat Thanos (with the Watcher confirming the victory) only to later have Thanos say he could make clones so good they could fool the Watcher.

And the "Thanos" that claimed to be able to make perfect clones was an imperfect clone who had altered memories. I think that's an important part that people leave out.

[SpiderClops]

You know, Levi from Attack on Titan also fits the definition.

spoilers:

Ackerman blood or no

end of spoilers, he is absurd.