Mary Sues

  • ⚙️ Performance issue identified and being addressed.
  • Want to keep track of this thread?
    Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
    Create account
I'm surprised no one mentioned the notable Mary Sue from Star Wars: The Force Awakens -Rey

  • Immediately at the start she's already a genius with mechanics.
  • Flies the Millennium Falcon like an ace on her first outing, despite never flying it before and, as poor as she's portrayed earlier, probably never operated any sort of flying vehicle for a length of time.
  • Everyone that isn't evil takes an almost immediate liking to her. Almost immediately gets a love interest with the Rebel pilot guy.
  • Turns out to have force powers, gets Luke Skywalker's lightsaber, has a vision upon touching it of his life history and is pretty much declared the chosen one on the spot.
  • Gets kidnapped and suddenly learns force powers that took Luke Skywalker almost a year training with Yoda to learn and becomes more powerful than a Sith in training in a couple of hours. She also becomes good with a lightsaber suddenly.
  • After defeating Sith Lord Emo Snape, she gets to go by herself to train personally with Luke Skywalker. Nevermind his friends that haven't seen him in almost 30 years.
 
King n Yellow said:
I'm surprised no one mentioned the notable Mary Sue from Star Wars: The Force Awakens -Rey

  • Immediately at the start she's already a genius with mechanics.
  • Flies the Millennium Falcon like an ace on her first outing, despite never flying it before and, as poor as she's portrayed earlier, probably never operated any sort of flying vehicle for a length of time.
  • Everyone that isn't evil takes an almost immediate liking to her. Almost immediately gets a love interest with the Rebel pilot guy.
  • Turns out to have force powers, gets Luke Skywalker's lightsaber, has a vision upon touching it of his life history and is pretty much declared the chosen one on the spot.
  • Gets kidnapped and suddenly learns force powers that took Luke Skywalker almost a year training with Yoda to learn and becomes more powerful than a Sith in training in a couple of hours. She also becomes good with a lightsaber suddenly.
  • After defeating Sith Lord Emo Snape, she gets to go by herself to train personally with Luke Skywalker. Nevermind his friends that haven't seen him in almost 30 years.
Click to expand...

Yeah. They could have explained the first two points by her being less poor in the past and just being a mechanic who flies a lot. Kinda like what Luke did on his farm. He fixed the droids, he mentioned his Skyhopper...
 
I'm personally surprised nobody mention revenge fanfics yet. Let me tell you, that's an entire different level of Mary Sue. It only gets better when revenge fanfiction against fanfiction is made.

There was an organization of people who made fanfiction like thus, lazily killing Mary Sues with their own Mary Sues, but I have forgotten the name. Something like the PPC, but all I remember was it was a somewhat guilty pleasure of mine to read in the past.
 
Dr W said:
I'm personally surprised nobody mention revenge fanfics yet. Let me tell you, that's an entire different level of Mary Sue. It only gets better when revenge fanfiction against fanfiction is made.

There was an organization of people who made fanfiction like thus, lazily killing Mary Sues with their own Mary Sues, but I have forgotten the name. Something like the PPC, but all I remember was it was a somewhat guilty pleasure of mine to read in the past.
Click to expand...
Like this?
https://www.fanfiction.net/community/The-Anti-Cliche-and-Mary-Sue-Elimination-Society/65729/
 
Dr W said:
I'm personally surprised nobody mention revenge fanfics yet. Let me tell you, that's an entire different level of Mary Sue. It only gets better when revenge fanfiction against fanfiction is made.

There was an organization of people who made fanfiction like thus, lazily killing Mary Sues with their own Mary Sues, but I have forgotten the name. Something like the PPC, but all I remember was it was a somewhat guilty pleasure of mine to read in the past.
Click to expand...
quite sure you mean the PPC, aka Protectors of the Plot Continuum. They had a board, then a wiki, around which point it became obvious to any non-fanfiction reading normies that the group was literally too autistic to function

much later on there was a thing called "literate union" on fanfiction.net and they were dedicated to dogpiling fics with form-styled fill in the blanks reviews explaining why a thing was terrible, then filing mass reports to get fics they didn't like removed. i thought it was an exercise in bailing piss out of an ocean of piss, but then they actually got unremarkable shitty fics removed and other ffnet users cried and held their breath. that was funny. i dont remember if they had a thing to do with some other group that raped the report feature so badly it had to be redone, or maybe they were the same group.
 
King n Yellow said:
I'm surprised no one mentioned the notable Mary Sue from Star Wars: The Force Awakens -Rey
Click to expand...

I agree on most of those points, but as much as I hate to admit it, when viewed on its own A New Hope makes Luke Skywalker look like a bit of a Gary Stu. It was mostly the brilliance of The Empire Strikes Back and Luke's associated Gallery of Fail that grounded him as a character and made the series so much better. He nearly died to the Wampa/cold, he failed in the Dagobah cave, he couldn't lift the X-Wing and couldn't control his emotions, he didn't save his friends and lost to Vader along with his hand. All that made Luke more of a character you could understand as being just the up-and-coming Jedi that he was, and not a guy who had everything go right for him every time. It made his triumph in saving his friends in Return of the Jedi infinitely more satisfying.

It probably won't happen, but I'm hopeful that the next Star Wars director is aware of this for the sequel, and has her fail on more things to beat her character down to make her more human. Personal failures though, not other people she's associated with failing around her; that's not the same thing.
 
Last edited:
I think a telltale sign of a Mary Sue is that, instead of a challenge, there's instead an illusion of challenge. I didn't get that from Rey or Luke. It sounds wishy-washy really, but y'know, a decent script always helps. Pulling off tension helps with normalizing a Mary Sue, bringing them down to likable levels even if they have the 'symptoms'.

Also powerleveling a bit but being into Traditional Games and Roleplaying (think D&D), I see a lot of unrepentant Mary Sue characters from people's applications. Usually ones who are ripping off the main characters in the newest isekai anime (isekai is a genre defined by 'an unfamiliar world', usually it's a generic fantasy realm, where the main character has real-world knowledge and some absurd overpowered ability). Half demon half angels special snowflakes are obscenely common, to the point where it almost feels like a parody... but it never is.
 
OtterParty said:
quite sure you mean the PPC, aka Protectors of the Plot Continuum. They had a board, then a wiki, around which point it became obvious to any non-fanfiction reading normies that the group was literally too autistic to function

much later on there was a thing called "literate union" on fanfiction.net and they were dedicated to dogpiling fics with form-styled fill in the blanks reviews explaining why a thing was terrible, then filing mass reports to get fics they didn't like removed. i thought it was an exercise in bailing piss out of an ocean of piss, but then they actually got unremarkable shitty fics removed and other ffnet users cried and held their breath. that was funny. i dont remember if they had a thing to do with some other group that raped the report feature so badly it had to be redone, or maybe they were the same group.
Click to expand...
The only thing more Autistic than being thirteen and making a bunch of Mary Sues is getting triggered by a thirteen year old's Mary Sues.
 
Piga Dgrifm said:
Like this?
https://www.fanfiction.net/community/The-Anti-Cliche-and-Mary-Sue-Elimination-Society/65729/
Click to expand...

Yes, exactly like that. The irony is palpable.


OtterParty said:
quite sure you mean the PPC, aka Protectors of the Plot Continuum. They had a board, then a wiki, around which point it became obvious to any non-fanfiction reading normies that the group was literally too autistic to function

much later on there was a thing called "literate union" on fanfiction.net and they were dedicated to dogpiling fics with form-styled fill in the blanks reviews explaining why a thing was terrible, then filing mass reports to get fics they didn't like removed. i thought it was an exercise in bailing piss out of an ocean of piss, but then they actually got unremarkable shitty fics removed and other ffnet users cried and held their breath. that was funny. i dont remember if they had a thing to do with some other group that raped the report feature so badly it had to be redone, or maybe they were the same group.
Click to expand...

Maybe we can try to make a thread for them. :optimistic:
 
Dr W said:
Maybe we can try to make a thread for them. :optimistic:
Click to expand...

Unlikely. Outside of their fanfiction autism they were usually sensible about keeping their internet autism strictly on the internet.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom