# Mary Sue characters **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 2, 2009, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642 "2009-01-02T23:16:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/141 "2009-01-07T22:33:35Z")
I’m a little late to the party, here, but I thought I’d jump in. To me, the ultimate Mary Sue character is Nancy Drew (is the rhyming a coincidence? I think not! :)) She is perfect…she’s smart and pretty, always knows the right thing to do, always solves the crime and manages to save lives regularly in the bargain. She is wildly accomplished at an astounding variety of hobbies…I remember that circus bareback riding was one of her many interests. Her level of perfection was only tolerable because of her natural charm and graciousness. Man, did I have a love/hate relationship with her when I was a kid. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/142 "2009-01-07T22:39:04Z")
> [@Rubystreak](#): > > I think, in a couple of years, they will look back on Twilight and realize, “Wow, how did I ever really think that was good? Ah, youth!” or whatever the teen equivalent of that is. I’m a bit rusty at teen speak but I believe it would translate roughly into “Twilight? Sooooooooooooooo over. What was I tripping on when I was into that?”. ---
**Author:** ![Rubystreak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Rubystreak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rubystreak)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/143 "2009-01-07T22:46:24Z")
> [@Illuminatiprimus](#): > > I’m a bit rusty at teen speak but I believe it would translate roughly into “Twilight? Sooooooooooooooo over. What was I tripping on when I was into that?”. Or, “Twilight totally sucks. Edward Cullen, what-EVER.” ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/144 "2009-01-07T22:49:48Z")
> [@Rubystreak](#): > > Or, “Twilight totally sucks. Edward Cullen, what-EVER.” Yes, that would work too, however the pronunciation on “what-EVER” would actually be closer to “what-AVUR”. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2009, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/145 "2009-01-07T22:50:45Z")
> [@tim314](#): > > Plus I’m pretty sure I’ve heard Rowling compare herself to Hermione in an interview. Nearly all authors find aspects of themselves in at least one of their characters, if not most or all of them. That’s not what makes it a Mary Sue. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/146 "2009-01-08T20:00:43Z")
I’ve never heard this term before, and now I’m glad I have. I used to read this series of Jonathan Kellerman books … with protagonist Dr. Alex Delaware, child psychologist. My mother got me into them, and they really are pretty fluffy as mystery novels are conerned. I wasn’t a very discriminating reader at the time, and after enough of these books I realized that I wasn’t getting the best out of my fiction-reading dollar. It’s when I realized that pop-mystery novels suck in general. But the thing that always irritated the crap out of me was must how friggin’ perfect Alex Delaware was. Not just in the fact that he always solved the crime through amazing feats of heroism and logic, but just in the descriptions of his every day life … … he’d come home to his house in the hills (which was designed by some architect I’d never heard of), and grab a special imported beer (that I’d never heard of), and then he’d cook some gourmet meal (consisting of ingredients I’d never heard of), and then he’d pick up his guitar (which was hand-crafted by his equally perfect girlfriend) and head down to his private koi pond to pluck out some incredibly complicated classical piece (that I’d never heard of), where he’d ultimatly come to realize precisely which thin shred of evidence proves that the butler did it. Ugh. Used to drive me crazy. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/147 "2009-01-08T20:52:27Z")
I’ll give another major vote for Richard Rahl/Cypher. To demonstrate the depth of the Sue-ishness, just look at the “Name” section of the test. He has two last names. One of those names is an unusual spelling. It is also a common noun used as a name. It is also intended to suggest a facet of his personality. The other name is definitely out of place for a woodsman in a European-style society. And it’s foreign, with an Asian tilt. That’s seven points based on the name alone. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2009, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/148 "2009-01-08T21:57:54Z")
Melanie Wilkes. One of the reasons Scarlett can’t stand her is that she never looses her goodness. Margaret Mitchell may have regarded her as “my heroine,” but she made me want to urp. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/149 "2009-01-09T00:44:08Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I’ll give another major vote for Richard Rahl/Cypher. To demonstrate the depth of the Sue-ishness, just look at the “Name” section of the test. > > He has two last names. One of those names is an unusual spelling. It is also a common noun used as a name. It is also intended to suggest a facet of his personality. The other name is definitely out of place for a woodsman in a European-style society. And it’s foreign, with an Asian tilt. That’s seven points based on the name alone. I don’t get it. Cypher is a variant spelling of cipher and how is “Richard Rahl” vaguely Asian? It looks more Germanic to me. ETA: Unless I’ve got the names backwards in which case I really really don’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![Hunter\_Hawk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/50afbb/32.png) [@Hunter\_Hawk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hunter_Hawk)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/150 "2009-01-09T00:56:28Z")
Another late entry: The character Arakal from the novel _The Steel, the Mist, and the Blazing Sun_ by Christopher Anvil. I adore Anvil’s short stories (he’s sort of a cross between Keith Laumer and Eric Frank Russell), but this piece is thoroughly skippable. Speaking of Laumer, you could allllmost consider Retief a Mary Sue. (But is it really valid to talk about Mary Sues in humor writing?) Going back a bit, I suspect even Robert E Howard would probably agree that Conan was a Mary Sue. ---
**Author:** ![corvidae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/898d66/32.png) [@corvidae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/corvidae)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/151 "2009-01-09T00:56:29Z")
I think that Sayuri from _Memoirs of a Geisha_ is a Mary Sue. [ul] [li]She has the tragic backstory[/li][li]She’s got the funky silver eyes[/li][li]She becomes a dancer of note[/li][li]She’s got two high powered business men in love with her[/li][li]Her virginity goes for the highest price ever[/li][/ul] etc, etc. There’s probably a lot more, but it’s been a while since I read the book. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/152 "2009-01-09T01:03:09Z")
> [@Fenris](#): > > Are you sure? I vaguely remember her leaving him and Spenser going into oh-so-manly pieces and then rescuing her but I would swear that their deal is “She cannot have sex with anyone but him. He can have sex, but not anything emotional with anyone he wants.” (and it’s her ‘rule’) I think that WAS their rule up to Candy Southern, with whom Spenser had an affair in _A Savage Place_. And though it was Susan’s rule, it’s not quite as sexist as it sounds, because Susan has serious boundary and intimacy issues. She declined his offer of marriage, and she doesn’t like to think of herself as conventional; thus she gave him this permission because she didn’t want to conceive of herself as monogamy. He clearly thought it was an iffy rule, but took advantage of it exactly once, and discovered that he was right, as that maybe-maybe-not infidelity was certainly involved in their two-year-relationship hiccup. ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/153 "2009-01-09T01:13:39Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > A fanfic writer named Stephen Ratliff then turned her into essentially the supreme goddess of the Trekiverse. Ratliff’s fanfic began with her parents dying and she being adopted by Jean-Luc Picard, becoming the youngest full ensign in Starfleet (at 12 years old), becoming captain of something called “The Kids’ Crew” who somehow ends up with full command of a starship and beats a Cardassian cruiser in battle (carving, with phasers, “I was beaten by a bunch of kids” on their hull). Ye-up. Ratliff basically writes her as the original Mary Sue, as shown in Ranchoth’s post #51, but he pads his stories out to something like 100 pages each. You couldn’t ask for a better MST subject, though. While I love the TV series, I have never in my life laughed as hard as I did reading the MST treatments of Ratliff’s “work”. I’ll go for the low-hanging nerdfruit: Drizzt Do’Urden from The D&D setting _The Forgotten Realms_. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/154 "2009-01-09T01:28:23Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > how is “Richard Rahl” vaguely Asian? It looks more Germanic to me. Germanic makes a lot of sense to me. I’ve always thought that “High D’Haran”, a fictional language in the series, was based on German(the Rahls are the hereditary rulers of D’Hara). ---
**Author:** ![Nicolas\_Bourbaki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecc23a/32.png) [@Nicolas\_Bourbaki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nicolas_Bourbaki)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/155 "2009-01-09T05:48:56Z")
As to Harry Potter, I think the trump card is that he causes the death of his godfather with his own arrogance and bullheadedness. That goes pretty far above ‘clumsiness’ as a character flaw, IMO. You could easily make the case for Hermione, if you restrict the question to book 4. On the other hand, if you allow minor characters, what about Ginny in the last few books? She doesn’t have much in the way of characterization besides being really good at magic and being courageous and having a couple of good lines and getting paired off with the protagonist by virtue of proximity. (Although, now that I write it all out, it looks like the problem is she’s kinda boring.) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/156 "2009-01-09T10:58:38Z")
> [@Hunter\_Hawk](#): > > Speaking of Laumer, you could allllmost consider Retief a Mary Sue. (But is it really valid to talk about Mary Sues in humor writing?) I think it doesn’t really matter. The rule for comedy is “is it funny ?”; if a “Mary Sue” type character is funny, then it’s good humor writing. As for Retief; a lot of his successes are part of the humor. And a lot of it isn’t even his doing; like when he withstands Groaci “torture” that consists of things like getting sprayed with scent or being shown blots of color. Traumatizes the Groaci next to him, but it’s about as effective as the Comfy Char on a human. But the Groaci are just convinced he’s stoic. Or the bit where he impresses a clan of aliens with how badass he is by easily passing all of their initiation tests ( which are all trivial for a human ), while actually **getting** to each initiation challenge is much more dangerous (which they haven’t a clue of ). ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/157 "2009-01-09T13:39:14Z")
> [@Nicolas\_Bourbaki](#): > > (Although, now that I write it all out, it looks like the problem is she’s kinda boring.) You need to re-read. 🙂 Ginny is a _playa_. ---
**Author:** ![Jack\_Batty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jack_batty/32/3201_2.png) [@Jack\_Batty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jack_Batty)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/158 "2009-01-09T14:03:31Z")
I thought of another … every last character in Ann Patchett’s _Bel Canto_. It’s been a while since I read it, but every character in it was an expert at something. The young priest, just happened to have the sheet music to every opera ever written, the Japanese executive just happened to play concert level piano, the one young terrorest turns out to be a grand-master level chess player (after only watching a few matches), and then there was the other young female terrorist with a heart of gold who only wants to learn to read. Oy. Okay, maybe I just didn’t like the book. A female friend insisted I read it – it’s such a chick-flic-book. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Some\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ad7895/32.png) [@Just\_Some\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Some_Guy)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/159 "2009-01-09T14:15:50Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > I’ll go for the low-hanging nerdfruit: Drizzt Do’Urden from The D&D setting _The Forgotten Realms_. I think he’s a munchkin, not a Mary Sue. 😉 (Elmunchkin… er… Elminster on the other hand Greenwood has pretty much admitted it.) ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2009, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642/160 "2009-01-09T15:22:20Z")
Psst. Edminster. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mary-sue-characters/479642.md?page=9)