The Mary Sue trope as treated by Girl Genius.
What about Bran in Wheel of Time?
He’s pretty much perfect, and he even gets to “marry” three of the main women?
Matt Albie (Matthew Perry) in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was a complete Mary Sue.
Anita Blake from Laurell K. Hamilton’s Vampire Hunter series. I really liked the first book, but it became increasingly obvious and uncomfortable that Anita Blake was a “stand in” for Laurell K. Hamilton - down to the short stature and long dark curly hair. Eventually, every single creature (living, dead, undead) wanted to bang Anita and it just seemed like creepy wank material - I was through with the series.
Lost in Austen - Modern girl Amanda Price magically swaps places with Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice.
Things start going wrong with the story line and guess who Darcy falls in love with?
Great fun, total Mary Sue.
Oh, god, yes. Hamilton is disgusting. She can barely write a sentence and all of it seems to be a personal sex fantasy.
What makes you think that would have made any difference? Actors who cause too much trouble routinely find themselves out of a job.
Death from Sandman is a bit of a Mary Sue, even though the author is a male. Kind of an Anima, actually. Sensible, beautiful, no real character flaws.
Abby and Ziva (and Caitlin and Lauren Holly’s character, for that matter) from NCIS have quirks aplenty, but no real flaws. They’re in the club.
Kitty Pryde? Just call her Mary Sue Pryde!
I think we’re a bit hazy on the Mary Sue ideal. I’ve always felt that the defining characterisitic of a Mary Sue characters is not the character’s perfection; a Mary Sue is when an author creates an idealized version of themselves as a character and inserts the character into a story as wish-fulfillment.
By Just Some Guy’s definition, Perry Mason is a Mary Sue.
I agree with Little Nemo’s definition.
I’d like to also nominate William Horwood’s sequels to The Wind in the Willows, where he inserts another Mole character, a writer, who helps so very much while being so very humble.
Also, Laurie R King’s Mary Russell books, where the herione is everything proper in a Victorian Lady and smart and physically fit and fine looking , and just as analytically gifted as her partner / husband … Sherlock Holmes.
I have to admit reading only one book in each series. Nothing on this earth will convince me to read the others. They lacked the tongue in cheek charm of Lost in Austen.
Shouldn’t that be where you start to get interested?!
Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan has to be a classic Mary Sue. You just know that Clancy imagines himself as President Ryan.
Does this count, if she’s not really a person but the embodiment of a concept? She’s not human, she’s an immortal being and, in the Sandman series, not a main character. I thought the whole idea of a Mary Sue is that they’re supposed to be one of the protagnonists, who is regular person, and their annoying perfection transcends any sort of suspension of disbelief. A physical representation of death would, by necessity, have to possess extraordinary qualities. Nothing about Death was inconsistent with her role and what powers such a being should have.
She is also explored more fully in the miniseries about her, and when she’s the protagonist, she’s not represented as perfect or above making mistakes.
All fictional characters are embodiments of concepts.
Well, she’s shown as sensible and appealing in a way that, say, none of her siblings are. And in her primary role as a supporting character in SANDMAN, she highlights his flaws by not having any.
If there’s a Mary Sue in Gaiman’s Death stories, it’s Sexton not Death.
Not to the extent that a character who is written to be, literally, a walking representation of a concept is. She’s Death, not a person (except for that one day every 100 years), never been a person, and by virtue of being Death, is one of the most powerful beings in the universe, by definition. She is supposed to be extraordinary.
Being sensible and appealing by themselves do not make you a Mary Sue. I think it’s too easy to call any likeable and smart character, especially ones in small parts, a Mary Sue, but it should be reserved for characters who truly irritate and grate because they are so ridiculously perfect.
But anyway.
Here’s a scoring checklist I found online. I filled it out for Bella Swann and scored 83: Irredeemable-Sue. Interestingly, the author of the quiz mentions Morpheus from Sandman:
If you think about this in terms of Death, it’s also applicable.
I always imagined that Mary Sue character descriptions read like horoscopes- they say a lot of flattering things but ultimately reveal no character. They may seem meaningful at first glance, but in reality it’s all just bland and vague and complimentary stuff that could apply to anyone. They are clearly and obviously about whoever it is that is projecting on to it.
Stuff like “Although you are popular and well liked, only a few people know the real you” and “You have a fire and passionate heart that you have trouble expressing, but when you see situations of injustice you don’t hesitate to speak out.”
I came in here to mention the girl from Twilight, but I notice it’s been done.
One other characteristic of Mary Sues seems to be that they always act really surprised about their good points: “Oh golly gee, all the boys are in love with me. I wonder why, because I really am so plain even though I have gorgeous red hair and creamy white skin.”
Or, their good points are presented as bad (probably for other people/the reader to disagree with): “She sighed when she looked at her long, thin legs. ‘Not healthy and strong like the other girls’ thighs,’ she thought.”
No. Jo March was the character most like the author–but she was not a vision of perfection, either. Because Louisa May Alcott could actually write!