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Rey and the True Meaning of Mary Sue
May. 8th, 2020 12:30 pmAs early as the release of The Force Awakens people have been complaining that Rey is a Mary Sue. As a result, others have said that these people are misogynists who just can't handle a strong female character.
This all stems from the misconception that Mary Sue means 'overpowered'. It doesn't. Being overpowered is a symptom, but much like sneezing is a symptom of a cold, it doesn't automatically diagnose Suedom.
In fact, all of those 'Mary Sue Litmus Tests' seen floating around the internet from the early 2000s do exactly this, diagnose Suedom through symptoms only, and because of this the debate as to what a Mary Sue actually is waged long and hard, to the point where the term became muddied, overused, and meaningless.
However, once you cut through all the tragic backstories, ridiculous powers, and auras of adoration, you find that there is a singular reason that all of these symptoms indicate Suedom: A lack of conflict.
Simply put, when a character never struggles, it's boring.
Batman is a character often used to describe how the concept of a Mary Sue is sexist, as Batman hits a lot of the checkboxes used in those symptom catching tests, however everyone knows that Batman isn't a Mary Sue, they know he isn't bad writing, but because of the muddied waters they can't refute it because then they would be agreeing that the term is sexist, which is also false.
Batman is not a Mary Sue, because Batman struggles. He has internal conflicts with himself, he had conflicts with his friends and batfamily, and especially with his villains. There have been many moments where the Joker, or Poison Ivy, or even the Riddler, experience great wins over the Bat himself. Jason Todd's death is one very large example of how Batman sometimes loses and always struggles.
That's the key here. You can have a teenaged girl with multicoloured hair, multicoloured eyes, an orphan who is secretly a princess, she can sprout wings, and have extradimensional powers, and it STILL won't be a Mary Sue if she struggles, if she has conflicts within and/or without herself.
The one symptom that is often a good indicator is the aura of adoration: that being that everyone in the story loves the character and bends to their whim, and even when a character does dislike them they're considered bad and wrong for doing so. This isn't ubiquitous, but it is an example of that lack of conflict. Not everyone gets along, and for it to happen within a story isn't just forced and contrived, it's boring.
A Mary Sue is a character who lacks conflict, and is thus uninteresting to the audience.
But hey, that's just a theory. Agame writing theory!
This all stems from the misconception that Mary Sue means 'overpowered'. It doesn't. Being overpowered is a symptom, but much like sneezing is a symptom of a cold, it doesn't automatically diagnose Suedom.
In fact, all of those 'Mary Sue Litmus Tests' seen floating around the internet from the early 2000s do exactly this, diagnose Suedom through symptoms only, and because of this the debate as to what a Mary Sue actually is waged long and hard, to the point where the term became muddied, overused, and meaningless.
However, once you cut through all the tragic backstories, ridiculous powers, and auras of adoration, you find that there is a singular reason that all of these symptoms indicate Suedom: A lack of conflict.
Simply put, when a character never struggles, it's boring.
Batman is a character often used to describe how the concept of a Mary Sue is sexist, as Batman hits a lot of the checkboxes used in those symptom catching tests, however everyone knows that Batman isn't a Mary Sue, they know he isn't bad writing, but because of the muddied waters they can't refute it because then they would be agreeing that the term is sexist, which is also false.
Batman is not a Mary Sue, because Batman struggles. He has internal conflicts with himself, he had conflicts with his friends and batfamily, and especially with his villains. There have been many moments where the Joker, or Poison Ivy, or even the Riddler, experience great wins over the Bat himself. Jason Todd's death is one very large example of how Batman sometimes loses and always struggles.
That's the key here. You can have a teenaged girl with multicoloured hair, multicoloured eyes, an orphan who is secretly a princess, she can sprout wings, and have extradimensional powers, and it STILL won't be a Mary Sue if she struggles, if she has conflicts within and/or without herself.
The one symptom that is often a good indicator is the aura of adoration: that being that everyone in the story loves the character and bends to their whim, and even when a character does dislike them they're considered bad and wrong for doing so. This isn't ubiquitous, but it is an example of that lack of conflict. Not everyone gets along, and for it to happen within a story isn't just forced and contrived, it's boring.
A Mary Sue is a character who lacks conflict, and is thus uninteresting to the audience.
But hey, that's just a theory. A
