Mary-Sue

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A Mary-Sue is an idealised character without nuance. They don’t have flaws or limitations that impact them in meaningful ways, and the story’s plot and characters revolve around them. They don’t need to struggle, so their existence cheapens the tension.

If a character has many of these traits, they might be a Mary-Sue:

• Effortlessly good at skills that are essential to the plot.
• Traits that solve plot details, making it easier for the protagonist to succeed.
• Overpowered and/or overloaded with strengths, skills, powers, races, identities, etc.
• Nonexistent flaws, or meaningless flaws that have no real impact on the plot.
• Rarely has negative consequences for their actions. If they do, it doesn’t last long.
• Every other character immediately has strong reactions and opinions towards them – either love or hate; never indifference.
• Lacks self-awareness. Doesn’t understand or notice other people’s feelings towards them.
• Other characters exist to interact with them and – only make decisions with them in mind.
• The plot bends and warps to suit them, no matter how contrived or illogical it becomes.
• No real need to work hard or struggle to become better because they aren’t shown as needing to improve.
• Any improvements or growth are superficial, not internal.
• Their suffering is not their fault and shows how horrible other people or situations are.
• The narrative justifies their actions, no matter how bad they may be for others.
• A passive role in the story: they act because events in the plot force them to and they have no choice.

We often associate Mary-Sues with original characters (OCs) in fanfiction. Because of that, they’re usually seen as female and are often two-dimensional self-inserts of who the author wishes they were, stripped of flaws and depth.

They may also have unusual physical features like heterochromia (different coloured eyes) and unique names.

How many traits does your character need to be a Mary-Sue?

There isn’t a set number of traits from my list that your character needs to be a Mary-Sue. They don’t need to have all of the traits in the list to count, but they do need to have more than one! After all, there are plenty of overpowered characters who don’t count because they have other things going for them.

I’d say that most characters need about three of the traits to count. However, it depends on how obvious and intense those traits are. Some characters might fit into more than three, but it’s so mild that it’s hard to tell. Other characters might only tick two of the boxes, but the traits are so glaring and mess with the plot tension so much that it’s impossible to ignore.

It’s a sliding scale. Some characters are more obvious, extreme examples of Mary-Sues. Others are quite mild, and we might even debate over whether they count or not. For example, people can’t decide if Rey from the Star Wars sequels counts as one. On the other hand, very few people disagree about Bella from Twilight.

Categorising a character as a Mary-Sue isn’t a perfect science. It’s not like saying a character has red hair or blue eyes. Although I’ve tried to make it as easy to spot and assess different characters as possible, a lot of it still comes down to your own subjective experiences and biases.

But I don’t see that as a bad thing, personally. We’re supposed to disagree and debate over different texts! They’re supposed to mean different things and evoke different emotions on us depending on our context and schema. The world would be a boring place if everyone agreed about every text all the time.

Overpowered characters who aren’t Mary-Sues

Many people think that a Mary-Sue is any character who already has amazing skills at the start of the plot. That’s not true at all! There are plenty of skilled characters who are too well-rounded, complex and flawed to count.

As I said before, having one trait from my list isn’t enough to count your character as a Mary-Sue. The big problem comes when the traits start to compound and prevent your character from truly having to struggle in the story. That’s when it destroys character arcs and plot tension, making your character too perfect for the story you’re trying to create.

But that’s only an issue if your story’s tension is based on the character needing to become skillful enough to save the day.

For example, let’s say one of the tense moments in your plot is, ‘Will the protagonist be smart enough to solve the impossible riddle?’.

In that case, being the strongest or most magical person in the room isn’t going to make help them save the day. So, it doesn’t matter how much they can bench press or how far they can throw fireballs. They’re still going to struggle. That creates interesting plot tension.

But if they are immediately smart enough to solve the puzzle, that destroys the tension of the plot and makes them a Mary-Sue.

It’s all about whether the skills they need to solve the plot are effortless or not.

A good example of this is Saitama from One Punch Man. He doesn’t count as a Mary-Sue even though he’s the strongest man in the universe. Why? Well, because the plot tension doesn’t come from us wondering if he can defeat the next enemy. It’s about whether he can overcome his sense of apathy and feel excited for once.

Why the label ‘Mary-Sue’ depends on a story’s genre

Before I explain more of the smaller details on what makes a character a Mary-Sue, there’s something important that I need to establish:

All of this depends on the genre of the story and the role that the character plays within it.

I’ll explain later on why we don’t often see Mary-Sues who are antagonists or villains. For now, though, let’s see why genre matters.

Sometimes, flawless characters might fit well in the story! Not all stories require a protagonist to learn and grow. They don’t need to all be serious, either. Some stories are supposed to be light-hearted and poke fun at something.

In a comedy or parody, you could use a seemingly flawless character to make a point or give your audience a good laugh. Because the purpose of a comedy or parody is more lighthearted and fun, you don’t necessarily always need to see the character grow. The fact that they don’t grow could be funny

I mean, the name ‘Mary-Sue’ itself came from a story that is a great example of this! We took the term from a parody story from the 1970s called ‘A Trekkie’s Tale’, which existed specifically to comment on and make fun of a trope in Star Trek fanfiction.

No one would say that the character in that story is bad, right? Because it suits the genre of a parody and adds to the tone and purpose of the story!

That’s why it’s important to consider what kind of story you’re telling. Is it a story that requires the main character to have flaws to feel meaningful and interesting? Or can a character who would seem like a Mary-Sue in any other story work well for it?

Mary-Sue characters and gender

It’s important to understand: this isn’t a gender-locked concept. It doesn’t matter if your protagonist is a man, woman or nonbinary person; if they’re transgender, intersex or cisgender. Any character can be a Mary-Sue if they have the traits. It’s more about the role they play in the story and how they are developed as characters.

I can give you plenty of examples of male characters who fit these traits. In fact, just look a little further down in this glossary entry! You’ll see two examples of male characters from pop culture who very clearly fit the Mary-Sue archetype. Some people might refer to them as a Garry-Stu, Marty-Stu or Larry-Stu instead.

But if that’s true, why do we talk about female Mary-Sues more than male ones? Why has the Oxford Dictionary gendered the term when it doesn’t align with how we use it in real life?

Well, it’s the case for a few different reasons.

1. There’s some sexism involved. There are people who hate when female characters do things traditionally associated with male protagonists. And their definition of a Mary-Sue is ‘a character who I don’t like or understand’.
2. Creating Mary-Sue protagonists is something we tend to grow out of as we become better writers. So, they’re usually spotted in fanfictions – a largely female-dominated hobby.
3. Women and female characters tend to face more scrutiny for negative traits. So, it can be hard to strike a balance between making a woman have flaws in a story and making her likeable.

Interestingly, I can’t think of an NB Mary-Sue off the top of my head. Although that’s mostly because we don’t have a lot of mainstream NB characters to analyse! They absolutely can – and do – exist. If you can think of any, please leave them in the comments!

Passivity in the plot

At the start of this page, I said that Mary-Sues are passive: that they only act because the plot forces them to or because they have no choice.

That doesn’t have to mean that they just wait around for someone to tell them what to do. Of course, that can be the case! It often is! But there are many Mary-Sue protagonists who do make decisions that impact the plot.

Instead, what I mean is that they are a reactive character. They don’t take the initiative to make decisions until they have no choice. They wait until something or someone else prompts them to make a decision before they even bother pushing the plot forward. In other words, they lack agency.

You see this a lot in ‘Chosen One’ stories – even when the character doesn’t have enough traits to be considered a Mary-Sue. Many Chosen Ones don’t become great through their own hard work and dedication. They get told that they’re destined for greatness. With something like Harry Potter, they might even wait for someone to tell them what they have to do before they begin to act.

But why does this happen?

Well, in my opinion, it could be because of three other Mary-Sue traits:

1. The narrative justifies all of their actions. Something going wrong can’t be their fault if they had no choice, right?
2. It’s a flaw to be too ambitious – and we can’t have that!
3. The plot revolves around them. The world needs them to exist, so they don’t need to do anything for themselves.

Sure, you can find this kind of passivity in other characters. But once you pair it with one or two other traits, it can be one of the biggest indicators of a Mary-Sue.

Fake flaws

Lots of people who make Mary-Sue characters will argue that their protagonist does have flaws. Then, they’ll list flaws like being too trusting or not knowing how beautiful or strong they are. Those are terrible flaws. They don’t stop your character from being a Mary-Sue at all!

When I’m giving young people feedback on their stories, I like to say this:

If your character’s flaws are the same as what you might say in an interview for a job you really want, they’re probably a Mary-Sue.

If you’ve ever had a few job interviews, you’d know what I mean by this. You don’t want to seem like you’d be a bad option to hire. So, you choose something that isn’t too much of a big deal. Or you pick a good quality and say you just do it too much! Something like being too much of a workaholic or criticising yourself too much.

The reason these flaws don’t work in a story is the exact same reason why they work so well in a job interview: they imply that you don’t need to work too hard on yourself to be the perfect person for the job. That works really well when you’re trying to get hired because it means that your potential boss wouldn’t have to spend too much time or money to get the best out of you. But that’s not what we look for in a story.

We want to see characters struggle to overcome difficult personal obstacles. After all, none of us are perfect – and it’s super annoying for us to see perfection shoved in our faces. In our characters, we want to see them work through personal, internal issues that affect their lives in negative ways. Fake flaws just don’t do that.

Flaws that are good, but don’t actually impact the plot

Then we have the writers who do think about useful flaws for their characters that will actually impact the plot. They plan for some genuinely interesting character issues like selfishness, apathy or arogance and decide they want their protagonist to grow and improve as the story goes on. Great!

But then, these flaws don’t impact the story. They rarely shape the big decisions that the character needs to make, and they’re rarely the reason the character fails. So, the Mary-Sue doesn’t need to confront their issues and change to solve the plot’s conflict.

There’s a huge problem with this: if the flaws don’t really impact the story negatively, you can’t really say there are flaws at all. It doesn’t matter if you thought of some good ones in your head. Unless the reader sees it in your writing, it doesn’t exist.

A good flaw is one that shapes the direction of the story. A good writer considers their protagonist’s flaws when they plan out which obstacles to throw in their path. They think about how their character’s reactions will be shaped by their good and bad qualities alike and create obstacles that play on their flaws and limitations.

What do I mean by that? Well, let’s say that you’ve chosen arrogance as your character’s big flaw that they need to overcome. Unless you’re writing plot points where their arrogance will screw things up, we can’t really tell that it’s a flaw at all. Maybe you just think they’re endearingly cocky! Or that their arrogance is a good thing!

For it to be a meaningful flaw, we need to see their arrogance hurt them and the people around them in some way. Otherwise, you just have a Mary-Sue on your hands.

Superficial ‘flaws’ that just make a character endearing

There’s also the issue of superficial traits like these:

• ‘Quirkiness’
• Clumsiness
• Introversion
• Forgetfulness
• Disorganisation
• Self-Doubt

Sure, we want to work on these traits when we have them. I know I’d love to be more organised! So, I guess they’re flaws.

But they’re very external and only give the character surface-level issues. When you make them big issues in the plot, it feels forced! They’re just not enough of a big deal.

In fact, they add flavour to the character. They might be comic relief or the catalyst for a plot issue, but they don’t decide if your character is too flawed to solve the conflict.

Imagine your character is clumsy, so they bump into a vase and break it. Depending on the genre and framing, this might be funny! It could also provide plot details for the characters to overcome: can they fix the vase, or should they tell its owner what happened?

But then, other flaws will need to get in the way of them solving the plot, otherwise things will be solved too quickly. There’s no such thing as clumsiness getting in the way of honesty! So, you’ll have to figure out what else gets in their way. For example, they might be too scared to tell the truth.

Plus, people don’t do these things on purpose. No one wakes up and decides they’re going to be disorganised today. So, it’s hard to say that it’s their fault. And it’s even harder to figure out ways for them to overcome those traits and get better by the end of the story. If I knew how to be less forgetful, I’d have done it years ago!

These traits are more endearing than anything. And every likeable character suffers from self-doubt from time to time. It makes us human.

Mistaking neurodiversity for flaws

Another big problem I’ve seen with Mary-Sues is when the author accidentally describes ‘flaws’ that are actually just traits of neurodiversity.

What do I mean by that? Well, neurodivergent people think differently. They tend to have behaviours or mannerisms that might not be typical. For example, my ADHD brain cycles through loads of thoughts at one time. My friends with autism have a PhD-level knowledge of the things that interest them.

It’s always great to see when characters in the texts we create represent different ways of thinking. It helps to normalise neurodiversity and make us feel seen and heard. However, sometimes, our unique mannerisms can be passed off as ‘flaws’.

How does this link back to the Mary-Sue? Well, thinking differently from other people isn’t a flaw. Everyone has their own unique way of thinking. Loads of other things contribute to you thinking in unique ways, like speaking a different language or being a different race, gender, sexuality, etc. Neurodivergence just makes that more obvious than it would otherwise be.

Plus, most of the traits of neurodiversity aren’t flaws. Most learn how to have fulfilling lives by managing our neurodiversity. In fact, it can sometimes even be an asset to us!

The only time when being neurodivergent holds us back is when society doesn’t bother trying to include us. And that’s not a flaw in us. It’s a flaw in society. People lose out on the unique thoughts we could offer.

That’s why it can be so bad for you to make a character’s flaws their neurodivergent traits. It’s something that the character can’t change and is only a problem because of the people around them. So how are they supposed to grow out of the ‘flaw’? It’s unsatisfying and pretty ableist, too.

Focusing on things the character can’t change about themselves

Speaking of things that characters can’t change about themselves, let’s delve into that more!

There are plenty of things, other than being neurodivergent, which we can’t change – like race, sexuality, etc. In fact, most people don’t want to change them. They’re part of their identity!

Flaws are supposed to be things that characters overcome to grow as a person. If they can’t change those things, we can’t watch them improve! Not only is that unsatisfying for us, but it also suggests you think people should stop being who they are. That sucks.

Even in stories where people think they do need to change, the change doesn’t make them a better person. In a good story, they usually realise that the flaw lies with the people who treated them badly in the first place. In fact, their flaw is that they are ashamed of who they are and succumb to pressure to change.

And when that isn’t true, it’s pretty unsatisfying. Loads of people hate stories where the protagonist has to ‘get hot’ to attract the boy of her dreams. Our minds scream, ‘He doesn’t deserve you!’ And if she doesn’t realise she’s worth more than this superficial low-life, it sends out a bad message.

If your Mary-Sue’s flaw is something they can’t change, they don’t really have a flaw at all. They’re just being victimised by society.

Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame does this very well. Quasimodo thinks his flaw is his ugliness, but it’s not. In fact, we condemn Paris for his treatment, not him.

Instead, he needs to change how he sees himself and shake off Frollo’s manipulation. That’s what the plot tension is built on: Will he realise that Esmerelda does see him as human in time to save her?

Characters who never have so much as a bad or selfish thought

Everyone has to deal with bad or selfish intrusive thoughts. They’re part of what makes us human! The thing that decides whether you’re a good or bad person is whether you let those thoughts dictate how you act or treat others.

When I say everyone does, I mean everyone. The New Testament of the Bible is full of stories of how Jesus had to resist temptation. The Son of God – a member of the Holy Trinity himself – had to fight against temptation. He doubts himself even when he knows the truth.

It doesn’t matter if you’re Christian and you believe in the stories of the Bible or not. He is objectively portrayed as a good person in the Bible. He has to be!

Superman is another character who everyone accepts as a good person. Even he has moments where he thinks, ‘Maybe humans aren’t worth the trouble‘.

Your protagonist should also struggle with temptation. If they don’t consider joining the ‘Dark Side’ even for a second of your story, they aren’t very human. It would mean that they struggle with doing the right thing less than Jesus himself. Any character like that is most definitely a Mary-Sue.

People who work through those thoughts are stronger, better and more resilient than those who don’t. If you never struggle with temptation, you never get to choose to be good. You don’t get to work out what good and evil are in the first place.

That kind of passive, dancing-through-life approach to a character is exactly what a Mary-Sue is. We can’t relate to that! And there’s no plot tension in working out if they’ll do the right thing!

Make sure your character has moments of doubt, selfishness, anger, apathy, etc. Then, get them to work through it. That’s what makes them great.

When seemingly perfect characters aren’t Mary-Sues

But there are characters without clear flaws who aren’t Mary-Sues! For example, Forrest Gump and Wonder Woman (2017) don’t change much. So, why don’t they count?

Well, it’s because these characters have different arcs.

Most Mary-Sues follow what K M Weiland describes as ‘positive change arcs’. The story is about their emotional growth: how they change to become the hero the story needs them to be.

That’s why flaws are essential. These characters need to experience internal struggles and work through them as the story progresses. The best flaws for this kind of arc are the ones where they have a warped way of seeing the world that makes them act in ways that impact the plot. Weiland calls this ‘The Lie’.

On the other hand, characters like Wonder Woman and Forrest Gump are different. Their stories aren’t about how they change; they’re about how they spark change in the people around them. Wonder Woman hasn’t fallen for a lie she needs to work through. She’s helping other characters to work through their lies. We call this the ‘flat arc’.

But flat arcs only work well if you have a strong cast of other characters who have arcs of their own. Forrest Gump impacts Jenny’s life. In Wonder Woman (2017), Diana sparks Steve Trevor’s emotional journey.

But Mary-Sues fall in the middle. The writer frames the story as their positive change arc: we follow and root for their emotional growth. But they don’t have a Lie to work through! Their flaws are too superficial! The other characters in the cast only exist to serve the Mary-Sue’s plot, so we can’t follow their growth, either. It just falls flat.

Mary-Sues and romantic plotlines

It is common to find a Mary-Sue in the romance genre – especially when it’s on an app where young, inexperienced writers can test out their skills. So, romance on Episode, Wattpad, Fanfiction.net, Archive of our Own and other places like that tends to be full of them.

In romance stories, it becomes super clear that the whole world of the story revoles around the Mary-Sue.

It’s common for the love interest to not even know why they’re so obsessed with the protagonist. They might say something like, ‘I’m just drawn to you’. This is never explained. Or, if it is, the explanation feels forced or makes the protagonist seem like the most unique person in the whole story.

Or maybe multiple characters fall for them at the same time.

Now, this can happen in a story without a Mary-Sue. However, the thing that separates it is whether or not each potential love interest has their own unique relationship with the protagonist.

In a good story with many love interests, the protagonist will bond with each of their partners in a different way. Maybe they share a hobby or sense of humour. They could bond over a shared trauma.

In a bad story with a Mary-Sue, it will feel like they all love the protagonist for the same reason. The love interests feel like copies of one another, except one is more of a bad boy with a more unusual name and a broody personality. Because they’re all basically different versions of Ken, they’re just proof that the protagonist can pick whoever she chooses – or that loads of people desire her. Again, they just exist to make her look good.

Good love interests aren’t obsessed for no reason. They have goals and dreams outside of the protagonist.

Backstories

Lots of great advice tells you to give your protagonist a strong backstory. That’s great! It helps to make their motivations clearer, prompts your audience to empathise with them and provides explanations for any irrational decisions they make. That can humanise your character and make them more rounded.

But things are never so simple. A bad backstory actually makes your character even more of a Mary-Sue if you’re not careful.

Lots of Mary-Sues have tragic, edgy backstories. Some common ones are:

• A parent or stepparent abusing them
• Horrible bullying at school
• Being an orphan
• Their family or love interest dying horribly

With a Mary-Sue, it can often feel like the writer wants to put their character through as many horrible and traumatic events as possible! That way, they can say, ‘Look how good of a person they are despite everything they’ve gone through’.

The problem is that all of this trauma falls really flat. Because it’s all doom and gloom, we become numb to it. And since we rarely get to see the good things in their past, we don’t really feel too sad for them. After all, we don’t know what they’ve lost! What are they even fighting for?!

Plus, it’s not very realistic. If you went through half of what the average Mary-Sue did, you’d need years of therapy before you could do anything they do in the story.

It’s fine to give your character a sad backstory. But if you want to avoid making them a Mary-Sue, show us the good parts, too. Consider why they need to go through this, and only show us what’s necessary to the story. Plus, don’t torture your character just to prove how amazing they are. It’s icky.

Narratives that warp and distort around the character

I’ve mentioned this one before, but one of the biggest signs of a Mary-Sue is if the narrative warps and distorts around them.

What does that mean? Well, it’s when the protagonist goes against the rules that you set up for your story world. For example, they might:

• Do something that you already established is impossible.
• Cheat death for no clear reason or with a forced explanation.
• Have a skill or ability no one else ever has.

This often happens when other characters or laws of nature don’t act as they normally would, just to save your character or give them something to do.

For example, all of the characters who are really good at shooting miss shots that should really have hit your character!

Any time that the logic of your story seems to not apply to your protagonist, it slips them further into Mary-Sue territory. It feels like a Deus Ex Machina designed to help you write yourself out of a plot corner. Or, it could come off as if you’re trying to give them cool abilities just to make them stand out more.

But how do you avoid this? Well, here are a few strategies:

• Mention other characters who have also been able to do the rare ability the protagonist can do.
• Before you get them to do something cool or unexpected, hint that it’s possible.
• Give logical reasons why things have turned out the way they have that make sense with the story’s laws of physics and the other characters’ motivations.
• Give them lasting, negative consequences for doing something unexpected.

Don’t create contrived reasons why they get away with plot-breaking things scot-free. Make them work hard to solve the plot problems, hint at what’s coming in the future, and give them battle scars to go with it.

The problem of no meaningful consequences

Actions have consequences – both positive and negative. It’s part of our growth as human beings to experience that! We learn to predict the outcomes of an action and decide if the positives outweigh the negatives.

The same should be true of your characters. No outcome will be good for absolutely everybody. And even if your protagonist had good intentions, they still have to grapple with the fact that someone gets hurt – whether it’s them or someone else.

This makes their choices more impactful. They have to weigh up if a decision is worth it, thinking about who might get hurt in the process. Then, when they see the effects of their actions, they might worry if they did the right thing.

You can see that in superhero films like those in the MCU. At the end of the day, they fight for the greater good. They are literally trying to save the world! But they still destroy whole cities. People lose homes, businesses, livelihoods, and much more.

In Captain America: Civil War, they take this to the next level. Miriam Sharpe shares her devastating story of how her innocent son died while the Avengers were fighting Ultron.

But often, Mary-Sues won’t experience these negative consequences. Or, if they do, these negatives don’t last for very long. Sometimes, we won’t see the bad consequences at all – because the writer doesn’t care enough about other characters to show their struggles.

This is really frustrating for the audience. If there are no consequences, the plot feels cheap because they’re not really overcoming obstacles. And if there are consequences but they don’t affect future plot details, there’s no point in bringing them up in the first place.

Why you don’t really get Mary-Sue villains

As I’ve been describing the traits of a Mary-Sue, you might have had a villain or two in your mind. There are plenty of villains who fit these criteria nicely!

For example, it is an established rule in the Harry Potter series that wizards can’t fly without a magical creature or object. But in the Battle of the Seven Potters, we are filled with dread as Harry sees Voldemort soaring through the sky completely unaided. He did something that was already established as impossible.

So why can villains get away with it when protagonists can’t?

Well, it all comes down to what role a character’s perfectness is playing in the plot. In fact, it has a lot in common with Brandon Sanderson’s First Law of Magic:

An author’s ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.

Just like with magic, it’s all about whether a character’s traits solve the plot conflict or complicate it even more. If the character has Mary-Sue traits and it makes the plot easier to solve, they’re probably a Mary-Sue. On the other hand, if their traits and role in the story complicate the plot even more, they’re probably not.

The biggest problem with Mary-Sues isn’t really that they’re annoyingly perfect. It’s that their traits make the plot feel like a waste of time. Why even introduce me to conflict if the protagonist is already perfectly equipped to deal with it? Stories are boring and flat if we don’t see the main characters struggle.

But when a villain seems perfect, that builds tension. It makes us worry for our protagonist and wonder how they’re going to save the day.

Plus, they can’t be a Mary-Sue if they’re literally doing evil things! That goes against the whole idea of Mary-Sues being morally perfect!

Characters who become Mary-Sues over time

Characters can become Mary-Sues over time – especially in a long-running series like a shōnen anime.

In this case, the protagonist starts off with interesting flaws and weaknesses. For example, they might have a past trauma that they need to work through (what K M Weiland refers to as the ‘character’s Ghost’).

At the start of the story, we watch them struggle to work through their issues. They slowly discover their Character Needs and understand how they need to change for the better. At this stage, they’re not Mary-Sues. In fact, we love them!

But then they become a fan favourite. The story becomes successful, so it would be a financial mistake to ditch it! Instead, writers need to make a choice on how they can keep it going with the character we love. Usually, they choose one of these three options:

1. Give them a flat arc. They would become the agent for change in other characters’ lives.
2. Use a negative change arc. Give them a reason to fall to evil. Then, you could even squeeze a redemption arc out of them in the future!
3. Make another positive change arc with bigger stakes than the last.

Characters become Mary-Sues when the writer chooses the third option over and over again. Eventually, they will run out of internal struggles to face! Then, the writer will need to turn to external problems. These will get more and more extreme, so the character has to keep upgrading their power and skills to match. We call this ‘power creep’.

Eventually, they won’t have any more internal struggles to deal with. They’ll just end up being a two-dimensional, too-perfect character who becomes less and less grounded as time goes on. In other words, they become the textbook example of a Mary-Sue.

Examples of Mary-Sues

So, now that we’ve spoken about lots of the things that make a character a Mary-Sue, it’s important for us to look at some examples together.

I’ve chosen some very glaringly obvious examples of Mary-Sues, as well as some that have been pet peeves for me personally. Why? Well, because the term ‘Mary-Sue’ is subjective – as I’ll go into later.

So, there might be some that you wished I’d added – or some that I added that you don’t think are too bad. That’s fine! I’ve tried to pick ones that I know I can justify really well, so I hope you’ll hear me out before you write off my reasons.

Don’t just leave me to give examples, though! I definitely haven’t seen every piece of media out there with a Mary-Sue character. So why not share your own thoughts in the comment? Feel free to explain what made you think that, too!

Try to branch out from the ones that people have heard 500 times before. I mean, I personally don’t think it’s useful for anyone if I add my 2p into the debate on whether Rey from Star Wars counts. It’s been spoken about to death before. Why not choose someone we don’t usually speak about?

Let me start us off with some of my examples. I hope this becomes a place with rich discussions!

Beware: there will be spoilers for the texts I discuss!

Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way from the My Immortal fanfiction

If you had the (dis)pleasure of reading the My Immortal fanfiction, I don’t think I need to try too hard to convince you that the protagonist, Ebony, is a Mary-Sue. I mean, if I could only pick one example of this trope, it would be her. She just fits so many of the traits so perfectly!

If you’re not familiar with this infamous character (or you’re just not convinced yet), let me explain.

Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way has loads of traits that make her a Mary-Sue:

• Overloaded with races and powers: she is a witch and a vampire, but she doesn’t have any of the negative vampire traits that would make her life hard (like having visible fangs or burning in the sun). She even has visions of the future. Talk about overpowered!
• Everyone immediately has a strong reaction to her: Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, Gerard Way and even Hagrid are obsessed with her. The ‘preps’ hate her for no reason.
• The world revolves around her: none of the characters have a life outside of her. They spectate her life like a personal audience, gasping and clapping at the right moments.
• No agency in the plot: events and other characters force her to act, so she never makes a bad decision or mistake on her own.
• Plot points are solved easily: Her dilemma (kill Harry or watch Voldemort kill Draco) is solved without her needing to make a decision. Draco commits suicide, so she doesn’t need to choose.
• Lack of meaningful consequences: Draco’s death doesn’t last long. She has a vision that he’s actually alive, so her indecisiveness didn’t cause any long-lasting issues after all.

I haven’t even mentioned all the traits. If that isn’t enough to be a Mary-Sue, nothing is!

Bella Swan from Twilight

It makes sense for bad fanfiction to have Mary-Sues in it, right? I mean, the name of the trope came from a parody of fanfic in the first place! It’s quite a normal thing to see in the genre.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t find them in published books. In fact, there’s one in one of the most popular franchises of the 2000s-2010s: the Twilight saga! The protagonist, Bella Swan, has many of the same traits that I mentioned in Ebony above.

For one, everyone has an immediate reaction to her. Despite being described as quite plain and pretty boring, all the boys in her school are immediately drawn to her. Edward is immediately obsessed with her and hates her at the same time – for smelling too good. Then, the villain at the end of the first book goes out of his way to hunt her… just because other people are obsessed with her.

And don’t even get me started on Jacob, who threatens to get himself killed just to be able to kiss her. …Why? Well, because she’s going to give birth to the newborn baby he’s going to fall in love with, of course!

Things only get worse when she becomes a vampire. She doesn’t scream once during her transformation. She’s the only person in the history of ever to survive giving birth to a vampire baby. Plus, she does all the vampire stuff perfectly straight away: strength, grace and self-control. No need to work hard at it!

Of course, there’s also the fact that she’s portrayed as the centre of the whole universe. All the plot events and characters’ motivations are all about her. But at the same time, she glides through the plot, passively letting things happen to her.

Ichigo Kurosaki from Bleach

Ichigo doesn’t begin as a Mary-Sue. He’s a well-rounded, flawed character! While he’s likeable and easy to root for, he definitely isn’t perfect.

He’s impulsive, hot-headed and overly confident in his abilities. That works well when he’s fighting humans or weak spirits, but not when he’s dealing with powerful enemies. He gets hurt or screws up because he rushes in and attacks without listening to anyone. And his power isn’t enough to fight every foe.

When Aizen stops Ichigo’s sword (and theme tune) with one finger, we see the shock on his face. This is the first fight where he hasn’t stood a chance at all! He doesn’t have the skills he needs to solve the plot here, so he fails and gets hurt. That heightens the tension and makes it so much more satisfying when he does the same to Aizen later. He had to work for his skills, so it’s satisfying for us.

But this doesn’t last. Later on, Ichigo discovers that he’s overpowered with races: he’s Human, Shinigami, Quincy and Hollow all at once! It’s no longer about him working to be the best. He’s just born more special than everyone else. That cheapens the plot and slides him into Mary-Sue territory.

This happens a lot with long-running shows because of power creep.

At the start, the protagonist is at their weakest. Enemies defeat them easily, so the tension is naturally there. We watch them fail and know they aren’t perfect.

But they work through flaws and grow their skills to defeat the enemies. Then, to keep the show interesting, writers up the stakes. So, the protagonist grows even more to defeat the new, stronger enemies.

By the end, they become gods to fight the gods, losing their nuance and flaws in the process.

Kirito from Sword Art Online

Out of all the Mary-Sues I’ve seen, Kirito annoys me the most. I loved the premise of SAO and had high hopes! But his presence cheapens the plot and ruins everything.

It feels like he was a self-insert written by a child who wants to have ‘everything power’. And it’s not that he becomes a Mary-Sue over time lime Ichigo. He’s one before the anime even begins.

This is mostly because he’s a beta tester. The whole premise for the show is that you die in real life if you die in the game. So, it’s clear where the natural tension comes from. We should be worried that the protagonist could die at any moment!

But that’s not true for Kirito. He got to such a high level during the beta that his HP is ridiculously high – so not much can hurt him. Poof! Tension gone!

But you can get around this – and they do try in the best episode! Kirito has to choose between letting his under-levelled party go to a place where they’ll definitely die or revealing he’s a beta tester and becoming a target.

It works because it’s about his choices. We watch him struggle and grapple with having the blood of his friends on his hands.

Most of the show’s tension comes from him trying to save Asuna, but he already has the skills, tools and knowledge to do it. The guy can even change the code of the game from the inside. He has the power to alter the way it works! So, the show’s more like a waiting game for the audience: it’s not about if he can save her; it’s about when he will.

And there’s more! Watch Mother’s Basement’s video on this if you’re interested.

Sabrina Spellman from The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

When Netflix chose to revamp a beloved TV show, they really dropped the ball.

This Sabrina is selfish and impulsive. She doesn’t consider how her actions hurt people. And when they react negatively to her bad behaviour, she’s shocked and turns it into a pity party for herself.

In the hands of a good writer, those could be interesting flaws. The problem is that the show doesn’t treat her like she’s done anything wrong. Even when she does get consequences for her actions, it’s framed like we’re supposed to feel bad for her. How can her flaws be meaningful when the show doesn’t admit she has them?

This kind of Mary-Sue writing makes me angry.

Originally, the plot tension comes from her choosing between a witch or mortal life. But since she’s ‘special’ (her dad was important and the Dark Lord personally likes her), she can negotiate. Sure, there are some consequences for not choosing! But they quickly disappear, and she keeps both.

Worldbuilding rules are clearly set up here. But since the world revolves around her, the show bends over backwards to explain why she personally is exempt and can have it both ways.

And then there’s the time she tried to resurrect Harvey’s brother. She kills one of her classmates! Then, when the spell goes wrong, she runs away from responsibility. That forces Harvey to kill his own brother. This is villain-level stuff!

But she doesn’t get proper consequences for her actions. She murdered someone, and nothing happens. When Harvey is too traumatised to forgive her, she’s shocked! She acts like he doesn’t have a right to be upset because she ‘meant well‘. And then he forgives her anyway. Yuck.

Mislabelling characters as Mary-Sues

Female characters are more likely to be wrongfully labelled as Mary-Sues in some genres than others. In particular, those accusations fly around in sci-fi, action and fantasy. Video games in particular are a big culprit for this!

It happens when the protagonist is a powerful and competent woman in media that is typically geared towards men and boys. If they’re not wearing revealing outfits or pandering to the male gaze, it’s easy for people to claim that they exist for some ‘woke’ reason and label them as a ‘bad character’.

It’s funny. The worst examples of Mary-Sues usually come from fanfiction, which is geared towards girls and women. But even though they’re much worse, they get to exist with just a fraction of the scrutiny and criticism compared to a character like Korra from The Legend of Korra.

And don’t even get me started on male characters who have the same traits as women who are labelled Mary-Sues. They can get away with being so much more perfect without anyone even batting an eyelash.

Of course, there are plenty of genuine concerns about the media’s diversity push. It’s the 21st century, and we’re still hyping up every creator for simply making a woman the main character. It’s no wonder people are frustrated. Creators often don’t do the hard work to make them well-rounded characters.

But that doesn’t mean that people don’t have unfair biases about female characters. These biases mean that women are scrutinised way more than men in the media.

If you’ve ever fallen into these biases yourself, that doesn’t make you a bad person! You just need to be aware of them and make attempts to look for Mary-Sue traits in characters who aren’t women as characters who are.

Why ‘Mary-Sue’ is a subjective term

Lots of people argue about whether characters count as Mary-Sues or not.

As I’ve already mentioned, Rey from the Star Wars franchise is a perfect example of this. People can’t decide if she counts, or if it’s just poor writing and character lack of development.

But why does this happen so much? Well, there are a few reasons.

The first is an obvious one: sexism. If we look at the characters who typically get accused of being Mary-Sues, there are way more women than men. Some guys with the exact same traits get to exist without scrutiny because sexist people are more inclined to believe that a man can be flawless and overpowered than a woman.

But there is much more to it than that. Do I think that every person criticising Rey is sexist? Absolutely not. That would be untrue, unfair and frankly insincere of me to say. So, sexism aside, let’s think of the other reasons.

The truth is that the term is very subjective.

I mean, look at my definition and traits that I provided before! I said that there is no definitive number of traits a character needs to have to be a Mary-Sue. It’s down to scale rather than quantity.

I also said that it needs to destroy plot tension or take us out of our suspension of disbelief. Plus, the character’s lack of flaws has to conflict with the type of story being told.

Do you see the problem here? It’s not an exact science! Some people are more sensitive to being pulled out of the story than others. And it’s up to us to decide how strong a trait needs to be before it becomes too much to bear.

How can you prevent your character from becoming a Mary-Sue?

If you’re a writer, this glossary entry might have scared you a bit. I mean, even published writers and popular franchises are guilty of having Mary-Sues! So it makes sense for you to be worried about your own work.

But don’t worry. While it’s easy to fall into the trap of making a ‘perfect’ character with no meaningful flaws, it’s also simple to take steps to prevent that from happening. It just takes time, patience and thought.

That’s probably why this is a problem in popular franchises, to be honest. The creators are more concerned with getting their film or show out there quickly so they can profit. And time is money! So why would you waste it fixing character, script and plot issues that people might not even notice? At least, that’s what they might think.

But if you want to fix your own Mary-Sues, here are a few tips:

• Consult my traits list at the beginning and consider if your character is guilty of any.
• Spend time planning the plot.
• Identify their flaws and name them.
• Write specific examples into the plot where their flaws make them mess up.
• Show that you’re disappointed when they mess up, and let them deal with the consequences for as long as it makes sense.
• Make them work for other people’s forgiveness.
• Try to see how their good qualities might not be positive in every situation.
• Show other characters dealing with the same issues as them.
• Write characters who aren’t concerned with what happens to them. They don’t hate them! They just don’t care.

Also, watch this space. Right now, I’m writing a whole self-paced online course to help you with this exact problem! It will be much more detailed with some useful, practical advice and exercises!

Join in by commenting below!

Here on Shani’s Tutoring, I am trying to host the most comprehensive, detailed resources about writing, language and literature possible. I’d like to create a place where students, writers, reviewers, critics, editors and general enthusiasts can come together to talk about the stories and texts they love!

For this particular topic, that means giving people the language and ideas they need to talk about Mary-Sues, as well as plenty of examples from all sorts of texts out there! That way, writers know what they should avoid, and we all have more to say about how to build good characters.

If you’re interested in joining my mission to create great, original material, please join in! Drop a comment below! Here are some suggestions for what you might want to talk about:

• Can you think of examples of Mary-Sues from any of the other media you’ve consumed?
• Are there any traits that I’ve missed out on?
• Is there anything you disagree with me or other people on?
• Will you use any of the information in this glossary entry to help you in the future?
• What would you like me to cover next?

I’d love to hear from you! Comment all your thoughts about Mary-Sues! And why not start a discussion with another commentors? I’ll get involved and respond as much as I can!

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