The Mary Sue

Aah, the Mary Sue.  Bane of fanfiction readers everywhere, this horrible abomination against writing has managed to wriggle its way into every medium, dragging down its quality and ruining forever everything it touches.

Except, no.

The Mary Sue, despite all the hate against it, is a character archetype and, like any character archetype, can be used poorly or used well.  Very well, in fact.

First, it seems like we should describe exactly what makes a Mary Sue (which I will be using to refer to both genders; in other contexts you may see male Sues called Marty Stus or Gary Stus or some other variant).  This is not easy to do, since everyone has their own definition, and since it's hard to pin down exactly.

The original Mary Sue comes from A Trekkie's Tale and was actually a parody of other ridiculous self-inserts the author had seen in earlier fanfictions.  Some of the defining traits is that she is overly perfect, enough that he or she overshadows all the other characters.  The character does not grow or develop significantly.  The rules of the universe seem to be built or bent just for them.  We'll say that these are "the" Mary Sue traits, and the others are peripheral to it.

Her powers and abilities are vaguely defined so she can conjure new ones as the plot demands.  These powers and abilities may or may not fit in with the context of the world, may or may not be explained, and will always be more important than anyone else's.  If she dies, it's either because she was "too good for this sinful earth" or else she's coming back.

Her physical appearance is always perfect, but she'll rarely know it.  She might have some deformity (wings are popular) which she thinks make her ugly until someone tells her otherwise.

Expect them to be able to do whatever they want and no one will ever call them out if (I repeat: if) they make a mistake.  She'll probably have had a hard life, but it will never weigh her down.  She will have sex precisely as often as she wants to.  In most cases it's an insert of the author; the author's views are always exactly right in the universe in which the story takes place, and no good character will ever question them.

Sounds pretty boring, right?  No wonder every Mary Sue is a detriment to anything in which she appears, right?  Again, no.  While this describes many unpleasant characters (Ebony Raven Dark'ness Dementia Tara Way, Bella Swan, Wesley Crusher, Jenna Silverblade, SCI Spy), it also describes a surprising number of beloved pop culture and literature icons.  Don't believe me?
-Mary Poppins
-James Bond
-Gandalf (from The Lord of The Rings, The Hobbit)
-Sora (from Kingdom Hearts)
-Vash the Stampede (from Trigun)
-Mary Jensen (from There's Something About Mary)

We already know James Bond will never be defeated, and he'll always pull off some daring feat in the third act that results in perfect victory after sleeping with an attractive female lead.  So why do we watch movie after movie while ripping Sonichu to shreds?

Well, to be fair, Sonichu's kind of beyond saving.  But let's ignore that for now.

I currently have a multi-part model that explains this.  The first is the setting and storyline.  If you're going to have a perfect character, then the challenges they must face must be scaled up appropriately.  They must be challenged despite their seeming perfection.  Vash, the superbly skilled gunman, must win without killing anyone, while coping with the pain he's inflicted in the past.  Mary Poppins' perfection is actually the main point of her character, and she's used as a tool to develop the others.  If the audience is more concerned about how our hero will win this time, they'll be a lot less concerned about how unrealistic it is that they've made it this far.

In How Not to Write a Novel, the authors tell prospective writers that the more improbably something is, the more important it must be to the story.  If the protagonist wins the lottery, they must win it early on and the story must center on it (was there a caper involved?  How will they spend the money?)  Likewise, the more impossible a character, the more the challenge must be ramped up.

One of the cornerstones of the Mary Sue bashing is saying that it's just wish fulfillment for the author.  This overlooks the fact that this can be a good thing--as long as it can be wish fulfillment for the reader as well.  Ultimately, James Bond is built on this.

However, the third point is far more important, and it all comes down to that cardinal rule of writing: show, don't tell.  SCI Spy isn't all that different from James Bond, to the point where it's fair to call him a straight rip-off.  What SCI Spy does wrong, however, is that it focuses far too much on telling us why the titular character is so great, while a James Bond book or movie gives us the pleasure of watching him outsmart the bad guys and charm the ladies.  Instead of having someone tell us Sora is cheerful and lovable, then making him act like a sullen jerk the entire game, we see him being cheerful and lovable.

This becomes particularly important when it comes to dialogue.  Mary Sues are often built up as witty, charming, and uproariously funny.  As Dorothy Parker said, "I have yet to have an author inform me that a character is charming, and then, by that character’s deeds and conversation, convince me of that fact."  Again referring to James Bond, we know he's witty because we see him being witty, and we enjoy it.  In fact, the problem is not the Mary Sue; no character or story works well when telling overshadows showing.

However, none of this means that your fanfiction is good.  Signing out.