BY ALICE FONTANESI
STAFF WRITER
If you’ve ever written stories, then chances are that you made one of your characters a Mary Sue (or Gary Stew for masculine characters). As most people know it, a Mary Sue is a perfect character with no flaws, everyone likes them, and the world basically revolves around them. What people don’t realize is that Mary Sue is honestly a term that is thrown around quite loosely. There is no dictionary definition of a Mary Sue, but there are definitely defining characteristics of one.
A Mary Sue could have flaws such as being clumsy, but it’s really about how the world revolves around them. Example: no one dislikes them, and at the end of the story, the king allows your character to take his place. You could argue that the character is too modest or that they had to do a few bad things to get to that point, but if the side characters don’t have any significant reaction to it, then that’s probably the point of a Mary Sue.
Mary Sues aren’t always the main character either. In a series of novels I’m writing, I was thinking about how people would respond negatively to my character, Hallow Deaveon. She narrates the first book, becomes a mentor figure to six of the characters, and is overall extremely important to the plot. Though in the first book she was like the clumsy new kid character. In the rest of the books she is a bit more serious since she has now adjusted to the new environment and has a much bigger role in the overall conflict.
Some people might not like her changing to a more serious character because we know how she’s supposed to act, but it gradually shows as the book progresses. She displays her own strengths such as her smarts and her problem solving skills, and we can see that truly shine in the final chapter of the first book when she was able to save herself and many of her classmates from burning to death with her abilities. And don’t forget the fact that the first book spans on for three years, so character development exists (though she was in a coma for a third of that time).
Then I thought about the fact that she might’ve been a Mary Sue. Despite how it was obvious that she wasn’t, I thought about the traits that suggested she was one. Well, Hallow isn’t one, that I can confirm, but her older version probably was. Her older version could only use half of her strength to avoid total catastrophe and even at that she was pretty powerful. Hallow was the only one that had that power. She made a plan to take down an organization with her half brother, and she conducted her own private investigation to find out about the organization. Even if she isn’t a Mary Sue, I still disliked this version of her because she was that powerful. Even with the origin story I had created for her, I still didn’t like her character because she felt that perfect. And adding the fact that I was planning to make a second book dedicated to her backstory didn’t ease me at all.
After a little spark of inspiration recently, she has gotten a bit of a revamp. Her newer version is a lot better. She sucks at both academics and sports, she had a hard time adjusting to the new environment, her self esteem is as low as it can get, and the reason why she took on an authority figure to the main six was because she felt like she had to do everything from a lack of a parental figure in her own life. I also give her some character development in the story when she makes up with her dad and completes Loki’s request. This version of her is far from a Mary Sue. She has her own personal problems as well as a bunch of enemies, and if she were to narrate the entire story, she would barely capture a fourth of what was going on.
Yes, the perfect Mary Sue is the most obvious, but a Mary Sue can take on many forms.
Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood and Fullmetal Alchemist is a genius alchemist who doesn’t even need a transmutation circle to perform alchemy. He’s intelligent, respected, and a great fighter. But Edward has plenty of flaws like his short temper, the fact that he and Alphonse committed the greatest taboo, and how reckless he can be at times. He’s also made fun about his height a lot. Seriously, the dude is 4’11”, and even I’m taller than this Oompa Loompa. Edward needs to be disciplined at times by his superiors, and he has plenty of enemies such as the Homunculi. And to top it off, Alphonse is often mistaken for the Fullmetal Alchemist when it’s actually Edward because Alphonse looks like a big strong man in a suit of armor while Edward looks like a little kid.
People believe that overly heroic and powerful characters are Mary Sues, but it’s not really. Despite all of Edward’s flaws, he is still viewed as a hero most of the time because he is well known. He’s the youngest state alchemist, and rumors have circulated him for a long time. Does this sound familiar to you? Well, yes, because this is the main definition of a Mary Sue that most people give Mary Sues.
But to really determine if someone is a Mary Sue is to compare their flaws, strengths, and how the world reacts to them.
Let’s go back to Edward and identify the traits that could make him a Gary Stew and the ones that don’t. I’ve already talked about his personality, and he is definitely far from perfect. With his cons and pros being a good contrast, he mostly checks out to not be a Gary Stew for that. You also have to consider the circumstances of the situation. Edward joined the military so he could have access to military grade information and resources to find a way to restore Alphonse and his body. Obviously, he has to get strong and good at alchemy to stay in the military, and it wasn’t like he was born with the talent to perform alchemy without a transmutation circle. Since he tried to bring back his mom, he saw Truth and was able to gain the abilities to not need a transmutation circle; in fact, he isn’t the only character that doesn’t need one like Alphonse and his former mentor, Izumi Curtis.
This is generally the structure for a well-rounded character that makes sense. Nene Yashiro from Toilet-bound Hanako-Kun would obviously rely on Hanako and Kou to save her from the supernaturals because she is a normal high school student who is trying to live a normal life. Kou is an exorcist who was already prepared and it’s Hanako’s responsibility as a school mystery to keep the supernaturals under control. Yashiro is also the only person who can destroy the Yorishiros, and she was able to defeat Yako in the end.
A bad example of this is Sakura from Naruto. Every Naruto fan can say that they hate Sakura because of how useless she is, and I have to agree with them, and I didn’t even watch Naruto. Sakura is a trained ninja who always talks about becoming as strong as Naruto and Sasuke. Despite how she is not the weakest character, we compare her to the main characters because she is one. Sakura is a main character who should have significance and someone that we care about. Sakura is merely there to be head over heels for Sasuke, and she is honestly a pretty bad person to Naruto.
It’s a character’s personality that people usually look out for and their circumstances. Yashiro is one of my favorite characters because she is relevant, and I was genuinely sad (manga spoilers) when we discovered Yashiro was going to die next year.
A character’s actions should also have consequences. If their actions are easily overlooked, and people don’t have some kind of reaction, then that hints at a Mary Sue.
A protagonist to a story I’m writing, Xeana Icarus, is honestly a terrible person and was a candidate for Mary Sue.
As a person, she is arrogant, braty, short tempered, violent, and barely trusts anyone. Even then I could’ve made her a Mary Sue. When she met Ezekiel Silan, another main character, she was a pretty toxic friend to him. If I made him and all the other characters look past that part of her, then that’s when she becomes a Mary Sue. But that didn’t happen. Ezekiel confronts Xeana about her behavior, and they have an argument about it. Xeana is also reminded by another character that her actions had consequences to them, not everyone was her enemy, and that she needed to think before doing anything. Xeana goes and apologizes to Ezekiel, and he tells her that he would give her another chance, but if she went back to being a toxic person, then he was leaving for good. Xeana and Ezekiel do remain friends, but Xeana is still a whiny brat. She’s like that because she believes for people to respect her she needs to show dominance. Xeana isn’t a toxic person anymore, but she has many flaws as a person. We can see her growth as a character as she learns to make relationships with people and becomes a more mature person. She reconnects with Kenma, gets the respect of Astra, Justin is a grandpa figure to her, Monica returns Xeana’s feelings, and she is the same Xeana; she is whiny, often irritated (cough, cough, Percy, cough), and would not hesitate to break someone’s neck over a French fry.
Ezekiel also learns to make decisions for himself as well as speaking up for himself; he has the confidence now to speak up and the guts to tell Xeana when she’s wrong.
Yet it’s quite hard to really conclude if a character is a Mary Sue even with a method.
Haruka Nanase from Free! is honestly a lowkey Gary Stew. I thought about it and thought about the qualities that made him a Gary Stew. Haru is a prodigy swimmer that everyone could agree is a great swimmer, he was scouted by universities, and is the reason why some of the character’s problems are fixed.
Despite that no one actually talks about it. No one in the fandom has accused Haru of being a Gary Stew, but what makes him not a Gary Stew?
Well, there’s the fact that he isn’t perfect. Haru can be quite demotivated at times, and for a long time, he swam just because he liked it. Haru has a slight addiction to wearing his swimsuit 24/7, jumping in the first body of water he sees, and eating mackerel. He also had a small crisis when he was going to graduate high school. He didn’t really have a set goal for the future, and he also got into his first fight with Makoto, one of his closest friends. None of these traits are significantly bad, but compared to his other traits, he is honestly a balanced character. He doesn’t have a Gary Stew-structured personality. He doesn’t have any traits that would be considered heroic like extreme kindness to everyone, and the author gave Haru a funny personality that we like while also taking him seriously. So we can confirm that he isn’t perfect.
We also have to consider how people react to him and how the world shapes around him. Honestly, looking back, season one and the beginning of two didn’t really focus on Haru. We get plenty of perspectives other than Haru’s, and we actually start to focus on him for his character arc at the end of season two, and it’s really likely he’s going to have another struggle during season four. The first two seasons focused on establishing the club and getting qualifying times while adding moments from the other characters. We also have the rivalry between Haru and Rin as well as their unhealed friendship. Haru is part of the conflict, but we always focus on the conflict and not how Haru is supposed to solve it. The characters were interested in solving it to benefit everyone, and they didn’t immediately look at Rin as the big bad boss. Rin also doesn’t have a burning hatred for Haru; he just wants to defeat him. The conflict exists, and we are concerned for all of the characters that are in it.
Once that passes, we’re finally focusing on Haru’s character growth around the end of season two. He does gain character development, and, as stated before, he will most likely have another inner struggle in the next season.
Haru also doesn’t make any of the other characters look bad. A main trait that Mary Sues have is that they make the antagonists seem like the worst people to exist.
We don’t hate Rin who was technically the antagonist for the first season, nor do we hate Sousuke for the same reason. Heck, I can’t really hate Hiyori, who was quite against Haru, because he wasn’t against Haru because he was jealous of him or something; Hiyori was Haru’s enemy because he believed he was protecting Ikuya.
Haru also doesn’t have that Gary Stew backstory that most have. A Mary Sue/Gary Stew backstory is often overly tragic, and it’s always sad. It’s meant to make people feel sympathy for them which only ever happens in the story; the audience knows it’s just a plot device.
Haru has parents who travel a lot, and his grandmother passed away prestory, but it’s never a really big deal in the show. The part that makes Haru’s earlier life relevant is because it was the build up to the current conflict of the season.
So yeah, they might not always be so obvious.
Then what about self inserts? There’s a common stereotype that says self insert characters are bad. A self insert character is where you put yourself in the story as a character. It’s often labeled as bad because they end up as Mary Sues. A self insert isn’t bad, they’re just often made for the purpose of fanfiction.
Fanfiction is made for fun and is often never serious. Sometimes I like to write or think of stories that are lazy and sloppy because I just need a break from my serious writing.
Anyways, you don’t want to make it obvious that your character is a self insert.
I have two characters from different series who are both self inserts, but both of them are quite different. The first one, we’ll call her Specter Contract Alice, is the president of a supernatural club at her school, has an older brother who’s overseas in England for college, eventually becomes an antagonist/anti-hero character, and has been through some trauma. The second one, we’ll call her OS Alice, is an antagonist, has an older brother who’s a singer, is a poltergist, easily jealous, quite introverted, and is a transgender person who uses she/they pronouns. All of the qualities that I listed are things that I do not possess. I don’t have the energy to run a club, I am the middle child with an older sister and younger brother, cisgender, and there are so many other traits that don’t fit me. Spector Contract Alice shares the same first name and personality with me. OS Alice has the same first name and her knuckles will dent which gives them the ability to play the piano with the right technique. In fact, the only real similarities between them is that they have the same first name and they play an antagonist/anti-hero role at some point.
If I were to write a crossover with these two, then they honestly wouldn’t be friends despite how they are both based off of me.
As with all characters, you shouldn’t write a story because of the characters, you should write a character because of a story. I have repeated multiple times about what matters is how you use the character. A Mary Sue exists for the purpose of taking the show, so to avoid this, you should have consequences for your character’s mistakes and actions. You should also keep their traits balanced. General advice when writing a character is balancing out the pros and cons.
Even if Mary Sues are always told to be these perfect characters who are plain and perfect, all that really makes a Mary Sue a Mary Sue is how people react to them as well as having a perfect personality.
Just like a pure evil character, it’s how you write them that makes it count. Think about how your character is meant to be interpreted by the audience. We love to hate pure evil characters, we love to love wholesome characters, we love to gush over dynamic characters, and so many others because they can be so relatable; you feel a personal connection with them. A character can have powerful abilities, but the world doesn’t revolve around them. A character doesn’t have to have a complicated motive, but is still a fan favorite among the fandom. A character is a person who doesn’t exist, but they can basically be the reincarnation of Gandolf.So what’s the lesson, kids? A character is a Mary Sue when the world revolves around them, self inserts aren’t bad, and go watch Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.