A character too perfect for their setting. Most often, this character is talented and attractive, and anyone who doesn't adore them is portrayed as
mean,
stupid, or evil. It's common for them to be the smartest, even if this requires everyone else to act
stupider than they should. Out of place but awesome names are also frequent occurrences. They lead charmed lives, and any conflict or
drama they are met with
will be either overdone to the point of headache induction, or easily brushed aside.
While not always the
case, Mary Sues are more often written by someone who is just starting out, either by someone who wrote their own personal power fantasy and expects everyone else to applaud them for it, or by someone using shortcuts to try and make their character impressive to others.
These characters are considered a mark of
poor writing because they give too much favoritism to the character in question, and it comes off to readers as the author trying to artificially make their character the
best around through shortcuts rather than well crafted development. Their perfectness also tends to prevent the stories they'
re in from developing suspense, making not only the character but the entire
work they'
re in boring.
While the term Mary Sue, along with the male version Gary
Stu, has been applied to both fan characters and canon characters in published works, it is much more common to see used on fan characters. Particularly those in fan fiction, which are most often female.
So this girl's
name is
Crystal Roseblade, she grew up in the same orphanage as the protagonist and was a childhood friend of his, but he forgot about her, and now she's come back out of nowhere as a huge pop idol who's secretly the world's greatest demon
slayer? Do you think you might be writing a Mary Sue?
