The Dreaded “Mary Sue” Label

Obviously with it being spooky season, I decided we should all be in the headspace to address this monster. The scariest label that could be tacked onto one of our beloved characters crops up on the internet every few months. Here’s what you need to know.

Mary Sue (or the male counterpart Gary Stu) refers to a particular character archetype. There is a sliding scale of Sue/Stu traits that qualify a character for the status and opinions are subjective, but here are the basic criteria and categorizations.

First, this started as a fan fiction character (yes, named Mary Sue). It became adapted to pop culture in general with the omnipresent phrase being applied to characters or works. A lot of the articles that address Mary Sue problem characters refer to fan fiction or text role playing for that reason.

I apologize for the article being all over the place, but I want to address Mary Sue problems and I want to explain what Mary Sue is in the same article. I may go back and make this better, separate articles in the future.

Mary Sue Groupings

Sex, Sex & More Sex

Let’s start with the one least likely to crop up in popular media. This version of Mary Sue gets laid by either the writer’s favorite character or all of the attractive characters. As most…