Melpomene
Writer of Tragedy|Art by ROYTHEART|
I AM BACK
It has been a year (roughly) since my last Writing Thoughts! Where has the time gone? I have taken a small hiatus from RPN to heal after somethings went really South and have felt lonely and friendless. However, ya gal decided it was time for a new essay. This year has been really rough. From friendships needing to be severed to other experiences in the past month.
But writing and RPN has always been here.
So let me start off, lovelies, by saying how much I care about all of you
The lights of my life, truthfully. I could not continue on without this little outlet. So a shoutout to all of RPN as well. If I am being entirely honest, if I did not have an outlet like this, the world may not have had an Inquisitor this year, and wouldn’t that be just a travesty?/s
In short, I just want to say, thank you
Anyways! Enough with me being gushy, let us write about what everyone was actually waiting for: The Mary Sue.
The Mary Sue has been something that has been apart of writing for awhile, some would even argue since the first epics were chiseled on to clay tablets. However, I believe they became seen as problematic around the time fanfiction became more rampant. It has become a trope that has been relentlessly mocked. Many people have made parodies of Mary-Sues in certain fiction, in fact, I believe a parody was how the term was coined.
But, the Mary-Sue has become a real problem in written work as well in roleplaying. That being said, I do not think a Mary-Sue is always a bad thing. I will go more into this later in this mini-essay, but first I would like to talk about other things in regards to the Mary-Sue.
First and Foremost: What is a Mary-Sue?
I believe before we get too far into discussion, we must speak of the definition of a Mary-Sue, as there have been many different ideas surrounding it. Here are some of the definitions I have found through my own watchful eye on literary discussion:
Now, I believe that number four fully encompasses what it means to be a Mary-Sue more accurately and concisely than the others, as I find many of the other definitions end up being found in number simply because of what it implies. So for the purposes of this mini essay, number four will be how I will be defining a Mary-Sue.
Here comes the fun part, my dudes:
The Makings of the Sue
I believe now we must answer the question of what are the signs and makings of a Mary Sue. Because, in truth, it can be harder than you think. You see, just because one thing tends to show up in a Mary-Sue, it does not mean that the entire character is, inherently, a Mary-Sue. I say this because there are some things people avoid that tend to be fine on their own, but just don’t work when paired with all the other makings of a Sue.
Without further ado, some signs of a Sue:
Overall, those are the main things I find in most Sues, if y’all can think of more, feel free to mention them! Those were just the ones that came to my mind. Like I mentioned, some of them are not inherently bad, but when paired with everything else they just add to the overall Sue-ness of the character. However, they are fine in moderation, such as attractiveness. I love making pretty, attractive characters, don’t be afraid to. Don’t be afraid to make muscular men or busty/curvy/cute/waifish women (god knows I do haha) usually if you don’t put an unnecessary amount of emphasis on it, people will not even think the character is anything close to a Sue.
But enough of that, I think you guys at least get the idea. I am sure some characters came to mind and you can name even more traits that often come up, which is good, it means we are on the same page for sure now! Now comes the next step:
Why They Tend to Be so Bad
I am going to start this off by saying a Mary-Sue can work. In the right context. That is the difficult part, you have to find the right context.
Often times, Mary-Sues work in worlds that tend to be over the top and sometimes even downright ridiculous. Sometimes in parodies and other times in high energy action series (think something along the lines of Dragonball Z). They don’t, however, tend to work in more grounded down to earth type works.
And by that I do not mean slice of life, I mean stories that have a more serious tone, or things that are more realistic. The thing is, often times it does not even have to be that much more realistic for the Mary Sue to suddenly not quite work. Most of the time, in the more down to Earth settings, the Sues are more subtle, as most people know better than to write a character into a Game of Thrones type setting that would be more suited for a Dragonball type setting.
Quite frankly, I believe they don’t work in these more down to earth settings because they are not allowed to be quite as fun. They cannot be over the top, and wild with their over powered powers as they just take down everyone around them, instead they are forced in a situation where their personality is needed to be put more on display and matters more to the way the reader connects with the particular character. And then the real problem with the Mary-Sue comes to light, and that is they are, quite frankly, very boring characters. Bland if you will. And no bland character is going to be engaging. So while they can work, they certainly are not good characters.
One very prominent example of a Mary Sue working is in a romance. Since many romance novels are often written as a fantasy fulfillment, many romance RPs are written as such as well (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying that, mind you, and if you think there is, you are the problematic one, not the people who enjoy it). The Mary Sue works because, well, people often put themselves in the shoes of the protagonist and so they like the protaganist to be special and perfect for no real reason and get everything they desire without consequence.
The same can be said for when it is a more masculine wish fulfillment, being the most powerful or strongest dude that gets all the ladies and is a super cool fighter dude. A total Chad. Nothing is wrong with this, truthfully, but many times these characters are not the most well-written. Especially in the past, these two roles were very typecasted, the man was emotionless, fought hard and cool, was handsome and all the ladies loved him. The women were emotional, often only there to get into relationships and such.
In recent times, that has obviously changed and such things are being challenged. Men are allowed to show more emotion, women are allowed to be the badasses they can be. There is nothing wrong with the type of characters previously mentioned, if that is what you prefer to consume. However, it is good to mention that someone who wants something differently out of an RP will not be someone who will make a good partner for you.
Now, this pretty much covered why a Mary Sue is so bad, as mentioned, basically their biggest problem is that when they are not allowed to be so OP that they are ridiculously fun, or the reader is not living out a wish fulfillment through them, they are horrendously bland. They don’t have much to their personality. They are not engaging to the audience and often the audience has no reason to support them because they cannot make any type of connection.
When the audience cannot make a connection, this causes many problems. It makes it harder for them to feel strong emotions. When the character goes through tragedy, perhaps the audience can feel sympathy, but they will not feel the same wrenching sadness they would feel for a character they could make true connections with.
But that is to say, if you are writing your own fanfiction/piece of fiction and just want to have fun with it and not worry what some random college girl on the internet has to say, more power to you! You do you! If you have fun, don’t let me ruin it! If you are an RPer who is having fun with a Mary-Sue type and no one else around you that you are playing with is bother by it, more power to you as well! Have that fun boo-boo, I don’t want to stop you at all, I would be an asshole if I did.
However, I cannot say a Mary-Sue is a well-made character, so I will go on to say how to improve a character that you might look at and think: this is a Mary Sue.
Oh no! Inquisitor! I have Written a Mary Sue!! How Do I Fix It?!
Calm yourself, non-existent person who is only there to conflate my sense of self-importance, once you have made the original character, trust me, it is not difficult to make one which is a more well-developed character. I will give a few ideas on how to start off making something a bit more well-written.
Perhaps knowing someone’s favorite book or past time seems a bit obscure, but it can help more than you know. This can actually help you get a head start in your character beginning to write themselves, by figuring things out about your character before you even begin the RP! To some extent, everyone does this. Everyone has an idea in mind behind how their character will be written before they even start writing, some just prefer to have a more solidly built idea than others.
A real personality entails real flaws. Now, you can go many ways with this. You can have a main, large flaw that your character has to get over, I do not like this as much, however, understand this is just a personal preference. In my own characters, I will often have flaws that are more glaring or noticeable than others, at the very least on the surface, but usually, they have many small flaws that inhibit their goals and wants. Some things they cannot do because of their hubris, others because of their lack of perseverance or how quickly they can jump to conclusions.
One thing I must mention is that you should not be afraid of making nice characters. Characters can be sweet and genuinely kind and still be realistic, anyone who says they can’t… well… they need a hug because there are absolutely people like that in real life who put others needs before their own and try to spread joy and happiness. Having a character who is genuinely good on the inside is fine, but they have to show that genuine goodness. Show don’t tell. Many times characters are said to have a golden heart but they never actually do anything golden-hearted.
One of the biggest things I have to say about this is show don’t tell. Do not tell me someone is smart, do not tell me someone is brave, do not tell me someone is strong, show it to me. Actions speak as loud as words. Have them do something or say something that actually displays this. Put them in situations where their personality can really shine through. There are many ways to establish a character’s personality. The most bland personalities come from telling and not showing.
Dialogue will always be your friend as well. There are certain things people can say which can very easily display their personality. But, think about what you say. Every line of dialogue does not have to be dripping with their personality, but several lines should be. For example, it is not a display of personality, really, to show someone is sad about their family dying, that is standard. And trust me.... I have seen many, many characters with dead family (I’m also guilty of this trope so don’t come at me xD). But it is standard for someone to feel sad about their family dying. I have seen a lot of characters go only so far as to write how sad they are and monologue about how tragic this past event was. But that is about it.
You see, this can work. How they react to sad events can be a huge indicator of personality. Is it like Eren from Attack on Titan and they decide to get the ultimate vengeance? Or perhaps like the Elric brothers from Fullmetal Alchemist and they search for a way to reverse it? Are they like Mark Antony and after watching the murder of their previous ruler and friend are ready to unleash the hounds of war? To be fair, these are more of how this tragedy shaped their end goals, but I think that is very telling of someone’s personality. Don’t just tell me they are sad, most people would be, tell me what they are doing because of that strong, raw emotion. That is more telling of their personality. And when it comes to dialogue, think of things they could say that would display their personality.
Ex.
“I detest trickery, but if we ourselves were to suffer deception then our hands are no longer tied.”- The Changeling, Pathologic
That one line displays a faction of this character’s personality. (Pathologic has an amazing story, so you should… watch a let’s play, let someone else suffer through the Walking Simulator). As I mentioned before, it certainly does not have to be every line of dialogue that does this, but several should. And when you display the personality, it should be just as proactive as it is reactive. Let your characters react to things, but that should never be all they are.
And also remember, even nice people have their flaws, they just might be more easily forgiven for them because… well they are just quite likable, and they are not likely to do something absolutely horrendous. But there are many nice people with flaws. Perhaps they inconvenience people while trying to be nice (for example, always late to lunch dates because they are trying to help puppies or something) or they aren’t good at social interaction, or they are aggressively kind and will try to help even when someone does not want it and therefore are seen as mostly annoying.
There are many ways to give flaws to overall nice people, so don’t shy away from them. Someone can still be likable and be very flawed individuals, in fact, I would say the most well-liked characters are extremely flawed individuals! Flaws are what make them relatable, flaws are what allow us to empathize with the character.
2. Now, you have decide on some flaws, eh kiddo? Well… Now comes actually applying them.
One of the biggest mistakes I see in writing is that often people will give their character a flaw… but then basically explain it away so that it is not actually a flaw. That is a huge problem as it basically defeats the purpose of having that flaw there in the first place. So, make sure you put the flaw in and then leave it just like that. Don’t add any “but”s, just keep that flaw in its pure and unaltered form.
Ex. “Andrew can grow cold, but only if someone is being rude to others”
Vs.
“Andrew can sometimes be cold”
One of them is attempting to justify it, while another is simply stating the flaw. It is okay to explain why a person is the way they are, but never should you try to excuse it away. Let that flaw hold its full weight on the character and force them to push through what it entails.
Next step: Make sure it is an in-world recognized flaw. This is often more for book writing, than RPing, but with NPCs and multiple characters, when you are writing other characters who are interacting with this one, let them call out some flaws. And don’t get mad at your RP partner if their character calls out some flaws in your own. Let it happen.
One of the worst things I see done is characters never being obviously flawed but never recognized as being so obviously flawed. Perhaps what they are doing is selfish, sacrificing themselves but not thinking of the loved ones behind them. Let them be called selfish. Perhaps they kind of have a “holier than thou” attitude, let them be called out for that.
Finally, make sure the flaw actually effects them in some way. This goes along with what I just said, with letting other people call them out. Make sure it actually does inhibit them and it is more than just something for someone else to exploit. Make it cause tension between them and a friend, make it be a barrier between them and their goal, make it be something that causes them trouble.
Long story short, make flaws, make them mean something, apply them, improvise, adapt, overcome, you made a great character. I have harped on this too long, time to move on. I apologize for this, I simply believe the personality is hands down the most important part of a character and often it is the personality and how others treat the character that make a character a Mary-Sue, or at the very least, good or bad.
3. Tone down the Specialness
Your character can be special, in fact, I recommend any main character you make should have something about them that makes them standout. In fact, I think it is just good character design. Because, even though we often like some semblance of realism in our characters… well I don’t read just to see someone live out my life. My life is quite depressing and meaningless so that would just be flat out sad and no one wants to see it. Instead, I like to read about people that have exciting lives filled with tragedy, ups, downs, action, and adventure. Whether it has a more depressing ending like No Country for Old Men or a more hopeful ending like Lord of the Rings. The thing both of these have in common is something stood out about their characters.
However, their characters are not obscenely special. You see, you don’t have to go super far to make a character decently unique. They do not have to be the last of their kind with a forgotten magic and pink hair and also the strongest being in the world, also the chosen one, with somehow having everything bad that could ever happen to a person happen.
Because, you see, making the character special is often used to force them to be necessary to the party and the plot. I know many people who will make it to where the story revolves around their character in some way, whether the character is the key to some ancient magic or the chosen one, or the kidnapped princess, or the last of their kind, or the only person with knowledge on how to fix things. Those things are certainly fine, but it does not make your character more engaging. So adding more things to make them special won’t make them any more engaging. You see, at most, it makes them a plot device, so the plot can technically not go on without them. But that, in itself, doesn’t make them interesting. What makes them interesting is what they do with that responsibility.
So, try to keep it limited as to how they are special and then be sure that you do something with that specialness. Them just being the lost princess or the only person able to stop the oncoming meteorite, or the only person with the knowledge to stop the end of the world does not inherently makes them interesting as a character, it just makes them a plot device and, quite frankly, they can be cast aside as a background character and the story still works (I have seen it happen and I have seen it work) they have to have an interesting story and proactively add to the story, ESPECIALLY if most of their specialness has nothing to do with them.
As an example, Ciri in the Witcher BOOK series was not actually the chosen one. Yes, she was the child of destiny, but what I think the books did that was more interesting than how the games went about it was that Ciri was just supposed to give birth to the chosen one. In the games, she kind of became the chosen one to stop the White Frost (which, quite frankly, I believe is a downgrade and is not as interesting as a concept, but I think the games are still fun and tell a decent story). But, Ciri was special for her Nightcrawler powers, and the fact she would give birth to someone with more powerful Nightcrawler powers only. But Ciri was a proactive character that we enjoyed being around and supported on her journey. She had her own goals and fought through them. (Anyone who read the books, the frozen lake scene was AMAZING, and makes me think book Ciri is more badass than game Ciri xD).
Quite frankly, we did not follow Ciri because she was special, we followed her because she was fucking awesome and we wanted to see her succeed. And Yennefer was awesome too, as well as Geralt. All of them were awesome, not because of the things that made them special, but because of what they did with it.
So remember that, go ahead and make them special, keep it to a reasonable degree (so probably one big thing) and be sure you explore what they do with it and what they do in the story instead of just constantly telling us how important they are. Show us! Make us care for them! Make us find them to be important!
4. Tone down the Perfection (and Attraction)
It is okay for them to be very good at things. It is okay for them to be masters at somethings in their field. It is okay for them to be right and it is okay for them to be the very best at somethings in the story. However, it can start to get boring when they are good at absolutely everything. Jack of all trades, master of all.
Now, don’t get me wrong, some people are supremely talented, so I can certainly understand them having multiple talents. Some people like to combat the problem of characters being too perfect by having their character be a one trick pony. I don’t think that is necessary, the trick, to me, is having them get their ass kicked as much as they win. Whether it be physically, emotionally, or mentally. Have them be wrong, have them be put in their place and someone else be better than them at something. Just make sure they are not the best at EVERYTHING, and they are not good at EVERYTHING. Have them get flustered at times, have them fail. Have them be wrong.
On that note, on the biggest helps to make sure the character is not too perfect is letting the audience watch them get better at the things they are good at, or at the very least, having a background that matches up with them being such a master. Let us watch them fail and learn as they perfect a skill, or tell us of their history of failing and learning as they perfected this skill. Don’t make them an instant master for no reason, let us see them struggle to climb to the top of that hill.
One of the biggest mistakes I see, even in the more subtler Sues, is that their character has to always be liked/loved/in the right. Anyone who goes against what they want or think is the bad guy. And later they are put in their place for DARING to go against the this Sue. (Even if a reasonable person reading agrees that whatever the Sue thinks or does is wrong as well. And it is especially bad if this is the case). Let people go against them, let them be wrong and let people call them out.
And, this is more when it comes to writing by yourself, don’t have everyone fall in love with them upon meeting them. It is okay if they are just likable person and pleasant, so people are on good terms with them. But, I do have a problem with characters constantly instantly falling with a character, especially when they are a pretty lampshade type character. Most of all, if they do something that annoys people, don’t put the people getting annoyed in a bad light. I have seen many times where people are perfectly justified in getting annoyed by a character but put on blast for it. The character was not created to be a perfect angel and should not be treated/revered as such.
As for attraction, as mentioned before, it is okay to make pretty characters, I love making pretty characters and do it often! But… don’t constantly harp on how pretty and beautiful they are. I find this tends to be more of a female character problem than male (Probably something about beauty standards for women, but I am not getting into that now). Anyways, I don’t need to hear about your characters buxom hips, large bust, tiny waist, full lips and big ol’ doe eyes a million times. Mention that every once and awhile and it will be fine. To be fair to the men writing women writers, I have seen MANY female writers do this as well. Men just tend to be more likely to treat boobs as a separate entity, while females are just as likely to harp on how beautiful their female character is (though for me it seems to be more likely in RP than published work).
Quite frankly, it just gets annoying and eyeroll worthy. Because… you got the point across the first few times. You don’t have to keep talking about it. I would say limit how many times you mention it. And when you do, just a casual mention is fine. Mention a feature, have someone call them pretty or beautiful.
The problem with constantly talking about it, is it starts feeling like that is the most important thing about the character. And after a long history of women just being eye candy in media, I don’t like that. Their role in the story and their personality should come first, how amazing they look should come second. It is why I fell of the Demon Cycle Series. Leesha Papers was a good character when she was just the great, smart mouthed, quick witted healer that had a kind heart, though could be too stubborn in her ways. Then she turned into someone who everyone called the most beautiful women to ever exist and was able to Ward better in one month than the man who had done it for like 10 years and was literally known as the Warded Man.
I’m not bitter.
But that is an apt example. Just make sure people go against your character and they are reasonable, not seen as just being mean or evil for doing so. Make sure your character gets beaten. Make sure we see them learn their skill. Make sure they are not defined by how attractive they are.
5. Tone down the Tragedy
Everyone loves a good tragic backstory, I know I sure do!
No one loves a melodramatic, nearly laughable half-baked culmination of tragic events that hardly tie in with the story, theme, or character.
A tragic backstory, or a tragedy can be a great catalyst for other events in the story, or for a character themselves. It could force them to change their ways, give them new goals in life. And it is not unrealistic. If you talk to anyone, I guarantee you will find something in their past that would make you show your sympathy for them. Anyone. Everyone has had at least one bad day. I know I have.
However, with characters, not all of them should be like Arthur from the new Joker movie. That dude had an awful life… and he obviously was affected by it. But that is besides the point. Tragedy doesn’t inherently make your character more interesting. It does not inherently add anything to your characters, especially if you don’t do anything with it.
One of my biggest pet peeves is hearing this woe is me tragic story, whether it be a backstory, happen at the beginning of the Rp, happen in the middle, hearing all about it but never seeing it REALLY effect the character. I think every Rp I have had, except for a few ones I finished have done that ( I am not counting ones we did not even really start x) but yes, most that I have gotten into have been like that). See, it only comes up so much as to say “woe is me, people feel bad and pity me because what happened was so bad) and not showing the raw emotion which comes with that tragic emotion and what they choose to do in response to it. These people are not changed at all like real people are by tragedy, they just sort of cry about it sometimes and then get people to come and comfort them.
Let me say, this can be downright disrespectful towards real people that wen through these tragic events to just use them as cheap pity points.
Time to get personal.
So, I was raped. I am going to be straightforward, and not get into the nitty gritty. But it happened. It was an event in my life. And it affected me greatly. It also sent me from being mildly annoyed by people shoehorning rape on to their characters to make them more pitiful to downright disgusted because it is a horrible act and to just have it happen for the sake of pity points is quite disrespectful.
So, I say from the bottom of my heart, if there is any other option other than rape (which there usually is) don’t choose rape. It is, quite frankly, overused anyways. And especially if you don’t plan on actually having the character being properly affected, don’t choose such a sensitive topic.
The character does not have to go through every horrible thing ever to be interesting, but how they choose to deal with the tragedy at hand can be interesting. Remember that before shoehorning too much tragedy on to the character.
Well… That’s all Folks
I don’t really have anything more to say.
I hope this is helpful when it comes to making nuanced and creative characters, as I believe nuance is one of the most important things in any character.
Have fun RPing and have fun with character creation!
GOD AM I GLAD TO BE BACK!
See y’all later
-The Inquisitor
It has been a year (roughly) since my last Writing Thoughts! Where has the time gone? I have taken a small hiatus from RPN to heal after somethings went really South and have felt lonely and friendless. However, ya gal decided it was time for a new essay. This year has been really rough. From friendships needing to be severed to other experiences in the past month.
But writing and RPN has always been here.
So let me start off, lovelies, by saying how much I care about all of you
The lights of my life, truthfully. I could not continue on without this little outlet. So a shoutout to all of RPN as well. If I am being entirely honest, if I did not have an outlet like this, the world may not have had an Inquisitor this year, and wouldn’t that be just a travesty?/sIn short, I just want to say, thank you
Anyways! Enough with me being gushy, let us write about what everyone was actually waiting for: The Mary Sue.
The Mary Sue has been something that has been apart of writing for awhile, some would even argue since the first epics were chiseled on to clay tablets. However, I believe they became seen as problematic around the time fanfiction became more rampant. It has become a trope that has been relentlessly mocked. Many people have made parodies of Mary-Sues in certain fiction, in fact, I believe a parody was how the term was coined.
But, the Mary-Sue has become a real problem in written work as well in roleplaying. That being said, I do not think a Mary-Sue is always a bad thing. I will go more into this later in this mini-essay, but first I would like to talk about other things in regards to the Mary-Sue.
First and Foremost: What is a Mary-Sue?
I believe before we get too far into discussion, we must speak of the definition of a Mary-Sue, as there have been many different ideas surrounding it. Here are some of the definitions I have found through my own watchful eye on literary discussion:
- A character who is perfect in every way. If they have flaws, those flaws are minuscule and never come to be an actual problem in the plot. Such as, a character is clumsy, or even something that is presented as a flaw but is quickly explained away as not being one. This is one of the most popular definitions.
- A self-insert character that is made to be a way for the creator to live out a personal fantasy in a world they like or have created.
- A character who is ridiculously overpowered and special.
- A character whose universe completely revolves around them.
Now, I believe that number four fully encompasses what it means to be a Mary-Sue more accurately and concisely than the others, as I find many of the other definitions end up being found in number simply because of what it implies. So for the purposes of this mini essay, number four will be how I will be defining a Mary-Sue.
Here comes the fun part, my dudes:
The Makings of the Sue
I believe now we must answer the question of what are the signs and makings of a Mary Sue. Because, in truth, it can be harder than you think. You see, just because one thing tends to show up in a Mary-Sue, it does not mean that the entire character is, inherently, a Mary-Sue. I say this because there are some things people avoid that tend to be fine on their own, but just don’t work when paired with all the other makings of a Sue.
Without further ado, some signs of a Sue:
- “Specialness”.
- Somehow the character has many traits which seperate them from the rest of the characters that show up. Whether they are a special race, look special, have special powers, or special talents. This is one of those that are not inherently bad. I definitely do not think it is bad to have a character that is unique and stands apart from others, however the more egregious examples of Sues tend to be… obscenely special. A princess from a lost civilization, the last of their race, with color changing eyes and special colored hair as well as powers, they are good at everything, the best military general and everyone absolutely loves them for it. However, I find most Sues are not quite that bad.
- Perfection.
- Or flawless, rather. And with this I am encompassing those with flaws that are not actually flaws. Such as being clumsy. Yes, technically that is a flaw. But would it impede them in reaching their goal in the story? Would it cause them true problems? No. So from the story-telling stand point, it is not an actual flaw. This is something that I do recommend avoiding. Flaws tend to be what gives the character’s problems and hardships, they tend to start inner-conflict which can always be an interesting facet to add to any story. So a character being flawless, or without weakness, can truly be a problem. Which brings us to the next problem:
- No Weakness, or mistaking Weakness for Flaws.
- First: A character with no weakness can have no suspense behind them, making any battle they get into feel boring as we know they will win. Especially if they never even get hurt, it can make the parts of action a bit dull. I can say this might ring even truer if the character never even had to work to get to this point, they were just born with it ( I will get into this later). However, no weakness, while it does not always work, can as long as the character has flaws. Probably not in an fight/action based RP, certainly, but with flaws in certain RPs it could work as conflict, at least mentally and emotionally with themselves and other characters is still a possiblity.
- Then comes the other problem, mistaking weaknesses for flaws. No, your character being weak when someone stabs them is not good enough to supplement for a flaw. A flaw is something that is in their personality (at least in this context, you could give them a flawed appearance as well). A weakness might make fighting more interesting, but that does not really tell me much about your character, personality wise. Unless their weakness is something along the lines that they are deathly scared of cats and will promptly fall into a self-induced coma upon seeing them. That does tell me a bit about them, I admit.
- Stunning Attractiveness
- Mary-Sues tend to be quite the lookers. Sexy men and women if you ask me. This is also something that it is okay to have in a character. I love making cute, attractive, or even downright smexy characters. That is not, inherently, a sign of a Mary Sue, however, I find writers of Mary-Sues tend to go about the attractive part of it different than others. As, often, these writers seem to put a lot of attention on how attractive their characters are, often mentioning how beautiful they are multiple times. And everyone grows tired because even I wouldn’t want to be told I was beautiful that many times. I once roleplayed with someone who felt like they mentioned it every other post, bringing something about how physically attractive their character looked to attention. It was a bit aggravating. Many go further and constantly let the reader know that the character is the most beautiful/sexy in all the land. (Leesha Papers from the Demon Cycle Series suffered this treatment. I could only hear her get called the most beautiful woman in all the kingdoms and see every man she came across fall hopelessly in love with her so many times). That brings me to the next point…
- Everyone Likes them.
- Let’s be honest here, no one is universally liked. Or, at the very least, I think everyone is found to be, at the very least, annoying at least once. At some point in their life, someone, even if it was only for a brief period and not forever, disliked them. A Mary Sue, however, usually demands to be universally liked. And all the time. The only people to ever find them at fault, or call them out, is the bad guy. This ties back in with the ‘Perfection’ part. Even for the flaws they do have, they are not supposed to be called out for them and still be seen as perfect despite that, everyone else are the ones that aren’t perfect! You can usually see this mostly in the author being very protective over this character, getting upset OOC when characters don’t like theirs IC. This also might be a sign of a self-insert, but not always. It usually is, truthfully, a sign of a Mary-Sue, however, and should be avoided.
- Everything Goes Right for Them/ Everything Goes Wrong
- Now there are many types of Sues, but one thing that seems to connect them all, at least for me, is that they are always at the center of whatever universe they are supposed to be in. Everything is about them. Everything. And the author is sure that everyone knows that. Whether it is by having everything go their way, or having them suffer tragedy to the point that it is nearly laughable, it is about them. Either this person always lands their hits, always wins the battles whether they be mental, emotional, or physical, or they never win and have been raped, abused, suffer mental illness, come from a horrible family, watched that family get killed, also watched their entire kind get killed, also got into a horrible accident, also --- you get the idea…
Overall, those are the main things I find in most Sues, if y’all can think of more, feel free to mention them! Those were just the ones that came to my mind. Like I mentioned, some of them are not inherently bad, but when paired with everything else they just add to the overall Sue-ness of the character. However, they are fine in moderation, such as attractiveness. I love making pretty, attractive characters, don’t be afraid to. Don’t be afraid to make muscular men or busty/curvy/cute/waifish women (god knows I do haha) usually if you don’t put an unnecessary amount of emphasis on it, people will not even think the character is anything close to a Sue.
But enough of that, I think you guys at least get the idea. I am sure some characters came to mind and you can name even more traits that often come up, which is good, it means we are on the same page for sure now! Now comes the next step:
Why They Tend to Be so Bad
I am going to start this off by saying a Mary-Sue can work. In the right context. That is the difficult part, you have to find the right context.
Often times, Mary-Sues work in worlds that tend to be over the top and sometimes even downright ridiculous. Sometimes in parodies and other times in high energy action series (think something along the lines of Dragonball Z). They don’t, however, tend to work in more grounded down to earth type works.
And by that I do not mean slice of life, I mean stories that have a more serious tone, or things that are more realistic. The thing is, often times it does not even have to be that much more realistic for the Mary Sue to suddenly not quite work. Most of the time, in the more down to Earth settings, the Sues are more subtle, as most people know better than to write a character into a Game of Thrones type setting that would be more suited for a Dragonball type setting.
Quite frankly, I believe they don’t work in these more down to earth settings because they are not allowed to be quite as fun. They cannot be over the top, and wild with their over powered powers as they just take down everyone around them, instead they are forced in a situation where their personality is needed to be put more on display and matters more to the way the reader connects with the particular character. And then the real problem with the Mary-Sue comes to light, and that is they are, quite frankly, very boring characters. Bland if you will. And no bland character is going to be engaging. So while they can work, they certainly are not good characters.
One very prominent example of a Mary Sue working is in a romance. Since many romance novels are often written as a fantasy fulfillment, many romance RPs are written as such as well (and there is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying that, mind you, and if you think there is, you are the problematic one, not the people who enjoy it). The Mary Sue works because, well, people often put themselves in the shoes of the protagonist and so they like the protaganist to be special and perfect for no real reason and get everything they desire without consequence.
The same can be said for when it is a more masculine wish fulfillment, being the most powerful or strongest dude that gets all the ladies and is a super cool fighter dude. A total Chad. Nothing is wrong with this, truthfully, but many times these characters are not the most well-written. Especially in the past, these two roles were very typecasted, the man was emotionless, fought hard and cool, was handsome and all the ladies loved him. The women were emotional, often only there to get into relationships and such.
In recent times, that has obviously changed and such things are being challenged. Men are allowed to show more emotion, women are allowed to be the badasses they can be. There is nothing wrong with the type of characters previously mentioned, if that is what you prefer to consume. However, it is good to mention that someone who wants something differently out of an RP will not be someone who will make a good partner for you.
Now, this pretty much covered why a Mary Sue is so bad, as mentioned, basically their biggest problem is that when they are not allowed to be so OP that they are ridiculously fun, or the reader is not living out a wish fulfillment through them, they are horrendously bland. They don’t have much to their personality. They are not engaging to the audience and often the audience has no reason to support them because they cannot make any type of connection.
When the audience cannot make a connection, this causes many problems. It makes it harder for them to feel strong emotions. When the character goes through tragedy, perhaps the audience can feel sympathy, but they will not feel the same wrenching sadness they would feel for a character they could make true connections with.
But that is to say, if you are writing your own fanfiction/piece of fiction and just want to have fun with it and not worry what some random college girl on the internet has to say, more power to you! You do you! If you have fun, don’t let me ruin it! If you are an RPer who is having fun with a Mary-Sue type and no one else around you that you are playing with is bother by it, more power to you as well! Have that fun boo-boo, I don’t want to stop you at all, I would be an asshole if I did.
However, I cannot say a Mary-Sue is a well-made character, so I will go on to say how to improve a character that you might look at and think: this is a Mary Sue.
Oh no! Inquisitor! I have Written a Mary Sue!! How Do I Fix It?!
Calm yourself, non-existent person who is only there to conflate my sense of self-importance, once you have made the original character, trust me, it is not difficult to make one which is a more well-developed character. I will give a few ideas on how to start off making something a bit more well-written.
- Try Making a Character Sheet
Perhaps knowing someone’s favorite book or past time seems a bit obscure, but it can help more than you know. This can actually help you get a head start in your character beginning to write themselves, by figuring things out about your character before you even begin the RP! To some extent, everyone does this. Everyone has an idea in mind behind how their character will be written before they even start writing, some just prefer to have a more solidly built idea than others.
- Give them a REAL personality
- By this I mean, try to give them a personality that sounds like one a real person would have. Not only should they have a real personality, but we should see this personality actively shown throughout the story and kept consistent.
A real personality entails real flaws. Now, you can go many ways with this. You can have a main, large flaw that your character has to get over, I do not like this as much, however, understand this is just a personal preference. In my own characters, I will often have flaws that are more glaring or noticeable than others, at the very least on the surface, but usually, they have many small flaws that inhibit their goals and wants. Some things they cannot do because of their hubris, others because of their lack of perseverance or how quickly they can jump to conclusions.
One thing I must mention is that you should not be afraid of making nice characters. Characters can be sweet and genuinely kind and still be realistic, anyone who says they can’t… well… they need a hug because there are absolutely people like that in real life who put others needs before their own and try to spread joy and happiness. Having a character who is genuinely good on the inside is fine, but they have to show that genuine goodness. Show don’t tell. Many times characters are said to have a golden heart but they never actually do anything golden-hearted.
One of the biggest things I have to say about this is show don’t tell. Do not tell me someone is smart, do not tell me someone is brave, do not tell me someone is strong, show it to me. Actions speak as loud as words. Have them do something or say something that actually displays this. Put them in situations where their personality can really shine through. There are many ways to establish a character’s personality. The most bland personalities come from telling and not showing.
Dialogue will always be your friend as well. There are certain things people can say which can very easily display their personality. But, think about what you say. Every line of dialogue does not have to be dripping with their personality, but several lines should be. For example, it is not a display of personality, really, to show someone is sad about their family dying, that is standard. And trust me.... I have seen many, many characters with dead family (I’m also guilty of this trope so don’t come at me xD). But it is standard for someone to feel sad about their family dying. I have seen a lot of characters go only so far as to write how sad they are and monologue about how tragic this past event was. But that is about it.
You see, this can work. How they react to sad events can be a huge indicator of personality. Is it like Eren from Attack on Titan and they decide to get the ultimate vengeance? Or perhaps like the Elric brothers from Fullmetal Alchemist and they search for a way to reverse it? Are they like Mark Antony and after watching the murder of their previous ruler and friend are ready to unleash the hounds of war? To be fair, these are more of how this tragedy shaped their end goals, but I think that is very telling of someone’s personality. Don’t just tell me they are sad, most people would be, tell me what they are doing because of that strong, raw emotion. That is more telling of their personality. And when it comes to dialogue, think of things they could say that would display their personality.
Ex.
“I detest trickery, but if we ourselves were to suffer deception then our hands are no longer tied.”- The Changeling, Pathologic
That one line displays a faction of this character’s personality. (Pathologic has an amazing story, so you should… watch a let’s play, let someone else suffer through the Walking Simulator). As I mentioned before, it certainly does not have to be every line of dialogue that does this, but several should. And when you display the personality, it should be just as proactive as it is reactive. Let your characters react to things, but that should never be all they are.
And also remember, even nice people have their flaws, they just might be more easily forgiven for them because… well they are just quite likable, and they are not likely to do something absolutely horrendous. But there are many nice people with flaws. Perhaps they inconvenience people while trying to be nice (for example, always late to lunch dates because they are trying to help puppies or something) or they aren’t good at social interaction, or they are aggressively kind and will try to help even when someone does not want it and therefore are seen as mostly annoying.
There are many ways to give flaws to overall nice people, so don’t shy away from them. Someone can still be likable and be very flawed individuals, in fact, I would say the most well-liked characters are extremely flawed individuals! Flaws are what make them relatable, flaws are what allow us to empathize with the character.
2. Now, you have decide on some flaws, eh kiddo? Well… Now comes actually applying them.
One of the biggest mistakes I see in writing is that often people will give their character a flaw… but then basically explain it away so that it is not actually a flaw. That is a huge problem as it basically defeats the purpose of having that flaw there in the first place. So, make sure you put the flaw in and then leave it just like that. Don’t add any “but”s, just keep that flaw in its pure and unaltered form.
Ex. “Andrew can grow cold, but only if someone is being rude to others”
Vs.
“Andrew can sometimes be cold”
One of them is attempting to justify it, while another is simply stating the flaw. It is okay to explain why a person is the way they are, but never should you try to excuse it away. Let that flaw hold its full weight on the character and force them to push through what it entails.
Next step: Make sure it is an in-world recognized flaw. This is often more for book writing, than RPing, but with NPCs and multiple characters, when you are writing other characters who are interacting with this one, let them call out some flaws. And don’t get mad at your RP partner if their character calls out some flaws in your own. Let it happen.
One of the worst things I see done is characters never being obviously flawed but never recognized as being so obviously flawed. Perhaps what they are doing is selfish, sacrificing themselves but not thinking of the loved ones behind them. Let them be called selfish. Perhaps they kind of have a “holier than thou” attitude, let them be called out for that.
Finally, make sure the flaw actually effects them in some way. This goes along with what I just said, with letting other people call them out. Make sure it actually does inhibit them and it is more than just something for someone else to exploit. Make it cause tension between them and a friend, make it be a barrier between them and their goal, make it be something that causes them trouble.
Long story short, make flaws, make them mean something, apply them, improvise, adapt, overcome, you made a great character. I have harped on this too long, time to move on. I apologize for this, I simply believe the personality is hands down the most important part of a character and often it is the personality and how others treat the character that make a character a Mary-Sue, or at the very least, good or bad.
3. Tone down the Specialness
Your character can be special, in fact, I recommend any main character you make should have something about them that makes them standout. In fact, I think it is just good character design. Because, even though we often like some semblance of realism in our characters… well I don’t read just to see someone live out my life. My life is quite depressing and meaningless so that would just be flat out sad and no one wants to see it. Instead, I like to read about people that have exciting lives filled with tragedy, ups, downs, action, and adventure. Whether it has a more depressing ending like No Country for Old Men or a more hopeful ending like Lord of the Rings. The thing both of these have in common is something stood out about their characters.
However, their characters are not obscenely special. You see, you don’t have to go super far to make a character decently unique. They do not have to be the last of their kind with a forgotten magic and pink hair and also the strongest being in the world, also the chosen one, with somehow having everything bad that could ever happen to a person happen.
Because, you see, making the character special is often used to force them to be necessary to the party and the plot. I know many people who will make it to where the story revolves around their character in some way, whether the character is the key to some ancient magic or the chosen one, or the kidnapped princess, or the last of their kind, or the only person with knowledge on how to fix things. Those things are certainly fine, but it does not make your character more engaging. So adding more things to make them special won’t make them any more engaging. You see, at most, it makes them a plot device, so the plot can technically not go on without them. But that, in itself, doesn’t make them interesting. What makes them interesting is what they do with that responsibility.
So, try to keep it limited as to how they are special and then be sure that you do something with that specialness. Them just being the lost princess or the only person able to stop the oncoming meteorite, or the only person with the knowledge to stop the end of the world does not inherently makes them interesting as a character, it just makes them a plot device and, quite frankly, they can be cast aside as a background character and the story still works (I have seen it happen and I have seen it work) they have to have an interesting story and proactively add to the story, ESPECIALLY if most of their specialness has nothing to do with them.
As an example, Ciri in the Witcher BOOK series was not actually the chosen one. Yes, she was the child of destiny, but what I think the books did that was more interesting than how the games went about it was that Ciri was just supposed to give birth to the chosen one. In the games, she kind of became the chosen one to stop the White Frost (which, quite frankly, I believe is a downgrade and is not as interesting as a concept, but I think the games are still fun and tell a decent story). But, Ciri was special for her Nightcrawler powers, and the fact she would give birth to someone with more powerful Nightcrawler powers only. But Ciri was a proactive character that we enjoyed being around and supported on her journey. She had her own goals and fought through them. (Anyone who read the books, the frozen lake scene was AMAZING, and makes me think book Ciri is more badass than game Ciri xD).
Quite frankly, we did not follow Ciri because she was special, we followed her because she was fucking awesome and we wanted to see her succeed. And Yennefer was awesome too, as well as Geralt. All of them were awesome, not because of the things that made them special, but because of what they did with it.
So remember that, go ahead and make them special, keep it to a reasonable degree (so probably one big thing) and be sure you explore what they do with it and what they do in the story instead of just constantly telling us how important they are. Show us! Make us care for them! Make us find them to be important!
4. Tone down the Perfection (and Attraction)
It is okay for them to be very good at things. It is okay for them to be masters at somethings in their field. It is okay for them to be right and it is okay for them to be the very best at somethings in the story. However, it can start to get boring when they are good at absolutely everything. Jack of all trades, master of all.
Now, don’t get me wrong, some people are supremely talented, so I can certainly understand them having multiple talents. Some people like to combat the problem of characters being too perfect by having their character be a one trick pony. I don’t think that is necessary, the trick, to me, is having them get their ass kicked as much as they win. Whether it be physically, emotionally, or mentally. Have them be wrong, have them be put in their place and someone else be better than them at something. Just make sure they are not the best at EVERYTHING, and they are not good at EVERYTHING. Have them get flustered at times, have them fail. Have them be wrong.
On that note, on the biggest helps to make sure the character is not too perfect is letting the audience watch them get better at the things they are good at, or at the very least, having a background that matches up with them being such a master. Let us watch them fail and learn as they perfect a skill, or tell us of their history of failing and learning as they perfected this skill. Don’t make them an instant master for no reason, let us see them struggle to climb to the top of that hill.
One of the biggest mistakes I see, even in the more subtler Sues, is that their character has to always be liked/loved/in the right. Anyone who goes against what they want or think is the bad guy. And later they are put in their place for DARING to go against the this Sue. (Even if a reasonable person reading agrees that whatever the Sue thinks or does is wrong as well. And it is especially bad if this is the case). Let people go against them, let them be wrong and let people call them out.
And, this is more when it comes to writing by yourself, don’t have everyone fall in love with them upon meeting them. It is okay if they are just likable person and pleasant, so people are on good terms with them. But, I do have a problem with characters constantly instantly falling with a character, especially when they are a pretty lampshade type character. Most of all, if they do something that annoys people, don’t put the people getting annoyed in a bad light. I have seen many times where people are perfectly justified in getting annoyed by a character but put on blast for it. The character was not created to be a perfect angel and should not be treated/revered as such.
As for attraction, as mentioned before, it is okay to make pretty characters, I love making pretty characters and do it often! But… don’t constantly harp on how pretty and beautiful they are. I find this tends to be more of a female character problem than male (Probably something about beauty standards for women, but I am not getting into that now). Anyways, I don’t need to hear about your characters buxom hips, large bust, tiny waist, full lips and big ol’ doe eyes a million times. Mention that every once and awhile and it will be fine. To be fair to the men writing women writers, I have seen MANY female writers do this as well. Men just tend to be more likely to treat boobs as a separate entity, while females are just as likely to harp on how beautiful their female character is (though for me it seems to be more likely in RP than published work).
Quite frankly, it just gets annoying and eyeroll worthy. Because… you got the point across the first few times. You don’t have to keep talking about it. I would say limit how many times you mention it. And when you do, just a casual mention is fine. Mention a feature, have someone call them pretty or beautiful.
The problem with constantly talking about it, is it starts feeling like that is the most important thing about the character. And after a long history of women just being eye candy in media, I don’t like that. Their role in the story and their personality should come first, how amazing they look should come second. It is why I fell of the Demon Cycle Series. Leesha Papers was a good character when she was just the great, smart mouthed, quick witted healer that had a kind heart, though could be too stubborn in her ways. Then she turned into someone who everyone called the most beautiful women to ever exist and was able to Ward better in one month than the man who had done it for like 10 years and was literally known as the Warded Man.
I’m not bitter.
But that is an apt example. Just make sure people go against your character and they are reasonable, not seen as just being mean or evil for doing so. Make sure your character gets beaten. Make sure we see them learn their skill. Make sure they are not defined by how attractive they are.
5. Tone down the Tragedy
Everyone loves a good tragic backstory, I know I sure do!
No one loves a melodramatic, nearly laughable half-baked culmination of tragic events that hardly tie in with the story, theme, or character.
A tragic backstory, or a tragedy can be a great catalyst for other events in the story, or for a character themselves. It could force them to change their ways, give them new goals in life. And it is not unrealistic. If you talk to anyone, I guarantee you will find something in their past that would make you show your sympathy for them. Anyone. Everyone has had at least one bad day. I know I have.
However, with characters, not all of them should be like Arthur from the new Joker movie. That dude had an awful life… and he obviously was affected by it. But that is besides the point. Tragedy doesn’t inherently make your character more interesting. It does not inherently add anything to your characters, especially if you don’t do anything with it.
One of my biggest pet peeves is hearing this woe is me tragic story, whether it be a backstory, happen at the beginning of the Rp, happen in the middle, hearing all about it but never seeing it REALLY effect the character. I think every Rp I have had, except for a few ones I finished have done that ( I am not counting ones we did not even really start x) but yes, most that I have gotten into have been like that). See, it only comes up so much as to say “woe is me, people feel bad and pity me because what happened was so bad) and not showing the raw emotion which comes with that tragic emotion and what they choose to do in response to it. These people are not changed at all like real people are by tragedy, they just sort of cry about it sometimes and then get people to come and comfort them.
Let me say, this can be downright disrespectful towards real people that wen through these tragic events to just use them as cheap pity points.
Time to get personal.
So, I was raped. I am going to be straightforward, and not get into the nitty gritty. But it happened. It was an event in my life. And it affected me greatly. It also sent me from being mildly annoyed by people shoehorning rape on to their characters to make them more pitiful to downright disgusted because it is a horrible act and to just have it happen for the sake of pity points is quite disrespectful.
So, I say from the bottom of my heart, if there is any other option other than rape (which there usually is) don’t choose rape. It is, quite frankly, overused anyways. And especially if you don’t plan on actually having the character being properly affected, don’t choose such a sensitive topic.
The character does not have to go through every horrible thing ever to be interesting, but how they choose to deal with the tragedy at hand can be interesting. Remember that before shoehorning too much tragedy on to the character.
Well… That’s all Folks
I don’t really have anything more to say.
I hope this is helpful when it comes to making nuanced and creative characters, as I believe nuance is one of the most important things in any character.
Have fun RPing and have fun with character creation!
GOD AM I GLAD TO BE BACK!
See y’all later
-The Inquisitor
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