The term ‘Mary Sue’ has gained some fame recently. Anybody who follows online discourse regarding stories has seen it. Everybody who participates in online discourse, seemingly, has their own definition. Unfortunately, these definitions tend to differ, in details at least; beyond the common condemnation of Mary Sues as bad writing, the only real consensus on their nature is the (not always helpful) description of ‘too perfect’. So, no one definition exists, and in truth, the attempt to produce one isn’t all that helpful, unless you’ve thought up a way to make everybody agree to it. You just have to learn each person’s personal variation on the theme and go from there. With that in mind, though, I’m still going to provide what I find to be a fairly well-rounded definition. Why? Because, although a universal definition already exists (too perfect), a more in-depth, less universal definition can illuminate the problem created by many Mary Sues.

A Mary Sue¹ is a character whose purpose is to fulfil a ‘success fantasy’ (as the protagonist thereof). What is a success fantasy? In its most general form, a success fantasy is a fictional depiction of a particular self-centric success, one the author (apparently) ascribes to, though often one beyond the author’s capability or willingness to sacrifice² (sometimes one which requires the suspension of reality to achieve without delusion-defying moral turpitude). Variants include power fantasies (wherein the fantasy is one of assertive autonomy or of control or of domination), sexual fantasies (obvious), victim fantasies (wherein all the character’s suffering is re-coined as a means of glorifying them, of sanctifying or hallowing them). Because the Mary Sue is the protagonist of a success fantasy, he or she is asserted by the narrative to be essentially flawless, too perfect (for the purpose of the fantasy) to be realistic, both in internal characteristics and in interaction with the world (which affirms this perfection regardless of its reality).

Several characteristics of the Mary Sue character itself can be listed, though all of them have at least partial exceptions. Stated in their strongest common forms, they are as follows:

• Flawlessness: While the Mary Sue often possesses flaws, he possesses only cosmetic flaws. He is too kind for his own good (the job interview flaw), has too much of a temper (but only for good reasons, and never where it would actually cause problems), or he cares too much for his appearance (and again, it never actually causes problems; it is a flaw in exposition and nowhere else).
• Infallibility: The Mary Sue is never truly wrong when it matters, either practically or morally. Some small instances of error may exist, but they are not material to the story. Even when a mistake or error appears to have taken place, the narrative or the narrator will commonly reassure the reader that ‘it was, in retrospect, the only way’, no matter how foolish the decision should have been according to the story’s established logic and setting.
  • Errors and failures will exist only to push the narrative of the success fantasy. In their errors, the victim Sue renders herself a more pitiful (and blameless, often) victim, the power-fantasy Sue gives himself a chance to opportunity to show off, and the revenge fantasy Sue finds new targets for revenge.
• Sufficient power: The Mary Sue can do whatever is necessary to allow the persistence of its success fantasy. The standard Mary Sue is a social wizard, the power fantasy is a literal (and startlingly beautiful) juggernaut, etc.
  • This differs from the ability of standard protagonists to do what is necessary in that the standard protagonist has difficulty, meets challenges, has to work, and needs help, whereas the Sue only falls into these categories when it helps pursue the success fantasy to do so.

One caveat and one clarification must be made. First, the out-and-out Mary Sue will fulfil all three of these to the hilt, but not all Mary Sues are quite so blatant. Many only partially fulfil these; insofar as they fit these (and diverge from humanity’s theological position in becoming unflawed (Prov. 30:32), infallible (1 John 1:8), and self-sufficiently powerful (James 1:17)), insofar they are Mary Sues. Second, the Mary Sue, despite its feminine name³, does not have to be female. Particularly for this definition, the Sue, the protagonist, can be any entity capable of filling the role of protagonist: man, machine, woman, fictional-gender, alien, or even a composite entity such as a party, corporation, or country. All that is required is that this entity be the star of the success fantasy ( multiple separate entities could fulfil this role, especially if the story is meant to work out several different success fantasies).

The effects of the Mary Sue on the story are, however, not limited to the character, as the character is in truth merely a manifestation of the ‘success fantasy’ which underlies it. The signs of a Mary Sue narrative in a story are many, but can roughly be broken down along lines of plot, character, and theme (or theology).

The plot will generally be illogically twisted to fit the success fantasy’s requirements. Obstacles in the setting will be ignored or explained without regard for plausibility, plot threads will appear and disappear, and contrivances will abound. The Sue’s infallibility and flawlessness will be preserved, no matter how many deus ex machina⁴ it requires. Authorial intervention, including ridiculous post facto⁵ justification of the Sue’s choices, is far from unknown. For example, a victim Sue might act in ways which, by the rules of the setting and of logic, should result in consequences, but the plot will twist to ensure that these flaws are disregarded, counted as naught, and that the victimization is a result of other circumstances, for which the Sue can bear no blame. Alternately, the story might exonerate the Sue of all responsibility for an event which he did in fact cause, simply in order to avoid compromising the success fantasy of ‘innocent victimhood’.

An even more blatant distortion will often be seen in the way other characters behave, particularly if they have an already-established baseline⁶. The characters will tend to react to the Sue in ways that are determined not by their individual characters (beyond aesthetic superficialities) but by their ‘moral’ status. Good guys (and sympathetic characters, including villains) will essentially worship the Mary Sue, even if they pretend otherwise; bad guys will be against him, no matter how unreasonable it is in the circumstances (any position more than a step or two off of pure-devotion and pure-hatred is essentially unknown). Furthermore, while character may often change between these two states (in which direction the change is more frequent depending on what type of Sue we’re dealing with), the changes tend towards the light-switch model: off (hate) or on (worship), nothing in-between. Of course, a better author will fit less into this model; if he leaves it behind altogether, he’s not writing a Mary Sue anymore (though perhaps a parody of it). This character distortion, however, is largely a manifestation of the final distortion, the moral and theological deviance.

In the moral and theological aspect of the ‘success fantasy’ story lies the root of its problems. The ‘success fantasy’ places the protagonist and the protagonist’s success (in the appointed manner) at the center of the story’s morality, making the protagonist (often an author insert) the basis for the moral dictates of the story. In reality, God is the moral center, the moral foundation, of the world and all that is in it (Gen. 1:1; John 1:1-5); in the success fantasy, the protagonist plays that role, albeit usually with some concessions to an external morality resulting from the author’s belief system. Regardless of these concessions, though, the goodness and badness of the various characters, actions, and places is determined, in the story’s view, by their relation to the protagonist (or, more precisely, the protagonist’s quest, of which the protagonist is merely a cipher and an emanation). In a sense, the ‘success fantasy’ and its consequent protagonist are idols, albeit ones with little to no adherents outside the story (possibly, in many cases, a reflection of the author’s self-idolization). They lie about the world, stating that any other than God can be at its center.

One semi-exception does exist, as a result of the term ‘Mary Sue’ having very fuzzy edges. Some stories include characters who do appear to fit the ‘too perfect’ category of the Mary Sue, but do not appear to warp morality around them, being instead perfect in conformity to an external (sometimes superficially Christian) moral code. These characters are not, by my definition, Mary Sues, but they can easily be such under other people’s definitions. They do run the risk of contradicting 1 John 1:8, wherein John assures us of the universal sinfulness of man, but so long as the character and the character’s success is not made the moral barometer of the story, they do not fall fully into the category of problem described above⁷.

Remember, this definition is not perfectly comprehensive- as the preceding paragraph just showed. Some characters that have been (justifiably) called Mary Sues do not fall into this category; at the end of the day, ‘too perfect’ is the only truly consistent definition for the term. Nevertheless, this particular use should point out some possible errors in writing, errors which stories perpetually make, whether hobby fanfiction or big budget films⁸. Narratives, particularly those helmed by author inserts, can be hijacked by ‘success fantasies’. In such stories, the protagonist loses all but the prettiest flaws, loses all significant fallibility, and is authorially empowered to fulfil the author’s fantasy. Furthermore, the success fantasy, and its representative character, becomes the moral center of the story; all matters are judged by the narrative (and, to a large extent, by the characters, who all too easily become author mouthpieces) according to their influence on this hero and the hero’s journey, not God’s law. As a result, the characters and the plot warp, losing their necessary correspondence to reality, their verisimilitude, in their quest to serve the success fantasy. In the end, the story breaks, able only to extol the end goal of the success fantasy and the author insert (which functions as a reader insert, if empathized with) as its god, a fundamentally auto-idolatrous activity, particularly on the author’s part, as the author worships his or her own desires and urges others to do the same (either with their own desires or with the author’s). God calls us to write stories which honor Him, not ourselves, and we should heed the dangers of this path, take care we do not walk it.

God bless.

Footnotes

1 –  I’m not going to try to address the sub-terms, like ‘Marty Stu’, ‘Gary Stu’, etc. For our purposes today, the distinctions between these sub-types is irrelevant, even counterproductive. Male Sues, for instance, have all the same problems as female Sues, at their root, only with a different superficial flavor. The same goes for the (cosmetically related) term of ‘Peggy Sue’ (the time travel fix-the-past trope), which correlates with but does not cause Mary Sue-ness.

2 – This success fantasy may also require the suspension of portions of reality in order to reach or enjoy, whether because the fulfilment entails actions the author cannot yet delude himself into excusing in real life (e.g. sex slavery) or because the consequences of the fulfilment, if not hand-waved away or exterior to the enjoyer, would outweigh the success itself (e.g. a victim fantasy in which the victim is tortured to death; reality does not permit resurrection or the remote safety of fiction).

3 – The ‘Mary Sue’ trope is named after an eponymous character in an old Star Trek fanfiction, one actually printed in a fan magazine (fanzine). Thus, the generic Mary Sue is often characterized as a hyper-competent (or over-powered) and remarkably attractive female, possessed of no real flaws and a horde (or at least a prime collection) of romantic pursuers, usually the author’s preferred characters, as this (reputedly) is essentially the character of the original Mary Sue. Obviously this character was not the first of her type, but the name has stuck despite its recent birth.

4 – See this article for context on deus ex machina, particularly this part.

5 – Meaning ‘after the fact’.

6 – As in fanfiction, or in a sequel to a story.

7 – These stories do often present ‘success fantasies’, though, and regardless of their Sue-ness are terrible art, failing to depict the world in any way as it is and therefore failing to depict God’s salvation of His people as it is (thereby misrepresenting God).

8 – To reference another film I’ve watched reviews of but never watched (don’t worry, the total review time significantly exceeded the movie run time): Captain Marvel. While it is a deleted scene and technically non-canonical, the infamous ‘steal a map and a bike via physical force’ scene available here should demonstrate why I’m using it as an example, given all indication is that the filmmakers saw nothing wrong with the hero’s actions in it. The moral of the film, of course, is that the protagonist was right all along and just needed to do what she wanted instead of listening to counsel.