Talk:Mary Sue

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Mary Sue article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4: 12 months

Books

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Books. To participate in the project, please visit its page, where you can join the project and discuss matters related to book articles. To use this banner, please refer to the documentation. To improve this article, please refer to the relevant guideline for the type of work.BooksWikipedia:WikiProject BooksTemplate:WikiProject BooksBook articles

Gender studies Low‑importance

This article is part of WikiProject Gender studies. This WikiProject aims to improve the quality of articles dealing with gender studies and to remove systematic gender bias from Wikipedia. If you would like to participate in the project, you can choose to edit this article, or visit the project page for more information.Gender studiesWikipedia:WikiProject Gender studiesTemplate:WikiProject Gender studiesGender studies articles

Low

This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

To-do list:

Here are some tasks awaiting attention:

Assess : see Unassessed Gender studies articles and Unknown-importance Gender studies articles
Cleanup : edit to see
Collaborate : see /Collaboration
Copyedit : edit to see
Deletion sorting : see /Sexuality and gender
Expand : edit to see
Infobox : see Gender studies articles needing infoboxes
Merge : edit to see
Notability : edit to see
NPOV : edit to see
Orphans : Brannon Masculinity Scale · Holy Virility · Media and gender · Michael Kaufman (author) · Women's education in Saudi Arabia
Photo : see Wikipedia requested photographs of gender studies
Split : History of feminism
Stubs : see Gender studies stubs
Translate : see /translation
Update : edit to see
Verify : Riot grrrl
Needs attention : see Gender studies articles needing attention

Philosophy Low‑importance

	Philosophy portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philosophy, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of content related to philosophy on Wikipedia. If you would like to support the project, please visit the project page, where you can get more details on how you can help, and where you can join the general discussion about philosophy content on Wikipedia.PhilosophyWikipedia:WikiProject PhilosophyTemplate:WikiProject PhilosophyPhilosophy articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Literature Low‑importance

	Literature portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Literature, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Literature on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.LiteratureWikipedia:WikiProject LiteratureTemplate:WikiProject LiteratureLiterature articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Fictional characters

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Fictional characters, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of fictional characters on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Fictional charactersWikipedia:WikiProject Fictional charactersTemplate:WikiProject Fictional charactersfictional character articles

Women

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of women on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.WomenWikipedia:WikiProject WomenTemplate:WikiProject WomenWikiProject Women articles

It is requested that an image or photograph of Mary Sue be included in this article to improve its quality. Please replace this template with a more specific media request template where possible.
The Free Image Search Tool or Openverse Creative Commons Search may be able to locate suitable images on Flickr and other web sites.

Upload

The following references may be useful when improving this article in the future:

Chander, Anupam; Sunder, Madhavi (2007). "Everyone's a Superhero: A Cultural Theory of 'Mary Sue' Fan Fiction as Fair Use". California Law Review. 95 (2): 597–626. doi:10.2307/20439103. ISSN 0008-1221. JSTOR 20439103.
Chaney, Keidra; Liebler, Raizel (2006). "Me, Myself, and I: Fan Fiction and the Art of Self-Insertion" (PDF). Bitch. Vol. 31. Portland, Ore. pp. 53–57. ISSN 2162-5352. Anniversary issue.
Frankel, Valerie Estelle (2020). "Rey, Maz, Rose, Leia, Holdo, and Phasma". Star Wars Meets the Eras of Feminism: Weighing All the Galaxy’s Women Great and Small. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books. pp. 162–226. ISBN 978-1-4985-8387-9.
Mackey, Margaret; Mcclay, Jill Kedersha (2008). "Pirates and poachers: Fan fiction and the conventions of reading and writing". English in Education. 42 (2): 131–147. doi:10.1111/j.1754-8845.2008.00011.x. ISSN 1754-8845.
Prucher, Jeff, ed. (2007). "Mary Sue". The Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-530567-8.
Turk, Tisha (2011). "Metalepsis in Fan Vids and Fan Fiction" (PDF). In Kukkonen, Karin; Klimek, Sonja (eds.). Metalepsis in Popular Culture. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 83–103. doi:10.1515/9783110252804.83. ISBN 978-3-11-025278-1.

Also Known As...

This archetype is also known as The Omnicompetent Woman, the feminine form of The Omnicompetent Man. Both are descendants of the more classical Demi-God/dess archetype. --Studio 126 (talk) 18:05, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Source? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 19:31, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Villain Sue?

Villain Sues are counterpart of Mary Sues who do malicious deeds as a fictional canon villain. 136.158.59.157 (talk) 03:39, 1 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Source? —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 19:32, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

How come we can include the full text of 'A Trekkie's Tale'? Isn't it copyrighted?

I agree it's a good fit for the article to explain the phenomenon's history and origin, but surely the copyright is owned by Paula Smith or the Menagerie group. Heaven knows I'm no expert on copyright practice on WP, but I wouldn't say that "short quotations" at WP:COPYPASTE applies here. Or... maybe the fanzine was published under a free license, or the copyright has expired early? I wouldn't know, so that's why I'm asking.

And while on the subject... if the text is free to use, surely its illustration is too and can be included for this article? Just a thought. Gaioa (T C L) 07:56, 12 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Good point, I've removed the full-text transcription. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 19:28, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Spock, not Kirk

WP:NOTFORUM. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 19:33, 2 March 2024 (UTC) (non-admin closure)[reply]

The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.

Star Trek contains examples of a slow Mary Sue where special talents are added to a character by successive writers to provide a plot twist (or a kind of Deus Ex Machina rescue as noted below). TV series typically have multiple writers, some of whom only work on one or two episodes. In the last episode of Season 1 of The Original Series, Spock's blindness is suddenly reversed by the revelation that Vulcans have a nictitating membrane. Note McCoy's cynical comment "he'd turn up with something like that": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQH-jGSD_ks (see Operation_--_Annihilate!) Martindo (talk) 21:07, 28 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Spock's blindness is suddenly reversed by the revelation that Vulcans have a nictitating membrane" That is not a talent, nor something specific to Spock as a character. It is a matter of the physiology of his species. I don't see much of a relation to the Mary Sue concept. By the way, deus ex machina plots in ancient Greek tragedy typically involved the actual intervention on one or more deities. Not convenient coincidences. Dimadick (talk) 20:39, 30 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Because Spock was the only Vulcan among the recurrent characters in TOS, it's reasonable to say that"suddenly revealed" traits were perceived as his character development by the audience. It was a simple trick of writers, leading in this episode to a KIND of deus ex machina (assuming the writer is a "god" who rescued him). The Vulcan mind meld was another trait "suddenly" added to his repertoire, in the Horta episode IIRC. In contrast, Kirk isn't the smartest guy in the crew, doesn't always win fistfights, and often refuses to be a team player. What exactly is the set of "always desirable traits" (typical of the Mary Sue concoction) that would apply to him? Martindo (talk) 02:09, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

In Kirk's case, the "desirable traits" seem to be that he is irresistible to women (numerous love interests), fearless, a supposedly brilliant strategist, and able to consinstently outwit or intimidate opponents. Personally, I liked the original Star Trek Series but I found Kirk to be a rather annoying depiction of machismo. Dimadick (talk) 07:09, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

How exactly are those traits typical of a Mary Sue character? He is definitely unlike James Bond, whose set goes way beyond suave: skilled at numerous languages (no for Kirk), superb at unarmed combat (a weak maybe for Kirk), adept at using special devices (minimal evidence for Kirk, if any), excellent memorization ability (no evidence for Kirk that I can recall), and at ease pretending to be someone else in order to gather info (Kirk, or at least Shatner, didn't blend in at all in the episode where they infiltrated leaders of a mafia planet in Season 2 A Piece of the Action). Martindo (talk) 08:36, 1 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Chris Gardner in The Pursuit of Happyness

I suggest mentioning the protagonist of The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) as a Marty Stu character. He is a victim of undeserved misfortune which seriously impacts his life, but he does not seem to have any visible internal flaw.—Anita5192 (talk) 15:59, 2 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Is there an independent, published source that says as much? Otherwise this analysis would be original research. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 19:29, 2 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Overtly self referential fan fiction community comments.

I've been reading sci-fi including fan fiction for over 30 years, me Da started back in the late 50's, early 60's. The Mary Sue characters certainly were not limited to the female gender, but they early on radiated out from the crowd, they were the most beautiful woman ever to be saved and could instantaneously use quantum mechanics to calculate how to save the planet. My dad talked about this many years before the term was coined.

The current article holds "Media-studies researcher Christine Scodari says there is a tendency within slash fandom to label major female characters such as Nyota Uhura in the 2009 film Star Trek as "Mary Sues", because of a perception that development of the female character takes away screen time from male characters."

I searched through academic source for expanded media studies research by Christine Scodari, I was left disappointed, this article implies some sort of gendered ideal behind Mary Sue. I don't have the understanding to improve this page properly but when it has "development of the female character takes away screen time from male characters", I know it is in desperate need of revision. BeardedChimp (talk) 03:12, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Scodari is describing a perception among sci-fi fans, not the reality. Wikipedia articles are based on published, reliable sources such as Scodari (2012), not user's personal experiences. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 15:57, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You made this edit which makes a claim that doesn't appear to be based on published, reliable sources. Why do you hold others to standards which you yourself don't follow? The fixer man swag (talk) 12:33, 4 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]