A Mary Sue is a fictional character in fanfiction (mostly in fan fiction, a perojative form and one of ficiton) who is lacking flaws (being perfect), over-idealized, unrealistic, and acts as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for the author. The practice of writing a character as a Mary Sue is almost universally looked down upon and considered one of the worst traps a writer can fall into. Many Mary Sues are self-insertions.
Mary Sues may be prevalent in fictional media, the fictional kingdoms, fictional worlds, fictional cities, fictional countries, fictional planets and fictional universes, and vice versa.
Despite being generally associated with fan fiction, professional and original works have had characters criticized as Mary Sues, such as Wesley Crusher of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Examples[]
Note that all examples are highly subjective and in some cases controversial.
- Dagny Taggart from Atlas Shrugged.
- DJ Croft, from Neon Exodus Evangelion.
- Rey from Star Wars
- Nasuada from Eragon
- Marissa Picard, from the works of Stephen Ratliff.
- Wesley Crusher, from Star Trek: The Next Generation.
- Bella Swan from "Twilight".
- Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way, from My Immortal.