Marty Sue, Mary Sue: Character Characteristics

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The teacher introduced the newcomer. He stood out from all the kids in the class. Her beautiful thick hair was so black that it had a bluish-metallic tint. And the expressive eyes of amber color, framed by fluffy long eyelashes, looked calm and authoritative. When he appeared, my heart began to beat faster.

This is roughly how a typical appearance of Marty Sue looks like - a fanfiction regular, and sometimes the owner of her own full-fledged original story. This name has become a household name for heroes with outstanding appearance, often tragic past and invariably great future. They with enviable constancy save the Earth (and even the entire Universe) from complete destruction, simultaneously falling in love with all individuals of the opposite sex, miraculously receive all conceivable and inconceivable abilities and emerge unharmed from all the vicissitudes, not forgetting to cope with heroic willpower consequences of a difficult childhood.

Our hero also has a female hypostasis - Mary Sue. Where did they come from? Why did they get such names? And can any character with an attractive appearance and special talents be automatically branded as a Marty Sue?

The birth of an image

The Mary Sue was the first to appear in literature. Back in 1973, she lightly stepped onto the bridge of a spaceship in the Star Trek universe, and with the light hand of fanfiction author Paula Smith, she remained in the annals of history as a kind of standard of tasteless and clumsy embellishment of a character. Her heroine (eng. Mary Sue), fifteen years old, instantly captivated all the crew members with her unearthly beauty and extraordinary abilities, solved all problems, plugging experienced wolves of space routes into her belt, and tragically passed away in the color of the same fifteen years under mournful crying men in love with her.

To be fair, Paula Smith wrote her story precisely as a parody of fanfiction that was gaining popularity, full of undeveloped characters. She did it so well that the name Mary began to be used as a derogatory name for the main character. And a male character with similar qualities was nicknamed Marty, keeping the same surname. Although in Russian writing you can also find the Marty Stew variant.

What's in my name to you?

Among the obvious hallmarks of the literary Marty is often a complex, pretentious and illogical name. Some Mark Antonio Jesus von Kyoto can easily live in the lost village of the Oryol province or, at worst, be an Irish settler in the Wild West. At the same time, close friends will call him Nicky. Incoherence and inconsistency in the description is generally the main distinguishing feature of Marty Sue.

Also, the author often uses his personal nameor its derivatives. This happens for two main reasons: firstly, it's easier, and secondly, often an inexperienced author writes off the main character from himself, and in this case his own name looks as organic as possible.

A rare and confusing family tree

The intricate pedigree of the protagonist is also written to match the magnificent name. He simply cannot be the son of mere mortals. At least in the family there should be aristocrats with blue blood (even more often he will be the direct heir to the throne). And in fantasy worlds, mixing different blood makes your head spin. Thinking about the love story of parents, and earlier grandparents of this very hero is completely scary. Because from the union of a vampire with a dryad, an angel somehow comes, and in the marriage of a female werewolf and a demigod, a magician is born, whose son our Marty will turn out to be.

Most often, parents die tragically in the first years of their child's life, preferably in front of this very child. So he gets the meaning of life (read: obsession) - to find and take revenge on offenders in a particularly harsh form.

Dazzling appearance

Marty looks absolutely stunning. Moreover, literally everyone within sight is colliding, often regardless of gender and sexual orientation. All the positive characters idolize Marty, and the negative ones hate him fiercely. Because they are jealous! What else can the poor fellows do?

The height of the hero must be above average. The figure of Apollo, not a single scar on the body(however, tattoos are allowed, especially if they have a hidden meaning), the shoulders are wide. The eyes must be described especially carefully and in detail. They are certainly expressive, piercing, dreamy, and at the same time hypnotizing. The hair is usually long and thick in the most unimaginable shades from blue-black to acid yellow, but by no means the usual blond or chestnut. Such a "hellish" Marty Sue looms.

Bright personality

Marty's character deserves special attention. This character simply does not have average values and midtones. How else? He's so exceptional! Therefore, our hero is certainly either unbearably kind and attentive to everything that exists (except for those whom he must take revenge, of course), or evil and cruel (but inside is still unbearably kind, you just need to get to the bottom of this kindness).

Such duality often arises from the fact that the author is overly focused on the hero. He must have the very best! As for the elementary argumentation of his actions or their logical sequence, everything is attributed to the eccentricity and infallibility of the character.

Martial arts master

Marty fights skillfully and tastefully. He knows how to skillfully handle almost any weapon, and if necessary, turn any means at hand into a weapon. In hand-to-hand combat, he is also consistently good. In addition to the usual techniques, in his arsenal there will certainly be secret tricks passed down from generation to generation or shown to him by a wise mentor. If athe action takes place in a world where magic is present, then the hero will certainly master one of the available powers, and in especially neglected cases, all at once.

Tamer of all life

Marty Sue will easily find a common language with any representative of the animal world. Among his companions is often a favorite, devoted exclusively to his master and faithfully protecting the latter from the whole world around him. At a minimum, it will be a wolf or other exotic predator. Often, a dragon or an unknown hybrid of completely incompatible predators can act as an animal.

However, not everything is Marty that has unique abilities or the sympathy of others. Often, for an unmistakable definition in a fanfic or original Marty Sue, the character's characterization will not even be the most important, although a significant factor.

The main difference between a well-designed hero and a cardboard and ill-conceived Marty is a causal relationship (and, accordingly, its absence). For example, if the main character has achieved the pinnacle of swordsmanship through years of hard training under the guidance of an experienced teacher, then it is not surprising that he will win battles. But if the next person from our world to the fantasy world, who in life did not twist anything heavier in his hands than a ballpoint pen, grabs a sword for the first time and immediately disperses a small detachment of regular troops, then you have a classic case of “sushness” in its severe manifestation.

Harry Potter under suspicion

Sometimes there are heated discussions among the fans in connection with their favorite characters. For example: is Harry Potter a Marty Sue? Indeed, at a glance, one can easily agree with this statement.

Judge for yourself: a simple schoolboy has been dragging the plot on himself for seven years, the main antagonist is stubbornly chasing him, but Harry always manages to emerge victorious. But if you take a closer look, a completely different picture emerges.

Firstly, Harry is far from ideal in his studies. Yes, in high school he teaches other students magic tricks, but he knows them not because it came in some miraculous way, but because he had to use these spells in real life. And he was specially trained for them. Harry makes mistakes, he has his weaknesses, and what he can do is the result of a lot of effort on his part.

Hermione's Accusation

Even more vehement accusations of "mariness" fall on another heroine of this universe - Hermione Granger. They say, and clever, and beautiful, and know-it-all … Yes, and Joanna Rowling herself does not hide the fact that she wrote this character from herself (and the author’s personal projection on the hero is one of the clear indicators of Mary Sue).

However, again, just some individual single indicators are not enough to stigmatize the heroine with the unflattering nickname of Mary Sue. Even Rowling herself does not idealize Granger. Remember, in the first book, no one wanted to be friends with a little smart guy, including Harry and Ron. Subsequently, Hermione frankly got into a puddle more than once, but"Accusations" of beauty, in general, can only apply to actress Emma Watson, because according to the book, Hermione was by no means the first beauty. Even her notorious omniscience has a solid justification - the girl spends all her holidays preparing for the school year, almost memorizing her textbooks.

Signs of "sushnosti" in Naruto

But in the universe of the Naruto anime, Marty Sue is a frequent visitor. For example, almost all females are in love with Sasuke Uchiha. And he himself does nothing for this. In addition, Sasuke is distinguished by incredible success in learning. In the very first battle with the demons, a very young and inexperienced student not only enters the battle and gives a worthy rebuff to the enemies, but, according to Naruto, does it effortlessly, without even sweating.

Naruto himself doesn't graze the rear either. His success in training is dizzying, and any hero will envy the number of friends. The popularity of this anime series, as well as the way the characters were drawn, spawned a lot of fanfiction, in which Marty and Mary Sue flourished. Parody genres are no exception.

Mary Sue as a comedic character

On the fertile soil of fanfiction and samizdat, the seeds of a separate independent grotesque genre sprouted, in which characters are deliberately drawn with exaggerated signs of "seuoid". Talented authors even manage to put these supercharacters in situations that even superpowers cannot resolve, and this adds even more comedy to the humorous genre presented.

Mainhallmarks

How can authors inadvertently put Marty Sue in their fanfiction? It is worth remembering his main distinguishing features and diligently avoiding them when developing your hero. So Marty is famous:

• with its often pretentious name and loud nickname (prefixes fon, de and others are welcome, even if it is a peasant's son);
• incredibly spectacular appearance without a single flaw (sunburn must be even, no scars or calluses);
• the hero's sexual victories compete only with the list of enemies defeated by him (because everyone is bound to fall in love with Marty Sue);
• weapon proficiency level slightly above absolute perfection (this can safely include all magical or supernatural skills);
• they either want to be friends with the hero or hate them fiercely (as a rule, due to envy of his abilities and successes);
• problems and difficulties are solved either directly due to the genius of the hero, or as a result of a happy coincidence;
• literally everything is forgiven to the hero (impudence, cruelty and injustice);
• many virtues of the hero often contradict themselves (unchanging kindness to all living things peacefully coexists with the determination to destroy anyone who encroaches on something dear to Marty).