Mary Sue: The Megathread -

[wtfNeedSignUp]

If we have a megathread for subverting expectations then might as well create a thread for the other distressingly popular shitty writing technique.

So what is a mary sue? There are multiple definitions of the term. Personally it seems to me that the term is best described by a character that breaks the viewer's willing suspension of disbelief without any intention by the creator to do so. This almost always comes down to the character being ultra-capable compared to the rest of the setting and general human ability (since there is no limit to being a fuck up). It also explain why people are more forgiving for villains that are sues than heroes (since you need a tough obstacle in a story). However, as the definition is quite dependent on the viewer it's not always clear, but there are usually warning signs on the matter. The best sign in my opinion is the question of character flaws, especially emotional flaws (rather than flaws in abilities).

A mary sue will either have no flaws, flaws that aren't really flaws (usually along the lines of "too much of a <good trait>/too little of a <bad trait>"), flaws that have virtually no impact on the story ("the characer is average at looks" but the looks never matter) or flaws that are completely covered up by the abilities ("the character is socially ackward but is so smart he can cause people to believe otherwise"). The latter cases are usually the result of a writer realizing he wrote a bad character and trying to slip in superficial flaws to cover it up.

Finally the question of why are those character types so frequent when even the fucking bible had every major character have actual flaws in some manner (not to mention greek tragedies). The obvious answer is bad writing and trying to appeal to certain groups by making a perfect character to represent them. But I'd like to offer another reason that might be the main factor for it. Usually the case of same-sex mary sue is the writer inserting themselves into the plot for a power fantasy. But in the case of opposite sex mary sues, what happens is a "waifu fantasy" - the mary sue is the director's ideal woman that he wants to bang (and depending on the director actually does bang). So cases like Ray from Star Wars is the result of the director's masturbation fantasies rather than any will for female empowerment.

Anyways that's all I can sperg at the moment in that regard. What are your thoughts on the matter, cases of sues you think are ignored/overstated, am I being autistic in taking a mallet on a dead horse that's already a skeleton? (almost assuredly)

 

[garakfan69]

If it's not a self-insert, it's not a Mary Sue.

 

[Secret Asshole]

So the history of the term. Mary Sue literally refers to the character of 'Mary Sue', which is a fictional 16 year old girl which is a satirization of basically unrealistic characters in Star Trek fan fiction. This is a very old device, it spouted up in the 1970s as a result of fan fiction writers basically plaguing Stark Trek fan fiction. (Incidentally, almost all fan fiction terms, including shipping, refers to old-school Trek Fan Fiction). The term is female dominant because in the 1970s, most fan-fic writers were women, basically all of them wanting to fuck Kirk. Also, the Mary Sue as a concept was invented by a woman. So when Daisy Ridley claims a 'Mary Sue' is sexist, she's just being a fucking idiot and ignorant of the history. There are also 'Marty Stu', 'Gary Stu' and 'Larry Stu' for male self-inserts.

There's also my favorite Mary Sue test: https://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm (beware the pronouns. This was old, but it was 'updated' for the 2020s.)

Its basically this huge comprehensive thing to see if your character fits the cliche.

Gabi from Attack on Titan is an example of a Mary Sue. And quite an obvious one at that, used to piss off the audience.

 

[Preferred Penne]

Two words: Marissa Picard.

 

[Judge Holden]

A character who

- has the power to regularly overcome the basic laws, limitations, and structure of the setting with little to no effort or cost​

- has the power to regularly overcome the basic rules of reality and probability within the setting with little to no effort or cost​

- has the power to regularly causes drastic change to in universe characters and concepts with little to no effort or cost​

- pays either zero price or only a very superficial and infinitely disproportionately minor price​

- is given either no explanation for this power, or an explanation that makes little or no sense in universe​

The laws and structure being broken can be physical, metaphysical intellectual, spiritual, emotional, or moral, and the narrative pilup around the character casually breaking these laws by their mere existence calls into question every aspect of the setting as to why the hell it exists in such a way when it can seemingly be broken and adjusted so easily.

Predictably, most of these kinds of characters will be found in fanfiction since the mere act of inserting a brand new character and brand new concepts automatically changes the structure of a setting, but in especially bad original fictions they will also pop up as being able to casually overthrow established orders and vanquish evil villains with such ease that it makes one wonder why the hell nobody bothered before they showed up

Now, with such a godly character in setting, the writer has to pad out the runtime for it to not be a single paragraph of "everything was solved thanks to mary sue. the end." and thus you get the bread and butter of any mary sue story, contrived melodrama. Often in the form of relationship bullshit, but can also entail thinly veiled author rants on various subjects using super-duper-hero as their mouthpieces, textwalls of overdescriptive waffle regarding the minutia of the setting and characters, and all too often excessive attempts to be edgy/topical/lolsorandom or someother obnoxious angle.

 

[Stephanie Bustcakes]

Every single character Cwc has ever written, including all of his self inserts.

 

[Cyril Sneer]

From Halo: Catherine Elizabeth Halsey, MD, PhD (etc, etc).

 

[Tism the Return]

It's harder to find chuuni light novel main characters that aren't Sues, but the guy from Mahouka is legendary.

Spoiler

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

Lisa Simpson
Stephie from Assigned Male
Brian Griffin
Leslie Knope (at least later on in PAR)
Gina from BNN

Any other examples I'm missing?

 

[Guts Gets Some]

God-sues make the best terrible fanfiction though:

This one is beyond belief, and must be seen in its entirety.

 

[HeyYou]

Sylvanas Windrunner is a great example. Beating Bolvar was just the nail in the coffin in a long line of absurdity.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

The core of the Mary Sue is their complete nullification of conflict in a narrative-- internal, external, and interpersonal. They are black holes of conflict. For example,

• When you observe the Mary Sue lacking flaws, you observe a lack of internal conflict.
• When you observe the Mary Sue lacking opposition, you observe a lack of external (or, if you'd like, "environmental") conflict.
• When you observe the Mary Sue being able to befriend and/or seduce everyone they're brought across by the narrative, you observe a lack of interpersonal conflict.

Furthermore, the semblance of the antitheses of the above does not absolve a character of being a Mary Sue. For example,

• If the Mary Sue has flaws, the flaws are of no consequence-- that is, they cause no internal conflict.
• If the Mary Sue faces opposition, the opposition is easily dispatched; therefore, there is insufficient external conflict in the face of the Mary Sue.
• If the Mary Sue comes across characters they are unable to befriend and/or seduce (outside the throngs of those who they have befriended/seduced), it is often because they are intractably opposed to them in every way, and even this opposition may not prevent eventual friendship/seduction. The lack of interpersonal conflict here results from a disposition shared among all characters that surround the Mary Sue: they are not actual characters. They are props of various shapes that the Mary Sue interacts with as though they were characters-- there's no inter-personal conflict that takes place between a person and a non-person, much less two or more non-persons.

If they have sad or traumatic backstories, then the value of the backstory is entirely in how the reader interprets it and not in the way that any character, much less the Mary Sue, interfaces with it when a particular kind of interfacing isn't fundamentally mandated by the narrative-- for example, a Mary Sue whose parents both died prior to (or even during) the story will either not meaningfully acknowledge this reality when the narrative doesn't insist on them doing so (you would be able to tell when this is the case when there's no logic to them acknowledging the reality and/or acknowledging it the way that they do), or will do so very weakly for no greater thematic purpose.

It's more useful to define the Mary Sue by their nullification of conflict, rather than merely "being perfect" or "able to do anything, even as it breaks the established laws of their universe", because not only are these merely symptoms of a disease, but it is impossible to compile a checklist of these character writing imperfections that is universally relevant.

For example: One Punch Man's Saitama is not only cartoonishly strong (such that he literally does not face any externally imposed challenge re: fighting, thus the name of the story), but he became strong in a somewhat mundane way (consistent regular exercise). From this alone, one may infer that he's a Mary Sue (or "Gary Stu", as the male variant is often called), but that would miss the fact that he has an intense internal conflict in that he can only dream of being faced with a challenge and having fun at being a hero (as he says that he's a hero for fun), and he deals with interpersonal conflict as his effortless heroism is comically unrecognized. His external conflict is palpable in that he's incapable of making enough money to graduate from living in an apartment as a result. Furthermore, the characters around him most certainly are characterized as other people with their own lives rather than orbiters of Saitama, and interact with him in various and unique ways. What is labeled as his internal conflict is clearly agonizing for him and what is labeled as his interpersonal and external conflicts is palpable and clearly affects his person.

It's more valuable to define the Mary Sue by their nullification of conflict, rather than merely "being perfect" or "able to do anything, even as it breaks the established laws of their universe", because conflict is the life-blood of a narrative and its characters. It's through conflict that the characters in a story, their relationships, and the world itself, changes. Conflict is what enthralls us when we read any story. A Mary Sue lacking in any kind of conflict detailed above will in fact lack in all kinds of conflict-- not only because the different forms of conflicts are in fact intertwined by virtue of a character and the interactions a character has with other characters all occur in the world that they also interface with, but also because the creation of the Mary Sue has to do with the fundamental mindset of the writer as they craft their story. As demonstrated in the prototype that @Secret Asshole speaks about, the world, its laws, and its "characters" revolved around (and in fact, served) Mary Sue. That happened because, at its core, the story was meant as wish fulfillment. It may be that it's impossible to decouple the Mary Sue from the concept of wish fulfillment (which is why a Mary Sue is almost always the main character).

...either that, or the product of a corporate checklist for a movie production.

Speaking of corporate checklists, I should say that a "Mary Sue" isn't necessarily an un-fun or unlikable character (for the reader/viewer), depending on what the story is supposed to be in the first place. It's another part of why it's more useful to consider at all times the occasion for well-planned conflict instead of avoiding descriptions on a checklist-- trying to do that will more often lead you to creating boring characters, or in the case that you're merely observing and analyzing, it will lead you to idolize procedurally made characters on some level... rather than characters that you like that have fun stories.

Gabi from Attack on Titan is an example of a Mary Sue. And quite an obvious one at that, used to piss off the audience.

She is not. Her conflict involves overcoming the self-hatred that was instilled in her, was reinforced by her own desire to not be loathed by Marley for her heritage as an Eldian, and manifested as a blanket hatred for the people of Paradis as a means to absolve herself of crimes she didn't commit. All of which contributes to her bothering tokill Sasha, only to have to face Niccolo (who loved her), Sasha's family, and the adopted Kaya (who took to Sasha as an older sister and who absolutely does not understand the concept of White Eldian guilt). Hell, Kaya tries to kill Gabi even after she folded, and it's entirely understandable why she would want to do that despite-- or even especially because-- she felt betrayed by someone she welcomed. That was after Sasha's father declined Niccolo's offer to kill her.

 

[Murmur]

Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way is the Mary Sue of Mary Sues.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

I was tempted to say the Doom Slayer, but then I realized that even he has intense conflicts with characters, especially in Eternal when like half the characters are warning him not to oppose the Khan Makyr. To the player, he's an unstoppable badass, but to characters like the Khan Makyr he is dangerously destructive and is willing to put his people in jeopardy just so he can stop the demons. If he has any character flaw, it's his unwillingness to compromise and his stubborn refusal to listen to any advice that runs counter to his goals. Hell, in the backstory, it's stated that his disinterest in the politics of Argent D'nur was partially what led to its downfall because he paid more attention to the external threat instead of the internal one. And Hayden notes that despite all the Slayer's rage and all his strength, he couldn't save Argent D'nur from itself.

Granted, he does get away with it all when he wins and pushes Hell out of Earth, but even in the Urdak level it's strongly implied that he royally fucked it over in his quest. And since we're getting a DLC that explains what happens afterwards, I get the feeling the game is going to follow up on this.

It's kinda funny because you would think a character as overpowered as the Doom Slayer might be a Mary Sue, but that's probably more from a gameplay and player interaction perspective rather than in-universe.

 

[Secret Asshole]

The core of the Mary Sue is their complete nullification of conflict in a narrative-- internal, external, and interpersonal. They are black holes of conflict. For example,

• When you observe the Mary Sue lacking flaws, you observe a lack of internal conflict.
• When you observe the Mary Sue lacking opposition, you observe a lack of external (or, if you'd like, "environmental") conflict.
• When you observe the Mary Sue being able to befriend and/or seduce everyone they're brought across by the narrative, you observe a lack of interpersonal conflict.

Furthermore, the semblance of the antitheses of the above does not absolve a character of being a Mary Sue. For example,

• If the Mary Sue has flaws, the flaws are of no consequence-- that is, they cause no internal conflict.
• If the Mary Sue faces opposition, the opposition is easily dispatched; therefore, there is insufficient external conflict in the face of the Mary Sue.
• If the Mary Sue comes across characters they are unable to befriend and/or seduce (outside the throngs of those who they have befriended/seduced), it is often because they are intractably opposed to them in every way, and even this opposition may not prevent eventual friendship/seduction. The lack of interpersonal conflict here results from a disposition shared among all characters that surround the Mary Sue: they are not actual characters. They are props of various shapes that the Mary Sue interacts with as though they were characters-- there's no inter-personal conflict that takes place between a person and a non-person, much less two or more non-persons.

If they have sad or traumatic backstories, then the value of the backstory is entirely in how the reader interprets it and not in the way that any character, much less the Mary Sue, interfaces with it when a particular kind of interfacing isn't fundamentally mandated by the narrative-- for example, a Mary Sue whose parents both died prior to (or even during) the story will either not meaningfully acknowledge this reality when the narrative doesn't insist on them doing so (you would be able to tell when this is the case when there's no logic to them acknowledging the reality and/or acknowledging it the way that they do), or will do so very weakly for no greater thematic purpose.

It's more useful to define the Mary Sue by their nullification of conflict, rather than merely "being perfect" or "able to do anything, even as it breaks the established laws of their universe", because not only are these merely symptoms of a disease, but it is impossible to compile a checklist of these character writing imperfections that is universally relevant.

For example: One Punch Man's Saitama is not only cartoonishly strong (such that he literally does not face any externally imposed challenge re: fighting, thus the name of the story), but he became strong in a somewhat mundane way (consistent regular exercise). From this alone, one may infer that he's a Mary Sue (or "Gary Stu", as the male variant is often called), but that would miss the fact that he has an intense internal conflict in that he can only dream of being faced with a challenge and having fun at being a hero (as he says that he's a hero for fun), and he deals with interpersonal conflict as his effortless heroism is comically unrecognized. His external conflict is palpable in that he's incapable of making enough money to graduate from living in an apartment as a result. Furthermore, the characters around him most certainly are characterized as other people with their own lives rather than orbiters of Saitama, and interact with him in various and unique ways. What is labeled as his internal conflict is clearly agonizing for him and what is labeled as his interpersonal and external conflicts is palpable and clearly affects his person.

It's more valuable to define the Mary Sue by their nullification of conflict, rather than merely "being perfect" or "able to do anything, even as it breaks the established laws of their universe", because conflict is the life-blood of a narrative and its characters. It's through conflict that the characters in a story, their relationships, and the world itself, changes. Conflict is what enthralls us when we read any story. A Mary Sue lacking in any kind of conflict detailed above will in fact lack in all kinds of conflict-- not only because the different forms of conflicts are in fact intertwined by virtue of a character and the interactions a character has with other characters all occur in the world that they also interface with, but also because the creation of the Mary Sue has to do with the fundamental mindset of the writer as they craft their story. As demonstrated in the prototype that @Secret Asshole speaks about, the world, its laws, and its "characters" revolved around (and in fact, served) Mary Sue. That happened because, at its core, the story was meant as wish fulfillment. It may be that it's impossible to decouple the Mary Sue from the concept of wish fulfillment (which is why a Mary Sue is almost always the main character).

...either that, or the product of a corporate checklist for a movie production.

Speaking of corporate checklists, I should say that a "Mary Sue" isn't necessarily an un-fun or unlikable character (for the reader/viewer), depending on what the story is supposed to be in the first place. It's another part of why it's more useful to consider at all times the occasion for well-planned conflict instead of avoiding descriptions on a checklist-- trying to do that will more often lead you to creating boring characters, or in the case that you're merely observing and analyzing, it will lead you to idolize procedurally made characters on some level... rather than characters that you like that have fun stories.



She is not. Her conflict involves overcoming the self-hatred that was instilled in her, was reinforced by her own desire to not be loathed by Marley for her heritage as an Eldian, and manifested as a blanket hatred for the people of Paradis as a means to absolve herself of crimes she didn't commit. All of which contributes to her bothering tokill Sasha, only to have to face Niccolo (who loved her), Sasha's family, and the adopted Kaya (who took to Sasha as an older sister and who absolutely does not understand the concept of White Eldian guilt). Hell, Kaya tries to kill Gabi even after she folded, and it's entirely understandable why she would want to do that despite-- or even especially because-- she felt betrayed by someone she welcomed. That was after Sasha's father declined Niccolo's offer to kill her.

I mean, I agree that Mary Sues negate conflict. But this is not an absolute requirement. You can still have a conflicted Mary Sue. While Gabi herself has conflict, the story itself bends backwards for it. Yes, conflict is the lifeblood of any narrative. And certain Mary Sues do negate it. But another trait of a Mary Sue is conflict is irrelevant to the character or actions. It is easily overcome or negated.

I mean she has 'conflict' but...does it actually matter? It honestly doesn't in my opinion. Gabi herself is welcomed by the family of the girl she killed with open arms. They basically go 'Well X was a soldier and soldiers die, what are you going to do'. People in the story bend over backwards to like her for no real reason. She's portrayed as this super duper awesome warrior. Gabi regular pulls off massive amounts of bullshit that she has no rights doing. The story bends in circles around Gabi to make the desired result happen for her, to the point where other characters basically betray their own characterization to fawn over her. Not that AoT has any sort of competent character writing, it doesn't. Or really any sort of competent writing. Gabi herself defies the logic of the narrative in many ways. Again, how much real logic is left on Attack on Titan or narrative is uh...well, its in tatters. Its pretty much just toilet paper right now. So Gabi being a Mary Sue honestly doesn't matter. She's basically just a device at this point instead of an actual character. The most 'inner conflict' Gabi has had is 'Maybe I'm the asshole?' in one panel and then its back to Gabi doing Gabi things. Besides its not like we have characters in Attack on Titan anymore. Its just Eren. That's about it. Whose characterization has moved, whose characterization determines the other characters moods, feelings and thoughts. It really should be 'Attack on Eren', since he is the only vehicle moving the story and honestly the only real character anymore. The others have been so inconsistent that they functionally no longer exist in the story. But I digress. God I fucking hate Attack on Titan.

Rey has plenty of 'conflict'. It just honestly does not matter. Same with Gabi. For her, the conflict does not matter. The conflict is resolved easily and in spite of the character, not because of them. Rey is the exact same person that we saw in TFA. She hasn't changed. At all.

Plenty of narratives with conflict have Mary Sues. You can't simply define a Mary Sue as a nullification of conflict. Its a lot more than that. Even Twilight has conflict and it is a LITERAL self insert. So defining a Mary Sue as a null of conflict just doesn't work. Its that conflict shifts around her, like it did not even exist. Conflicts to Mary Sues don't matter. They're basically a piece of fakery.

I was tempted to say the Doom Slayer, but then I realized that even he has intense conflicts with characters, especially in Eternal when like half the characters are warning him not to oppose the Khan Makyr. To the player, he's an unstoppable badass, but to characters like the Khan Makyr he is dangerously destructive and is willing to put his people in jeopardy just so he can stop the demons. If he has any character flaw, it's his unwillingness to compromise and his stubborn refusal to listen to any advice that runs counter to his goals. Hell, in the backstory, it's stated that his disinterest in the politics of Argent D'nur was partially what led to its downfall because he paid more attention to the external threat instead of the internal one. And Hayden notes that despite all the Slayer's rage and all his strength, he couldn't save Argent D'nur from itself.

Granted, he does get away with it all when he wins and pushes Hell out of Earth, but even in the Urdak level it's strongly implied that he royally fucked it over in his quest. And since we're getting a DLC that explains what happens afterwards, I get the feeling the game is going to follow up on this.

It's kinda funny because you would think a character as overpowered as the Doom Slayer might be a Mary Sue, but that's probably more from a gameplay and player interaction perspective rather than in-universe.

Doom Slayer isn't a Mary Sue, he's a power fantasy. They are two VERY different things.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

It's harder to find chuuni light novel main characters that aren't Sues, but the guy from Mahouka is legendary.

Spoiler

View attachment 1323558

That's the first character that came to my mind. At least he was genetically engineered to be an autistic godlike being.

 

[From The Uncanny Valley]

That's the first character that came to my mind. At least he was genetically engineered to be an autistic godlike being.

And he nukes China

 

[Syaoran Li]

Lisa Simpson
Stephie from Assigned Male
Brian Griffin
Leslie Knope (at least later on in PAR)
Gina from BNN

Any other examples I'm missing?

Brian Griffin's a weird case in that he was a Mary Sue for a while, and it got so awful that even the writers took notice and sort of over-corrected by making Brian a huge loser in the more recent seasons. IIRC, the whole joke about how much Quagmire hates Brian was because of how he was written as a Sue in later seasons.

But yeah, Lisa Simpson is a prime example of a Mary Sue in the later seasons of The Simpsons.

Other noteworthy Mary Sues include Rey from the new Star Wars movies, Carol Danvers, the entire nation of Wakanda, the white nationalists from The Turner Diaries, Eren Jaeger in the later parts of AoT, Kirito from Sword Art Online, and of course, Sonichu.

A common misconception is that all self-inserts are Mary Sues or that all Mary Sues are meant as self-inserts (or waifu bait) but while both are common, neither are universal either.

For example, Stephen King appears as a character in the last two Dark Tower books, but he's not portrayed as a perfect Mary Sue, and if anything, is subject to a fair bit of self-deprecation on the author's part.

If anything, I always kind of felt King's presence in The Dark Tower novels was meant as more of an intentionally weird plot device and meta-reference than a Mary Sue or even a proper character.

 

[Notgoodwithusernames]

I was tempted to say the Doom Slayer, but then I realized that even he has intense conflicts with characters, especially in Eternal when like half the characters are warning him not to oppose the Khan Makyr. To the player, he's an unstoppable badass, but to characters like the Khan Makyr he is dangerously destructive and is willing to put his people in jeopardy just so he can stop the demons. If he has any character flaw, it's his unwillingness to compromise and his stubborn refusal to listen to any advice that runs counter to his goals. Hell, in the backstory, it's stated that his disinterest in the politics of Argent D'nur was partially what led to its downfall because he paid more attention to the external threat instead of the internal one. And Hayden notes that despite all the Slayer's rage and all his strength, he couldn't save Argent D'nur from itself.

Granted, he does get away with it all when he wins and pushes Hell out of Earth, but even in the Urdak level it's strongly implied that he royally fucked it over in his quest. And since we're getting a DLC that explains what happens afterwards, I get the feeling the game is going to follow up on this.

It's kinda funny because you would think a character as overpowered as the Doom Slayer might be a Mary Sue, but that's probably more from a gameplay and player interaction perspective rather than in-universe.

video game character (specifically playable ones) are kind of difficult to judge on the sue/stu scale as their skill level is dependent on that of the player. In the hands of someone whose really good at doom to the point that nightmare is not that hard for them then yeah the doomslayer is a gary stu. On the other hand of the spectrum when DSP is controlling the character doomslayer is the farthest thing from a gary stu you could possible find.

 

[Zero Day Defense]

Gabi herself is welcomed by the family of the girl she killed with open arms.

They don't welcome her while knowing that she was their daughter's/sister's/lover's killer. She was welcomed when she assumed a false identity and they had absolutely no reason to believe that she could have possibly been the one who killed her. When Gabi blithely tells Niccolo that she killed Sasha because she didn't know that he fell in love with her for letting him experience being able to make people happy through his cooking, Niccolo subverts her expectations and ends up nearly bashing her head in with a wine bottle before telling everyone about who she was, and the reason why Sasha's father doesn't take Niccolo up on his offer to do the honors is because he wanted to spare the children the perpetuation of a life he couldn't save his daughter from. Then Kaya tries to kill her herself in a fit of rage and grief. She couldn't give half a damn about Gabi being a solider from a nation that lobbed Titans at them for decades, one of whom ate her mother while she could only watch-- she killed the woman who saved her life, someone she took to calling her sister.

Nobody was vilified in any of the reactions they had, except that should Gabi have been a Mary Sue, Niccolo and Kaya would have been absolutely vilified for even thinking of harming her after learning she took the life of someone they cared about, if that would have ever even happened. That Sasha's father takes what can be interpreted as the high road in not shanking a kid in his grief is meant to be the demonstration of a thematic virtue more than anything. That she isn't absolutely vilified is very clearly the product of the mindsets of the individual characters interfacing with the situation they've been placed in, and Mr. Blouse's widening awareness of the world and the need for empathy of the other as part of community responsibility has been demonstrated as early as the Castle Utgard arc-- that mindset is what Sasha herself realized while rescuing Kaya.

They basically go 'Well X was a soldier and soldiers die, what are you going to do'.

Yeah, that did happen. As it turns out, there's various ways that someone can react to seeing and interacting with the wartime killer of their child. There were various ways that we saw in that very chapter.

But given what I described above, that's also a terrible oversimplification of what happened.

People in the story bend over backwards to like her for no real reason. She's portrayed as this super duper awesome warrior. Gabi regular pulls off massive amounts of bullshit that she has no rights doing. The story bends in circles around Gabi to make the desired result happen for her, to the point where other characters basically betray their own characterization to fawn over her. Not that AoT has any sort of competent character writing, it doesn't. Or really any sort of competent writing. Gabi herself defies the logic of the narrative in many ways. Again, how much real logic is left on Attack on Titan or narrative is uh...well, its in tatters. Its pretty much just toilet paper right now. So Gabi being a Mary Sue honestly doesn't matter. She's basically just a device at this point instead of an actual character.

That's a whole lot of assertions and very little basis.

The most 'inner conflict' Gabi has had is 'Maybe I'm the asshole?' in one panel and then its back to Gabi doing Gabi things.

What does that even mean? "Just Gabi things"? Like killing Eldians in order to reinforce her shambling self-esteem as it crumbles from externally imposed Eldian guilt?

God I fucking hate Attack on Titan.

I love Attack on Titan. Isayama purified my water supply, tended to my crops, and delivered my houses from plague.

(okay he didn't actually do any of those things, I was just being facetious)

Same with Gabi. For her, the conflict does not matter. The conflict is resolved easily and in spite of the character, not because of them.

I can't even believe you're comparing these two characters and asserting that they both lack conflict in the exact same manner. The conflict that Gabi experiences is very clear: she was trained to hate herself and curse her bloodline, and consigned herself to being a child soldier in the hopes of receiving recognition from a society that hates her, and has to direct her own self-loathing onto the people of Racsagadam Paradis presumably so she can stave off necking herself. She's not even the only child soldier around that's there for the exact same reason. In the first place, if nothing else, her realization that her entire worldview was wrong served to demonstrate the thematics for that arc, but most of the building up to that realization would not have been able to be accomplished by her because of her established disposition. She had to have been put into a situation where she'd have to be confronted with the humanity of the people she vilified without even meeting-- yes, the conflict would have had to be resolved in spite of her, because despite it being an internal conflict, she hadn't grasped that she needed to change.

Plenty of narratives with conflict have Mary Sues. You can't simply define a Mary Sue as a nullification of conflict. Its a lot more than that.

My contention is that conflict nullification is at the root of the Mary Sue and is responsible for every unfavorable trait you can observe from them-- thus, I say it's at their core. I find that more useful a definition than saying "they have X, Y, and Z traits" because every single time someone generates such a list, they're overfit. Without fail. Not only that, but you get wrapped up in the application of traits while you think you're merely talking about the traits themselves-- the mismatch in intention and reality means that on the topic you leave yourself open to having to constantly explain why trait X makes character Y a Mary Sue but character Z having the same trait doesn't render them a Mary Sue. Then you'd have to discuss how many traits a character needs to have before they're a Mary Sue. You're not actively asking those questions, but that actually makes it worse because you're still left answering them but without any precision because you barely recognize what those questions are.

It's a name for a particular writing phenomenon that happens with some regularity. Thus, it demands a regular definition instead of lengthy blindfolded elephant feeling. Of course, we're still going to have the issue of what we consider the product of conflict, and even what's compelling conflict, but that's still a more concrete conversation.

Its that conflict shifts around her, like it did not even exist. Conflicts to Mary Sues don't matter. They're basically a piece of fakery.

Are we actually saying anything different? I outright explained how the semblance of conflict doesn't absolve the Mary Sue:

Furthermore, the semblance of the antitheses of the above does not absolve a character of being a Mary Sue. For example,

• If the Mary Sue has flaws, the flaws are of no consequence-- that is, they cause no internal conflict.
• If the Mary Sue faces opposition, the opposition is easily dispatched; therefore, there is insufficient external conflict in the face of the Mary Sue.
• If the Mary Sue comes across characters they are unable to befriend and/or seduce (outside the throngs of those who they have befriended/seduced), it is often because they are intractably opposed to them in every way, and even this opposition may not prevent eventual friendship/seduction. The lack of interpersonal conflict here results from a disposition shared among all characters that surround the Mary Sue: they are not actual characters. They are props of various shapes that the Mary Sue interacts with as though they were characters-- there's no inter-personal conflict that takes place between a person and a non-person, much less two or more non-persons.