A Mary Sue vs. a more realistic and well thought out character.
A Mary Sue (if female) or Gary Stu (if male) is an idealized and seemingly perfect fictional character.
Origin of the term[]
The term "Mary Sue" comes from the name of a character created by Paula Smith in 1973 for her parody story "A Trekkie's Tale" published in her fanzine Menagerie #2. The story starred Lieutenant Mary Sue ("the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet — only fifteen and a half years old"), and satirized unrealistic characters in Star Trek fan fiction. Such characters were generally female adolescents who had romantic liaisons with established canonical adult characters, or in some cases were the younger relatives or protégées of those characters.
Identifying a Mary Sue/Gary Stu[]
The "Mary Sue/Gary Stu" is judged as a poorly developed character, too perfect and lacking in realism to be interesting. They may or may not be in a romantic relationship with a non-oc character for no particular reason. Often, this character is said to be, and a lot of times are, an author self insert. Keep in mind that just because a character is a self insert doesn’t necessarily make them a Mary Sue/Gary Stu.
A Mary Sue/Gary Stu is good at literally anything from art to chemistry, including karate and arm-wrestling, and has very few to no flaws. One of the most common flaws that a Mary Sue will have, if they have any flaws at all, is that they are “clumsy”. A Gary stu is a male variant of this trope, sharing the same wish-fulfillment aspect but involving a character with traits identified as
An example of a Gary Stu.
stereotypically male. Further variant names have been suggested based on the specific personality of a Mary Sue, such as Einstein Sue (a highly intelligent character), Mary Tzu (one with unrealistically sharp tactical acumen), Jerk Sue (a short-tempered character who lashes out), or Sympathetic Sue (an angsty character who wants the reader's sympathy).
Mary Sue/Gary Stus on the Wiki[]
Hopefully none, but if there are any you can put them on a list here and politely explain why. The wiki rules apply here do not use this page to bully other users and there won't be a page about a Gary Stu on this Wiki, EVER!