Recently, I stumbled upon a few people's OCs as I was browsing around DA. Annnnnnnnnnd I've seen a lot of reactions from some people being along the lines of:

'Burn the Mary-sue'
'Sorry, but this character is clearly a self-indulgent Mary-sue'
'This character is paired with a canon character- Automatic Mary-sue!'


I also recently read the amazing 's comments on fandoms, fanart and fancharacters of which you can read here.

And she made some very valid points.




I'm going to throw my own 2 pennies in as well~

I'm unsure about this big... assault on the mary-suedom.

Now don't start throwing bricks at me, I can certainly see the points that are raised against 'mary-sues'. I understand that the 'generic mary-sue' tends to have traits involving things such as making canon characters behave out of character in favour of being nice to, being jealous of, or being in love with them. As well as having an invasive tendency to the plot, introducing plot holes, being 'desperately attractive' and having tragic generic backstories. -.-;  Of course, these are 'fan-sues', there are 'sues' in their own canon stories as well.
I find mary-sues as annoying as the next person I'm sure, but lets take a more mature look at them.


I'm going to use my own OC Triss as an example to help me in my point.
Triss used to be a mary sue to the max. As a child, I'd imagine her in all my fandoms.
In pokemon, she was this amazing trainer who had a raichu tail, owned a dragonite and got kidnapped by team rocket for no gosh-darned reason whatsoever, despite being a great trainer, so ash and brock had to come rescue her! Mary sue? I think so!
Similar things happened in other fandoms and video games~ She'd be all powerful, everyone would like or love her, blah blah blah.

This continued into my early to mid-teens, until I decided to stop putting her in fandoms and create my own world and story. Within this story and the years leading up to now, I kept assessing and refining her character and appearance to a more balanced state. (though hey, people may still think shes a sue, but shes much better than she was XD)

My point here being, that people who are bashed because they're character is deemed a mary sue tend to be fairly young and their characters tend to be quite new, and so naturally may require some more development to balance him or her out. Which comes with time and experience. Rather than bashing their character, perhaps offering encouraging and constructive criticism would help them to develop their character. Of course, they are entitled to refuse criticism which is fine as well. They are only having fun afterall.

Thats another point. The creators of the characters are having fun. Thats all. So what if they pair their character with an official character, or have them behave ooc? Its not part of the canon, its not being insisted that it IS canon, they are just having fun!

A character is usually about a certain balance. And that means a character, including fancharacters, having 'virtues' as well as 'flaws'. A character CAN be paired and not be a sue.
A character CAN be attractive and not be a sue.  
A character CAN have a sad backstory and not be a sue.
A character CAN have talents and not be a sue.
A person can NOT decipher a mary-sue simply by seeing them. (unless its a joke sue. I've seen them XD)
But I suppose what makes a mary sue is different for different people~

I'm wondering if the term 'mary-sue' has merely been lowered to a basic insult against other people's OCs. It certainly flies around the site anyway~

But this is merely my own view on them and how they should be treated. Naturally, you are all entitled to your own thoughts and opinions on them~

So what ARE your thoughts and opinions? Do you agree or disagree? I'm open-minded so feel free to write exactly what you think! Do share!