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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 4847303" data-attributes="member: 15538">A proper Mary Sue runs rougshod over established setting elements with their awesomeness. A Mary Sue would fight the Dread Pirate Roberts and win, precisely because he is defined as the pinnacle of ability in The Princess Bride. I think of a Mary Sue as having these crucial components:1. Disrespect for the source - Everything fanfic writers know they should not do with their characters, Mary Sue does. If a character is the only person who can do X, Mary Sue is the other person who can do X (and probably better). If Mary Sue can't out-awesome someone, they sleep with them and gain their undying love. 2. Narcissism - Mary Sue is awesome for the sake of awesomeness. In fact, it's clear their activities involve a sort of acting out of the writer. This goes beyond wish fulfillment into the realm of ego defensiveness through fantasy. Obviously, this has has to be inferred, but the idea is that with a Mary Sue, the evidence is ample.3. Lack of meanginful challenge - Mary Sue is supposed to be a conqueror of all challenges, but in fact is so competent, lucky, and lovable that they face few credible struggles. As a result, the story is completely boring. If you took Superman's powers and gave them to Batman, and took away his weaknesses to magic and kryptonite, it would be hard to pinpoint what the resulting hero would do with his time that didn't resemble filing taxes for a single salaried worker in terms of challenge and interest.</blockquote>

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