What I Mean By Mary-Sue and Why I Hate Her

There has been a large amount of discussion on metafandom this week about Mary-Sue’s. People have been arguing that Mary-Sue’s are great, that they suck, that they’re a phase that everyone goes through, that they should be encouraged, and that they should be banned from fanfic. But there doesn’t seem to be much agreement about what “Mary-Sue” actually means.

Interestingly, it looks from here like the pro-Sue side are defining her as “an original female character who does fun stuff”, and the anti-Sue side are thinking of her as “an original character who warps the story around her”. (I’d love to know if the pro-Sues think the anti-Sues hate female characters – or if the antis think the pros love story-warping – but I’m going slightly off-topic, here.)


So what I wanted to discuss was my definition of a Mary-Sue, and what its place should be in a story. Or, in fact:

( What I Mean By Mary-Sue and Why I Hate Her )