Talk:Mary Sue
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It is requested that an image be included in this article to improve its quality, if possible. This image request is specifically for An illustration of a stereotypical "Mary Sue". I'm sure y'all can come up with something really creative to illustrate the concept well - humor might even work best! Remember: NO specific characters from established films, TV series, etc., because that will just cause problems. Make up your own character, please. |
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Previous entries to this Talk page from before August, 2006 have been archived here. - Runa27 05:24, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
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[edit] Just a Thought
But in a "Sprite" comic just an example let's say the infamous author sprite would be known as a Mary Sue? And I mean a character that makes fun of the characters breaks the fourth wall too many times to count, and ultimatly has "teh uber POWAS!!!" should be called a Mary Sue? A guy!
- I would sincerely advise against using "real" examples from anywhere except parodies, because otherwise, you're going to open a whole can of worms that we'd already slammed shut a few months back - right before we cut the list of so-called Mary Sues, many of whom were only superheros or magical girls, and some of whom were VERY debatable, and almost all of which somebody took offense to them being on the list. Best to stick with the original Paula Smith character (who was a parody to begin with), and descriptions of common perceived "Sue"/"Stu" subtypes. Believe me, you could rip the descriptions from any two of a thousand different "New girl comes into town and wows the rest of the cast" stories on fanfiction.net alone and change the names and mix them together and chances are, no one would notice. But naming names is VERY POVish, especially if there's no notable sources describing them as a Mary Sue. Beware of name-dropping in a case like this, believe me. - Runa27, not signed in because she's not at home. 67.8.207.23 02:28, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Kira and Lacus?!=
Question What tells me that this Sue/Stu accusation against Lacus Clyne and Kira Yamato isn't just a fan revenge against Fukuda and Morosawa after the end of the SEED: Destiny series? Beause, HONESTLY. I myself didn't like the ending a lot - but the bitteress, hatred and idiocy that appeared after that... they still baffle me.
- Fixed it; eighty-sixed it. ;) None of the examples featured a direct usage of the concept in popular culture so much as behind-the-scenes fansversations. You CANNOT say such and such character "is" or "is not" a Mary Sue, because it's a subjective term. Thus, any "example" of a "Mary Sue" is inherently POV, just as it would be to go to an article on say, idiocy, and place characters as "examples" of idiots. Unless they were intended to parody the concept (Jonathon in the Buffy episode "Superstar" comes to mind, for example, in regards to Mary Sues), it really shouldn't be here.
- I'm planning on placing notable parodies of the concept (such as "Superstar") from popular media in their own section eventually; for now, I've retitled it to reflect only mentions of the term/concept of Mary Sue seen in "the media", which of course refers to reporters and reviewers and newscasters and the like - professional ones. As it was, that kind of thing was mixed in with the POVish list of characters that were alleged "examples" of Mary Sues. Now, when a reasonably notable reviewer uses the term in print - that's different. It's not anonymous or non-notable fans (I keep getting a mental image of The Blob wearing an anime shirt and groaning "Suuuuue.... SUUUUUE.", here) slinging mud using the term, it's somewhat notable people using the term (in print, so far), and that's quite different. Fanpinions need to be left out; otherwise, the article on the concept will be useless. Runa27 21:06, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Clearly, I Need To Watch This Page
Alright people, caaaaalm down. I'll get around to it this weekend. I'll be putting this page on watch as soon as I get home and am signed in.
I've also put in a picture request because, frankly, I think the article would be better with one and it would be VERY easy to create a picture that looks sufficiently over-the-top to capture the essence of the (stereotypical) Mary Sue. Maybe a cartoonish one, or, maybe, an actually vaguely pretty one. - Runa27, not signed in because she's not at home.
[edit] Statement removed from "Etymology" on Sept.1, 2006 - my reasoning
I just removed the following statement from the bottom of the "Etymology" section:
- A well known alleged case of this context of Mary Sue is in the 2004-2005 sequel to Gundam Seed, Gundam Seed Destiny. This placed Kira Yamato and Lacus Clyne to director Mitsuo Fukuda and his wife, the show's series supervisor, Chiaki Morosawa. Supporting this threom is the fact that both chracters begain showing signs of being overpowered and, especialy in the case of Kira, untouchable in battle.
I removed it for the following reasons:
1.) It is quite badly worded, to the point where I can't even be entirely sure how it's trying to make whatever points it has. I mean "This placed [characters] to director..."? That makes no grammatical sense. Placed where? There's also a number of misspellings here - "especialy" instead of "especially"; "threom" instead of "theorem" (and it is NOT a theorem, it's a theory; please do not confuse the two); and "chracters" instead of "characters." This leads me to believe that this edit was made quickly and without much thought or work put into its writing, which isn't a standard we should really hold to, especially not in unsourced, highly POV statements - it makes Wikipedia look really bad.
2.) It has VERY little to do with the actual etymology of the term; while I understand the desire to use an example to make sure the reader "gets the jist of it", to use a SPECIFIC character or set of characters as an "example" (even if you use weasel words like "alleged") when this view has yet to be advanced or referenced by a notable source that you can and have cited for it, and which has referred to the character as an actual "Mary Sue" or Gary/Marty/Larry Stu(e)/Sam/whatever, is NOT a good idea. It is bound to create a POV-riddled edit war; I have seen it happen time and time again. You KNOW it will. Please don't do it.
3.) This kind of thing would probably be better kept to another section, say, "Characters in original fiction who have been called a Mary Sue in the mainstream media"... but, other than Rose Tyler from Doctor Who, I do not know of any remotely notable case of a character being called an actual "Mary Sue" in the mainstream media (and I really stress "mainstream media" here, because Joe Fanboy or Jane Fangirl is NOT a notable enough source to quote or advance the POV of here on Wikipedia and you know that. See: WP:Notability and WP:Fancruft).
4.) It is completely uncited and unsourced... and a POV view (albeit more weasel-ly worded this time around) should never go uncited or unsourced, especially if it's supposedly so "well known" (which would, presumably, provide easy access to sources; another thing that makes me think this edit was made on a whim and not out of a genuine desire to improve the article).
I would appreciate it if people would make an attempt to keep this article free of POV or rush-job entries such as the above, and focus on sourcing everything and finding more notable references to the term/concept in mainstream/notable media. I would like to bring this article to GA status some day, and letting either spam or POV to slip in continously and go unchecked while more important bits go not properly cited or sourced, will prevent this article from being, well, good. Or useful. Runa27 05:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] September 1 Talk page archival
I have have archived discussions from before this past August (see top of this Talk page), because almost ALL of the discussions had been completely dead for weeks or months on end, and it was getting really unweildly, wading through all of them (that, and you have to realize, people with certain browsers or browser plug-ins will have trouble with longer pages being cut off unexpectedly when they go to try and edit them, as well). :) They can still be read on this page, however. - Runa27 05:24, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] It was NOT a "random link": Response to Ken Arromdee's Sept. 8, 2006 edit
This is in response to Ken Arromdee's most recent edit to the Mary Sue page, the edit summary for which is the following:
Tweaks. And contrary to popular belief, you're not supposed to link to random terms; it's very unlikely that enough people reading this would want to know more about eyes, that we need an eye link
Bolding mine, because I plan to refute the idea that "we [don't] need an eye link" or that "it's very unlikely that enough people... would want to know more about eyes" (by the way, it is NOT an "eye link", and it's NOT about the general topic of "eyes", it's an EYE COLOR link, about ONLY eye colors, which were referenced in the criticism section as part of a typical and common anti-Mary Sue concept argument, and which I'll get to in a minute. Please be accurate if you're going to criticize one of my edits, OK?). The following is largely the same as what I posted to his Talk page, but for full clarity and full disclosure, I chose to post it here as well (he seems largely adverse thus far to discussing his changes on the Talk page, ranging from removing the "photo request" tag without replacing it with the appropriate-if-existing "illustration request" or "picture request" tag, to his more common edits to the main article itself; thus, my reasoning behind posting it in both places).
The link to the eye color article was done as a citation for the fact that there are odd eye colors that though rare, do exist in humans; in other words, pointing out that violet and especially amber eyes (the latter of which I know of no famous celebrities that have that trait, unlike Elizabeth Taylor having violet ones) exist, as well as explanations for the colors (which are on that page, but not here on Mary Sue because it's a side-issue, not a main issue, to do with the "unrealistic" aspect of the concept of "Mary Sue"). It was NOT a "random link", it was more information that was related to the topic in that section/sentence of "unusual physical traits that are often treated as the mark of a Mary Sue, but which do occur in real life sometimes." (to paraphrase). I'm reinserting the link, because darnit, do you know how long it took to figure out where it was that I could prove there were "honey-colored" (amber) eyes (over an hour, thanks to "yellow eyes" not having a redirect or even a disambig. Come to think of it, I should fix that...)? That page is the only one on Wikipedia that had that information, that PROVED that the trait of amber eyes - which was being cited as an example of a "rare but real trait that sometimes is used for so-called Mary Sue characters" exists! And I do believe it is worth linking, and more to the point, see NO reason whatsoever why it HAS to be removed. If people don't care about amber or violet eyes, they won't click on the link; if they DO, however (for instance, if, like me, they didn't originally know those traits did exist in humans, or are curious as to how common they really are), they won't have to search for it... which is the whole point of internal links (before you argue, consider this: do we "need" links on Dixie Chicks to the articles on its individual members? Not technically, but it's a convienience for the reader tha wants to know more about the individual band members, so they don't have to search for it and possibly come up with unrelated pages as well. Also, again, "yellow eyes" and similar terms do NOT redirect to the appropriate page!).
And if you don't think the fact that "yellow" or violet eyes of a kind exist in real human beings is relevant to the concept of "Mary Sue", you've not read enough fan fiction; practically every werewolf character that gets labeled a "Sue" has a yellow eyes, and due probably to the influence of anime and manga on American teenagers (who are apparently the producers of the majority of fan fiction today, if you go by the largest archive, FanFiction.net), "weird" hair and eye colors - including violet! - are also common. The fact that these eye colors do exist provides a minor counterargument to the "unrealistic" aspect, and that's exactly why it was mentioned under "Criticism" (along of course with the appropriate countercounterargument pointing out that they're still fairly rare traits).
If you don't think that people will be "interested"... I gotta ask why you CARE. Plenty of people are "interested" in things that many of us could not care less about, such as string theory or spatulas, yet THOSE have pages. I'm not particularly interested at the moment in reading about Natalie Maines, the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks and whose article is linked from the main page for the band, but I appreciate that some people WILL want more than an "overview" of one area or another of a subject. Just as I don't feel the need to remove links to individual famous people's pages in references to them on other Wikipedia pages (since arguably, there is only going to be one page for JK Rowling and it's NOT going to be hard to find through the Search/Go box), I fail to see the need to remove the link to eye color here, especially since eye color covers the subject referenced in the sentence it was linked from here in more detail. The point isn't whether "a lot of people will likely be interested" or not, it's whether we should think ahead to the undetermined (and thus, just as potentially large as it is small) number of people who will in FACT be "likely interested" in it, and take the really simple step of linking to the appropriate page, so that both camps will be covered.
And if you don't think the fact that "yellow" eyes exist is worth citing... well, I have no answer to that, because that thought process makes no sense at all to me, since I didn't realize at all that they were a real trait in HUMANS until a couple of years ago, after I pointed out that the main character of Big Wolf On Campus had yellow eyes that "didn't look like contacts" to my mother and she said "oh yeah, I actually dated a guy who really had that eyecolor." It's not a common enough trait that everyone realizes it exists, and if they try to verify it, at current, they'd have to go through a minor rigamorale in order to discover it's correct. I'm of the mind that it's better to give them the link and make it easier for them to personally verify for themselves that it's true, than it is to make them go through that much work to find it, because I'm of the opinion that Wikipedia should be as easy to use as possible, and that that would help. Again, if they don't care about the eye colors they won't click the link; but some people will be curious, and I wanted to make it convenient for any readers who were curious enough to want to look it up. Additionally, it becomes an issue of citation, as I pointed out above; the fact that violet eyes exist may be easy to verify due to Elizabeth Taylor having them, but "yellow"/"honey-colored" (amber) eyes are NOT as easy to verify WITHOUT looking at that page.
Therefore, I actually take offense to the suggestion that the link is worth removing. It provides easy verifiability for a claim mentioned in the article, and let alone being, yes, Ken, of potential interest to some besides that. Again: I am reverting that portion of your edit and reinserting the link, because reader convenience and verifiability are to me very important in making Wikipedia as good as it can be, and I think both apply here. Runa27 05:16, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
ADDENDUM: Also, I see your actual comment, Ken, as being not very nice at ALL. You seem to be implying that I have no idea what I'm doing and/or am stupid (in being supposedly unable to discern a useful link from a "random" and "unintersting" one) just because I made one edit to include one link that you didn't think was "interesting", regardless of the fact that it helped clarify what the section was talking about and verify claims made in it. There's no need to bite off the heads of other editors for such things, and I would appreciate it if you'd be a little nicer in any future edit summaries. We're all here to improve the article, not denigrate each others' work. :| Runa27 05:20, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
SECOND ADDENDUM: Now that I actually look at the article, though, you didn't even remove the link. WTF? No offense, but WHY are you biting my head off over "uninteresting" and "random" links, and then not doing anything about the links you're complaining about? Your edit summary makes it sound like you removed the link, which you did NOT do. If you're going to talk about other factors of the article WITHOUT doing something about them, do it on the TALK PAGE of the article, not in an edit summary. :\ Runa27 05:24, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
THIRD ADDENDUM: Nevermind, people, he apparently was fixing a typo in the link in the article (which apparently DID read "eye" and not "eye color", despite, of course, my edit summary actually including the RIGHT link. No, I still have no idea how that actually happened, myself...), his edit summary was just kind of hard for me to dechipher; he clarified the issue on our Talk pages. (And of course, I apologized for the mistake and thanked him for the correction and quick response). Runa27 06:04, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Categorization
Some of the categories this article has been put in are a little... odd, to me. I'm going to go over them and discuss what bothers me:
- "Alter egos" - the page for alter ego begins thusly: "An alter ego (Latin, "other I") is another self, a second personality or persona within a person. The term is commonly used in literature analysis and comparison to describe characters who are psychologically identical.". This does not quite seem to fit. I mean, I get that they're talking about self-insertion, but it STILL doesn't sound right. It sounds, frankly, like the person may have been thinking of the concept of the avatar, but then... not every Mary Sue is a reincarnated god, in fact, most probably aren't.
- Stock characters - read stock character and tell me please how this concept fits that description. I don't think it does, except as parody.
Runa27 00:42, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
