**10 Points** In Role Play, is it considered "Mary Sue" if your character came from...?

Question

A main character's brood?

A bit of explanation, if I may:

I have a character named "Sacrilege" and she was created when I first started playing the Legacy of Kain series, which is around late Soul Reaver 2; early Deifnace. At first, I created her with the intention of Lord Kain to be her biological father, but at first it didn't settle and though I went with it for a few months, no one ever brought it up in protest.

Now with a better mindset, I've changed it from being his daughter by birth, to be his daughter by sire. Like, he sired her sometime after the Razielim holocaust. Mainly I wanted to do this to prove that Lord Kain had a sensative side and wasn't always a bad guy.

Does this sound MARY SUE, to you skilled Role Players? I'd really love some input, please!

Answer 1

Personally, I don't have any idea what you are talking about (with regards to Legacy of Kain), but from a roleplay standpoint, playing the daughter of a well-known lore character is generally a Mary Sue trait.



The only way I've ever seen such a character played well was in WoW. A friend of mine wrote up a character story where her parents told her she was adopted, and was secretly the child of the leader of the elves. OOC, we decided her parents were totally lying and that they just wanted the character to believe she was special. IC, she was completely convinced that she was the princess, BUT she also knew that revealing such knowledge would put her in great danger, so she kept it within her trusted circle of friends (all of whom knew, OOC, that she was just misinformed as opposed to the player breaking lore).



I suppose it all comes down to how you play it. If you walk around telling everyone how beautiful and powerful and flawless you are, then you're definitely playing a Sue. If you are writing in a character that lore contradicts (ie. Canon says Kain never had a child), then it's considered lore-breaking, although not necessarily a full-on Sue. (Lore-breaking is one Sue trait, but not enough to be a Sue on that alone IIRC.)

Answer 2

Looks and wit are only two things that go to make up a Mary Sue. There are umpteen other things (if you run it through a decent test) that also contribute to Mary Sueness. It's actually perfectly possible to create an attractive and witty character who isn't a Mary Sue. The other day, in connection with a question on this site, I decided to run a couple of my characters through the Mary Sue litmus test and and was told that she was definitely not a Mary Sue. She's intelligent and witty. She's also pretty. But she's pretty within the context of her age - she's not a 14 year old that looks like a supermodel - and she doesn't have unusually-coloured eyes, crazy hair, an interesting scar, or any of those other classic Mary Sue traits. Nor does her wit take the form of irritating cocky backchat, nor is she super-confident or super-accomplished beyond her years. "After 8 years of developing him, I think I would know if it was a complete failure." Actually, I would say that being attached to a character for eight years is probably not the best way to get a good picture of whether they're a failure or not, because it will be impossible for you to be objective about them. "I feel as long as the character still has flaws(common and unique to them) they should be a realistic character." It's not enough for them to have flaws. Just arbitrarily allocating random flaws is actually a sure way to end up with a Mary Sue. It's a complete myth that a character can only be a Mary Sue if they're flawless. People post character profiles on here all the time, thinking that because their character is quick to anger, stubborn, can't swim and has a bee phobia that this will stop them from being a Mary Sue. Sorry, it doesn't. The flaws need to be realistic, genuinely problematic, not easily overcome, and to cause serious conflict within the context of the plot. And they need to be realistic flaws for the character. What makes a Mary Sue is, for instance, a character who jumps to conclusion, but still manages to hold down a job as a brilliant detective, or a character who is physically small and weak, but still never loses a fight or manages to 'talk their way out of trouble' every time so that their physical size is never a problem. "the bias people have going for plainly constructed characters" You're confusing 'realistic' and 'plausible' with 'plainly-constructed'. Actually, most Mary Sue characters are far more 'plainly constructed' than realistic ones, because Mary Sues are all about finite, inflexible personality traits and flaws, rather than organic characters who react and develop like real people. People's 'bias' is for characters they can believe in.

Answer 3

Ya it sounds like a Mary Sue, sorry.