Mary-Sue, that might be You.

For those of you who don't know what a Mary Sue is, here is a brief overview of the term:

Back in the early days of geekdom, before nerdry became mainstream, there was Trekkies. And there was Trekkie Fan-fiction.
Mary-Sue was an original character that a fan-fiction author inserted into the original series of Star Trek. The character was supposedly real "normal" and boring, yet all of the title characters were falling over themselves to hook up with her and do things for her. She would randomly experience Sherlock-Holmes level deductions where she would be the only one who knew the answer to whatever problem despite having others in the crew who specialized in that particular field.

Since then the character of Mary-Sue has come to mean any ridiculous non-canon character whom has been inserted as some sort of author superhero substitution.

There is also a vast genre of "Canon-Sue's". Which are characters who are native to the fiction, but are equally ridiculous.

Most heroic characters wander dangerously close to Sue-land.

Harry Potter is a Canon-Sue. Despite being a supposedly normal British boy, he has an entire culture obsessed with him, fangirls flock to him everywhere due to his fame. Damn near every character is obsessed with him in one way or another. The entire third book was devoted to his Godfather's obsession with him.

Clearly, a Mary-Sue.

This is a startlingly common trope in fiction. And it's easy to understand why. When authors are trying to make the main character interesting, the easiest way to do that is to make all of the other characters interested in them despite not having a good reason to do so.

Bella in the Twilight series is another great example. She is described as very plain and awkward, yet she is instantly popular and has creepy stalker men obsessed with her from day 1. They made people interested in her because they couldn't figure away to make her someone worth being interested in.

There is a very simple way to test and see if your character is a Mary-Sue.
1. If the character is socially popular or notable, did they do anything to deserve this popularity or notoriety? If the answer is no or simply weak then your character is a Mary-Sue. Re-work them and figure out if their popularity is a requirement of the character, and if it is, come up with a good explanation for it.  If you want them to be an "average joe" who is popular, perhaps add to their backstory that they used to be popular, but then lost their popularity for some reason.

2. If the character is especially powerful, do they really need to be that powerful? Stories where the main character can easily curb-stomp the villain are not interesting. Ideally a protagonist should be just powerful enough to defeat the villain, or even not powerful enough, and only becomes powerful enough briefly to defeat the villain.

3, Does the character know too much? Data from TNG is a classic example of this. He is a walking computer with damn near limitless knowledge. Sherlock Holmes is a worse example of this, because he didn't have the excuse of being a android to explain his vast knowledge. If the answers come too easily to the protagonist then he becomes too powerful. Modern versions of Holmes have given him severe social problems to counter-act his uber-powered intellect. The storage of all knowledge character is an easy writers tool for getting plot secrets to the protagonist. (Hermione Granger, Mr. Universe, Professor X) Yet again, it's because the writer is stuck. They can't figure out a way for the protagonist to learn the secret, so they introduce a character who already knows it, and just needs the protagonist to ask them.
This is the "Old wise man on the mountain" trope.

The reason Sherlock Holmes knows everything, is because the writers work backwards from the solution to the problem. This is why Holmes makes outrageous jumps in logic, because they are working the problem backwards.

For a better character, try to work out the problem the real way. It makes it harder to deceive the audience, but much more impressive when you do so.


It's very hard to break the mary-sue habit. Eventually you have confront the fact that as an author, it's your job to fuck over the protagonist. If you become too attached to the hero, then you'll be constantly fighting the drift into Mary-Sue.

What I really want to see is an author who is willing to go balls-out and actually kill the protagonist. It happened in Game of Thrones. But they kill off everyone in that series.

No I want to see a heroic sacrifice by the protagonist. Not the redeemed villain, not the anti-hero, not the side-kick. The Hero. The hero always survives the story, almost without exception.

Ironically, until they bribed Holmes's author, he had the distinction of being the only real heroic sacrifice. He died defeating his greatest enemy. It was a worthy death, and the audience loved him even more for it. But they wanted him back.

Don't be afraid to break the audience's heart. If you kill the beloved hero and keep him dead, that character will become truly immortal. An act of sacrifice so perfect that despite their cries to change it, doing so would be a disservice to the character.