The Origin and Evolution of Mary Sue

The joy of internet discourse is people throwing terms around that they do not actually know the definitions of. One of the most used terms on the internet, used in attempts to discredit and criticize women lead projects is Mary Sue. Now I have never once seen this term actually used correctly and have only seen it in reference to Rey from the latest Star Wars movies, Captain Marvel and Galadriel in Rings of Power. None of these women are Mary Sue’s and the term has evolved into an easy identifier for misogynistic asses who are incapable of valid criticisms but this was not always what the term was. So here we go, the origin of the term Mary Sue.

The term Mary Sue originates from a fanfiction published in 1973 called “The Trekkies Tale”. It is in reference to female characters written in a way that seems unrealistically free from flaws. It is often a sign of immature writing, existent in fanfiction and is almost always the author's self-insert character.

Now of course this term can be used for male characters as well, often called a gary-stu. These names can be used to accurately describe several characters in media, mostly in action films. Women who actually are Mary Sue’s include; Sarah Conner (Terminator), Laura Croft (Tomb Raider), Selene (Underworld), and Alice (Resident Evil). These are also all prime examples of women being casted in stories written for men. These characters are telling male stories, in the hero's journey but they put women in the forefront simply to claim that they have written a strong female character when really all they have written is a man with boobs. The other reason that these characters never get criticized for being Mary Sues is that these characters are oversexualized. Men of the internet tend not to have any fundamental problems with oversexualized female characters regardless of the flaws in their writing.

Characters that would not qualify as Mary Sue’s are those mentioned initially. Rey we see train, and her character was not the major flaw with the new Star Wars films. All the characters were written half-assed and shallow and to pick her out of the cast of characters further establishes that these criticisms are sexist in nature. Captain Marvel is also not a good example considering that her entire movie was centered around her learning that it was okay to express her emotions, and overcoming the feeling of not being good enough AND the fact that we see and know about so much of her training. She gets emotionally stronger not really physically stronger by the end of her films. Could her movie have been executed better overall? Absolutely, but her character development was not one of the weak points of the film. The last example we’ve seen a lot lately is Galadriel in Rings of Power. This is a piss poor example for many reasons but the most obvious of which being that she’s a hundreds of years old elf that has literally trained as a warrior for those hundreds of years. She also never once demonstrated anything that Legolas didn’t do. The scene complained about the most was when she was hanging off the horse and that is something real, human people can do so absolutely none of the critiques of her were valid.

Overall the term Mary Sue has evolved from satire, to valid criticism, to a buzz word that has lost all actual meaning. The term can not be applied to just any female character you don’t like and quite honestly its use invalidates any actual criticisms you may have if you use it improperly.