Editing List of Mary Sues (section)

== Somewhat Special Cases of "Not Quite Sues" ==

There are a few situations where a character either (1) isn't really a Sue, even though the accusation gets pointed at them often, (2) is sufficiently clearly a parody or deconstruction that they don't count for the main list<ref>On the theory that both are technically attacks of Sue-style characters, which moves them into a strange twilight zone of classification.</ref>, or (3) aren't in any way Sues, but are needed to give some context to something above. This section is for these special cases. Note that '''characters who veer in or out of Suedom depending on the author or episode go on the main list, as do Sues who audiences actually like''' (such as Darkseid or Squirrel Girl).

* The Crimson King from Stephen King's Dark Tower series. He's talked up as a big threat, and his plan legitimately threatens the universe; but when confronted, he turns out be a paper tiger, whose chief power was getting so many people and monsters working on one page on his plan to destroy the world, and was otherwise actually rather mediocre compared to them. Given the heavy theme of '''disappointment''' in both the series as a whole and the last book of it in particular, this sorta worked on a meta level, but was very, well, disappointing. (For the main reason he's included here, see Darkseid above; the contrast between these two [[BBEG]]s gives you a good idea of why a paper tiger BBEG is often felt to be a problem.)

* Griffith, from [[Berserk]], seems a Mary Sue on the surface: he leads the efforts to save Midland and defeat the Kushan invaders while everything goes his way and everyone praises him... but then you remember that he's also a member of the Godhand who's got reality-warping powers handed to him in a handbasket and uses them to manipulate everything and everyone around him to his advantage. Basically, Griffith hacked the game and then began playing on the lowest difficulty, while setting it to Ultra-Nightmare for everyone else. If anything, Griffith is all the common jokes people make about a Mary Sue deconstructed, showing how utterly awful and soulless such a person would actually be. On the other hand, one of his former Warband member, Rickert, saw through his bullshit and bitch slapped him for it even though he wasn't there when Griffith betrayed his comrade. So not everyone is falling for Griffith.
** That being said, these facts don't change the following: He is portrayed as a tactical genius, yet during all his battles he is using absolutely retarded tactics, but all of them still work, because his high-ranking enemies turn out to be just a bunch of bumbling idiots. Can't push "time manipulation" excuse on this, they are just stupid; He's lost only two times and didn't die the first time, because Zodd had a plan for him and the second time, because Guts didn't want to kill him; The lowest point in his life i.e. a year of torture in the end led him into becoming a member of Godhand and then getting resurrected as "Griffith, but cooler", read "even when he fails, he doesn't"; The only time he had a formidable foe after this, he beat him with a single blow, while everyone else could barely stand against him; The second time he faces same formidable foe, he just bullshits his way out of that fight and creates his promised kingdom out of it. It's like if Superman blew up Darkseid with one punch (that was not even his) and created Paradise planet from his corpse; Despite sacrificing men who sworn to protect him and raping Casca just to get back at Guts, he didn't have any moral downfal afterwards, his character hasn't changed any single bit and everyone, except his ex-buddies (if they wouldn't, that would be too stupid), adore him, even if they know what he's done; Also, Godhand treats him like a messiah and people consider him Flaming Falcon i.e. he is also a chosen one.

* Jonathan, from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Superstar", provides a pretty good case study of the in-universe Mary Sue. 

*Joeseph Joestar, though he does have some sueish traits such as being a super-genius who can trick anyone and knows exactly what people are going to say before they say it, alongside having the appearance of a Greek god, is very much not a Sue when you actually get down to it. He is extremely flawed, to the point of being weaker than all of his allies in part two and part three, both physically and stand/hamon wise, is very obviously outclassed by the villains of both respective arcs (Dio being able to easily beat him without even touching him, and Kars being a literal god by the end) and does extremely scummy things, such as cheating on his wife with a Japanese woman, who's race he supposedly hates. His grandson, Jotaro Kujo, on the other hand...

*Momonga/Ainz Ool Gown from Overlord boarders on Mary-Sueish and is the protagonist of an [[Isekai]] work, but is also a decent deconstruction of Invincible Villain Sues at the same time.  He is transported to a fantasy world as his [[Lich]] MMO avatar, along with his Guild Hall and all its NPCs, now alive.  He's still a no-life (literally) Japanese salary man, but finds he has lost his humanity and feelings, all the better to pretend to be (and eventually become) the overlord his adoring minions expect.  These expectations pressure him to conquer the world with his gamer skills, system knowledge and corporate experience, min-maxing his way to success whilst bullshitting people that he's an evil mastermind. He still has many advantages however in resources, magic and diplomacy (substituting sales pitches for evil monologues, surprisingly easy) compared to all other characters so far. This results in him single-handedly winning wars, having an Empire become a vassal state almost by accident, and annexing a whole town from a neighbouring kingdom to rule over (Word of god is that no other YGGDRASIL players will appear).  Being by many definitions OP, the story's drama arises from him not having complete control and knowledge of his minions' actions. 
** Though fanatically loyal, they are constantly guessing his true intentions to try and impress him, misinterpreting his commands, and in some cases outright deceiving him.  Two such examples are Ainz's advisor Albedo plotting behind his back to kill other Supreme Beings that he wants alive and unharmed, and Demiurge harvesting human captives to make magical items for their use (Demiurge himself considers humans "animals" and refers to them as such, hence Ainz has never found out). Both are in part because of Ainz's actions, and in any case, he has ordered and done equally terrible things himself.  
** While most of Ainz's female guardians lust after him, even this is deconstructed.  Albedo's a [[succubus]], so lust is par the course, and full-force [[/a/|yandere]] for Ainz because he altered her code in YGGDRASIL to change her from " a slut" to "in love with Momonga" as a joke.  Shalltear wants Ainz because he's a walking skeleton and she's a necrophile (she's not to Ainz' taste being a loli vampire; furthermore, she holds her absent YGGDRASIL creator in higher esteem than Ainz), while Aura keeps a lid on her crush (she's a flat-chested teenage elf and wary of jealous reprisals from Albedo and Shalltear). Ultimately, the fact that Ainz is a walking skeleton means he's unable to fulfil their desires or consummate his own.
**TL:DR: Ainz's skills as a salary man and a competitive gamer don't translate well to politics or world conquest.  Without his own gamebreaking powers, his almost as powerful loyal NPCs, his permanent poker face (well, poker skull) and a dose of incompetence from some of the enemy commanders, Ainz's plans wouldn't have worked nearly as well.
** To give one an idea of just how lousy Ainz is as an actual ''leader'', in an official list made by the author of the best leaders in the series, [[Lulz|Ainz is close to ''dead last'']].

* The Monkey King, from [[Mythology|Journey To The West]], if one assumes he isn't a religious figure and thus safe to include in this list, is interesting in that while he's very close to being a Mary Sue, several factors drag him away from the classification:
*#He's charged with protecting an unworldly monk, along with a horse (actually a shapeshifted dragon, which even the author seems to forget about), a borderline nonentity, and a pig-headed idiot (in both senses of the term, since he's a pig-demon who often lets his selfishness screw the group over). Rescuing them is most of what he does in the main body of the story.
*# He's repeatedly shown as being outwitted by the Buddha and Guanyin, and is outright curbstomped in combat by some of the many demons they encounter along the journey. While Wukong usually wins in the end, he rarely wins with no setbacks at all (whether that's physical injury, emotional turmoil and angst, or his friends getting kidnapped again) - contrasting heavily with a typical Mary Sue's victories being all but handed to them. 
*#On a related note, he doesn't win everything and anything by himself: for example, during the contest with the Three Immortals, the last task (sitting on top of a pillar for days on end without moving) has to be undertaken by Tripitaka (the monk) specifically because Monkey's impulsive ways and lack of patience render him unsuitable for it; much earlier, he's rendered temporarily blind and has to rely completely on an otherwise neutral Bodhisattva to fight for him when faced with a demon he can't outsmart or outfight. This contrasts heavily with the omni-competence displayed by many Mary Sue characters.
*#He's pretty heavily flawed as a character, being impatient, reckless, childish, and frequently hot-headed - all of which have actual consequences for the Monkey King (ex.: rashly accepting Buddha's 'jump out of the palm of my hand' challenge, which gets him stuck under a mountain for several centuries; killing a demon disguised as an innocent woman without explaining himself first gets him kicked out of the party by his pacifistic boss; bumrushing a powerful demon nearly gets him killed by the True Fire of Samadhi, forcing him to go to Guanyin for help), with a good portion of the story involving him undergoing character development and overcoming these flaws as opposed to starting out as the pinnacle of morality with zero flaws whatsoever.
*#If one cares to dip into a religious reading, one can see in his introduction the clear Buddhist message "No matter how awesome you are, you are still trapped in the machinations of Desire and Karma"; alternately, if you don't care for religion, there's also the message "make enough of a nuisance of yourself, and your enemies will eventually slap you down even if it means X" (in the case of the Monkey King, swallowing their pride and asking help from somebody they dislike). 
**TL;DR: Sun Wukong can be viewed as a deconstruction of certain kinds of Mary Sues, before the idea of a "Mary Sue" was even created.

* [[The Raven Queen]] is a fairly good example of why "Mary Sue" accusations, unless taken from a Author-Centered or Functional perspective, are somewhat useless. TRQ hits many Mary Sue buttons, and thus is sometimes accused of being a Sue. ''HOWEVER,'':
** She's never the protagonist, and when she does appear, she's treated the same as any of the other deities in 4e. Accusations of Functional Suedom thus sort of fall flat.
** While she may hit some Authorial-Centered (or Doylist) definitions of the term, it's probably more appropriate to compare her to just about any other non-monster female character in 4th Edition D&D in this context--while she is obviously designed to attract those who are attracted to a certain kind of woman, so are all the other non-monster females (to quote a famous demotivator, "RPG Artwork: Let's face it, a lot of it is porn. (Pretty odd porn, too)."). <!-- The parenthesis are a direct quote. You can find the image in question on Google, if you like. -->
** She is no longer an example at all due to her backstory being completely rewritten in 5th edition to make her fit in with the setting better.  She is no longer even a god since her attempt to become one was sabotaged, turning her into a phantom with a craving for knowledge and memories.

* Saitama from One-Punch Man. As the title indicates, he's able to defeat just about any opponent with one punch (with a few exceptions that require two or, rarely, three). While this makes him stronger than most of the "S-Class heroes" (the highest rank in the Hero Association), at the start of the series Saitama's personal life royally sucked: he had to pinch pennies to eat, had no knowledge of the Hero Association until he was notified by others of its existence, and his sheer strength means that his fights are inevitably painfully one-sided and boring for him. Even the arc villains who force him to use his Serious Series techniques will leave him bored, and since nobody knew who he was until recently, credit for his work went to other people. Capping it all off, the superhero name he was given by the association is [[Lulz|"Caped Baldy"]]. 
** Just to be clear, the main reason why he's not actually a Sue has to do with the main focus of the series: that Saitama gets no satisfaction from his lopsided victories, and the fact that the World's Strongest Man is something of a pathetic loser.
** The Monster Association Arc actually served to highlight Saitama's flaws since his knack for getting lost, stuck, or just being late to a fight meant that the Hero Association had to get by a number of very hard fights without his help, which included a battle with a villain who would have wiped out humanity. Even though Saitama is virtually unstoppable, he still can't protect the world on his own.

* Rick Sanchez from Rick and Morty, for the first two seasons.  When it comes to his (seemingly) limitless ability to invent crazy sci-fi tech and to get himself out of virtually every tough spot, not to mention with getting away with being a colossal jerk to everyone around him, Rick could qualify as an anti-Sue. But his character is far from perfect, and he often falls under a combination of archetype and deconstruction.  As a person, he is an older man who’s had a tough break (divorce and the death of a close family member in some parallel universe), and the fact that he has all this tech and that he either can't solve his personal problems or prevent new ones from occurring.  Though the fact that he can be funny, the handful of moments of his positive qualities and being a fictional character do contribute to his likability.
** Again, to be clear: Rick's antics would probably qualify him for the main list under normal circumstances, but the show is very clear on a few points that move him here: First, Rick is an asshole (also a massive nihilist), and not the type you want to be, either (it's almost directly stated that his assholery grows from some pretty grim experiences and knowledge); second, Rick is not somebody you want to be, nor be around; and third, the writers realize that he's both of the above.
**Season 3 however, ruined this and tried to attempt to drop his despicability, what few weaknesses he had, and just plain made him extremely overpowered. The only reason we haven't moved Rick back to the main list is because, if you look at the production end, it becomes obvious Seasons 1 and 2 were effectively a completely different show from later seasons. The newer seasons have wavered between "Rick is a nigh-unstoppable god" and "Rick is a terrible, broken wreck of a human being who nobody should want to emulate", but seem to be coming down way more firmly on the latter side of things.

* The main casts of [[Star Trek]] in the TOS and TNG eras (besides Wesley due to being Roddenberry's self insert and Voyager due to poor writing all around)--in particular, James T. Kirk when not written by William Shatner-- provide a good reference line for Suedom. Although they are usually right by authorial fiat, there are several points that point the other way from Suedom: 
*#They are also usually allowed to be wrong about an issue, at least initially (and rarely, but still often enough to be worth mentioning, all the way to the end of the story).
*#The fact that the focus is usually on the scenario presented, rather then the perfectness of the characters.
*#They all have character flaws (Kirk's "No Such Thing As A No Win Situation" attitude is presented as something that could get him and his crew killed one day, for a notable example.)
*#They are not omni-competent, even within their field -- Kirk has canonically been outmaneuvered multiple times.
*#Most importantly, the writing is usually of sufficient quality to not make their perfectness an issue (except, in Kirk's case, for works written by William Shatner).
*#Notably, as part of #2 and #5, there is no "right" solution to many of the situations beyond "survival"; the audience is usually allowed to draw its own conclusions about the morality of the situation, whereas the author of a Sue typically drives home in heavy-handed fashion that X is ''definitely'' the morally correct course of action.
** Combined, these points make them a good reference line for "hyper-competent" characters: Beyond here may lie Suedom.
*** The creators of DS9 succeeded in toning down the Mary Sue factor a bit. This was a necessity when one of the premises of the series was energy based aliens who live in a wormhole who know little to nothing of meatbag values and have no concept of time. The were even given a weakness too. The Prophets also did some highly fucked up shit themselves(its a long list) and had to be convinced to help out the main cast. Even when the Alpha Quadrant was being invaded by an empire that [[/pol/ ]]wishes they were. The Dominion themselves are a deconstruction of pre-turn of the millennium [[Imperium of Man]] and [[Star Wars|the Galactic Empire.]] Unfortunately post Voyager Star Trek went Transwarp speed in the other direction and the franchise had to be rebooted. [[fail|Twice]].

* At first glance, Tsukiko from [[Order of the Stick]] seems like a textbook Mary Sue, given the LONG list of Mary Sue boxes she ticks: Heterochromatic eyes, great beauty, skimpy clothing, unusually skilled for her young age, Japanese name meaning "moon child", oppressed by a stuck-up society not understanding her greatness etc. But in reality, Rich Burlew wrote her as a satire and deconstruction of the Mary Sue archetype and the mindset that often creates such characters. Listing them off:
*# The reason she was "oppressed by society"? Azure City's legal system threw her in jail for '''literal''' [[Magical realm|corpsefucking]]. Yes, she's a necrophile, and it's treated as being just as gross as it is IRL, even by other villains.
*# Great beauty? Nobody cares, and it doesn't make her a good person by default.
*# Sees good in the bad guys that nobody else does? It's based on deliberately ridiculous logic that is completely wrong anyway. (To be exact, she holds the view that [[What|the living are jerks, and the undead are the opposite of the living, ergo the undead must be good people]]; the batshit insanity of this is called out for what it is.) Also, she thinks that Xykon is some kind of [[Twilight|Edward Cullen type-guy]], as opposed to the [[Alignment|Chaotic Evil]] [[Lich]] [[Sorcerer]] he ''actually is''.
*# A bad guy becomes a complete dumbass to accommodate her genius? Nope, Redcloak only let her have her way so his own, far more subtle machinations could avoid having attention drawn to them; when she forces his hand, he gladly demonstrates to her that she was completely outclassed by him the whole time.
*# The bad guy gets effortlessly beaten by her because of her skills? Ha ha ha -- hell no. When she confronted him, Redcloak casually killed her in deliciously karmic fashion by effortlessly dominating her Wights ([[/d/|simultaneously her surrogate children, minions and lovers]]), removing her enchanted anti-level-draining ring, and then ordering them to devour their creator as he delivered a scathing "You suck!" speech to her about how undead are not ''people'', just complex ''weapons''; her thinking otherwise doesn't make it so and if she ever thought he was powerless before her, she was dead wrong.
*#Just to really drive home the point: for all her big talk and all her supposed greatness, nobody on Team Evil gives a damn when Redcloak quietly ganks her (except the Monster in the Darkness, but they're the resident softie of the team) and she's swiftly forgotten about.
** TL;DR version: Tsukiko is a parody and deconstruction of a Sue, who is shown to be objectively deluded about everything and suffers actual consequences for her actions.
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[[Category:Mary Sue]]