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List your Top 5 Mary Sue Characters in a SciFi/Fantasy series Anything from a book series applies, movies/tv shows/cartoons/anime/comics do not count, simply because they (movies/tv shows/anime/cartoons/comics) tend to be a more collaborative effort with many more people involved your average Scifi/Fantasy series. Having said that, I'd allow anything from the Expanse book series, because they mostly predate the TV series. I can only come up with 3 rock-solid Mary Sue characters, and am leaving the last two slots free. Willing to be argued away from my third pick, however I will die before disavowing my top 2 picks. 1- Honor Harrington (created by David Weber): Honor Harrington is pretty much the gold standard Mary Sue in SciFi. Anything you can think of regarding Mary Sues, Honor Harrington has done it from start to finish in the Honor Harrington book multiverse. 2- Elminster Aumar (created by Ed Greenwood): Elminster Aumar is the gold standard of Mary Sue's in Fantasy series, at least to me. Elminster is essentially a author-insert gandalf the grey of the forgotten realms book & RPG series. Even Wikipedia can't keep track of how many books Ed Greenwood has written about Elminister. I give Elminster bonus Mary Sue points for looking exactly like Ed Greenwood/Ed Greenwood actively cultivating the Santa Claus with a piss fetish look. It also says volumes when Ed Greenwood's Elminster manages to out-Mary Sue the following character..... 3- Gord the Rogue (created by Gary Gygax, co-creator of the Dungeons & Dragons PnP RPG, co-founder of TSR). Gord the Rogue was the "star" of a series of books Gary Gygax started to write about the Greyhawk campaign setting for TSR. The Gord books were so terrible, TSR ended up buying out Gygax's contract for EVERYTHING. This didn't stop Gygax from continuing his Gord book series with a new publisher, where bizarre events like the Lord of Cats being Gord's secret grandfather(making Gord a demigod), or Gord converting a drow elf to the good alignment with the healing power of Gord's dick. The series was so loving insane and Gord was getting so many new abilities, TSR had to quickly publish 2 additional AD&D Core Rulebooks*, just to integrate all the bizarre bullshit Gygax wrote into AD&D 's PnP game mechanics. 4- ?? 5- ?? I have a bunch of other Top 5 Mary Sue characters in SciFi/Fantasy series, only the arguements I have for them are weak -James Bolivar diGriz, the Stainless Steel Rat (created by Harry Harrison) -Rod Gallowglass (created by Christopher Stasheff) or the book series/characters are so terrible I am actively trying to erase them from my memory. -Lazarus Long, literal motherfucker (created by Robert Heinlein) -Sten, the default hero of the Sten Chronicles (created by Chris Bunch and Allan Cole) -Michael O'Neal, main human Posleen War series character (created by John Ringo) -Ted Quantrill, hero of the Quantrill survivalist porn series (created by Dean Ing) -Michael Harmon, hero of the Paladin BDSM mens adventure series (created by John Ringo) *The two AD&D Core Rulebooks were Monster Manual 2 + Unearthed Arcana.
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Jun 4, 2018 03:00
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Boy let me drop the bomb with Ia from Theirs Not to Reason Why series. So it's military sci-fi but I'm just going to drop a list and see what you think. *Near perfect pre-cog *Literally trained self since childhood to save the entire universe *Is like half-human/ascends to semi-godhood at some point in book 3 and proceeds to dunk all the other semi-godlike beings, THERE ARE 5 BOOKS. *Makes basically no mistakes *Protagonist is also the chosen one *That was prophesied by them-self after they went to the past in order to save the past to setup to save the future. *Pretty much no tension because protagonist will dunk everyone. *If only everyone just listened to Ia all the worlds problems would be solved. But what do you mean by top Mary Sue? Do you mean what character that most fits those traits or do you mean what character that is a Sue but you felt actually worked well in the story and wasn't jarring?
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Jun 4, 2018 16:11
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Mary Sue as a term is literally meaningless outside of fanworks about another property because 'being a Mary Sue' usually boils down to 'Protagonist I dislike'. You can make a cogent argument for Mary Sues in Fanwork where they warp aspects of the story around themselves (ie in a Harry Potter fanfiction having a protagonist who is Harry's twin sister that Snape falls in love with), but I really struggle to see how the term can even be used in an original work. So in that sense I guess I would only agree with Elminster off your list.
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Jun 4, 2018 17:30
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I feel like it would be harder to try and identify five good characters in scifi and fantasy
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Jun 4, 2018 17:36
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Mel Mudkiper posted:I feel like it would be harder to try and identify five good characters in scifi and fantasy Please define good character. But I honestly do feel like it would be a more entertaining thread to argue over "best" characters rather than ohh look another character who just dunks everyone all the time, is basically universally loved or respected, and has so many powers/abilities/talents it boggles the mind.
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Jun 4, 2018 17:42
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ShinsoBEAM! posted:Please define good character. a flawed person whose abilities and ambitions are organically holistic within their environment and are given enough depth of personality that the mundanities of their behavior even if not explicitly stated can be inferred from what we are shown. They also must have ambitions, desires, and motivations that do not exist as a device to further the plot.
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Jun 4, 2018 18:11
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Mel Mudkiper posted:a flawed person whose abilities and ambitions are organically holistic within their environment and are given enough depth of personality that the mundanities of their behavior even if not explicitly stated can be inferred from what we are shown. They also must have ambitions, desires, and motivations that do not exist as a device to further the plot.
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Jun 4, 2018 22:00
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Zore posted:Mary Sue as a term is literally meaningless outside of fanworks about another property because 'being a Mary Sue' usually boils down to 'Protagonist I dislike'. Would you prefer "author's idealized self-insert/waifu"?
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Jun 4, 2018 22:15
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Zore posted:Mary Sue as a term is literally meaningless outside of fanworks about another property because 'being a Mary Sue' usually boils down to 'Protagonist I dislike'. I think when the term is used for characters in original works, it's generally referring to characters who serve a fantasy of perfection; that is, literally everything a Mary Sue does or wants to do is perfect, perfectly done, perfectly desired, utterly without flaw; Honor Harrington completes all tasks perfectly; if she has enemies, we discover those enemies are perfectly evil; if she fails, we discover later that said failure was, in fact, a Secretly Perfect Success. The laws of the universe and of human nature bend themselves around her reality. Adultery is great when she does it; she is an undefeatable master of the katana without training; her magical space cat, alone out of all space cats, has magical telepathy with her alone; so on, so forth. I'd distinguish this particular kind of Perfection Fantasy from other forms of power fantasy common in genre fiction. Harry Dresden, for example, is clearly a power fantasy character, but he's also a screwup, and he often digs himself in deeper and has to make up for past mistakes. When people refer to a "Mary Sue" outside of fanfiction, they're usually referring to that kind of reality-warping Utter Perfection that particularly odious genre characters (such as Honor Harrington) will exhibit. Bella Swan in Twilight is another strong example -- note that the Twilight series was originally conceived as fanfiction.
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Jun 4, 2018 23:49
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So when did you all realize Luke Skywalker's first name is almost the same as George Lucas' last name
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Jun 5, 2018 00:12
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1. Hade Starblighter 2. Blombo Trungus 3. Aragorn 4. that guy with the magic wand and stuff, you know the one 5. Adolf Hitler
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Jun 5, 2018 01:14
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Mel Mudkiper posted:So when did you all realize Luke Skywalker's first name is almost the same as George Lucas' last name James Cameron = John Conner = Jesus Christ
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Jun 5, 2018 01:22
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I unambiguosly enjoyed the Gord the Rogue books back in the day. Especially the later books where he throws restraint out the window, after first setting it on fire, and goes full on Planescape before Planescape was a thing. Also GG wrote a pretty good fight scene.
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Jun 5, 2018 10:08
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I honestly thought this thread would be 100% ignored, and fade away like teardrops in the rain. Dude who mentioned the "Theirs Not to Reason Why series", yes sounds very very on-topic. All good comments in this thread, except for the guy who claims to not understand what Mary Sue characters are. *WINK* I believe you friend. *WINK* I mostly adore Harry Harrison as author, and enjoy Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat books as popcorn fiction. Even I acknowledge "holy gently caress James diGriz is heist wish fullfillment to the ^nth degree". Deptfordx posted:I unambiguosly enjoyed the Gord the Rogue books back in the day. Gygax was very good at creating and chaining together gently caress you total party wipe scenarios in his Gord the Rogue books, which Gord of course would escape from with minimal damage. The fight scenes got boring because Gygax was always more focused on dreaming up the next total party wipe scenario than fight scenes that Gord would always win. I recall being most impressed by Gygax's "Sea of Death" Gord the Rogue novel being the TSR Dark Sun setting years before TSR actually created the TSR Dark Sun setting, and the gently caress you Tomb of Horrors style winding staircase* leading up to the magic Macguffin in Gord novel Come Endless Darkness. *the magic staircase would teleport people to a different plane of existence each time you stepped on a stair of that winding staircase, and you had to survive the plane existences environment + any nearby monsters before being able to step onto on the next stair on that magic winding staircase which would then teleport you to another plane of existence where you had to survive before being able to step onto the next stair on that magic winding staircase which would then teleport you to another plane of existence...and so on and so on until Gary Gygax was able to finally climax . And none of that was an exaggeration.
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Jun 5, 2018 13:51
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JC Denton
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Jun 5, 2018 18:52
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Twilight was not fanfiction, though. 50 Shades of Gray was the Twilight fanfiction. also aragorn is unironically a bad character, as is the long line of Tolkien self-inserts who get to bone hot elvish waifus font color sea fucked around with this message at 19:54 on Jun 5, 2018 |
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Jun 5, 2018 19:49
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i dunno about the rest of the top 5, but john galt is #1 with a bulletNoNostalgia4Grover posted:bizarre events like the Lord of Cats being Gord's secret grandfather(making Gord a demigod) demigord
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Jun 5, 2018 20:57
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Clipperton posted:i dunno about the rest of the top 5, but john galt is #1 with a bullet Accepted. Ayn Rand's books sound so delusional that they definitely qualify as Fantasy, Libertarian. drat that was a good demigord pun, Gygax salutes you from the grave. Over 400 views /10+ replies and no one has disagreed with the statement "Ed Greenwood actively cultivating the Santa Claus with a piss fetish look".
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Jun 5, 2018 23:00
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The original conceit of Sam Vimes in the Discworld series started off interesting, the only honest cop in a cruel fantasy world, but he got so drat boringly perfect by the end. Or maybe it was that nothing changed with any of the characters and so it just highlighted how shallow Pratchett's characters were.
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Jun 6, 2018 03:03
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Wrageowrapper posted:The original conceit of Sam Vimes in the Discworld series started off interesting, the only honest cop in a cruel fantasy world, but he got so drat boringly perfect by the end. Or maybe it was that nothing changed with any of the characters and so it just highlighted how shallow Pratchett's characters were. Nah, Carrot was always more drat boringly perfect than Vimes. Each new Watch book featured new wacky Watch guardspeople, while previously established characters of the earlier A-M Watch books became bland/ignored. By the time I stopped reading discworld books, Vimes had turned into a Bruce Willis style action movie star. quantumfoam fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Jun 6, 2018 |
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Jun 6, 2018 04:48
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Davros1 posted:James Cameron = John Conner = Jesus Christ
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Jun 6, 2018 19:05
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Who the hell is Connor Christ?
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Jun 7, 2018 03:25
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1. bolt vanderhuge 2. slab bulkhead 3. punch rockgroin 4. smoke manmuscle 5. crud bonemeal
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Jun 7, 2018 16:00
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No Big McLargehuge or Roll Fizzlebeef Fail
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Jun 7, 2018 16:25
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colt jackhammer
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Jun 8, 2018 09:18
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Wrageowrapper posted:The original conceit of Sam Vimes in the Discworld series started off interesting, the only honest cop in a cruel fantasy world, but he got so drat boringly perfect by the end. Or maybe it was that nothing changed with any of the characters and so it just highlighted how shallow Pratchett's characters were. Yeah, it's really weird reading Guards! Guards! [especially with the dedication, to all the shlubby fantasy guards the hero maims around the mid-point of a fantasy novel] and then skipping to the later books where he's a supercop with night vision and the ability to inspire terror in dwarves and magical violent rage monsters inside his head and he's totally unbeatable in a fight and the fastest runner ever and he's a shrewd political manipulator and he is never wrong and everyone loves him.
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Jun 8, 2018 15:34
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Renton Sick Boy Spud Tommy Franco Begbie that was easy!
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Jun 10, 2018 17:09
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Kvothe the Bloodless, Owen Deathstalker and John Taylor both by Simon Greene. Anita Blake, if that counts.
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Jun 10, 2018 23:20
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Yezzan zo Qaggaz
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Jun 11, 2018 04:35
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How the hell have we gotten this far without mention of Objectivist Superman Dick Roll? Seriously, Richard Rahl perfectly fits the fanfiction Mary Sue archetype, and is Goodkind's self-insert heroman who saves all those poor broken dominatrixes who now owe him eternal loyalty.
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Jun 11, 2018 06:25
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Do those little cunts from Narnia count?
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Jun 11, 2018 09:50
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The prophet from the black jizz series.
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Jun 11, 2018 16:31
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Liquid Communism posted:How the hell have we gotten this far without mention of Objectivist Superman Dick Roll? Post be true this day
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Jun 11, 2018 16:34
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Liquid Communism posted:How the hell have we gotten this far without mention of Objectivist Superman Dick Roll? Honestly have no idea who that is. Never touched a Goodkind book, never wanted to. Same goes for Kim Stanley Robinson. Your sheer loathing of Goodkind confirms that I made a good decision. Good call on whoever mentioned Simon Greene characters, I had successfully blocked Greene & his DeathStalker books from my memory.
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Jun 12, 2018 00:18
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Honestly have no idea who that is. Never touched a Goodkind book, never wanted to. Same goes for Kim Stanley Robinson. Your sheer loathing of Goodkind confirms that I made a good decision. The worst part of his books is how in love he is with certain phrases such as "It was the easiest thing in the world to..." or his descriptions of Suzie Shotgun. Theres a few different ones that you can count on seeing at least once in every single book in both series.
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Jun 12, 2018 12:15
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Sand dan Glokta from The First Law books by Joe Abercrombie
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Jun 12, 2018 12:16
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BravestOfTheLamps posted:Sand dan Glokta from The First Law books by Joe Abercrombie I mean, I guess? My only concern here with his Mary Sueism is that no one would really want to be this guy with the constantly being in pain and crippled etc. edit: Though that reminds me of Bakker's books and Anasūrimbor Kellhus Victorkm fucked around with this message at 13:46 on Jun 12, 2018 |
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Jun 12, 2018 13:44
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NoNostalgia4Grover posted:Honestly have no idea who that is. Never touched a Goodkind book, never wanted to. Same goes for Kim Stanley Robinson. Your sheer loathing of Goodkind confirms that I made a good decision. Oh my god you are missing out. There is a Let's Read of one in Trad Games now, go find it. It is worse than I describe. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3668845&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1 Liquid Communism fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Jun 12, 2018 |
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Jun 12, 2018 15:08
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i cant tell which of these are real and which are made up anymore
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Jun 12, 2018 21:04
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Jubal Harshaw from Stranger in a Strange Land is somewhere on Mary Sue's family tree
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Jun 12, 2018 21:31
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