Mary Sue

Mary Sue is a term used to describe a character in stories, especially fan fiction, who is almost perfect and often better than other characters. Mary Sue characters are criticized because they don't have flaws and can seem too powerful. Usually, people use this term for female characters, but there are other names for male characters like this too.

Where the term came from

A woman named Paula Smith made up the term "Mary Sue" in 1973. She published a magazine with Star Trek fan stories, and many of the writers were women. Smith noticed that some of these writers wanted to imagine themselves in the story, so they made the main characters, like Captain Kirk and Spock, love their own characters. In 1974, Smith wrote a funny story called "A Trekkie's Tale" to make fun of this. The story was about a girl named Mary Sue who became a very important person in the ''Star Trek'' universe at a young age. Captain Kirk fell in love with her, and she saved the day but died doing it.

How the term is used

After "A Trekkie's Tale," people started using the term "Mary Sue" for other stories too. They would say a character was a Mary Sue if they seemed too perfect or if they felt like the author put themselves into the story. This happened in fan fiction for other things like ''Star Wars'' too.