Editing Mary Sue (section)

=="I Hate This Competent Character"-Syndrome==
Believe it or not, of the vast majority of characters called Mary Sues or Gary Stues in fandoms, only a small handful will actually qualify as a true Mary Sue. Remember, one of the defining traits of Mary Sue is in their relation to the author; either the author sees them as herself/himself, or views them as fap or schlick material (or worse, [[waifu]] material). As a general rule: If the character makes a mistake, and it's clear that '''the author''' understands that the decision is a mistake, then they're probably not fully a Mary Sue.

The rest are what could be called "I Hate This Competent Character"-syndrome. This happens when a character, usually in the spotlight (so not the background character that has no bearing on the story), is widely disliked by a large part of a fandom, but with no tangible thing to latch that hate unto. What happens is that the character gets called a Mary Sue for being too competent, but this accusation has some issues of its own. One, as we've seen in this page, a true Mary Sue is a self-insert (and if the character is a super-naturally competent self-insert; yep that's most likely a Mary Sue), and a competent character need not be. 

Second, in all the fiction we so love, like [[Setting Aesthetics|fantasy, sci-fi and all the rest]], main and side characters are ''ridiculously'' competent, sometimes as a byproduct of what kind of setting it is. That is why settings like [[A Song of Ice and Fire]] is notable for deconstructing competence, showing that a sword in hand does not a hero make - but that's a '' deconstruction.'' In most settings, heroes just are competent; the real sense of adversity and challenge usually comes from something else, like emotional struggles, political or societal issues and other faults. Even if there's a plotpoint about a hero being too weak to beat their enemy in one-to-one combat, chances are the main feature of that story arch is how the hero ''feels'' about it, rather than the struggle itself. Yeah sure, our hero learns the cool "I Win" technique, but that's not the important part; the important part is what kept them from learning it in the first place. Is it too dangerous? Did they damage themselves or friends with it once? Does it take them too close to the enemy they hate? And so on.

Let's take a classic, Superman. Superman is hyper-over-the-top-super competent, being so strong, resilient and fast that no one can stand up to him - but it works, because his challenges lies in how he utilizes that power, and how he relates to a mostly muggle world. So the character isn't a Mary Sue - but if you do not like Superman, maybe you wanna latch unto something to hate on... And that is likely this competence.

It's especially notable in settings where characters are automatically assumed to be competent if they are a main character. Examples like [[Star Wars]], [[Bioware|Mass Effect]], [[Dungeons and Dragons]] (depending on the whims of the GM), [[Lord of the Rings]] and other magical settings are filled with characters who are just competent by being a hero.

Good examples of "I Hate This Competent Character"-syndrome are characters like James Bond, [[A Song of Ice and Fire|Jon Snow]], [[Eldrad]], [[World of Warcraft|Thrall]], [[Batman]] (to varying degrees depending on the comic run and how he's handled), and Rick Sanchez; all main-ish characters who are competent and may be dislikable for various different reasons... And if you dislike or even hate some of these characters? ''That's totally fucking fine.'' But make sure to actually use your ding dang words rather than hop on the bandwagon and use a term that doesn't mean what you think it does. 

We all love and hate different characters, that's called taste. But competence, even relatively unexplained competence, is not a marker that indicates Mary Suedom.

===Bad Writer (Sub-)Syndrome===

A further note to the above: There are a non-trivial number of these type of characters who pass through the hands of a lot of writers; in this case, they can be Sues, '''but only when in the hands of unskilled writers'''. A bad writer will focus on the awesome, not on the structure and contrast that support it. 

For example, hypercompetent characters like Batman or The Doctor are usually only interesting in scenarios that ''actually call for'' that hypercompetence. In that case, if the audience can see the solution a mile away, or can see an obviously better solution to the situation, the result is usually not as "awesome" as the author desires--unless the point is to demonstrate the flaws of the character, in which case, we're still moving away from "awesome", but ''intentionally'' this time.

If this is happening, just relax, and let the Dork Age pass, hoping that the next writer will actually be competent.