I suppose in a way that I am the Mary Sue police then. I like well rounded characters with believable strengths and failures. That's the kind of writing I enjoy to read. Those are the characters that feel the best to me and those are the kinds of characters I try to write. Not because I'm being forced to by invisible fairy police, but because that's just what I like. It's probably what a lot of authors like. It's easy to pile on a bunch of super powers and good fortunes and having nothing to challenge those, because it's lazy writing. When you start putting actual depth to your character, things get much more complicated and display a higher level of thought, polish and care.
While this is true, do you notice how you're giving more positive reasons for writing well-rounded characters? You don't do it to avoid the Mary Sue Police. You do it because it's what you feel that you should do, and to hell with anyone with who would stop you from doing it.
This is the point I've been trying to discuss with you all along. You don't improve to avoid somebody yelling at you about how you suck. You improve when you yourself feel like it's the right thing to do, and sometimes it just takes somebody to tell you how.
Secondly, you've been talking about "putting actual depth" to your character, as if any character that simply has flaws tacked onto them as well as good things is suddenly automatically "deeper" than a character without either side. But have you noticed that there are many characters that do have those (and even ones where they're all applied, not the trivial weaknesses like the clumsiness of many a Mary Sue), but do not have any perceivable depth at all? They're still one-dimensional, except now they're both sides of the one-dimensional spectrum rather than just one side (e.g. both the left and right wings of a political spectrum compared to only the left side. It's still an oversimplified, one-dimensional view of the political debate). I'd say implication doesn't entail causation; certainly a "deeper" character often does have weaknesses as well as strengths, but not every character can be made "deeper" just by tacking on strengths and weaknesses.
When I was judging in the awards contest, I was faced with this exact situation, and I apologise in advance to Kelleo (if she's still reading this section) for bringing it up. Kelli, the main character... Not only was she described as insanely attractive and beautiful, but she was more skilled than Link at sword fighting and dispatching monsters. She spent almost no effort to send the monsters running or killing them time and time again. She held magical powers, powers that no one else in the world seemed to understand, that she said were difficult to control, yet she was seen constantly using these powers with little effort, like she had been using them for hundreds of years. Kelli had no massive downsides to her character, just positives, unless you want to count her willingness to get into arguments with Link as a negative.
But again, I must emphasize that you are once again trying to split a character into "upsides" and "downsides". It's always been my theory that a character with ups and downs just stuck onto them will make for equally as boring (or "Mary-Sue-ish") a character as one with only ups or only downs. The only reason the character with both is harder to detect is because people have it ingrained to them that a "Mary Sue" is a character with only ups or only downs, and that if a character has both and still seems bad, you're probably just misinterpreting it.
I found the character extremely boring and distracting to read around. I knew that nothing could ever defeat her because she's the best at everything. I was bored during the parts that focused on her because I could see what was coming a mile away.
That's fair. A character can be distracting and boring to read because they start to get predictable. I might add once again that correlation is not necessarily causation - often the boring predictableness of a character with "too many upsides" (that I find, anyway) comes from something else - simple inexperience. The new writer is still testing out common archetypes, the like of which you've seen a million times before, which is why it seems boring. (I'm pretty sure that the first time you read a character that you now consider a "Mary Sue", you didn't think it was boring at all.) Couple that with the fact that the new writer often wants to try as many things as they want to in a single story (and does so by cramming them all in), and you get not just a disaster, but a learning experience.
People often say that Mary Sue characters are alright as long as they have impossible challenges ahead of them that are meant to get in the way of their god-like status. I agree with that. If you want your character to be well loved by all, super strong, super fast, etc. Do it as long as you have an adequate challenge for them. Like being forced into a morally complex decision. Do I sacrifice this bus full of nuns dangling off of a cliff to stop the terrorists from blowing up a landmark, or do I sacrifice the landmark and the lives of the innocent to save the nuns?
But then it is a weakness of the character. The character has no hard and fast principles that would allow her to make a snap decision. But it would be a weakness of the character to have that trait too, as it would fail elsewhere where the character made a bad judgment because their principles clashed with the principles of society at large. And even then, the character could come off as "Mary-Sue-ish" if she is not criticized by anybody for the decision she does make. Do you see how complicated the characterization process is? It's not all about upsides and insurmountable challenges. Sometimes, you've just got to get a feel for what works with the story.
Of course, these considerations are nowhere in the league of a new writer, but you must understand that it is never actually that simple, and to try and tell a new author that it is will not make them improve.
Do you know how often I see that? How often I see Mary Sues challenged by impossible odds? Never. I never, ever see it. This isn't just limited to Kelli, or Link, or Mario. They always bulldoze through insignificant threats like an elephant charging through a field of grass. These characters and the situations they're put in are boring to me, and after having read through them for nearly 18 years, I've had enough and have now settled on believable characters that I can relate to, characters who don't always win. Characters who have to make choices in how to react to something. Characters who have to develop and work through their weaknesses to achieve greatness.
You and a lot of other authors. Just be advised that you shouldn't berate a new author for writing what you call "Mary Sues", at least inherently. What's important is not the characters themselves, but how they were created, their role in the story, and what happens because of them. To say that "believable characters" are the only characters an author should write is saying too much (although you don't seem to be saying it directly, it seems that you're strongly implying it).
This is why I write believable characters. Or if I do rarely venture into Mary Sue material and give my characters some sort of exceptional skill, I always make sure there's a challenge big enough for them. Something they can't steamroll. This is my way of dealing with the Mary Sue police, but cutting them completely out of the picture and doing things how I want to do them. If it makes them happy, it's a plus, but if it still pisses 'em off, fuck them.
Why do you even need to deal with the Mary Sue police? You can write big challenges for big characters without regard for them. It doesn't even need to be a plus if it makes them happy. Such self-styled authoritarians I would be happy to displease and piss off as much as I liked, by writing a character that completely flouts their guidelines. But, yeah, you're right. It's all opinion. I'll have mine, you can have yours. I'll even fight for your right to keep yours, but I'm just putting mine out for display right now.
Your opinions are valid and interesting as well. This dialogue has been fascinating and enlightening, as it has revealed more of my own opinion.
P.S. To be honest, I also dislike stories that involve primarily canon characters, but for a much different reason. It's not so much that they're mistreated, but that they're there in the first place. I don't really like reading about stories that make reference to the actual characters of one's work, just because it feels so much like a spinoff/ripoff of the other work. Of course, I'd never dream of telling them that they should stop writing those stories, because this is only my personal preference and creative fandom tendencies at work.
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