I disagree slightly. I think the idea of examining whether a character meets the requirements to be a Mary Sue based on how the story contextualizes him has a lot of merit. On the other hand, the laundry list of traits that were previously used to define them does still apply in some cases. A character can have many of those traits and not be a Mary Sue, but a Mary Sue is all but guaranteed to have at least a few of those traits. I think there's still some value in keeping tabs on the most common tropes, for the sake of argument.
Yeah, looking back on this article, I can see how listing tropes can be useful. However, I wrote this piece because I saw a lot of discussions that focused solely on tropes and just went absolutely nowhere.
I disagree slightly. I think the idea of examining whether a character meets the requirements to be a Mary Sue based on how the story contextualizes him has a lot of merit. On the other hand, the laundry list of traits that were previously used to define them does still apply in some cases. A character can have many of those traits and not be a Mary Sue, but a Mary Sue is all but guaranteed to have at least a few of those traits. I think there's still some value in keeping tabs on the most common tropes, for the sake of argument.
Yeah, looking back on this article, I can see how listing tropes can be useful. However, I wrote this piece because I saw a lot of discussions that focused solely on tropes and just went absolutely nowhere.
This article is a certified classic, I keep coming back to it.
"Heroically dying and miraculously coming back to life? Please."
Yusuke from Yu Yu Hakusho is a Mary Sue confirmed.