Generic Mary Sue Litmus Test

drachefly · Post by **drachefly** » 2005-09-14 05:31pm

That second test is way wacky. It's supposed to work on Original Fiction.

So I ran it by the main characters of a book I'm working on.

The events of the book are set in motion by a character who is the first good interdimensional explorer (this sort of activity would tend to lead to book-worthy events, I figure).

The thing is, just by saying 'first interdimensional explorer' you have instantly granted that character roughly 29 points, which makes it a borderline Mary-Sue right there.

(edit: recount, found more things that the first interdimensional traveller would be very likely to be. I didn't even assume that being the FIDT would... ahem... help with mate selection! If we throw that in, it gets far far worse (uncalculated). And if he's a noble who only was able to do all this in the first place because of his enormous unearned wealth, we get 6 more points. And if he discovers parallel dimensions with other copies of himself, there come in 7 more points! I didn't count these because they aren't strictly necessary for the FIDT, and in particular didn't apply to the character I was doing the test on. However, had they been the case for a similar book, I would not consider it ANY more Mary-Sue)

Lord Revan · Post by **Lord Revan** » 2005-09-14 05:51pm

Yeah looked at test it seemed to at least that any intresting fantasy character will end up being a Mary Sue by those tests (especially the second one).

drachefly · Post by **drachefly** » 2005-09-14 07:14pm

I'd say a book can afford to have one really unlikely event. If that really unlikely event is the inclusion of a single extraordinarily powerful character who sets everything in motion, so be it. But such a book should avoid any sort of deus ex machina from there on.

Mr. Coffee · Post by **Mr. Coffee** » 2005-09-14 11:04pm

Got 3%. Don Wan Tu is deviod of Mary Sueishness.

GeneralTacticus · Post by **GeneralTacticus** » 2005-09-17 10:20am

Lord Revan wrote:Yeah looked at test it seemed to at least that any intresting fantasy character will end up being a Mary Sue by those tests (especially the second one).

Tyrion Lannister is one of the most interesting fantasy characters I have ever come across, and his score on the second test was 15. You don't need super-special magic powers to be an interesting character.