My rhetorical questions were intended to imply that my answer to both is “no”, but I don’t think the reception of Odysseus by the Romans and Christians is to the point. What I understand by a Mary Sue is a character standing in a certain relationship to the author: a narcissistic, self-indulgent, wish-fulfillment fantasy. (The TV Tropes page includes that, but it gets rather buried amongst all the detail. The Urban Dictionary page leaves this out—it is wrong. Wikipedia is accurate. Jiro’s definition above, in his first paragraph, leaves out the narcissism, and his second paragraph over-extends the concept.)
It is a charge so easy to level against any work of fiction, including the two I mentioned, and so impossible to argue about (since it depends on the inner thoughts of the author, for which the only witness is the accused) that it contributes nothing to any serious discussion. Its purpose is summary dismissal without trial.
A few more examples in the “Mary Sue or not?” game:
Menelaus Montrose in John C. Wright’s “Count to a Trillion” series.
I haven’t read a lot of the examples you ask about. God is excluded because he is not being presented as a fictional character. A fictional character who has unlimited power, torments an innocent person and gets away with it, lectures the audience, and is presented positively probably is a Mary Sue.
Conan is borderline because the criteria for good storytelling in the sword and sorcery genre are looser than in other genres, so he can do heroic deeds and get treasure and women without this necessarily being poor storytelling, I don’t think you can seriously claim that good storytelling is sacrificed in order to have Frodo go on an adventure.
Unlike my previous examples, that list of five was not intended to suggest any particular answer to the question, “Is this a Mary Sue?”, but to indicate the problem about crying Mary Sue. One could stridently say that any of them are (Christians generally take Job to be a parable, i.e.fiction—Job no more existed than did the Prodigal Son), and where can a discussion go after that?
ETA:
As for John Galt, Google him and “Mary Sue”.
I predict that of those who have troubled to have a view on the Sueness of Galt, their view is highly correlated with their attitude to Ayn Rand’s ideas.
One could stridently say that any of them are… and where can a discussion go after that?
Well, I defined it in a way that depends on good storytelling. “Good storytelling” is subjective, yet people have conversations all the time about whether something is good storytelling.
I don’t think the fact that a sufficiently determined person could call almost anything a Mary Sue means that the concept is completely devoid of meaning, that we can’t have constructive discussions about whether a character is one, or that there can’t be more borderline and less borderline examples and most of us can agree on the less borderline ones.
My rhetorical questions were intended to imply that my answer to both is “no”, but I don’t think the reception of Odysseus by the Romans and Christians is to the point. What I understand by a Mary Sue is a character standing in a certain relationship to the author: a narcissistic, self-indulgent, wish-fulfillment fantasy. (The TV Tropes page includes that, but it gets rather buried amongst all the detail. The Urban Dictionary page leaves this out—it is wrong. Wikipedia is accurate. Jiro’s definition above, in his first paragraph, leaves out the narcissism, and his second paragraph over-extends the concept.)
It is a charge so easy to level against any work of fiction, including the two I mentioned, and so impossible to argue about (since it depends on the inner thoughts of the author, for which the only witness is the accused) that it contributes nothing to any serious discussion. Its purpose is summary dismissal without trial.
A few more examples in the “Mary Sue or not?” game:
Menelaus Montrose in John C. Wright’s “Count to a Trillion” series.
Frodo Baggins.
Conan.
John Galt.
God, in the Book of Job.
I haven’t read a lot of the examples you ask about. God is excluded because he is not being presented as a fictional character. A fictional character who has unlimited power, torments an innocent person and gets away with it, lectures the audience, and is presented positively probably is a Mary Sue.
Conan is borderline because the criteria for good storytelling in the sword and sorcery genre are looser than in other genres, so he can do heroic deeds and get treasure and women without this necessarily being poor storytelling, I don’t think you can seriously claim that good storytelling is sacrificed in order to have Frodo go on an adventure.
As for John Galt, Google him and “Mary Sue”.
Unlike my previous examples, that list of five was not intended to suggest any particular answer to the question, “Is this a Mary Sue?”, but to indicate the problem about crying Mary Sue. One could stridently say that any of them are (Christians generally take Job to be a parable, i.e.fiction—Job no more existed than did the Prodigal Son), and where can a discussion go after that?
ETA:
I predict that of those who have troubled to have a view on the Sueness of Galt, their view is highly correlated with their attitude to Ayn Rand’s ideas.
Well, I defined it in a way that depends on good storytelling. “Good storytelling” is subjective, yet people have conversations all the time about whether something is good storytelling.
I don’t think the fact that a sufficiently determined person could call almost anything a Mary Sue means that the concept is completely devoid of meaning, that we can’t have constructive discussions about whether a character is one, or that there can’t be more borderline and less borderline examples and most of us can agree on the less borderline ones.