Which is the biggest Gary Stu/Mary Sue?
| Which character among these is the biggest Gary Stu/Mary Sue? This is limited to characters from the top 10 most popular anime on the site. If I should have put another character on this poll, please tell me which and why. I would prefer you vote in the poll before clicking on this spoiler tag. |
ScionOfCyanJun 26, 2023 12:33 PM
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| None of these characters are flawless gary stues, and Mikasa is a woman. |
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| Kira Yamato is the only valid answer. |
| MEA·MENTVLA·INGENS·EST |
rohan121 said: Edited in Mary Sue for comprehension.None of these characters are flawless gary stues, and Mikasa is a woman. Who would you consider to be a Gary Stu (any anime)? If you exclude all these characters I suspect your definition is narrow to the point of losing the whole point of the term Gary Stu, i.e. to the point of uselessness. |
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| Aida Mana from Doki Doki! Pretty Cure gets my vote. |
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| @MFDOOMED Kind of also addressed to OldGeezer but you seem likelier to reply. I suppose the definition of Gary Stu that took form in my mind is not the conventional use. Since we are talking about characters I thought it made the most sense to conceptualize a Gary Stu from the perspective of character construction. Unreasonably flawless or skilled as a character, not because of some quirk of worldbuilding. So for example Saitama struggles to collaborate with people, appears to have no family or friends, appears totally depressed. On pretty much every measure, relative to his age, Tanjiro is tied with or beats everyone he meets. He’s smarter. He has more physical potential. He’s better at collaborating with and inspiring others. He’s more empathetic. He has stronger family bonds. Does he have personality/character weaknesses? Not that I’ve seen… Perhaps my way of thinking about it is bad because nobody uses the definition of Gary Stu in that way. Your thoughts are welcome. |
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| Why the heck is a parody character like Saitama even an option here? |
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old_geezer said: Haha thanks. I know they say that explaining the joke makes it less funny but since my comprehension fail is what led to that I appreciate it nonetheless.ScionOfCyan said: @MFDOOMED Kind of also addressed to OldGeezer but you seem likelier to reply. I suppose the definition of Gary Stu that took form in my mind is not the conventional use. Since we are talking about characters I thought it made the most sense to conceptualize a Gary Stu from the perspective of character construction. Unreasonably flawless or skilled as a character, not because of some quirk of worldbuilding. So for example Saitama struggles to collaborate with people, appears to have no family or friends, appears totally depressed. On pretty much every measure, relative to his age, Tanjiro is tied with or beats everyone he meets. He’s smarter. He has more physical potential. He’s better at collaborating with and inspiring others. He’s more empathetic. He has stronger family bonds. Does he have personality/character weaknesses? Not that I’ve seen… Perhaps my way of thinking about it is bad because nobody uses the definition of Gary Stu in that way. Your thoughts are welcome. I would have to agree that there can be several definitions of "Gary Sue" and that under many of them Saitama is not a Gary Sue (My comment was more or less (but rather more than less) a joke). |
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| The Sword Art Online Black Swordsman. |
| The only Gary Stu/Mary Sue on this list are Kirito and Mikasa. |
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| From the list it's Tanjiro. yeah defo not Saitama. |
| Gari Sue - Light Yagami, Kirito, Tatsuya Shiba, Kazuma and Subaru as a parody or deconstruction. Mary Sue - Suletta Mercury, Miyuki Shiba, Bakarina as parody and deconstruction at the same time. I won't talk about the list, looks like OP just picked the most trendy male protagonists. |
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| If the respondents don't know a lot of the options in a poll, hard to get good results. I posted this as a thought experiment because I just watched seasons of Kimetsu no Yaiba for the first time and Tanjiro struck me as a particularly flawless character. Not in the sense that he is a god among men or anything, but think of the definition literally. Flaw + less. I never see the creator show a personality limitation that makes him struggle to make the moral mistake (in the moral matrix the creator clearly follows) or struggle to achieve the peak in a skill (compared to any person of a similar level of development). This applies to nobody else on the list whose series I have watched. Even Kirito has a clear personal limitation which leads to consequences that hurt him or his friends. Of people who replied, TRC_Randy appears to be most on my wavelength. I expect the people who voted thought of the definition MFDOOMED thought of when they made Kirito the runaway winner. P.S. Replies that simply say "X is not a Gary Stu" win the midwit award as I think it should be fairly clear that "who is the biggest Gary Stu" should be interpreted to "who is the closest to a Gary Stu on the metric of 'Gary Stuness'" in context. To avoid using that interpretation is simply to try to be more right than your interlocutor for a clever reason. |
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| I'm a bit surprised Gon Freecss didn't get more Tanjiro-esque votes but HxH does have its "Enforcer" meme that basically informs you that you should think of Gon as "intellectually dumb," whereas Kimetsu wants us to think that Tanjiro is also clever and strategic right from the first episode. |
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Yveltal1612 said: Great reply, thank you for that. I need to revisit Death Note, I don’t remember Nate River.ScionOfCyan said: I don't think characters like Light Yagami and Edward Elric really fit in this list. [...] The question is vague and will depend on how you, personally, conceptualize Gary Stu. I would love to see people's rationales and definitions in the comments. As to why, we can look at a definition: A Mary Sue/Gary Stu is a character archetype in fiction, usually a young woman/men, who is often portrayed as inexplicably competent across all domains, gifted with unique talents or powers, liked or respected by most other characters, unrealistically free of weaknesses, extremely attractive, innately virtuous, and/or generally lacking meaningful character flaws. Almost always the main character, a Mary Sue/Gary Stu is often an author's idealized self-insertion, and may serve as a form of wish fulfillment. Neither Light nor Edward are "unrealistically free of weaknesses, generally lacking meaningful character flaws, idealized self-insert" and Light is definitely not "innately virtuous" (nor would I describe Edward as "extremely attractive").Sure, characters don't necessarily have to tick all of these boxes/characteristics to be considered a Mary Sue/Gary Stu, but since you did point out multiple characters who do, Light and Edward seem a bit out of place. Also: Saitama should definitely not be there. As far as the list goes, I'd say Midoriya Izuku is the biggest Gary Stu, followed probably by Naruto. Other Mary Sue/Gary Stu that would fit the list: - Conan Edogawa (Detective Conan) - Miyako Shikimori (Kawaii dake ja Nai Shikimori-san) - Nate River (Death Note) (he's in my opinion a better fit) - Koro-sensei (Ansatsu Kyoushitsu) (at least from what I remember of season 1, haven't seen season 2 yet) - Chisato Nishikigi (Lycoris Recoil) - Takumi Usui (Kaichou wa Maid-sama!) - Natsu Dragneel (Fairy Tail) |
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| Which character among these is the biggest penaldo/LeMickey? |
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| Kirito and Pokémon XYZ Ash are close to being one and Pokémon Journeys Ash is one |
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| Free my boys Kaneki and Gon, they don't belong here and of course Light is anything but flawless |
MFDOOMED said: Much of what you said reflects the sort of statements I would make about on this topic but in different words. I just wanted to note that I strongly agree with this part in particular.ScionOfCyan said: One last thing. You can call it my personal opinion, but if an author creates a situation where the MC has to win or die, an MC going plus ultra, surpassing limits or doing anything else they need to survive doesn't make them a Gary Stu or Mary Sue. I've never been a fan of people throwing the term Gary Stu around just because a character wins by the power of friendship or some other such shonen nonsense. I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority here so take my opinion with a grain of salt.@MFDOOMED Kind of also addressed to OldGeezer but you seem likelier to reply. I suppose the definition of Gary Stu that took form in my mind is not the conventional use. Since we are talking about characters I thought it made the most sense to conceptualize a Gary Stu from the perspective of character construction. Unreasonably flawless or skilled as a character, not because of some quirk of worldbuilding. So for example Saitama struggles to collaborate with people, appears to have no family or friends, appears totally depressed. On pretty much every measure, relative to his age, Tanjiro is tied with or beats everyone he meets. He’s smarter. He has more physical potential. He’s better at collaborating with and inspiring others. He’s more empathetic. He has stronger family bonds. Does he have personality/character weaknesses? Not that I’ve seen… Perhaps my way of thinking about it is bad because nobody uses the definition of Gary Stu in that way. Your thoughts are welcome. |
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