Ranting About Mary Sues for 31 minutes

hey there you're probably wondering why this video is being uploaded again and why it has my old avatars in it when i have these new fresh shiny ones oh no he's hot youtube hit the original video very hard in their search to the point where you couldn't even get the video when you searched even when you typed in its name and then decided to make it mature only so the original is still up and i'll link it in the description but i just need this up here because i actually want this video to be seen so i guess at the end of this i want to say you susan we interrupt this program to bring you a special report so let's talk about marriage maori [Music] rey can you please stop punching my tv salty [Music] so a few months back i made my video about the train wreck that was the live-action mulan movie and i made an obvious joke in it as it turns out milan's already got magical chi powers and a master martial artist you know that kind of gives me flashbacks to something on the avatar you gotta deal with it great you owe me a tv mate little did i know that people would take the wrong way and immediately assume things and my opinion about korra when if people actually pay attention to the line before they'd realized my train of thought was that i was referring to the overpowered chosen ones especially when they're born or young personally that sort of writing trope gets under my skin since it tends to be overused and makes the characters who are born to be undermined a lot of the development mulan being a prime example however many people took that to mean that i believe that a character like korra from legend of korra is a mary sue and you want to know something they'd be absolutely right but wait there's more well yes i do have my reasons for considering someone like cora as a mary sue my stance is more nuanced on the character especially since my thoughts for that only apply for the first and possibly the second season of the legend of korra so if you give me about a few minutes of your time i'm sure we can get through this with ripping each other's teeth out as is the case with every discussion of this topic the best way to start is to explain definitions part of the reason why people often use the term mary sue is because it's mutated so much over the course of being on the internet it's a reason why so many people are willing to say some of the stupidest [ __ ] about it i don't buy the mary sue thing anyway i found the i find the term sexist i don't think there's a thing called ryan craig you absolute leech as much as i hate it when people jump into situations they don't know much about and i used to be one of those idiots mind you i hate it when people jump into a conversation about writing tropes with a different perspective and don't even bother to even entertain if the other side is even using the same standard it's a sad after effect of the internet that people are willing to not even pay attention to what someone says and merely shoots themselves in the foot because of it but enough of me trying to revoke the idiots in the comments section you obviously don't understand that i'm baiting them into leaving comments to attraction to this video let's talk about mary sue the thing about the term mary sue is that it's really nebulous and as much as like how most the internet likes to butcher words that's a problem getting back to korra i had a lot of people link me to this video when i made my video which aside from the fact that this is an opinion piece it has some flaws which granted this video was made back in 2017 but if you actually go to the source page it says this for reading purposes only not to mention whether or not these definitions or traits of a mary sue are held to universal standards has yet to be seen they're on the fact that this website is written by one person i don't know maybe since i'm not really invested in doing a full-on investigation of this site there doesn't seem to be any reality confirmed that this person is a professional writer or not there's also an obvious bias in the author of that list you see the thing with titles such as mary sue or something more innocuous like say jen warner for example if we're talking about pokemon there's a common misconception that you have to have all the traits that are listed or else you're not insert title here obviously there are exceptions to this however that's where we get to the nuance that i was talking about and to point out this is a form of logical's fallacy the no true scotsman [Music] you've done it now and to save some time it essentially means that when someone says something that is defined by something instead of hashing it out the claim is altered by going from a universal to specific and feeling to give any objective criteria for that specificity while i disagree with that video's source as to what constitutes a mary sue that right there is the issue that there are so many factors to that of a mary sue character that there are levels of a mary sue to characters let's face it there are characters that people simply don't like and for a plethora of reasons i like jojo's bizarre adventure but frankly one of my biggest complaints with part 5 is giorno giovanna himself the main character and that's mostly due to the fact that other characters put him on a pedestal he doesn't have that much of a personality save for his dreams and giorno despite being the son of dio arguably the most iconic villain of the series the story does nothing with that fact we'll be getting back to journal later in this video but keep that in the back of your mind for right now and there are people who are willing to call him a gary stew and that's due to the fact that there are traits that fall in line with these stereotypical characters and this is something that can be applied to every character in existence in my opinion that you can find traits of these overly powerful characters but to different levels in degree obviously some more than others cora is actually a pretty good example of this because and if i say that cora has attributes of a mary sue i'm not saying she's a perfect character as much as people will love to jump on to that claim rather i'm referring to the fact that she had attributes that i would consider to be mary sue ish and take note of the word i used there had yeah that's kind of important later on in the video you see to me there are several factors into what can be put into a mary sue's character one of those factors would have to be the chosen one at birth trope essentially a character that was born with a great amount of power or fate like i already said i don't like the trope in fiction and as i feel that it's been played up way too much but doesn't that mean by your logic aang is awesome at glory stew i'm glad you asked that straw man because people automatically assume that i'm giving aang a pass on that when i'm not you see while i do admit avatar is good i don't think it's a perfect show and i do have my issues with it just because aang is what you'd classify as a mary stew i don't think i can really say that he's a prominent case just because he's born with the power not to mention there's more than one factor as i would consider cora to be mary sue-ish one of the bigger factors would have to be well [Music] oh my god shut up [Music] what the fudge fickle yeah that sort of raised a red flag as to why you consider someone to have traits of a mary sue another is when cora gets her air bending after supposedly amman sealed her bending away i don't know maybe that's the writers playing fast and loose whatever rules they had but it still makes it extremely convenient for the plot then there's also the mystery relationships i don't wanna make an entire video about korra so to make a long story short season two made korra brain dead when it came to the bad guy but korra got better in the last two seasons though i will say that things were a bit rushed but i wouldn't say cora was a mary sue in those she had actually developed and grew out of her mary sue tenancies i just think that she's not a character that i like or i think is all that great but a mary sue no you see typical mary sues in my opinion tend to be young and talented a progeny in the system such as magic or weapons will also have an unique ability that no one else has but alone does not make a character mary sue in order to be a mary sue your personality has to be absolutely boring and your character arc has to be absolutely non-existent as in staying perfect throughout the entire story cora certainly doesn't fit that molding but then again we go back to the levels and traits of being a mary sue the thing is the term is super subjective and overly used nowadays that people are willing to label people as sexist for even daring to use the term i hate when people do the following when involves this term they use the term as if it has a universal definition to it without actually explaining it they attack people who use the term and they don't define their terms so people don't actually know where the hell they're coming from now i'm making it clear here i don't like cora thanks captain obvious i don't like her show i don't think it's really well written and i'm aware of the issues that it had when it was being made but it isn't because cora is a mary sue she does have some traits in the first couple seasons but at worst i'd say she evolves from being a character that skirts on some of the mary sue traits that you can find on tv tropes and people tend to focus on that a mary sue can only be perfect but that to me is a dumb thing to focus on when being overpowered is also a trait that can be attributed to mary sue's perfection isn't the only sign of a mary sue it's just one of the signs and not one that needs to be extrapolated upon but as i said i'm not making this video all about korra so let's move on to a more prominent example shall we [Music] diabetes [Laughter] [Music] soup oh yeah we're gonna beat this dead horse i think it's safe to say that a lot of people are in agreement that ray palpatine no i will not call her a skywalker in my opinion she is what is a mary sue which is sad because there was a lot of potential in the first of the new trilogy especially showing that there was a lot to work with considering rey and people could forgive a lot of what could be considered traits of mary sue when it came to the character her being able to use such complex force powers such as the jedi mind trick her being really good with a lightsaber to the point that she's able to beat kylo ren in the first time but people were willing to forgive all that because it was all about the star wars name it was back and the trilogy was going to save everyone from the prequels honestly i find it really funny that people are singing a different tune now the trilogy is completed and how disney rarely screwed up the ip i find that really funny but we're getting off topic while we still had parts of rey that can be considered a mary sue ish most people are willing to give her a chance since it was the first episode of the new trilogy and that there was a lot of potential to be had a lot of stories could have been told all of it wasted and thrown down the trash and ray essentially became a huge waste she now has a family tied up palpatine she's able to catch on the jedi techniques and able to do things that shouldn't be possible like say deflecting sith lightning with two lightsabers that they were shown that the lightning was able to blow up an entire fleet of ships technically you can block sith lightning with a lightsaber but only if you're trained and not whatever shitty [ __ ] training that ma ray sue went through [Music] and you know what the saddest part is this could have easily been fixed if it wasn't for the fact that rey wasn't as entertaining as a wet stick no no no no i'm sorry that's not fair that's not fair to wet sticks since there's a lot more you can do with a wet stick it was wasted potential and frankly that's something that really sucks about characters that can fall into the camp of a mary sue ray is probably the most prominent example of the worst a mary sue can get in modern media she's boring she doesn't have any consequences for her actions oh no things get handed to her she's not perfect but overpowered like holy hell is she overpowered now people have actually defended rey's mary sue claims by claiming that luke and anakin skywalker are just as bad marty stews you're a [ __ ] idiot yes these are things that people have seriously used in order to defend rey which not only is that a stupid defense since that's uh but this guy also so therefore like that actually negates any argument that rey is a mary sue but it opens up serious questions that these people even watch the films now the prequels aren't as bad as people make them out to be but they aren't great movies either but to say that anakin is a mary sue is kinda dumb especially considering that the crutch of the entire trilogy is showing that he makes a ton of mistakes that lead him down the path of the dark side his flaws lie in his overly emotional states and how his emotions are what lead him to make some very terrible decisions despite the advice he's been given throughout the entire training as a jedi as for luke he was a young upstart rookie he wasn't perfect he had plenty of time showing that he was flawed as a character rey on the other hand while she has a tragic backstory and obviously has a backstory that can lead on to having some skills it really jumps the shark when she's able to do a trick like she's never done before and able to do it perfectly this is why people do not like mary sues and rey happens to have more reasons for why people believe she is one let's go through a list shall we using the force without being taught to the level people have been using it and training all their lives flying a ship she's never controlled before like an ace pilot even if you want to say that this is the same as luke and anakin at the very least we had some establishment that they knew how to operate vehicles while raid does not i bypassed the compressor also it's a bit bothersome that she's treated a better pilot than poe considering ryzen scott walker that this is supposed to be his thing pulling off a mind show without being taught which she couldn't possibly even know is possible with the force she also probably couldn't have known telekinesis was possible either but i'll give her the benefit of the doubt and say that this power could have been more well documented but jedi mind tricks no escapes by herself is one of the most powerful people lucas ever seen fighting with a staff so well that no professional training and how that translates into lightsaber fighting is beyond me able to speak both droid and wookie the latter of which is ridiculous because there's no way she could have ever met a wookie before chewbacca in the last jedi she knows how to swim despite living on a desert planet all her life lived lifted those rocks and held them easily while luke was struggling to lift three tiny rocks and couldn't lift the x-wing heck she lifted those rocks better than yoda killing trained stormtroopers with a blaster she didn't know how to use a few hours ago and her second ever shot was better than they ever could be with her years of training her first shot with the falcons gun was a triple kill on the tie fighters her skills with engineering even though she was able to be self-taught which is a stretching of itself she has more skill and is believable concerning her background being the highly trained patriarchy guard and doing better against them and kylo beating kylo beating luke perfectly morally good no self-doubt i'm like look why would she have self-doubt anyway who needs it she's likely everyone she impresses the han solo at all five minutes bb-8 likes her immediately so does finn leia hugs her first before chewie all the resistance somehow love her so much that she gets the map the blue could skywalker and a free spaceship so she can show off to him how awesome she is even kylo was falling for her look we can argue all day whether mary sue is a misapplied term but that doesn't deny the fact that rey's capability as a character in relative of her training far outshines every character in star wars including the supposed chosen ones luke can anakin luke's first time with a lightsaber gets wrecked by a training droid shooting at him ray's first time with the lightsaber beats kylo ren who has trained his entire life and is shown to be powerful and skilled enough to block blaster bolts in midair luke loses an arm loses his guardians who brought him up has the worst father either is lied to by his mentor twice leading him to kissing his sister like [Music] what the [ __ ] saved many times by his friends and has to go through a grueling training under a reluctant jedi master who talks backwards anakin also loses his arm for being an idiot has no father his mother dies in his arms because of his fears his wife dies for the same reason he gets burnt up by lava fights in two massive wars clone and rebels vs the empire and is relegated to a claustrophobic suit where every waking woman is painful like how the freak does he go to the bathroom in that thing answer me that question now that was [ __ ] cringe bro i don't know how you made that voice but uh yikes he is manipulated heavily becoming a mindless servant for a man who lied to him and is ultimately sacrificing himself getting painfully electrocuted in the process to save his son anakin and luke are helped heavily by mentors saved by multiple people at every turn and fail a lot particularly anakin who ultimately doesn't get redeemed and these two are the chosen ones meanwhile when rey is captured she frees herself she goes to luke for training she doesn't need it she blows luke's mind with how powerful she is luke didn't ever do anything with that with yoda when she fights luke with a stick she beats him even though he's been training decades and how to fight with a blade and she started a week ago at least that's how the that's how the story's written ring has attained a greater power level than luke already with no training or struggle or anything it's not surprising how people take issues with rey and why so many people are still willing to defend her because i don't know and yet even despite all of that i'm willing to say that this is objective stance except when i say everything is objectively true and i say everything is true that i say oh by the way i was being sarcastic well duh there is a lot wrong with how the last star wars went how they're managed and i'm sure people will let us see another person pissing on that garbage fire but that's for another time so unless you've been stuffing mashed potatoes into your ears or somehow collapse your own ear into itself you should have noticed that i do not think that mary sue equals perfect character but rather an overpowered character that breaks the rules of the world for no reason is liked by a lot of people and their enemies as advantages over their enemies and can be boring as all hell and with the examples i've given cora who had traits of a mary sue but someone i wouldn't call a prominent one and rey who is more clearly of the same camp i hope you at least see my perspective at this point and that's the big issue of mary sue and its usage of it no one can seem to come to a clear definition of or bother to explain what a mary sue is so the audience can get an idea of where their complaints are coming from and that's when you get people throwing the misogyny card something that i have no doubt that a lot of people are going to be throwing at me simply because i'm talking about this topic in a nuanced sense even though i'm a little bit at this point most people have clicked off the video thanks youtube analytics so let's get back to jojo and sticking with the journal giovanna example and apply my own standards to him let's start with his stand ability a power that is pretty op and can be used in a variety of situations as well as allow him to basically heal not only himself but other people with his power something that the obvious superior jojo josuke hikakita couldn't do himself you gotta be [ __ ] kidding he could use his power on everyone else but not himself gold experience is a terribly designed ability with so many flaws and contradictions which i'm going to go through right now the idea is simple gold experience punches something and it will temporarily turn into a biological plant or animal of its choice there's no specific rules regarding the mass of the object he transforms into a living organism he can turn a suitcase into a small frog or turn a tiny brooch into a new hand for himself this is the first problem with golden experience it's fundamentally broken because it breaks any and all rules that's not even getting the fact that it has a bunch of rules that were made no sense like any animal or plant that he creates is invincible if you try to hurt it the force of your attacks will be redirected at you also if he punches a person his life energy overflows through their body and heightens their senses greatly this was actually pretty awesome against bucharani before it was never used again i get the idea that most of the enemies that journal fights are stands and they probably wouldn't get experienced like that but it's just completely useless and as i stated before journal has the ability to heal his allies by turning things into organs and he can even use it for himself when his hands get cut off he doesn't even wince in pain in fact he doesn't even seem to feel pain mary sue this is supposed to make him look like a stoic badass but instead it just makes him look kind of bored his squad and enemies feel like thinking breathing living characters some enemies have so much resolve you almost feel like rooting for them as they stop at nothing and give everything to accomplish their goal journal doesn't seem like that because he just looks so bored and acts like he already knows the exact solution to win in this problem and most of the time that's actually true like a good example is when they're on the train and when the characters start aging up journal immediately realizes why trish isn't aging like they are why does he know this random fact okay toss in the fact that his father is does that jonathan joe start look if you don't know jojo it's a long story here's the cliff notes dio lopped off jonathan's head and took over his body and then like over 100 years he connected it and and that he's got a tragic backstory that's he's got a connection to the major villain in jojo's series and it's just like it's a complicated family like there's a ton of red flags that scream to me that journal can fall into a marry suit based on my own credentials and don't get me started in the deus ex machina that was the ending of part five that really just makes journal into uh [Music] but at the end of the day people can still like journal and that's where we have to ask the question since i'm getting back into this topic i figured i might as well add a little bit more to the video so that way there's more to this than just the bass and hey consider a dlc that you guys get for free speaking of that i want to take a moment and talk about video games and mary susan gary stews it's an odd beast to consider if those actually exist in video games and this is something that i want to pose to you guys as a question do you think mary sues and gary stews actually exist in video games i certainly think one can make an argument that some side characters could fall under the umbrella this category one such character i've seen be called this is ava from the borderland games or the only game she's actually in borderlands 3. ava i'm trying to keep you safe by just ditching me on the ship you said i could be a fault hunter like you you promised you will when you're ready that's all you have to say maya's dead because you wanted to open the vaults we should be hunting down the calypsos and making them pay for what they did it's not that easy maya always told me a vault hunter runs toward the fire all her stories were about you you saved pandora you killed handsome jack you're supposed to be the fire hawk i don't know what i am thank you before you get someone else killed god damn damon [Music] let's just say i think i can see where some people are coming from with their hatred of this character although from what i've seen i'd classify her as a poorly written and terrible character as opposed alba mary sue although don't get me wrong from what i've seen it's very tempting to put that label on her especially when the game doesn't want to get on her ass for being the reason why a character died boy where are you but with video games it's hard to determine whether or not a character is a mary sue or gary stu especially considering that a lot of games put you the player in the role of the main character so in a sense by design you're supposed to be the center of the universe so is it necessarily a bad thing for this medium that's really up to you to decide however there are two series especially as of late that i do think exemplified the player as a marrying gary stew pokemon and persona oh there's a big surprise pokemon tends to be the more egregious case so let's start there with the recent incarnations sword and shield controversial titles for sure but some i think should be discussed especially considering by the time i get this video out we have reached pokemon day and i need an excuse to put pokemon in the tags get them clicks baby oh is this a real cinnamon village bustle i just threw up in my mouth still doesn't look very oh god what the [ __ ] is going on right now i am very confused oh you've got to be kidding me one of the biggest issues i've found in recent pokemon titles is that you're perceived to be this great up-and-coming champion and trainer even before actually battling you you'll have characters who will shower praise upon you are considered to be a great trainer nut help is the [ __ ] challenge that pokemon games have offered in recent years but it still feels like you're already destined to be the greatest trainer in the world here everyone's convinced that you are even your rivals you know the last people you'd think would want to lose to you now pokemon's not known for its deep and enthralling stories but this is a good example of characters who often get so much handed to them that they are loved by almost everyone it's something to consider hell even the major antagonist in the last games rose he even sees you as a great trainer when you first meet him for the first time personally i'd refer a message that says you can be great even if you're not a chosen one but what do i know i'm not some guy who writes i'm just some loser on youtube which is a good lead into the persona series now this is a series that i do enjoy but when you consider the main leads of the past three major titles all havoc can be essentially classified as harems have the respect of even their enemies and can pretty much be suave characters i can see the argument for how they can be considered gary stews but to counter that i like to point out that in order to get to that status you have to do so many stupid things such as studying cleaning taking care of plants you have to build up your social stats in order to reach that level so while i can see the argument i don't think it'd be applied easily especially if you don't have specific levels in a social stat you won't be able to choose the cooler and more amazing options [Music] huh that's it you're on my [ __ ] list effective immediately still i'm actually curious about this subject unless you guys have any examples of mary and gary stews in the comments below that come from video games give me an idea guys and i might make a part 2 to this so i hope you at the very least understand where i'm coming from when it comes to my ideas about mary sue's more specifically on how i would classify them and if you do you can understand why some people take issue with these type of characters so here's a question why do people still like characters like journal giovanna especially when there's a ton of issues with how the character is portrayed it's because the character can still be entertaining like there's a lot you can forgive when it comes to characters like this the overly powered characters maybe it's because you can identify with the character struggles maybe it's because there's seriously a badass moment that just sparks some creativity perhaps you just like the story of the character's in or you just uh okay maybe that's just a power fantasy thing but whatever the thing is when it comes to overly powered characters there are reasons why people like these characters even if some people can label them as mary sue or whatever let me make this perfectly clear characters who are competent and heroic are not what make a mary sue character the reason we like characters no matter their gender no matter their race no matter their skin color it's because we can see parts of ourselves in the character we love people love to see characters who are like them overcome situations when we see luke skywalker trying to connect with his father trying to pull him back from a lifetime of mistakes and attempt to save from the dark side it's something that can tug at the people's heartstrings we see josuke from jojo part 4 break down and get angry after seeing his grandfather die seeing how it affects him you feel for the guy since everyone can relate to losing a loved one and the same can even apply to giorno giovanna when he learns the tragic truth of bucharotti they're more down-to-earth characters and that's what make characters great they aren't perfect they aren't prodigies they have to struggle in order to acquire greatness we want to see these people succeed we want to see them struggle and come out on top without that struggle you lose people who legitimately see these characters and lose humanity to them and as i keep saying what i just said is subjective and people are more than welcome to like characters who i think are mary sues i'm not about to take that away from you perhaps you have a different standards and that's what makes us humans to be beautiful that we can have different opinions the problem is that people don't respect other opinions and if people get things wrong and you can prove it go for it but yelling that people are getting things wrong is not a criticism and just shoving mary sue onto characters while explaining yourself is a terrible thing to do in my opinion call those people out for not explaining themselves that's perfectly fine just don't call misogynist since the term in and of itself is not that it's just the name of a trope one more thing i do need to address that sometimes we will often call those male characters power fanties and will decry female characters with the same traits honestly if they're totally opie i think it's a dumb that they don't have the same level of criticism but that's just me it depends on the characters in question as well as the context and this video is getting way too long at this point so i guess there's one thing they have to do so in conclusion i think mary sue is a poorly used term not that it can't be used but one that is overly abused to the point where people are labeling people things as things they shouldn't do to a lack of actually defining what the term is and to that i say core is a very soon [Music] mom rey [Music] to share our life you leave us [Music] move to the beach

Channel: MangaKamen

Views: 56,979

Rating: 4.8970222 out of 5

Keywords: The Legend of Korra, Korra, Mary Sue, Star Wars, Rey, Palpatine, Luke Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, Darth Vader, Disney, animation, Jojo, Jojo's bizarre adventure, rant, mangakamen, Is Korra a Mary Sue?, Funny, comedy, Pokemon Legends, Radical Soda, Persona 4, persona 5, Pokemon Sword and Shield, Gamefreak, Borderlands 3, Susan, susan wojcicki

Id: tCg8LqrfXKg

Length: 31min 42sec (1902 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 28 2021