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In my experience, a good way to make a powerful character that isn't a Mary Sue is to make the story about a conflict that they can't just blow away with their powers. Superman himself actually has a comic that revolves around this where he TRIES to solve the famine crisis in Africa, but ultimately realizes he CAN'T just brute force the problem away by trying to fly in cargo ships with supplies. In other words, give them a conflict they can't just beat head-on. Another way, one which I use when thinking up a character, is to think of a particular characteristic that embodies your character, and define the strengths and weaknesses that characteristic gives them. Say you have a character whose primary characteristic is their caution; this makes them a thorough planner, unlikely to ever rush in recklessly, and has a keen eye for spotting hidden dangers or risks. But at the same time it also means they lack initiative and are practically incapable of taking the first step, primarily leaving them reactive and at a disadvantage against a more active enemy. Their strength is also a weakness, and part of their story revolves around growing as a person to overcome or mitigate that weakness.

My favourite ‘use’ of this trope was in The Disastrous Life of Saiki K, a comedy that essentially takes these common tropes, dials them up to 11, and throws them into mundane situations (it’s really good plz watch it). Some context: The main character, Saiki, is also a powerful psychic with power rivalling a god, but is the most sane one of the cast, and mainly uses his abilities to avoid everyone and their wacky hijinks. Teruhashi Kokomi, a girl so inhumanly beautiful that she literally _glows._ Wherever she goes, a crowd gathers, swooning and gasping “Oh wow!”. She gets discounts and freebies whenever she goes. When this is pointed out, she will tilt her head, giggle, and act completely oblivious… However, the truth is, she is completely aware of this, and her internal monologue makes it clear the attention she’s showered with has left her with quite an ego… which is honestly understandable, considering everything. She considers herself to be ‘God’s favourite’, and believes her life to be on easy mode. In her introduction, she recognises Saiki as her classmate while taking a stroll, and decides that a greeting from a perfect pretty girl would make his day, let alone his year. But… he doesn’t immediately start simping. He bows in greeting, and I’ll probably edit this comment later cuz i’m so friggn tired

One Punch Man and Mob Psycho are really good examples of OP MCs who aren't Mary Sues. Saitama is the strongest person on Earth, but struggles to socialize, has mild depression due to fights being too easy, and will likely never accomplish his goal of one day beating King in a video game. Mob is similar but suffers from stress, trauma, and lacks socializing skills. Watching them both grow as main characters becomes the main focus of the stories and is the primary challenge, as well as their effect on side characters.

i got so far into what looked like a well-written story, the character was strong but not inhumanly so, they could sing well, and they were beautiful, that was fine, then halfway through they not only had gotten over the first small conflict but it was revealed that they knew 7 languages, and 3 different martial arts and that was only brought up just so the second "conflict" could be immediately resolved in less than a chapter, the rest seemed like filler and fluff on the main character getting everything they wanted and I just didn't read the rest. Mary Sues not only are bad writing but they genuinely make a book comic or story actively feel bad to read.

Another possible example of a Mary Sue/Gary Stu is Drizzt Do'Urden from the Forgotten Realms Dark Elf novels. However the reason why this character works so well and similar characters don't is because of his race. Drizzt is a drow, a dark elf, a race with a (very well earned) reputation of being evil. Drizzt is something of an anomaly amongst his kind, for despite being raised in an unapologetically evil society, he still made the CHOICE to not be evil. So he abandoned his people and their home and tried making a life for himself amongst other races that are not predominantly evil. Races that, understandably, fear and reject him (sometimes violently so). He does eventually gain some acceptance from others. He develops friendships that are more like a family. And in the end can be seen as the hero that he is in the areas where his actions speak louder than words, and carry more weight than the colour of his skin. However, in all other aspects, such as his kindness towards others, his exceptional fighting skills and intelligence, even his good looks, he is practically the poster child for a Gary Stu. Had he been written as any other type of elf, or as a human, heck even as a half-orc, he would have totally been seen as a Gary Stu.

to address Mary Poppins more: she challenges Mr. Banks but she doesn't/can't solve the conflict because it's an internal conflict for Mr. Banks. Contrast to Mary Poppins Returns where she could fix the conflict herself (she knows where the document they need is, she knows the way out of the fog they didn't need the lamplighters to help. It's external) but she doesn't, which makes for a weak story

My definition of a Mary Due has always been a character who somehow always has the world bend to their convenience.

I recently wrote the intro to a story about a character I dreamed about, and I realized similar things. Whereas an old OC I had since childhood was basically perfection and unbeatable, the dream gave this 15 year old girl one of the insanely overpowered powers my old OC had (overpowered as in doing pretty much anything you will to do), and turned it into more of a burden than anything else, just by circumstance. There were people who wanted her power, and kidnapped her and killed her parents for it. Her appearance changed too. She lost the ability to live a normal life. I expanded upon this when I wrote it down, by making her experience the weight of responsibility of other human lives on her shoulders when she got a ship's crew in the crosshairs of those tracking her down, before she had any grasp of her power or was sure of herself in any way. All this to say, yes, you indeed can make a character that is very powerful, and balance it in a world similar to ours, if you can give your character some form of internal or external conflict, or both. I disagree with the sentiment that your character has to be weak and get stronger in order to have a good story. That's just as weak of storywriting as a power trip.

I agree with you and really shows why can’t stand character such as Rey everything she done wasn’t earn and came out no where that hasn’t already been done. She more of an audience self insert than her own character honestly the whole “Sequel”trilogy felt like a parody.

This channel is criminally underated

"not fun to watch", don't forget not fun to read... I read a book years ago, name alludes me now.. mature themed book, character had flaws.. but not enough, he always just seemed to say the right thing, do the right thing, save the right people.. I was beyond irritated. To be honest I always found superman too perfect.. Its why I've gravitated towards X-Men and spiderman more, something can be said for heroes that are struggling and I don't always get that from Superman, which is fine.. always got to keep in mind there multiple adaptations of some of these characters, some superman's are more Mary Sue than others. Anyways good take man, enjoyed that one.✌🏾

This proves why Yuyu Hakusho is a very well written anime. I never felt Yusuke was overpowered even though he is, it was satisfying to see his power grow plus his personality and english voice is S+

Very well thought out - thank you

there is an anime were the main character is a mary sue and most of the time her antagonistic parts try to steal her luck...I forgot its name but it was funny and gave a new type of an idea leway

Thank u so much for this video it was really helpful!

Reinhardt from Re:Zero is a very interesting example, because he was always meant to be a mary sue. An impossibly strong character that's perfect and can defeat anyone. I think Subaru even calls him out on that at some point, but I honestly don't remember.

This is like, the 300th ad that I've gotten in Spanish, and I don't even know why.

Questions (will edit more in): What if the main character is part of a team and theres a couple of characters who don't like him, even tho he's a leader of said team? What if a mary sue like character has amnesia and trying to learn about the world? Would that give it purpose? Can a character with mary sue traits be the villian and dies?

This channel is so underrated!?!?!?✨✨✨

A mary-sue isn't measured by how powerful/perfect a character is. It's how often they bend the plot over and make it their bitch. Case and point: Rimuru Tempest.

This man has to go through chainsaw man I REALLY WANT ANALYSIS ON THIS ANIME FROM YOU

Nice.

love your konosuba background music

The people who write Fire Emblem protagonists should see this.

Sword art online is a bad example for this since the main character only had small moment where this could be applied and basically only happend in the first season... but hes shown as weak at times and he had to go through mayor challenges to get to his goals and he was disliked by many characters who weren't the villian

Sakamoto gotta be my favorite Gary stu

Mary Sue from Youjo Senki is a good character.

Saga of tanya the evil is a good example of things taking a turn Tanya's purpose is to survive the war not to look cool or maybe both I have no idea

Why can I only get to this video through a link? Why not put it on the channel…?

If you think about it, Disney princesses are all Mary sues, and is true is the situations of the stories that make them likeable, more than the characters itself

i just wanna ask why is this video unlisted ???

Mary Sue characters are essentially broken characters in the sense they fail to be a character that the audience can assume in some hypothetical reality that character exists. They don't need to have all these but most Mary Sue characters exhibit most: - Near perfection in whatever they do or attempt without believable justification, but may have a vague or overly convenient one - Whenever said character would normally be at fault or other characters get punished similar or the same thing, it is dismissed or easily alleviated. - The story and fictional world automatically demonizing anyone object and/or opposing the character. - Double-edged sword concepts rarely if ever apply to the character. - The character breaks established rules of the fictional world. - The character never experiences severe hardship. - Things always go the character's way. - They rarely if ever suffer consequences. The main problem with Mary Sue characters is that they kill any avenue of interest the audience may have. People are quick to sight fan fiction as the place where this always happens, which is where the term coincidentally originates. All storytelling media is has experienced this various times. Yes, a good number of fan fictions are plagued with Mary Sue characters; however, there are some that are good passion projects that try to avoid that kind of character or correct that one if they were already a Mary Sue.

This would not work in China, South Korea and Japan cause they done this multiple times and their books somehow become best-seller

The thing is, Superman often DOESN'T work, at least for many people. People who aren't really Superman fans, like me, partially aren't because his character doesn't work for us. Why are the majority of his "best stories" (depending on where you look and how. You could probably Google "best superman stories where he isn't depowered" and get different results) the ones where he loses most or virtually all of his powers? Because that's when it's easy to make him interesting and relatable. Now, at least one of his best stories is Superman Unbound, which is pretty much the opposite... But he can't just stop holding back often. That wouldn't be interesting. But how do they make him interesting when he's at his normal strongest man on Earth but still holding back levels? They put Lois or Jimmy in danger. Because how can we relate to SUPERMAN? By putting his loved ones at risk. Showing that even he is vulnerable with emotions. And even Injustice just basically takes that concept and... well, goes a bit further than Spinal Tap. Instead of turning it up to 11, they go to like 15. But still. So although I don't think writers should feel like they HAVE TO give characters weaknesses and stuff (Even though Superman is weak to Kryptonite and often magic)... I do think that especially amateur writers should try to rein in the power fantasy stuff. Basically, the weaker you make the character, to an extent, at least to around normal human levels at first... the more readers will be able to relate. And the less that character will feel like a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. Also, I mean, you can go full Solo Leveling or whatever, and make them the strongest character on the planet by the end of your series... and notice nobody complains about Sung Jinwoo? But he starts as one of the weakest E (or was it F?) Class Hunters. Honestly, I feel like I'm that type of story you could probably start the character out at D rank or even C rank, maybe... but you definitely shouldn't start them above C rank unless you're already an experienced writer, imo.

REM IS MID

I don't understand why people think kirito is a generic bland isekai character. He's not the strongest, he wasn't guarenteed to win everything. In fact he lost many battles and his first party that he teamed up with died because he failed to protect them

Did you watch Sao because what you said doesn't apply to kirito. Kirito looks normal because he is in a world base on reality and his own personality would make that he wouldn't what a wild hair color. He is a gamer not a otaku. He isn't perfect at all he got a whole guild killed because he had gottten to like them and didn't want them to hate him because he was a beta tester. He is also shown to not think in battle just brute force his way which almost gets him killed and in games where he can die he does. He needs help multiple times in every arc doesn't sound like he is that strong and in so arcs he outright loses to people and admit that if yuuki was in Sao she would have gotten the duel wield skill. Being liked by everyone but the villain isn't a sue trait most people are round those who don't hate them. None of the villains in arc 1-3 have a beef with kirito.

TWA did it better.

Thank you, this is a really well made video and you explain everything clearly. You have been a big help

As a literal living Gary stu, this is funny. We don't ask to be OP man. It ain't our fault and we aren't gonna kissass for anyone.