Archive/Marty Stu

From Marty Stu Discussion.

Looney Toons: Rosybloom, just what is that chunk of dialog supposed to illustrate? I'm missing something.

Rosybloom: The energy creature Melllvar had trapped the cast of the original Star Trek and made them act out his awful fanfic, which features him as a huge Marty Stu.

Ununnilium: Note also that it's a quote from Futurama - IMHO, a perfect one.

Looney Toons: Maybe add some context and proper markup, then. (Minutes later) Never mind, already done, I see.

Nwj: Is it really necessary to have a separate page for Marty Stu instead of just lumping it in with Mary Sue and using Marty Stu as a redirect? I mean, the entire entry contains only three things: a statement that this is the male version of a Mary Sue (and an extremely brief summary of a concept much better explained at Mary Sue), a note that the term isn't that popular compared to Mary Sue, and a bunch of examples that could be moved to the Mary Sue page.

Lale: Then all the male examples would be grouped together with the male / Marty Stu notation anyway. Leave as is.

Nwj: Why would they have to be grouped together? They're just male examples of the Mary Sue, and "the male / Marty Stu notation" doesn't mean anything except that they're male. Given that the two concepts are identical except for sex of the character, I don't see why it's necessary to make a point out of dividing them. I think it would suffice to put a note on the Mary Sue page saying that male Mary Sue characters sometimes get called Marty Stu or Garry Stu if they aren't just referred to as Mary Sue anyway despite their sex.

Nwj: I wanted to add that my suggestion that the two be lumped isn't meant as a criticism of the moving of male examples from Mary Sue to Marty Stu earlier today. If there is a separate entry for Marty Stu, then male examples do belong there and not at Mary Sue. I just don't see the need for a separate Marty Stu entry in the first place.

Yoshi 348: I'd actually have to second the lump here; there's nothing to this article, and Mary Sue is always always always used as a general term when referring the whole set of either gendered examples. If there was ANYTHING to this article other than a pale imitation of Mary Sue and the segregated examples, I'd have something to latch on to, but no.

Lale: But they really aren't synonyms. Like this entry says, at one time, invincible, practically perfect male heroes were par for the course. They sometimes work as a hero if only to differentiate from the Anti-Hero. But no one will tolerate Mary Sue.

And again, Marty Stu is always male, Mary Sue is always female. That's a split!

savagegreywolf: Except... it's totally a construct. "Marty Stu" isn't a separate trope in any sense, if you have Wesley Crusher, or a self-insertion fan fiction character named Jim Smith, it's just a male Mary Sue, not a separate trope entity. To be blunt, it's just sexism due to the fact that the trope has a female name. We don't have, say, a Xanatina's Gambit just to mark a split between the male and female versions of a particular trope unless the gender itself is significant in some way.

Fast Eddie: Poor savagegreywolf, coming into the Lumper vs. Splitter debate with that head-scratching thing that first happens. The thing is biological. Lumpers and Splitters are the way they are. Neither side ever makes any converts. ;-)

Cassy: Wouldn't young Edmond Dantes from The Count of Monte Cristo qualify as a Marty Stu? Come on... ruggedly handsome: check (OK, no unusual physical characteristic). Captain at 19: check. Lovely fiancee and amazingly successful life: check. Amazingly nice and peace-loving (but too naive): check. Takes care of his aging dad: check. You'd wonder why some embittered losers would get jealous.

Lale: You know, I believe a guy at my school is a real-life example of this.

Cassy: isn't it because he's hiding his anti-heroic dark side?

Arromdee: Deleted:

"The fact this term is nowhere near as popular as Mary Sue may speak for the many years before the Anti Hero cycled into popularity that such (male) characters, personified in action and detective movies, were par for the course, which perhaps accounts for the evolution of some Distressed Damsels into Mary Sues in an attempt at similarity"

I think a more likely explanation is that Most Fanfic Writers Are Girls and so their wish-fulfillment author avatars are female. Besides, there doesn't seem to be that big an imbalance.

Ununnilium: I'm putting it back in, but adding that alternate explanation. And the term is certainly more common.

Ununnilium:
 * This troper finds Jack to be deeply annoying on Doctor Who, and refuses to watch Main/Torchwood out of fear that he'll be even worse.

Conversation in the Main Page.

Later: Changing the Superman example back. Yes, it is possible to write him as a non-Marty Stu.

Ted Baxter: Now here's a trope that really describes me: "Handsome, clever, better at everything than anyone else", a perfect description. Now who is this Mary girl, and how do I meet her?

Moved June 24th, 2008.