Quote:
Originally Posted by Buccaneer
Thank you for your explanation. So the difference between a heroic character (Harry Potter) and a mary sue (Hermoine Granger) would be the degree of flawlessness?
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Yes, but "flawlessness" from the author's point of view, and that leads to them always making the correct decision for the story's conflict. And since a main character who always makes the right decision makes for a boring story, a Mary Sue is generally one of the side characters. A telltale sign that a character is a Mary Sue is if they always tell the main character to do one thing, and the main character always goes and does something else and ends up making things worse until the last act where they finally listen to the Mary Sue's advise and end up winning.