stillthewordgirl:

cameoamalthea:

the-edge-marquess:

tamhonks:

Female Character: *Everybody is immediately drawn to her for no discernible reason*

Female Character: *Extremely powerful compared to all of the other characters within the story; there’s no reason as to how she became so powerful*

Female Character: *For some reason is able to quickly pick up new skills in a period of time comparable to a genius; no explanation for this too.*

Female Character:  *has virtually no weaknesses except she’s clumsy teehee :)*

Person: Isn’t this kind of a mary-sue?

Tumblr: why do misogynists like to invalidate strong female characters???????????

If we’re going to be fair here, the reason so many people get upset when a female character is called a Mary Sue is because that label is thrown around so haphazardly and so very often handed to characters who really don’t deserve to be labeled as such. The controversy of the term comes from its overuse and misuse.

The term can be used correctly, but it is too often misused by people who see a capable strong female character and have a gut instinct to burn the witch and return to their male hero power fantasy.

To quote @ladyloveandjustice

“So, there’s this girl. She’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects them all because she dedicated to what is Pure and Good. She has genius level intellect, Olympic-athelete level athletic ability and incredible good looks. She is consumed by terrible angst, but this only makes guys want her more. She has no superhuman abilities, yet she is more competent than her superhuman friends and defeats superhumans with ease. She has unshakably loyal friends and allies, despite the fact she treats them pretty badly. They fear and respect her, and defer to her orders. Everyone is obsessed with her, even her enemies are attracted to her. She can plan ahead for anything and she’s generally right with any conclusion she makes. People who defy her are inevitably wrong.

God, what a Mary Sue.

I just described Batman.”

(Source: http://ladyloveandjustice.tumblr.com/post/13913540194/mary-sue-what-are-you-or-why-the-concept-of-sue/amp)

The problem isn’t that characters are unrealistic. Heroes often are unrealistic and it’s ok to criticize media.

However, female characters are criticized where male characters aren’t.

Everything in OP’s post could apply to Luke Skywalker (and definitely applies to Anakin) but those characters won’t be criticized the way Rey has been (even though everything Rey does in The Force Awakens is believable). We are more willingly to believe in a male chosen one who can just do amazing things because he’s the hero.

Boys can have wishfulment stories but girls can only have realistic stories.

^^^^