forum Basic Character Personalities -- Go

Started September 13, 2021 by @NijiT group

tune

Which character personalities do you think are the 'basic ones' that get used over and over again. (Basically a rant page)

Start off obvious, mary sues. awful, hate them. give a character flaws! Its what makes them human!

Agreed! Mary Sues were reclaimed as "a power fantasy that if you don't like it, it's because you don't like fictional or real-life AFAB people existing with any traits or anything going on in their life at all"

—and I have to say, I think that reclaiming was a massive mistake.

Maybe some Mary Sue bashing was indeed motivated by gender discrimination, but what I usually saw in a Mary Sue was a resistance to internal character complexity and development. Relationships with other characters aren't going to be realistic if 'absolutely everybody in the world adores this character except for one obviously evil person' or 'absolutely everybody in the world hates this character except for one kind and special hero': There's so many in-betweens that can be explored instead.

Of course if people are in a bad place emotionally or in a bad home situation or whatnot, and they only want escapism into a perfect power fantasy or a perfect romance fantasy—then go for it, bless your heart. No harshing your mellow.

But as a reader I'm not always up for reading through works that drop anchor in there. Fiction can be more relatable when the reader and protagonist process the emotions of plot challenges together. That might even help writers grow as people, in some cases I feel it's more effective than escapism.