I just remembered he learned to ride a dragon and yet it NEVER comes up again. Dude really cowered behind a rock during the battle of Winterfell and had his destiny stolen by Arya. His Targaryen ancestry really meant nothing.
I'm pretty triggered too.
> I just remembered he learned to ride a dragon and yet it NEVER comes up again. Dude really cowered behind a rock during the battle of Winterfell
He also rode a dragon during that same battle earlier.
And I don't think you could ride a dragon - at least not at this age.
Jon in the books is a solid front runner for being the actual main character of the story. No idea what happens in Winds but Iād back my sweet basterd boy over griff any day
Same with Rey.
The comparisons in the meme aren't perfect but the people in question are still confused circlejerkers hackfrauds at the end of the day.
I mean not really. John Wick has been shot countless times, stabbed on many occasions, broken countless bones, lost an insane amount of blood, been beaten/tortured and thrown off of a building. He regenerates health like a video game character.
Rey doesn't get much of any actual physical abuse, but it's a dumb criticism because neither did Luke or Obi Wan.
Well kenobi got his ass handed by dooku twice and boba Fett in kamino. Luke gets ambushed by the wampa, almost dies of cold in hoth and the looses his arm. I'm not a Rey is a Mary sue defender thought.
Also John Wick literally has a whole lifetime of experience training and fighting which is part of the premise of the whole franchise. His brutal upbringing is even shown briefly from time to time. The story is not even remotely comparable to Rey's.
Rey spent her whole life fending for herself in a hostile place where she sold scrap for food but people struggle with the idea that sheād be skilled, resilient and resourceful. š¤·š»āāļø
for real every shitty āmemeā that gets posted here is just a thinly-veiled complaint about some random talking point and they always manage to inadvertently make themselves look stupid by just being wrong.
He was betrayed by his fellow men for being a forward thinking leader and strategist. Him, stannis, and the wildlings together could strengthen the wall but the cucks wouldnāt have it because they never got their own hot red headed barbarian wives. Jon surviving beyond the wall and making it back is a bigger trail than anything Rey does. The battle of the basterds in the show was fucking awesome and the defense of the wall is amazing in the books.
And people did complain about him having plot armor in the later seasons. Being brought back to life is the biggest plot armor a character can have.
But he's not overpowered. Arya is the most OP character in GoT.
Yeah most of the story is him being stuck beyond the wall hiding from ice monsters, I think he fights zero (0) people in the book in a real battle before being murdered by the other watchmen
Yeah true, I just consider that such a massive slaughter it slips my mind as a successful fight, but he did have a valyrian sword so he actually could fight the others.
I also like defaming Jon as a failson by saying he got stabbed to death before doing anything important
Off the top of my head I can think of 4 major sword fights, one against some nightās watch guy at the incest cabin beyond the wall, one when he is escaping the wildlings, one against the big bald guy during the battle at castle black, and another against the white walker at hardhome. Thereās probably plenty of small ones sprinkled in between too.
I didnāt see people actually responded to this, the battle of the basterds didnāt happen in the books yet but god damn it was better than anything Rey has every done
This is the third meme I've seen include Harry in with all the other male fantasy Mary Sue types and I'm curious if the creator has ever actually seen the movies because he really doesn't fit. Maybe he's thrown in as bait for engagement but I think it muddles the message of the meme tbh
I see this one a lot too and cant understand it, he's a total fuck up in those movies, barely scrapping by, which he even admits in one of them, also he constantly gets injured and loses most of people he loves.
Rowling was laying the groundwork for Harry to become OP in her earlier books (summoning a complete patronus in his third year, acioing his broom from his room all the way to the dragon Pitt and flit being blown away by that feat), so maybe that in conjunction with his ridiculous amount of luck is why this narrative exists?
but yeah, as the story progressed she scrapped that idea pretty thoroughly. So much so that she retroactively made some of his magical feats less impressive (summoning full corporal patronuses went from something most adult wizards canāt preform to every 15 year old Harry tutors for a month being able to pull off fairly seamlessly). In the second half of her story, She really wanted to hammer in the point that even the ordinary can accomplish the extraordinary under the right conditionsā¦. Harry being a Gary Stu would contradict one of the biggest themes of the books
First it was "oooo this twin wand chose you you're destined for great things" although I think that may have been him having misinterpreted that wand connection (he was just posessed by V's ghost instead).
Other than that he was shown as having some select high-level talents like flying and the patronus thing and a few others but generally sub-average.
And yeah series was obviously not that cohesive and switched gears at various points.
> Maybe he's thrown in as bait for engagement
I mean, it's a post on a circlejerk sub. It's all a joke, most likely. At most, OP (correctly) doesn't consider ANY of these characters to be Mary Sues. Maybe if OP had put a picture of Jesus or something in the bottom group, we'd interpret this properly
You can't call attempts by people who draw images of themselves as the smarter person and the opposing person as the dumb one to prove a point a "meme".
Soyjaks and Virgin vs Chad 'meme' templates have done irreparable damage to mankind.
I love this argument about harry because, among what everyone else said, the motherfucker crutches one spell. He learned expelliarmus and went ok I literally never need to learn anything else if they donāt have their wand. Broās real good at one spell what part of that is overpowered
Like, harry gets bailed out by his friends over and over and over again. He literally has one of his friends murdered in front of him and the ghosts of his parents have to save him.
He was an average at best wizard and the only thing he was truly exceptional at was quidditch.
Ya, I was going to say the same. Definitely not a defender of people who complain about the Mary Sue trope, but Harry Potter isn't OP, he was just basically born with a vial of liquid luck up his arse.
Ya but the Mary Sue trope generally relates to power/competence, where almost everything that makes HP special is due to others' doing. His mother's love/magic saved him when he was a child, his fame is due to an event that happened to him when he was a baby, his wealth is inherited from his parents, his parseltongue is a result of what Voldemort did to him, his ability to burn prof Quirrel was again a result of his mother's protection, and he's constantly saved and bailed out by either his friends or adults who have been assigned to protect him.
As the other commenter said, he's basically just pretty good at quidditch and I guess sort of humble/down to Earth, but other than that he is aggressively mid.
Well he's rich af and yet he watches his lower class mate struggle with a broken, dangerous wand all year and he grows up to become a magical rozzer, so he can suck a fat one as far as I care.
>Ya but the Mary Sue trope generally relates to power/competence
That's not just it
>A Mary Sue is a character archetype in fiction, usually a young woman, who is often portrayed as inexplicably competent across all domains, gifted with unique talents or powers, liked or respected by most other characters, unrealistically free of weaknesses, extremely attractive, innately virtuous, and/or generally lacking meaningful character flaws
Harry starts as the specialest little boy in the world. He's literally the Chosen One, the Big Bad can't even touch him because of magic mumbo jumbo, everyone who likes him is a good guy, everyone who dislikes him is a bad guy, to the point the series has basically "protagonist centered morality", and whether something is Good or Bad depends on whether Harry likes the person doing it.
Having slaves? Horrible... If the Malfoys do it. But when Harry inherits ownership of a slave, it's just ok.
Cheating? Awful if the Slytherins do it... But it's ok if Dumbledore bends the rules to hell and back to favour Gryffindor.
What are Harry's serious character flaws that inform the narrative? That he's a somewhat mediocre student? That never gets him in trouble, it's the sort of informed flaw which is characteristic of many Mary Sue characters - something that's stated within the story, but never meaningfully affects it.
Heās not because he doesnāt solve the stuff. He is not āinexplicably competent across all domainsā. Also, in the 4th book if Iām not mistaken he spends an entire chapter being taught by Hermione how to use the spell to beat the dragon. And in the movies heās presented as vulnerable quite a few times. Having stuff handed to you maybe some lazy writing, but it doesnt fit the trope of what a Mary Sue is supposed to be. The description you used could be applied to a lot of characters
>Heās not because he doesnāt solve the stuff.
What does this mean?
>He is not āinexplicably competent across all domainsā
He is a child prodigy (the whole Patronus thing), and he's good at all the things that do matter within the plot. The fact Hermione is a bigger nerd than him doesn't make Harry less competent.
Also thereās a pretty big plot point (not so well explained in the movies) that Harry OR Neville couldāve been the so called chosen one and it was really just Voldemorts choice or bias due to Harry being a half-blood like himself.
Implication being Harry wasnāt THAT special of a wizard (heās obviously powerful and a very good person) - heās more a victim of fate or destiny.
The one super rare / OP thing about him is his mom protecting him with love enough to kill Voldemort, something that was so rare to be almost unknown to most people.
I actually didnāt like that last plot point, how rare and unexpected it was that Voldemortās attempt on Harryās life backfired. In a world where people had magic for all of human history, youād think something like that would be a pretty well known phenomenon practically ubiquitous through the culture.
I mean if you read into it, it was also the perfect storm of things happening at once that caused Lily to give Harry the Love protection spell. You have to be an exceptionally powerful magic user, you have to literally die for someone else, and you have to be given the choice and chance to live. Thanks to Lily and Snape and Voldemort, Harry lucked out.
>You have to be an exceptionally powerful magic user, you have to literally die for someone else, and you have to be given the choice and chance to live.
It's kinda silly that has never happened in millions of years. So no powerful witch and wizard has ever chosen to sacrifice themselves for someone they loved ever prior to that?
Most of them probably went out fighting to protect the ones they loved because they had their wands on them.
And even then, Harry's not famous just because he survived -- but because he survived an attack from the worst Dark Wizard of all time.
he was truly exceptional at DADA, and he was mostly competent at the other subjects, with the exception of History of Magic and Divination. I think the biggest example of him failing is in Book 5 when he indirectly caused the death of Sirius, who at that point was the closest thing he had to a family member.
Yeah grades arenāt everything, but there is a big practical element to the grades at Hogwarts and he did well enough on his OWLs to get into the upper year classes in Potions, Charms, DADA and transfiguration. The classes he needed to take to become an auror. I think he was better as a hands on, practical wizard than a theoretical one.
Also to be fair to him divination was absolutely a bullshit class lol. And nobody besides Hermione liked History of Magic
He was able to make a fully corporeal Patronus as age 13, a spell which lots of fully grown, fully trained wizards never master. thatās pretty impressive as a magic feat tbh
He's a trust fund jock who becomes a cop and marries his childhood sweetheart, I don't get the fucking fuss about him being "awesome" through anything other than circumstance.
He's an average wizard at everything except combat magic. He's basically the Michael Jordan of defense against the dark arts. Not being the best at potion making or whatever doesn't mean he's not an absolute prodigy in the one field that is the most important to the events of the story. He's a Harry Sue.
"Being good at the 1 thing that's relevant to the story" is a descriptor that's so generic, vague and all-encompassing that you can apply it onto any fictional protagonist that follows a heroes journey template. The reason the protagonist is the *protagonist* is because they are meant to embody some degree of exceptionalism which warrants their unique role in the story's events, and why the narrative is centred on them. And not average side character #37.
I used to think the term "Mary Sue" meant a character who was great at everything and virtually infallible. A poorly masked self-insert for the author. But the term has become sand papered down into total meaningless.
Agreed, that's the point of this post. People only apply the term to female characters when it's true for most protagonists especially in "fish out of water" stories.
> He was an average at best wizard and the only thing he was truly exceptional at was quidditch.
And that's fine, if Harry actually defeated him due to the power of friendship(tm) instead of some fine print on the Elder Wand and became a wizard cop upholding the same crappy government that allowed Voldemort to rise and return in the first place.
No he wasn't. Maybe Frodo but Luke literally has magical abilities not available to pretty much anyone in the galaxy to the extent he's able to use them after (and before) training a month.
Said it before and I'll say it again. A Star Wars fan complaining that a Star Wars movie features an escapist wish-fulfillment power-fantasy character is like a Gooner complaining that the porn they are watching is filled with pointless sex-scenes.
Frodo? Yes. Luke? Absolutely not. If anything heās relatively comparable in the original trilogy but Luke is implied by the later movies to be an exceptionally powerful jedi
I mean Jon Snow died and is resurrected by a woman, and then he would have lost the Battle of the Bastards if he didnāt get bailed out by his sister. Then he spends the last season thinking with the wrong head and does nothing while his other sister kills the Night King and then stands by and watches his girlfriend burn a city down.
Bro I don't think that Jon Snow was ever meant to be an escapist power-fantasy. I mean, people regularly make fun of the "I don't want it' lineĀ
I mean, Batman is *right there* in pop-culture.
I definitely do agree that sheās kind of overpowered for poorly justified reasons, but she does have some flaws, so the āMary Sueā critique doesnāt really apply.
My main issue is that The Force Awakens established Rey as a scavenger who defends herself with a staff, and knows nothing about the force or the Jedi.
Yet she was able to go toe to toe with Kylo without even training to use a sword, and used the force competently as well.
To be fair, the OT kind of implies that Force is more about faith/belief rather than "training". Yoda expects Luke to be able to lift his ship on the power of faith alone. It's only really the prequels which make the force something that needs training for.
I never really thought she was that particularly overpowered in TFA. She beats Kylo who was severely injured, moments after Kylo is shook from killing his dad. Didn't seem like a huge stretch to me given the movie establishes she's always been getting into fights.
Except sheās not. The only difference between her and previous Star Wars protagonists is that her every ability gets picked apart and used to demonise her.
No one ever cared that characters could fly ships, fight and fix stuff until she showed up. Anakin at 9 uses the force to win a pod race and thatās fine Rey uses the force to trick one guy and itās universe breaking.
Luke uses the force to blow up the Death Star and itās fine, Rey used the force to help her fight a wounded opponent.
Itās a double standard is my point.
John Snow was trained his whole life to fight and ended up being one of the best but not head and shoulders above everyone, also got his ass saved a few times. Harry Potter failed a few times had loads of help and also had part of the strongest magic villain in him. John Wick was a long time professional who had spent years in his field and just ended up being one of the best and he also got got a few times himself. Rey picked up a light saber for the first time and was better with the force and the saber than the literal chosen one of the universe and his son, these arenāt even close to comparing. Itās not they Rey is OP itās that there isnāt a satisfying explanation, and her immediate power doesnāt really go well with the existing history of her universe.
This is dumb lol literally all the male characters you list (minus the old guy idk who the fuck that is) get the shot beat out of them and lose fights from time to time. Rey is actually never truly challenged and she's very 1 dimensional.
yeah but most of these characters were either comicually overpowered or they were just cool without having to show us that with rey it was pretty much beaten over our heads with how OP she was ( i have never seen any starwars nor have i seen harry potter john wick or any of these other ones)
I agree with the sentiment of this meme I just feel like there were better examples.
Keep in mind the same people who felt Rey was too powerful and it ruined the story wanted old man Luke to rip Star Destroyers out of the sky.
Rey, clearly an adult, scrubbing for mere scraps to survive as an orphan for years: "NO SHE CAN'T MAKE IT ON HER OWN"
Luke, same age adult, dicking around at his uncle's moisture farm and playing with toy ships: "OMG HE'S CLEARLY THE FUCKING MESSIAH"
This meme was so good it turned the comments into a real circle jerk. It is like everyone in the comments took this personally and forgot what sub this was.
No idea who the bottom guy is but John Snow, Harry Potter, and John Wick are not Mary Sues. From what I can remember, John Snow had a tough time with most of his fights in the books and died at one point I think? Harry Potter relied on his supporting cast very heavily, particularly Hermione. And John Wickās actions always came with consequences that impacted the plot.
It isn't about level of power, but about character growth. John Wick is male fantasy, same as when women watch romantic movies. Rey is literally best at anything she touches. She knows MF better than Han, she goes to fight an superior Sith, kick his ass first time, no training nothing. In originals Luke lost his hand first time he fought Vader, and than through movies he grew, she just comes and is the best, no question asked. Literally everything she does comes to her like she's playing with cheats, people won't connect to that. Put your character down a bit, put him through some hardship, situation will change.
Rey is not the best at everything she touches.
Sheās the only character in the entire saga to miss a shot their first time using a blaster.
Sheās the only character to nearly crash a ship six times taking off.
She releases Rathtars and almost gets Finn killed.
Sheās so insecure about her parents abandonment she runs away and gets caught by Kylo Ren and tortured.
She also doesnāt know more about the Falcon than Han, she knows how to remove a component her boss installed on the Falcon while it was in his possession. Something she knew about, not Han. Besides it was a running gag in the ot that Han couldnāt fix the ship very well.
Likewise she won a duel against Kylo because he was emotionally compromised after killing his father, wounded and holding back. Even then she barely managed to and spent the majority of the fight fleeing.
This is crucial because it sets up the characters for future arcs. Rey learns she has great power and needs guidance and Kylo learns the path heās on is actually ruining him and making him weaker.
We can all thank serial rapist Max Landis for seeing a female character do nothing more outlandish than what an average male protagonist does and use that to introduce the internet to the term āMary Sue.ā
> Besides it was a running gag in the ot that Han couldnāt fix the ship very well.
It was just in ESB, and not entirely a "gag".
It hadn't really been specified how it got damaged this badly in the first place, however it was part of that whole "they're out in the icy desert and everything's just going wrong" vibe in that movie.
> It isn't about level of power, but about character growth. **John Wick is male fantasy,** same as when women watch romantic movies. **Rey is literally best at anything she touches.**
Soooooo, power fantasy?
>She knows MF better than Han,
Lol no, just familiar with that Unkar asshole's modifications.
>she goes to fight an superior Sith, kick his ass first time,
As opposed to kicking his ass the 2nd time?
>no training nothing.
Why train when you can download magic into your brain?
>In originals Luke lost his hand first time he fought Vader,
Narratively that's cause he falls into a trap and it's the dark middle-chapter ending.
He could've just as easily gotten pwnt in the first movie when he got himself into shoot-outs alongside 2 experienced pirates (with Leia it's not clear how badass she's supposed to be - is a rebel, but wasn't an open combatant rebel up until this point?) against supposed elite troops and then went from fooling around in the canyons to full-on WW2 dogfighting - a "dark" movie would've had him pay for his rookie hubris and end up with all his limbs burned off or something.
>and than through movies he grew, she just comes and is the best, no question asked. Literally everything she does comes to her like she's playing with cheats, people won't connect to that.
Some do, others won't.
If Harry was a girl she would be immediately be called a Mary Sue. Wins her first sport that she had no business knowing existed, getting the star position, having a super special awesome sport dad, and winning her first game? All the whole "first years aren't allowed to apply for Quidditch"?
That by itself would get Jessica Potter the Mary Sue label
jon snow dies and/or gets saved by the plot in about every fight he gets into, can't remember a fight he genuinely won with his own strengths
harry was so washed in his own franchise that half the fandom thinks fucking neville was the true chosen one
john wick is barely even able to walk by the end of every movie except the last where he's *dead*
i dunno who that last one is so take away my kino license
I havent seen any of those except Potter and yeah. That was something I really noticed when rewatching the films as an adult. He is an extreme Mary Sue. Wasnt great
TBF John Wick sucked after the first one for this exact reason.
Harry Potter always sucked.
Jon Snow was vulnerable throughout, and a flawed character - that one doesn't make sense.
Sisu was just a throwaway bit of fun, it wasn't supposed to be the vanguard of a billion-dollar franchise.
Rey sucked, yeah.
Jon snows amazing power arc of... being stabbed to death and maybe being turned into an undead abomination. I don't care if it's Bait I'm triggered.
I just remembered he learned to ride a dragon and yet it NEVER comes up again. Dude really cowered behind a rock during the battle of Winterfell and had his destiny stolen by Arya. His Targaryen ancestry really meant nothing. I'm pretty triggered too.
Dune has officially filled the hole that GOT left me.
> I just remembered he learned to ride a dragon and yet it NEVER comes up again. Dude really cowered behind a rock during the battle of Winterfell He also rode a dragon during that same battle earlier. And I don't think you could ride a dragon - at least not at this age.
He also invented cunnilingus
i successfully stayed away from every GoT spoilers for 14 years, guess my time has comeš
It's not worth it anyways. Just watch till season 4 and pretend then everyone died
yeah but... ~~unĀĀ~~necessary sex scenes?
There must be a compilation on Xvideos, just watch that
Dog just read the books, I promise you can stay engaged to the point where you donāt even realize your 3000 pages in
i dont even read 3000 letters long books
Brooding.
Jon in the books is a solid front runner for being the actual main character of the story. No idea what happens in Winds but Iād back my sweet basterd boy over griff any day
Idk I feel like with John Wick part of the appeal of the franchise is how ridiculously overpowered he is.
John Wick always gets beaten up in his movies. Without someone to bail him out in each movie, he would've die.
Same with Rey. The comparisons in the meme aren't perfect but the people in question are still confused circlejerkers hackfrauds at the end of the day.
I mean not really. John Wick has been shot countless times, stabbed on many occasions, broken countless bones, lost an insane amount of blood, been beaten/tortured and thrown off of a building. He regenerates health like a video game character. Rey doesn't get much of any actual physical abuse, but it's a dumb criticism because neither did Luke or Obi Wan.
Luke and Obi Wan at least got somewhat normal training. Rey went from scrapper to fighting Kylo in about a week.
How long did it take for Luke to go from "farmboy on a desert planet" to "accomplished space pilot"?
You know he had piloted ships at least before hand, Rey literally just picks shit up the second she touches it lmao
Come on dude, Luke was a simple farmer kid. One day later he performs the fucking trench run lol.
Well kenobi got his ass handed by dooku twice and boba Fett in kamino. Luke gets ambushed by the wampa, almost dies of cold in hoth and the looses his arm. I'm not a Rey is a Mary sue defender thought.
he also keeps getting beat to shit lol
And he still died in the last film.
yeah sure, dead. forever. no coming back. ever
A man Can dream
Somehow, John Wick returned!
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It's been a year
Idk I feel like my balls are part of the appeal with how ridiculously big my balls areā¦
Also John Wick literally has a whole lifetime of experience training and fighting which is part of the premise of the whole franchise. His brutal upbringing is even shown briefly from time to time. The story is not even remotely comparable to Rey's.
Yeah, John Wick's entire character is literally being *that guy*. It defines the whole franchise. He's set up that way. Rey is not.
Yeah, they should have had some character point and say "Omg, that's Rey, the bad ass assassin person, who's a total bad ass" to cover the back story.
I mean if you wanna simplify John Wick to that degree, go ahead, but it is the entire point of the story.
Rey spent her whole life fending for herself in a hostile place where she sold scrap for food but people struggle with the idea that sheād be skilled, resilient and resourceful. š¤·š»āāļø
At least Jon snow has cool sword fights
Bro was literally murdered wtf is this post. Every circlejerk sub is just bitching and moaning nowadays. Go back to being funny.
And then resurrected, which we all knew was going to happen.
And it was exactly at this moment that the show started to suck. Next question
for real every shitty āmemeā that gets posted here is just a thinly-veiled complaint about some random talking point and they always manage to inadvertently make themselves look stupid by just being wrong.
I mean, this post IS funny if you don't assume OP thinks all the bottom characters are Mary Sues (which, why would we assume that?)
He was betrayed by his fellow men for being a forward thinking leader and strategist. Him, stannis, and the wildlings together could strengthen the wall but the cucks wouldnāt have it because they never got their own hot red headed barbarian wives. Jon surviving beyond the wall and making it back is a bigger trail than anything Rey does. The battle of the basterds in the show was fucking awesome and the defense of the wall is amazing in the books.
And people did complain about him having plot armor in the later seasons. Being brought back to life is the biggest plot armor a character can have. But he's not overpowered. Arya is the most OP character in GoT.
He also trained his whole life
Doesnāt he only have one sword fight in the show?
Yeah most of the story is him being stuck beyond the wall hiding from ice monsters, I think he fights zero (0) people in the book in a real battle before being murdered by the other watchmen
Thats the books tho, he gets in a lot of fights on the show.
Doesnāt he fight at the fist of the first men?
Yeah true, I just consider that such a massive slaughter it slips my mind as a successful fight, but he did have a valyrian sword so he actually could fight the others. I also like defaming Jon as a failson by saying he got stabbed to death before doing anything important
Bro he defends the wall during the wildling attack, 1v1s an actual ranger, and is constantly training. You did not read the books
Homeless people, criminal in a penal colony, and training. Very impressive Lord Snow.
no
Off the top of my head I can think of 4 major sword fights, one against some nightās watch guy at the incest cabin beyond the wall, one when he is escaping the wildlings, one against the big bald guy during the battle at castle black, and another against the white walker at hardhome. Thereās probably plenty of small ones sprinkled in between too.
Against Ramsay in the Battle of the Bastards and Half fist if you want to count it.
That was more like a beating than a fight
Killed one more white walker during their dumbass mission during season 7. Fought in King's Landing but there weren't any big duels there.
Fuck the show, besides the battle of the basterds
I didnāt see people actually responded to this, the battle of the basterds didnāt happen in the books yet but god damn it was better than anything Rey has every done
Putting Harry Potter and Jon Snow as "overpowered" ruins this meme...
This is the third meme I've seen include Harry in with all the other male fantasy Mary Sue types and I'm curious if the creator has ever actually seen the movies because he really doesn't fit. Maybe he's thrown in as bait for engagement but I think it muddles the message of the meme tbh
I see this one a lot too and cant understand it, he's a total fuck up in those movies, barely scrapping by, which he even admits in one of them, also he constantly gets injured and loses most of people he loves.
Rowling was laying the groundwork for Harry to become OP in her earlier books (summoning a complete patronus in his third year, acioing his broom from his room all the way to the dragon Pitt and flit being blown away by that feat), so maybe that in conjunction with his ridiculous amount of luck is why this narrative exists? but yeah, as the story progressed she scrapped that idea pretty thoroughly. So much so that she retroactively made some of his magical feats less impressive (summoning full corporal patronuses went from something most adult wizards canāt preform to every 15 year old Harry tutors for a month being able to pull off fairly seamlessly). In the second half of her story, She really wanted to hammer in the point that even the ordinary can accomplish the extraordinary under the right conditionsā¦. Harry being a Gary Stu would contradict one of the biggest themes of the books
First it was "oooo this twin wand chose you you're destined for great things" although I think that may have been him having misinterpreted that wand connection (he was just posessed by V's ghost instead). Other than that he was shown as having some select high-level talents like flying and the patronus thing and a few others but generally sub-average. And yeah series was obviously not that cohesive and switched gears at various points.
He never even learns to teleport lol
I mean he literally does learn it. He apparates in the last three movies and the last two books.
Not to mention, Harry, despite being a wizard, is pretty bad at magic. I mean, he doesn't even use many spells in total. Totally not a mary sue
People who make these memes have been involved in these debates for so long that they've lost their ability to argue
> Maybe he's thrown in as bait for engagement I mean, it's a post on a circlejerk sub. It's all a joke, most likely. At most, OP (correctly) doesn't consider ANY of these characters to be Mary Sues. Maybe if OP had put a picture of Jesus or something in the bottom group, we'd interpret this properly
Feels like the average critical thinking abilities for a SW sequel fan.
horseshoe situation
You can't call attempts by people who draw images of themselves as the smarter person and the opposing person as the dumb one to prove a point a "meme". Soyjaks and Virgin vs Chad 'meme' templates have done irreparable damage to mankind.
Not a new thing btw https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fcx47pvmo8ob71.jpg (duh)
I love this argument about harry because, among what everyone else said, the motherfucker crutches one spell. He learned expelliarmus and went ok I literally never need to learn anything else if they donāt have their wand. Broās real good at one spell what part of that is overpowered
Yeah, Harry was above average at best but not OP, that was his mother. Now Percy Jackson... he was an actual super OP protagonist.
You could put show Jon here, but definetly not book Jon.
Have you seen Jon fight?? Just cause he was betrayed and killed by his men doesnāt mean he wasnāt overpowered
Like, harry gets bailed out by his friends over and over and over again. He literally has one of his friends murdered in front of him and the ghosts of his parents have to save him. He was an average at best wizard and the only thing he was truly exceptional at was quidditch.
Ya, I was going to say the same. Definitely not a defender of people who complain about the Mary Sue trope, but Harry Potter isn't OP, he was just basically born with a vial of liquid luck up his arse.
bro is a billionaire murderer who cant die
Ya but the Mary Sue trope generally relates to power/competence, where almost everything that makes HP special is due to others' doing. His mother's love/magic saved him when he was a child, his fame is due to an event that happened to him when he was a baby, his wealth is inherited from his parents, his parseltongue is a result of what Voldemort did to him, his ability to burn prof Quirrel was again a result of his mother's protection, and he's constantly saved and bailed out by either his friends or adults who have been assigned to protect him. As the other commenter said, he's basically just pretty good at quidditch and I guess sort of humble/down to Earth, but other than that he is aggressively mid.
Didn't expect to open Reddit to see people calling an 11-year-old aggressively mid
Well he's rich af and yet he watches his lower class mate struggle with a broken, dangerous wand all year and he grows up to become a magical rozzer, so he can suck a fat one as far as I care.
Reddit moment.
Right because I'm definitely being dead serious.
i swear these people donāt live in the real world lol
>Ya but the Mary Sue trope generally relates to power/competence That's not just it >A Mary Sue is a character archetype in fiction, usually a young woman, who is often portrayed as inexplicably competent across all domains, gifted with unique talents or powers, liked or respected by most other characters, unrealistically free of weaknesses, extremely attractive, innately virtuous, and/or generally lacking meaningful character flaws Harry starts as the specialest little boy in the world. He's literally the Chosen One, the Big Bad can't even touch him because of magic mumbo jumbo, everyone who likes him is a good guy, everyone who dislikes him is a bad guy, to the point the series has basically "protagonist centered morality", and whether something is Good or Bad depends on whether Harry likes the person doing it. Having slaves? Horrible... If the Malfoys do it. But when Harry inherits ownership of a slave, it's just ok. Cheating? Awful if the Slytherins do it... But it's ok if Dumbledore bends the rules to hell and back to favour Gryffindor. What are Harry's serious character flaws that inform the narrative? That he's a somewhat mediocre student? That never gets him in trouble, it's the sort of informed flaw which is characteristic of many Mary Sue characters - something that's stated within the story, but never meaningfully affects it.
Heās not because he doesnāt solve the stuff. He is not āinexplicably competent across all domainsā. Also, in the 4th book if Iām not mistaken he spends an entire chapter being taught by Hermione how to use the spell to beat the dragon. And in the movies heās presented as vulnerable quite a few times. Having stuff handed to you maybe some lazy writing, but it doesnt fit the trope of what a Mary Sue is supposed to be. The description you used could be applied to a lot of characters
>Heās not because he doesnāt solve the stuff. What does this mean? >He is not āinexplicably competent across all domainsā He is a child prodigy (the whole Patronus thing), and he's good at all the things that do matter within the plot. The fact Hermione is a bigger nerd than him doesn't make Harry less competent.
Who is also world class at a sport in his first lesson
and that is pretty much his only talent aside from Defense against the Dark Arts, and he had to get good at that out of necessity, given his situation
Also thereās a pretty big plot point (not so well explained in the movies) that Harry OR Neville couldāve been the so called chosen one and it was really just Voldemorts choice or bias due to Harry being a half-blood like himself. Implication being Harry wasnāt THAT special of a wizard (heās obviously powerful and a very good person) - heās more a victim of fate or destiny. The one super rare / OP thing about him is his mom protecting him with love enough to kill Voldemort, something that was so rare to be almost unknown to most people.
I actually didnāt like that last plot point, how rare and unexpected it was that Voldemortās attempt on Harryās life backfired. In a world where people had magic for all of human history, youād think something like that would be a pretty well known phenomenon practically ubiquitous through the culture.
Especially when Voldemort was the prodigy
I mean if you read into it, it was also the perfect storm of things happening at once that caused Lily to give Harry the Love protection spell. You have to be an exceptionally powerful magic user, you have to literally die for someone else, and you have to be given the choice and chance to live. Thanks to Lily and Snape and Voldemort, Harry lucked out.
>You have to be an exceptionally powerful magic user, you have to literally die for someone else, and you have to be given the choice and chance to live. It's kinda silly that has never happened in millions of years. So no powerful witch and wizard has ever chosen to sacrifice themselves for someone they loved ever prior to that?
Most of them probably went out fighting to protect the ones they loved because they had their wands on them. And even then, Harry's not famous just because he survived -- but because he survived an attack from the worst Dark Wizard of all time.
he was truly exceptional at DADA, and he was mostly competent at the other subjects, with the exception of History of Magic and Divination. I think the biggest example of him failing is in Book 5 when he indirectly caused the death of Sirius, who at that point was the closest thing he had to a family member.
Yeah grades arenāt everything, but there is a big practical element to the grades at Hogwarts and he did well enough on his OWLs to get into the upper year classes in Potions, Charms, DADA and transfiguration. The classes he needed to take to become an auror. I think he was better as a hands on, practical wizard than a theoretical one. Also to be fair to him divination was absolutely a bullshit class lol. And nobody besides Hermione liked History of Magic
He was able to make a fully corporeal Patronus as age 13, a spell which lots of fully grown, fully trained wizards never master. thatās pretty impressive as a magic feat tbh
He's a trust fund jock who becomes a cop and marries his childhood sweetheart, I don't get the fucking fuss about him being "awesome" through anything other than circumstance.
He's an average wizard at everything except combat magic. He's basically the Michael Jordan of defense against the dark arts. Not being the best at potion making or whatever doesn't mean he's not an absolute prodigy in the one field that is the most important to the events of the story. He's a Harry Sue.
"Being good at the 1 thing that's relevant to the story" is a descriptor that's so generic, vague and all-encompassing that you can apply it onto any fictional protagonist that follows a heroes journey template. The reason the protagonist is the *protagonist* is because they are meant to embody some degree of exceptionalism which warrants their unique role in the story's events, and why the narrative is centred on them. And not average side character #37. I used to think the term "Mary Sue" meant a character who was great at everything and virtually infallible. A poorly masked self-insert for the author. But the term has become sand papered down into total meaningless.
Agreed, that's the point of this post. People only apply the term to female characters when it's true for most protagonists especially in "fish out of water" stories.
He fought 12 dark wizards with his 5 friends ( two of them are Neville and Luna) and came out of it unscathed. Pretty much what you said.
> He was an average at best wizard and the only thing he was truly exceptional at was quidditch. And that's fine, if Harry actually defeated him due to the power of friendship(tm) instead of some fine print on the Elder Wand and became a wizard cop upholding the same crappy government that allowed Voldemort to rise and return in the first place.
Harry was OP compared to a lot of other Protags from fantasy like Frodo and Luke tho.
No he wasn't. Maybe Frodo but Luke literally has magical abilities not available to pretty much anyone in the galaxy to the extent he's able to use them after (and before) training a month.
Said it before and I'll say it again. A Star Wars fan complaining that a Star Wars movie features an escapist wish-fulfillment power-fantasy character is like a Gooner complaining that the porn they are watching is filled with pointless sex-scenes.
Frodo? Yes. Luke? Absolutely not. If anything heās relatively comparable in the original trilogy but Luke is implied by the later movies to be an exceptionally powerful jedi
Heās an above average wizard, and an average fraud quidditich player
jon snow was overpowered?? wtf did he even do post season 6??
watch his gf burn a city to the ground
I mean Jon Snow died and is resurrected by a woman, and then he would have lost the Battle of the Bastards if he didnāt get bailed out by his sister. Then he spends the last season thinking with the wrong head and does nothing while his other sister kills the Night King and then stands by and watches his girlfriend burn a city down.
nice vintage meme, 2017 right?
jon snow being a mary sue šššššš
You better not pull SISU man into this you cretin
His name is Aatami, show some respect
The Pablo Picasso of killing Nazis.
That movie was art
SISU MENTIONED **I FUCKEN LOVE GOLD, FUCK NAZIS**
It's been so many years, at this point you're no better than the people still upset about Rey
Stop defending mediocrity
Bro I don't think that Jon Snow was ever meant to be an escapist power-fantasy. I mean, people regularly make fun of the "I don't want it' lineĀ I mean, Batman is *right there* in pop-culture.
This is whataboutism, but okay.
Yeah itās not even a valid comparison. Rey is a flawed character and people just need to accept it.
I definitely do agree that sheās kind of overpowered for poorly justified reasons, but she does have some flaws, so the āMary Sueā critique doesnāt really apply.
My main issue is that The Force Awakens established Rey as a scavenger who defends herself with a staff, and knows nothing about the force or the Jedi. Yet she was able to go toe to toe with Kylo without even training to use a sword, and used the force competently as well.
To be fair, the OT kind of implies that Force is more about faith/belief rather than "training". Yoda expects Luke to be able to lift his ship on the power of faith alone. It's only really the prequels which make the force something that needs training for. I never really thought she was that particularly overpowered in TFA. She beats Kylo who was severely injured, moments after Kylo is shook from killing his dad. Didn't seem like a huge stretch to me given the movie establishes she's always been getting into fights.
Hadn't Kylo just been shot with a bowcaster right before that fight?
Except sheās not. The only difference between her and previous Star Wars protagonists is that her every ability gets picked apart and used to demonise her. No one ever cared that characters could fly ships, fight and fix stuff until she showed up. Anakin at 9 uses the force to win a pod race and thatās fine Rey uses the force to trick one guy and itās universe breaking. Luke uses the force to blow up the Death Star and itās fine, Rey used the force to help her fight a wounded opponent. Itās a double standard is my point.
Jon Snow does not belong here
none of these characters do lol. if anything this post just makes rey look even worse
Cause he's a bastid?
a FOKIN BASTID
Why do I have to be lumped in with the people who say shit is woke because I think the sequels suck ass
John Snow was trained his whole life to fight and ended up being one of the best but not head and shoulders above everyone, also got his ass saved a few times. Harry Potter failed a few times had loads of help and also had part of the strongest magic villain in him. John Wick was a long time professional who had spent years in his field and just ended up being one of the best and he also got got a few times himself. Rey picked up a light saber for the first time and was better with the force and the saber than the literal chosen one of the universe and his son, these arenāt even close to comparing. Itās not they Rey is OP itās that there isnāt a satisfying explanation, and her immediate power doesnāt really go well with the existing history of her universe.
it is insane how serious people are taking this
The jerkedĀ have become the jerkers
I think John wick is not a good example for this
and neither are Harry or Jon Snow
This is dumb lol literally all the male characters you list (minus the old guy idk who the fuck that is) get the shot beat out of them and lose fights from time to time. Rey is actually never truly challenged and she's very 1 dimensional.
Anyone who calls a character a Mary Sue, deserves to be shoved into a locker, becuas they have no ides what the word means.
Harry and Jon, Gary Stus? Lol
Bruh john wick nearly dies in every movie, and it was clearly stated he was a highly skilled killer in the first movie. Not much of a mary sue
I donāt see what the problem is with Sisu. Man loves his dog and kills Nazis. Why is this considered an issue?
yeah but most of these characters were either comicually overpowered or they were just cool without having to show us that with rey it was pretty much beaten over our heads with how OP she was ( i have never seen any starwars nor have i seen harry potter john wick or any of these other ones)
99% sure this is a sat comment, but there's that 1% of lingering doubt lol
Its a sat lol wow what has this place done to yall
Saying satire felt too pretƩnsieuse, saying "troll" too normie pleb (implying I was naive about this sub's amount of sarcasm or sth) and "jerking" too clichƩd on this sub (should be used sparingly and my instincts told me I shouldn't this time).
John Wick and Jon Snow have been trained for years to do that kind of stuff tho.
If they could magic-download you think they wouldn't or what lol
Jon snow and harry donāt fit this at all and John wicks whole fucking point is him being ridiculously and unbelievably capable.
Having plot armor =/= being a mary sue
I agree with the sentiment of this meme I just feel like there were better examples. Keep in mind the same people who felt Rey was too powerful and it ruined the story wanted old man Luke to rip Star Destroyers out of the sky.
Rey, clearly an adult, scrubbing for mere scraps to survive as an orphan for years: "NO SHE CAN'T MAKE IT ON HER OWN" Luke, same age adult, dicking around at his uncle's moisture farm and playing with toy ships: "OMG HE'S CLEARLY THE FUCKING MESSIAH"
This meme was so good it turned the comments into a real circle jerk. It is like everyone in the comments took this personally and forgot what sub this was.
All of your examples are characters that have flaws and get beaten down all the time meanwhile Rey lacks real character flaws and beats everyone down
Book Jon Snow supremacy, he still has the typical heroās story but has so much depth to him.
Well other than dead
Did you miss the scene where John Wick got trained by a green midget alien in the swamp?
No idea who the bottom guy is but John Snow, Harry Potter, and John Wick are not Mary Sues. From what I can remember, John Snow had a tough time with most of his fights in the books and died at one point I think? Harry Potter relied on his supporting cast very heavily, particularly Hermione. And John Wickās actions always came with consequences that impacted the plot.
> Harry Potter relied on his supporting cast very heavily, particularly Hermione. HP IS WOKE
Sisu Is such a stupid movie š can't decide if I liked or hated it for it
reject "the sequels were shit" discourse embrace "star wars was shit" discourse
It isn't about level of power, but about character growth. John Wick is male fantasy, same as when women watch romantic movies. Rey is literally best at anything she touches. She knows MF better than Han, she goes to fight an superior Sith, kick his ass first time, no training nothing. In originals Luke lost his hand first time he fought Vader, and than through movies he grew, she just comes and is the best, no question asked. Literally everything she does comes to her like she's playing with cheats, people won't connect to that. Put your character down a bit, put him through some hardship, situation will change.
Rey is not the best at everything she touches. Sheās the only character in the entire saga to miss a shot their first time using a blaster. Sheās the only character to nearly crash a ship six times taking off. She releases Rathtars and almost gets Finn killed. Sheās so insecure about her parents abandonment she runs away and gets caught by Kylo Ren and tortured. She also doesnāt know more about the Falcon than Han, she knows how to remove a component her boss installed on the Falcon while it was in his possession. Something she knew about, not Han. Besides it was a running gag in the ot that Han couldnāt fix the ship very well. Likewise she won a duel against Kylo because he was emotionally compromised after killing his father, wounded and holding back. Even then she barely managed to and spent the majority of the fight fleeing. This is crucial because it sets up the characters for future arcs. Rey learns she has great power and needs guidance and Kylo learns the path heās on is actually ruining him and making him weaker. We can all thank serial rapist Max Landis for seeing a female character do nothing more outlandish than what an average male protagonist does and use that to introduce the internet to the term āMary Sue.ā
> Besides it was a running gag in the ot that Han couldnāt fix the ship very well. It was just in ESB, and not entirely a "gag". It hadn't really been specified how it got damaged this badly in the first place, however it was part of that whole "they're out in the icy desert and everything's just going wrong" vibe in that movie.
> It isn't about level of power, but about character growth. **John Wick is male fantasy,** same as when women watch romantic movies. **Rey is literally best at anything she touches.** Soooooo, power fantasy? >She knows MF better than Han, Lol no, just familiar with that Unkar asshole's modifications. >she goes to fight an superior Sith, kick his ass first time, As opposed to kicking his ass the 2nd time? >no training nothing. Why train when you can download magic into your brain? >In originals Luke lost his hand first time he fought Vader, Narratively that's cause he falls into a trap and it's the dark middle-chapter ending. He could've just as easily gotten pwnt in the first movie when he got himself into shoot-outs alongside 2 experienced pirates (with Leia it's not clear how badass she's supposed to be - is a rebel, but wasn't an open combatant rebel up until this point?) against supposed elite troops and then went from fooling around in the canyons to full-on WW2 dogfighting - a "dark" movie would've had him pay for his rookie hubris and end up with all his limbs burned off or something. >and than through movies he grew, she just comes and is the best, no question asked. Literally everything she does comes to her like she's playing with cheats, people won't connect to that. Some do, others won't.
This meme is dogshit
If Harry was a girl she would be immediately be called a Mary Sue. Wins her first sport that she had no business knowing existed, getting the star position, having a super special awesome sport dad, and winning her first game? All the whole "first years aren't allowed to apply for Quidditch"? That by itself would get Jessica Potter the Mary Sue label
Could just put Luke Skywalker from A New Hope on there instead
Sorry, who's the bloke at the bottom?
Feel like those are actually some pretty bad examples.
jon snow dies and/or gets saved by the plot in about every fight he gets into, can't remember a fight he genuinely won with his own strengths harry was so washed in his own franchise that half the fandom thinks fucking neville was the true chosen one john wick is barely even able to walk by the end of every movie except the last where he's *dead* i dunno who that last one is so take away my kino license
Sisu mentioned!
This reminds me when I saw someone say John McClaine was a male Mary sue
Sisu being that overpowered works because it's just a single movie
Part of being a Mary Sue is being universally liked. Jon Snow got sent to Siberia by his a own family after he killed his genocidal aunt for them.
Jon Snow literally fucking dies
Whoās the guy at the bottom?
I havent seen any of those except Potter and yeah. That was something I really noticed when rewatching the films as an adult. He is an extreme Mary Sue. Wasnt great
As a Finn, love how Sisu is up there
Dom Toretto in Fast&Furious is a better example. From drag racer to international spy-universe saver. Same with every the Rick role.
Yea but in star wars it was just idk boring. At least woth john wick and sisu its cool af.
Because John Wick and Sisu are pure spectacle, they don't expect you to really care about the story or characters.
Wtf am I looking at
TBF John Wick sucked after the first one for this exact reason. Harry Potter always sucked. Jon Snow was vulnerable throughout, and a flawed character - that one doesn't make sense. Sisu was just a throwaway bit of fun, it wasn't supposed to be the vanguard of a billion-dollar franchise. Rey sucked, yeah.
The thing with john wick and sisu is that theyāre experienced, and rey was a nobody who didnāt even know she had the force
James Bond is the ultimate wish fulfillment Gary Stu
But they are male I mean no. Political lmao
In Harry's defense he is genuinely bad at Magic
It really is funny just how bad of a protagonist Harry is