Your metroid characters?

[Will Keaton]

A character who says they have defeated Samus Aran would seem to be a Mary Sue. However there are numerous ways to counter this:

Have them be much more experrienced than Samus. Most Mary Sues are improbably young to be as good as they are suppossed to be, however Samus wasn't always the best bounty hunter in the galaxy. An older character or an alien with a life span of a few hundred years could have been a superb bounty hunter before Sammy was even born. This is much more believable than some young, inexperienced thing beating Samus their first day on the job.

Show, don't tell. Instead of saying, "this guy beat Samus," show the fight. if you make the fight believable it makes the whole thing that much more convincing.

Play to their strengths. Samus is suppossed to be the best bounty hunter in the galaxy but there are a lot of different skills that come into play here. I wouldn't say she is the very best tracker in the galaxy and Trace is probably a better sniper than she is. Also, Kanden is suppossed to be unkillable so even if Samus is able to lay down some serious smack on him it's not inconcevable that he would be ablt to get up and just keep coming.

Lucky Devil. The best man doesn't always win the fight, sometimes victory is due to a lucky shot. Or maybe some guy caught Samus just after she finished another fight and wasn't in the best of shape at the time. This may not be the best way to make the reader respect the character in question but if the reveal is done right it could lead to some interesting character development.

Everything comes with a price. Someone could gain some sweet new abilities through something like experimental genetic enginering or snorting phazon. This could let them beat Samus without seeming like a Mary Sue, but these kinds of things are likley to have major downsides...


One other thing that helps avoid Mary Sue-izm and helps the stroy overall is well developed characters. Know your character inside- out and how they would react to any given situation. Also, know their speech patterns and idiolect. A good author can have a group of people onstage all talking at once and have everyone be identified just by what they say and how they say it.

[Steamlord]

snorting phazon.

That's all I read.

[Thoadthetoad]

Well will, you certainly helped me find out how to make better characters within a fandom!

But anyone who sees this thread keep in mind that I am throwing the character and most likely am not goign to make another one for a bit. at least not pertaining to the metroid franchise.

[Antiquity]

Response to Will Keaton -

Or, as a final possibility and as I suggested earlier, the person who bests Samus might do so in such a way that Samus' ability as a bounty hunter doesn't come into play at all.


I think that the Metroidverse could benefit from having more legendary heroes besides just Samus, but having different abilities and serving different heroic roles so as to not complete with Samus for either competence or glory.

[Rildok]

Like for example my character Hiraito is an expert demolitionist. Much more capable for blowing stuff up than Samus could be. Am I right?

[sharonlover]

I indeed do have a Metroid character. My character's name is Lana Aran, and yes that would be the daughter of Samus Aran. It's always a fight with people when they tell me that my character is a Mary Sue, when in reality she's not. I was tired of doing fanfictions with Samus in them and wanted to start a new Trilogy after my first couple of fanfics. Not wanting to part with the Power Suit or the Chozo blood line, I decided to give Samus a child.

This was no immaculate conception as one of my previous stories involving Samus had her meeting Armstrong Houston. In an unknown event in the future, the two become lovers (whether actually married or not I never quite decided); however, they did bare a child, Lana. With Lana, I tried not to make her too much like Samus.

Lana's Backstory:

Samus had found that the x-virus she was infected with caused unknown reactions to her body. This made her body age at an accelerated rate. The only thing that slowed down the process was the Metroid DNA from the vaccine. Samus was impregnated by Houston shortly before the events of Super Metroid as Houston died (and is the answer in my fanverse to who the body in front of Kraid's lair is). The events of Fusion took place while Samus was only a couple of months pregnant since there was no set time as to the events of Fusion beyond after SM. This enabled Lana to inherit the existing DNA her mother had.

After the events of Fusion, Samus ages quickly, becoming frail and walker bound by Lana's age 17(yes walker bound...stop laughing...or not ). During this time period, Samus does not talk about her father Houston. She does not know who he is other then another bounty hunter. While Lana is out shopping amongst the denizens of the Chozo colony of Amidos, Samus is confronted yet again by her arch-nemesis Ridley.

Ridley scoffs at her and leaves her to perish at the hands of a bomb. Lana sees the explosion and rushes home to find her mother dying. She does so in Lana's arms, telling her to stop Ridley's plan. Lana was not raised as a fighter and spends a year with the Chozo training before going off in search of Ridley.

The rest....is for the story...which I know what to re-write that trilogy and complete it for that matter

much planning to do.

**EDIT**

I forgot to explain Lana a bit more, work crunch. Anyhow Lana did inherit the Chozo blood, Metroid DNA and her mother's normal human DNA. I've always enjoyed the green hair issue and decided to make it Samus' and Lana's hair color (though Samus kept her's dyed to the blondish brown we know of today). Lana was not raised as a combat killer; instead, she pretty much lived your normal girls life on a Chozo colony. When Samus dies, she's thrown into the world of the Power Suit, picking up her mother's Fusion suit to do her bidding. She is not as strategic and smart about all of her decisions in battle, something her battle hardened mother was. She has great agility though which helps her stay on top. With no reputation, she takes on a bounty as her mother (GFP doesn't know she is dead yet) and continues the journey Samus left behind.

She uses her Fusion ship and is assisted by Adam (the computer of course) to complete her bounties and help teach her the ways along the way. Unlike Samus, Adam simply refers to the new Aran as Lana instead of Lady, a sign of Adam's utmost respect that Samus had to earn, much like our new heroine may in the future.

[Antiquity]

I read the opening to that story, and could not get past Ridley planning to murder Samus with a time bomb, which struck me as out of character for Ridley.

I don't see why Lana is would be a Mary Sue from the description you've given us. The reason why Mary Sue characters are irritating is because they tend to eclipse the main characters we know and love and because they're frequently unstoppable. It is quite possible to write a good story featuring a main character who is a Mary Sue or at least has definite Mary Sue-like tendencies.

In Lana's case, Lana could very week equal Samus, and Samus has a very good reason for being out of the picture. I don't think many of us would be too upset with the fact that Samus, being human, does have to die sometime.

[sharonlover]

I read the opening to that story, and could not get past Ridley planning to murder Samus with a time bomb, which struck me as out of character for Ridley.

I was thinking the same thing when I was re-reading it yesterday. That's a really old work too, and there are lots of mistakes and things I want to change. My second version will correct that particular issue, so I'm probably gonna post it here once I re-vamp it

As for Lana = Mary Sue. The problem I run into is people read she's the daughter of Samus Aran and immediately stereotype her as being Samus Aran and just as powerful. I'm hoping to develop Lana better in this story to. With her inexperience I want her to be making more mistakes in the first story and show her getting better as she makes her way into the second and finally in the third story become just under par of her mother.

We'll just have to wait and see how it all goes though

[Lazarius]

Ooh, here's another rule of Mary Sues.

If at any point the character flips out and becomes 10x more powerful because his or her friends are hurt, you have a Mary Sue.

Doesn't make those sequences any less awesome though.

[sharonlover]

Ooh, here's another rule of Mary Sues.

If at any point the character flips out and becomes 10x more powerful because his or her friends are hurt, you have a Mary Sue.

Doesn't make those sequences any less awesome though.

I don't see how that can be considered Mary Sue....I look at it this way. If you are in the presence of someone who is hurting someone you love, the adrenaline does make you seem that much more powerful. Look at the stories of mama's and papa's lifting things off their kids, or jumping into action when a friend or family member is in danger. That adrenaline rush is what gives them that 'temp superpower' and I think it's crazy to call it a Mary Sue symptom since technically, anyone could experience that.

discuss?

[Lazarius]

I mean characters who are usually not particularly strong, but once you piss them off suddenly they're capable of killing anything and anyone, without any decent explanation. If there's some kind of reason for it, like The Hulk, who just becomes stronger and stronger the angrier he gets, there's no problem. But I'm talking regular humans who break out of chains and beat guys twice as big as them without any trouble. It's just silly.

[Thoadthetoad]

Ooh, here's another rule of Mary Sues.

If at any point the character flips out and becomes 10x more powerful because his or her friends are hurt, you have a Mary Sue.

Doesn't make those sequences any less awesome though.

I don't see how that can be considered Mary Sue....I look at it this way. If you are in the presence of someone who is hurting someone you love, the adrenaline does make you seem that much more powerful. Look at the stories of mama's and papa's lifting things off their kids, or jumping into action when a friend or family member is in danger. That adrenaline rush is what gives them that 'temp superpower' and I think it's crazy to call it a Mary Sue symptom since technically, anyone could experience that.

discuss?

I see your point, like a mother bear kicking the living shit out of anythign that messes with it's cubs!


as for the whole breakign chains and whatnot, yes, that's very sue-like and silly. But I think that was only to make them awesum or something. I never quite got it.

Also, mod who has went here, can you change the title of the thread to a mary sue discussion? Unless I can do that. Newbie to this forum

[sharonlover]

Ooh, here's another rule of Mary Sues.

If at any point the character flips out and becomes 10x more powerful because his or her friends are hurt, you have a Mary Sue.

Doesn't make those sequences any less awesome though.

I don't see how that can be considered Mary Sue....I look at it this way. If you are in the presence of someone who is hurting someone you love, the adrenaline does make you seem that much more powerful. Look at the stories of mama's and papa's lifting things off their kids, or jumping into action when a friend or family member is in danger. That adrenaline rush is what gives them that 'temp superpower' and I think it's crazy to call it a Mary Sue symptom since technically, anyone could experience that.

discuss?

I see your point, like a mother bear kicking the living shit out of anythign that messes with it's cubs!


as for the whole breakign chains and whatnot, yes, that's very sue-like and silly. But I think that was only to make them awesum or something. I never quite got it.

Also, mod who has went here, can you change the title of the thread to a mary sue discussion? Unless I can do that. Newbie to this forum

well i also see Laz's point as he discussed, and you should be able to go back to the first post and edit it

[Antiquity]

I read the opening to that story, and could not get past Ridley planning to murder Samus with a time bomb, which struck me as out of character for Ridley.

I was thinking the same thing when I was re-reading it yesterday. That's a really old work too, and there are lots of mistakes and things I want to change. My second version will correct that particular issue, so I'm probably gonna post it here once I re-vamp it

As for Lana = Mary Sue. The problem I run into is people read she's the daughter of Samus Aran and immediately stereotype her as being Samus Aran and just as powerful. I'm hoping to develop Lana better in this story to. With her inexperience I want her to be making more mistakes in the first story and show her getting better as she makes her way into the second and finally in the third story become just under par of her mother.

We'll just have to wait and see how it all goes though

We aren't really confident exactly how badass Samus herself is. Considering the difficulty of the missions she undertakes, she must be almost superhuman in order to complete them, but we should imagine that every mission still challenges her seriously - Ridley has to have some reason to imagine that his next encounter with Samus will end in his victory for a change, after all.

Besides, even at the time of MZM, Samus has already had several missions, and has experience. I would assume she wasn't always as good as she is.


Re: Mary Sues - Mary Sueism is a syndrome that characterizes immaturely written fan fiction in general. There are a lot of features that many Mary Sues have, but not every Mary Sue has all of them, and almost any good character, at least a protagonist, has to have some of them, and Samus herself in fact has quite a number. As such, there isn't any single indicator that "X is a Mary Sue, but Y is not". The trick is to create a character who is interesting and not irritating. Any character who holds the attention of the reader is almost by definition not a Mary Sue, even if she has many of the hallmarks of one.

Re: Mary Sues - Mary Sueism is a syndrome that characterizes immaturely written fan fiction in general. There are a lot of features that many Mary Sues have, but not every Mary Sue has all of them, and almost any good character, at least a protagonist, has to have some of them, and Samus herself in fact has quite a number. As such, there isn't any single indicator that "X is a Mary Sue, but Y is not". The trick is to create a character who is interesting and not irritating. Any character who holds the attention of the reader is almost by definition not a Mary Sue, even if she has many of the hallmarks of one.

QFT.

You know, I think I'm going to start a thread about Mary Sues on the offtopic board, so we can discuss this in greater depth.