Is Jack-Jack a Mary Sue?

Overpowered =/= Mary Sue.

It's more than that. Mary is also someone that pretty much all the other characters love. Sometimes, even the villains will admire them and talk about how great they are. A Mary Sue makes no mistakes and solves everything single-handedly.

You are sin.

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Not true. Also, why the slash and the unnecessary second 'equals'-mark?

Mary Sue is more than just being overpowered, otherwise, we would just call it 'overpowered'.

There are many overpowered characters that you couldn't describe as Mary Sues. Think about Superman, Beyonder, Galactus and so on and so forth. Very OP, not Mary Sues.

To be Mary Sue, it's not about POWER. For example, even Spider-Man could kick the modern star wars' Mary Sues' buttockses easily and not even break a sweat. They don't have as much power.

It's about LACK of things.

Mary Sues have NO weaknesses. They don't have to LEARN anything. They have no struggles, conflicts or problems, they don't have what makes someone charming, likable or human. Mary Sues rarely even have personalities.

The thing is, they have abilities WITHOUT having earned them. Technically, so does Superman, but at least he's trying to be humble, use his powers for good, and do good deeds and such. He has internal struggles, psychological struggles and even weaknesses, like kryptonite and magic. Mrxyzptlk has also been a pain in his butt quite a lot, and Luthor knows how to hurt him.

Mary Sue solves every problem easilly, just because she is 'great'. There's no explanation to her abilities and her lack of weaknesses.

The thing is, Superman can fail, Mary Sue can't. That's the biggest difference between someone that's simply overpowered and someone that's Mary Sue, even if she doesn't have that much actual power.

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A Mary Sue tends to steal focus from the other characters and nothing they do is ever treated as wrong.

Or if some other character does call the Mary Sue out for doing something that was clearly wrong or at least morally questionable the character calling the Mary Sue out is usually portrayed as "the bad guy" who can only be "redeemed" by embracing the Mary Sue. Batman & Wolverine have been known to get the "Mary Sue" treatment (or Gary Stu/Marty Stu).


Case in Point (sorry to be going off topic) -


Suyin Bei Fong from "The Legend of Korra", who is such a fan fic character & all around creator's pet that her first name might as well be Mary, a former teen rebel everyone is expected to worship because she turned her life around, became a self-made renaissance woman & now owns her own city, Zafou. Her older half-sister, Lin, has resentment issues with her & the episodes introducing Suyin & her family go to ridiculous lengths to vilify & degrade Lin in order to play up how supposedly awesome Suyin is (including but not limited to rigging a fight between the two sisters so that Lin can't possibly win & Suyin stomps on her, showing some serious cowardice on the part of the otherwise talented writers for not having the courage to put the two in a fair fight) & how wrong it is not to embrace her & anyone who doesn't embrace her suffers for it. Lin is ultimately bullied & brainwashed into forgiving Suyin even though Suyin did absolutely nothing to really earn that forgiveness (their mom, Toph Bei Fong from the previous Avatar series, The Last Airbender, also gets the Mary Sue treatment when she finally shows up in the present) and quickly stabs Lin in the back by lying to her about how they'll deal with a traitor in the household & then sends Korra & her friends to chase the traitor down. When Lin objects after the fact she is once treated as being in the wrong because Mary Suyin is always right even when she's wrong. She even gets to save Korra's life at the end of season 3 with some B.S. liquid metal bending that shouldn't even work given the nature of bending the elements (metal bending works only by tapping into the Earth that remains in the metal).


In season 4 Suyin stabs the main character Korra in the back for refusing to use her empowered Avatar State to slaughter the season 4 antagonist Kuvira & her army who are parked outside Suyin's city - Korra opts for diplomacy with Kuvira instead - by sneaking into Kuvira's camp with her obnoxious twin sons & tries to murder Kuvira herself believing Kuvira's army will just disband without her, which backfires leading to the bulk of Suyin's family being thrown in jail, her city being conquered & Korra getting her ass handed to her by Kuvira when she tries to duel her for the city of Zafou. And this was after Suyin spent years refusing to help reunite the Earth Kingdom, leading to Kuvira (who was once Suyin's captain of the guard) taking matters into her own hands by building up her own army (at least of a quarter of which is comprised of troops from Suyin's private army) to deal with the bandits & warlords currently threatening the shattered Earth Kingdom. The otherwise talented writers also continue to show that they don't have the courage to seriously hurt Suyin by subjecting her to the kind of no holds barred beat down other characters endure - the one time she takes on Kuvira, her former pupil, in a fair fight the fight ends rather quickly & we expected to be horrified at how quickly Suyin gets her ass handed to her by her former pupil Kuvira, but it's handled in a such a laughable manner (again the writers clearly did not have the courage to smack their pet character Suyin around) that you can't help rolling your eyes.


And yet, Suyin is treated as an innocent victim & we are expected to feel sorry for her in a tragic hero kind of way despite season 4's various conflicts being at least partly her fault. When she & Korra are reunited Korra is all hugs & kisses & you half expect her to proclaim "Oh Saint Suyin I Was So Worried About You!" If any other character had done what Suyin did Korra would have thrown a massive tantrum chastising them for pulling such a stupid stunt.


In other words, Mary Suyin Bei Fong is always right even when she's wrong, even when she's exposed as a hypocrite (she makes a big fuss about the importance of family & loyalty yet happily stabs her own friends & family in the back when they stand in the way of what she wants), even when she's lying & stabbing people in the back.



Whew, sorry for the rant.


Anyhow, I'd say Jack-Jack doesn't get enough screen time to really count as a Mary-Sue/Marty Stu. We'll have to see what the sequel holds for him.

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