God, What a Mary Sue or Wish Fulfillment Stories for Female Writers are Nothing More than a Joke

A Mary Sue, according to TVTropes.org is a female character in a story who serves as a highly idealized version of the author, primarily for wish fulfillment. While you may not have heard the term before, you might've seen a (female) character written by a female author that you find unrealistic with a perfect life and perfect hair and perfect everything and you've written her off as an author self-insert - the kind of person the author wishes she could be.

A fairly obvious author insert/wish fulfillment character: Bella Swan.

Here's a description of a Mary Sue character from adventuresofacomicbookgirl:

"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."

Sounds kinda overdone and a little terrible, right?

Well here's who was just described.

Mary Sue is a term slapped onto a female character when they sound "too perfect" or they have a life that sounds "too good to be true". But consider a typical male action hero: solves the problem with superhuman strength/intellect/etc., saves the world, gets the girl, lives happily ever after.

Consider James Bond for a moment. Why is he so beloved when female wish fulfillment characters are hated?

Why is it that now that said character is a female this is suddenly a problematic trope that no one will ever read or watch. Hmm. It's actually something that is actively encouraged against for young female writers. It's the worst thing they can do. Besides pushing women out of writing fiction, it also pushes internalized misogyny into these girls. I hated all female characters until I was about 13 because too many of them were too perfect and unrealistic and I didn't like that - and I know I'm not the only girl who felt that way. I don't know about you, but there's a major problem with that.

Wish fulfillment is not a new aspect of fiction, it's what fiction is. The next time you go to write a female character off as unrealistic in any way, consider Batman or James Bond and pause before you make your decision to hate a female character based on her perfection.