>>112664236>the qualifier is an authorial self-insert which is clearly meant to stroke their ego and mollify their insecuritiesYou're not wrong, but I think this definition is incomplete. This is the most common cause, but not the only one, and I'd also argue that defining the word based on the symptoms, rather than the cause, is more useful because the symptoms are the part we can actually SEE rather than just speculate on.
Tons of characters who get called Mary Sues were written by a team of people, not just one person, so it's basically impossible for them to truly be one person's self-insert. A Mary Sue doesn't stop being a Mary Sue just by not technically being one author's idealized fictional self-- it's about how they function in the story.
When authors make ego-stroking self inserts, what are those characters LIKE? What are the common threads between them, what effects do they have on the story? How are they treated by the narrative? That's the more useful working definition.
That said 90% of people who call characters Mary Sues are stupid and mindlessly using a buzzword to make their complaint feel more important than just "I don't like them." It's ok to just think a character sucks or is poorly written.
