Final Fantasy Hacktics

http://www.springhole.net/writing/marysue.htm

Take this test, if you're man enough.

Took it and based it on my latest roleplaying game character. Got an 18.

Can't really explain the character without being boring, but most those questions were about making the character endearing. My character was a sociopath that blew up half the world and everyone in-universe hated him for it. My fellow players just thought him funny or a jerkass. In fact, the campaign ended with me having a giant floating castle, getting besieged by almost everyone we had pissed off over the last year and a half, and ultimately all the player characters dying. And it was awesome.

My character got a 20.

Quote from: Dokurider on February 23, 2012, 10:26:20 pm
Take this test, if you're man enough.

I'm not 'man' enough though, never will be. ^_^

8 is unfair, I describe all my characters poetically, Mary Sue or not. Heck, I gave a three paragraph description to a background character simply because the scene was being narrated by a womanizer who noticed specific details about her.

Also, I have a bad habit of building characters that score lower than I believe they should... maybe I build MS-test breaking characters?

15 for my Larp caracther, but then again it's the only fictionnal caracther I really play.

CoP heroes cannot be this well defined, so I won't play them

I must question this line thougth... :
If your character lost her virginity unwillingly, does she find a way to restore it?

If you answer yes to that, you instantly get a 50+ MS points.

Quote from: Kokojo on February 24, 2012, 08:26:20 pm
If your character lost her virginity unwillingly, does she find a way to restore it?

"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint, it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey... suff..." - the Doctor

There's a boatload of unfortunate implications with "restoring virginity," that range from unsettling to hilarious.

"There are no such thing as were-virgins."

*intentionally reads the "were" in the same way as "werewolf"*

I believe that is the way it is supposed to be read.

Err well, yes.. um...

Hey look, a three headed monkey!


*runs*

16:31 Kokodead: If your character lost her virginity unwillingly, does she find a way to restore it?
16:40 Dokurider: Hey, I know how to make that question not so dumb
16:40 Dokurider: If she's a regenerator
16:40 Dokurider: She just regens her hymn every time
16:40 Kokodead charges All-Ultima on Dokurider
16:40 Dokurider: *hymen
16:41 Dokurider: u just mad
16:41 Dokurider: u didn't think of it first
16:41 Kokodead finishes casting
16:41 Kokodead deals 999 daamge to dokurider

Niggas be killing innovation in chat.

A hymen is non-indicative of virginity.


And the problem is people care too much in the first place. As if a woman (and it's always a woman) is somehow worth less if she's not a virgin.

QuoteUPDATE: Many people who have taken this test have claimed it's impossible to get a non-Sue unless your character is a plain ordinary human, or that my test is biased against fantasy characters. I've used this test on several fantasy characters, including characters from certain popular video games and other media, and they came out just fine.

Bullshit. I can't get one.

All the stuff that might apply to fantasy characters has the prerequisite of the character being exceptional at it.

So a wizard could still score a 0, assuming they weren't the super wizard of legend.

I just like the title of this post lol.
I dare not take the test lest the test proves I am

So yeah, 38
Poor Firkon. I should have him die very soon. But slime, slime will live on..
forever

Durbs, you're right.  I don't know of any major character from most fantasy games that AREN'T like this.  Heck, most fail Question #1 (if we wanted other universes to be mythology or classic tails of fantasy).

As for the actual test itself, I agree with the spirit of the exercise, but not the substance.

The biggest problem I see is linear stacking; again, to use Question I as an example, if a white Inuyasha fangirl put herself in her own contrived world as Kagome, which just so happened to also be her AIM screen name, even if she was a perfect writer, she'd get a 17 for mostly just being an unoriginal fangirl.  (Now granted, the spirit of the exercise would point out that such a person is likely a terrible writer and ascribe to herself ridiculous powers that would put even the writers of Inuyasha to shame, but that's besides the point of the layout of this question.)

There's also questions that have bijective relationships that easily racks up points:
Original Fiction 10 vs Question 73, 48, 2: Obviously, if your character saves a bunch of people and becomes the leader, he'll become the best at fighting in the region (48), likely earn a title of noble or leader (73) and thus gain an extra title to his name (2).  Similarly, 73 and 48 both cause 2 to be true.  The bigger question is more of how much the character basks in such glory and how important is it to the plot.
Question 29/34: These are really the same question.  The only difference is that in a cheesy story with violence, 29 and 34 will likely both be true while in one without, only 29 will be.
Question 30/31: Well, if your character is defiant against wrongful authorities and establish that reputation, then whenever this character is seen, such authorities will try to punish your character simply as payback for previous circumstances.  Thus, Question 31 is answered as true because Question 30 was answered true.  Similarly, if Question 31 is true (i.e. the character gets in trouble with wrongful authorities), is it unreasonable to expect a character to then be openly defiant?
Question 55 vs. 40/41: Obviously, if 55 is true, so is 41.  Also, in any fantasy universe, if 41 is true, usually so is 55.  Furthermore, the effect of 55 is often what is observed in 40.
Question 67: Besides listing magical weapons twice, they neglect the fact that if a weapon is legendary, it's probably magical to begin with.  To be honest, the question should simply be, does your character have a specialized weapon only he can use?
Question 79: Ditto with responses a/c/d; also, a character who did c) and didn't answer anything to Question 86 would rightfully be considered a cad.  Yes, I'm fully aware of this trope in JP anime, but seriously, that doesn't make a character a Sue unless they constantly bring it up or the authors deliberately shield the characters from bearing responsibility (which means 86 part c) should be the most damning section).
Question 92 vs. 93-95: Obviously, if someone sees themselves as the character in question, they'll feel any insults against such a person as a personal attack.

Then there are the stupid questions:
Question 43: As dumb an oversight as this is, it really depends on the story.  If the theme of a story is that people should plant more flowers and the main character who believes this always dines in a fancy restaurant, there's no direct connection between the moral and the protagonist's spending habits.  Realism may not always be the preferred reason for writing a story.  Of course, self-glorification and propaganda shouldn't be either.
Question 81: What does this mean?
Question 79/80/82: Apparently, this implies someone who loses an extended family in a raid is more of a Mary Sue because they suffer more than someone who loses a nuclear family in a raid.  I'm not sure that's even true.
Question 91: You mean to tell me you'd rather write about someone you don't like or don't care about?  Ditto with Anti-Sue 24.  No doubt that emotion can blind reason and realism, but if you write about a character no one really likes, and you're not doing it to try out a role or be moralistic, why do it?  Writing is as much a reflection on what we want the world to be as what it currently is.
Anti-Sue 25: There's nothing like a good dose of research.  However, this is actually subject to the writer's discretion.  If I write fantasy or science fiction, I can reasonably claim the existence of a magical system that has never existed, is not based on existing systems, and likely never will exist as long as people in our world can relate to it and is internally consistent.  And if such systems, technological, social, or magical change what we might consider to be "human nature" in our world and this process can be adequately conveyed to the reader, I see no reason to restrict ourselves solely to what is known in our world.  Similarly, questions pertaining to time period assumes in some sense that the world in existence has time periods similar to the history of our planet or has places/societies that are direct corollaries to the West/East/Arabia... That needn't be true for the generalized story, just the majority of them.

The Anti-Sues that are missing:
Do you consciously try to limit the powers of your unit during either the story design phase or the storyline development phase?
Do you accurately portray effects of wounds to a warrior and the time it takes to heal from them?  (This applies even in universes with magical healing.)  This one may be already asked, but I think it's actually a very important one for anyone who tries to simulate combat.
Do you consciously and accurately portray the dualities of power?  In short, if your character is cross-cultural/racial, do you accurate portray the internal conflicts and pains from having to navigate between two cultures?  Or do you naively assume this character is simply has the best traits of both?  In fact, deliberately trying to be an anti-Sue by giving them the worst traits of both is just as stupid as doing the opposite.