What's the difference between a Chosen One and a Mary Sue?

[trickybus]

The other night, I was listening to a video essay critiquing a popular shōnen anime. The video author used the 'Chosen One' archetype to describe the protagonist but as he listed more and more of his traits—special bloodline gifts that activate when needed and are more special than anyone else's, a complete lack of negative emotions, the ability to dodge the consequences of their incompetence, the ability to affect the world on a much grander scale than anyone else with comparable power—,a thought occurred: "This doesn't sound like a Chosen One at all; this is a Mary Sue."

This train of thought got me thinking about the application of these concepts in all kinds of media types. The reason why I'm using the Books & Magazines tab is because both archetypes originate from written works (to my knowledge; feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken) and since I'd like to dissect them and hear other user's theories on what makes them distinct, it seems like a good fit.

So, in your words, define a Chosen One, a Mary Sue and explain what keeps a character from transforming into the latter.

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

hmmm...
A Chosen one has to go through a hurdle and a Mary Sue is a person who magically got all these powers without trials and tribulations. Like Luke Skywalker or Anakin Skywalker who goes through a great deal to learn their powers and for an ultimate goal. Then we have Rey who just randomly became a God of the force and can learn how to use a lightsaber like a master.

 

[Dokeshiishan]

i am no expert but from what i know chosen one is a character archtype and mary sue is character personality type what i mean is most chosen one is a plot device and mary sue is how the character is written

 

[Segadude113]

Chosen ones often have some kind of quest to get to the goal. They start off small with nothing special to their name, no special abilities or if they do have special powers, they're dormant until a crucial moment or someone trains them how to use it, like an old wise master or whatever. Mary Sue tends to get everything right from the get go, and that robs us of cool training scenes and fights. What you do is you have the hero be it a man or woman or kid or whatever lose the first fight against the big bad guy or lose something or someone precious, like parents, or a love interest or whatever, then you have them get good over time over the course of the story to have a rematch with the big bad guy. We root for the underdog. Mary Sue is the opposite of the underdog. Even Chosen ones can be underdogs. You can have a chosen one be a woman. That's no problem at all. It still works. But you rarely see that.

 

[MrMann]

i'll add that a chosen one can be a mary sue, but is not the same.

 

[Coon]

A "Chosen One" is a character who has a special destiny or a great task, often involving supernatural or magical elements. A "Mary Sue" is an overly perfect and idealized character, often with few discernible flaws, who is admired by other characters and possesses few identifiable abilities.

 

[Segadude113]

One of the things that hurts most isekai anime is the mc is a mary sue/stu where the mc is already super powerful and gets all the ladies. It's lame. It's just living out a fantasy.

 

[MasterEn]

the chosen one usually kind of sucks at first in the story; like luke skywalker or harry potter. they have one or two things that they are good at and everything else they usually learn throughout their adventure or someone else teaches them.
a mary sue is usually an author's self insert. the character is perfect even with flaws. everyone wants to be their friend or more. everyone agrees with them, even if their ideas are bad. they are always considered to be the best at everything, even if they should have no way of being so. and so on and so on. they start off perfect, so there's not really anything interesting that can happen to them during the story. the most that the character could do is mentor another character, and i don't think i've ever heard of a mary sue character doing that.

 

[Segadude113]

the chosen one usually kind of sucks at first in the story; like luke skywalker or harry potter. they have one or two things that they are good at and everything else they usually learn throughout their adventure or someone else teaches them.
a mary sue is usually an author's self insert. the character is perfect even with flaws. everyone wants to be their friend or more. everyone agrees with them, even if their ideas are bad. they are always considered to be the best at everything, even if they should have no way of being so. and so on and so on. they start off perfect, so there's not really anything interesting that can happen to them during the story. the most that the character could do is mentor another character, and i don't think i've ever heard of a mary sue character doing that.

like fanfiction

 

[Your_Homie_Gale]

Does the Chosen One have at least 1 or a few losses? If so then they are not Mary Sue.

 

[MasterEn]

like fanfiction

yeah. that's where the term originated from more or less. to be more specific, it started with a fan fic for a star trek magazine. a young woman wrote a story where she was a character in the star trek universe and she was the "bestest evar" kind of character. she outdid all of the established characters, broke records that the others held, like being the youngest in the military or whatever the space army is called. she was half vulcan like spock, so on and so on.
just a writer making themselves the most absolutely perfect person ever in a story.

 

[Segadude113]

It doesn't even have to be about people dying, it can be something like chasing a master thief, getting there too late, and then later tracking them down and outsmarting them! Like trying to catch Carmen Sandiago!

 

[Bakuma1997]

Mary Sue: No matter how many fuck ups she commits in the story, she never gets called for messing up or making the quest harder for everyone, the story emphatises how perfect she is and anyone that rightfully calls her is a jerk, heck, Emperor Evulz needs a ritual/Weapon/specific person to defeat him, yet she wins by merely telling him he "is a total meanie :("

Chosen One: Most of the time they are dismissed, even when showing their potential, they tend to be called out more for minor mistakes, even showing disbelief a regular person can (GASP) screw up, their legit flaws can be enphatized, depending if the writer wants to be subversive, the whole "Chosen One" can be bologna and either the "Chosen one" fails or win despite the hardships due to the development his journey lead him into

 

[Segadude113]

It doesn't even have to be about people dying, it can be something like chasing a master thief, getting there too late, and then later tracking them down and outsmarting them! Like trying to catch Carmen Sandiago!

SPEAKING OF WHICH, THAT GIVES ME AN IDEA

 

[MasterEn]

SPEAKING OF WHICH, THAT GIVES ME AN IDEA
View attachment 89272View attachment 89273

we might get this one day. we already got a lupin the 3rd and case closed cross-over. it could just be a matter of time.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

A Chosen One is initially not liked, they are usually even opposed quite heavily (see Po from Kung Fu Panda, Midoriya from MHA; even Sakuragi from Slam Dunk --even though he isn't one in the traditional sense--) and have to fight tooth and nail to prove themselves, whereas a Mary Sue is everyone else's physical embodiment of what they love the most and what they aspire to be. Their worlds are not real because they can have no flaws and whatever issues others characters may have with them are immediately dismissed by the majority.

 

[Tonberry]

I wouldn't say a Chosen One and a Mary Sue are equivalents like that.
From what I can glean, "Mary Sues" typically don't have to work as hard to attain their power of choice or goal or whatever, and oftentimes feel like they're being coddled by the author, but the interpretation is a bit up in the air because the definition can vary slightly depending on who you're asking. It's different compared to other undefeatable protagonists like Superman or Conan (the Barbarian) or Kenshiro, where they beat up bad guys easily and very rarely lose, but their conflicts and struggles usually come from other places not related to the main point which is beating up bad guys.
I love The Office but I hate Jim because he's totally a Mary Sue (at least based on my own definition), because he spends the entire show being a dipshit bully but gets away with it the entire show, apart from a few moments where he mostly just gets a slap on the wrist.

I don't consume this kind of media much myself, but I've seen from people online and friends that these boring dime-a-dozen isekai stories tend to have characters that are just super powerful from the get go without "earning" it from the reader's point-of-view which constitutes a normal Mary Sue definition, but also chosen ones at the same time. Also seems to be a common trend in contemporary Young-Adult media.
I guess it's popular for many who feel like they live in a pretty bleak world to want to escape reality with characters like that. It's not really for me, though.

 

[Sleepstate]

A Chosen one is simply a person destined to do something important. they can otherwise be flawed and hated by all. where as a Mary sue is not always destined for something greater but are always a monolith of a character who has no flaws can do no wrong and everyone loves for no particular reason other than their the mary sue

 

[qw90700]

So, in your words, define a Chosen One, a Mary Sue and explain what keeps a character from transforming into the latter.

My opinion doesn't matter in this matter because I didn't invent these meanings lol. All I may explain is why these concepts exist:

The chosen one" idea comes from the idea of some people wanna feel special over others because they cannot accept their weaknesses and human realities. But then this is used to brainwash society. For example the most popular chosen one idea is The Pharaoh. They are not simply a ruler, they claim they are chosen by god in a way they are a god. Thus they make people scared of them and they self-assert their self-entitlement to rule over people. This idea overtime evolved to prophet concept. In a way the prophet is a monarchy version of "chosen one" while the prophet is a democracy version of chosen one but sometimes there was oligarchy version of a "chosen one". In world history we see mad people self-advertize themselves as chosen one but then they are not cared about at all so their life is funny AF lol. Then we also see Chinese rulers claim to be chosen one of the heaven.

Then in fictions "chosen one" idea used as lazy and bad plot device. Just because the character is chosen they cannot be defeated and they have the ultimate power. I don't like such stuff.

However Mary Sue and their male version Marty Stu are beyond gods. They are so perfect they can do anything and everyone loves them so they don't even have any enemy. However they are beyond a destiny or ability, they have everything. The booty, money, best family, best job, best hair... Mary Sue's hairstyle will always stay same no matter what, even if she rolled on the whole street lol. But nothing bad ever can happen to Mary Sue. A plane will crash on Mary Sue but she can dodge it. Someone may shoot at Mary Sue but she can catch the bullet in her mouth and she doesn't need to be whatever race Superman is. In her own mortal and ordinary self Mary Sue can do anything. Just by wishing so she can rewind back time lol.

However this type of character is very old thing in the way a person tell about his life in a way they experienced great adventures they never did and fake being superior then they are. People known to start fake legends about themselves for fame. But if it gotta be in form of a book there are actually many that writer lives their power fantasy in thier own fictional stories and most popular one in recent years, relatively to whole history of fiction, is The Fountainhead, a novel from 1943. It's written by a woman self-insert herself as a male persona who can do anything by the power of will alone and thus the writer ego masturbates and advertize her life philosophy so people can learn how to be a better person lol. In my mind this book is first popular example of a Marty Stu character even before a Mary Sue was known lol. And then we have Chuck Norris as most popular Marty Stue lol. So there were Marty Stue way before Mary Sue, either created by man or woman alike, but then Mary Sue people were used to be witches and in modern times they became a woman figure who plays with men like a fiddle so they are "better than men" mostly in business and whatnot lol.

 

[KaiserMk7]

Is a compassionate and helpful character who had good training in their upbringing, has and activates every kind of potential a random can have in-universe, defeats very old and powerful beings and resolves ancient curses, ultimately ascends to something unique, and turns down an unfathomably rare opportunity, all with no major inner moral conflicts, more likely to fall toward the Mary Sue end of the spectrum?

 

[ATenderLad]

So, in your words, define a Chosen One, a Mary Sue and explain what keeps a character from transforming into the latter.

I know they colloquially get used as short hand for "way too good at everything", but competence/excellence isn't really what makes a Mary Sue - it's the tone. The original reference wasn't so much about how Mary Sue was the most awesome Starfleet recruit ever, but how the other characters fell over themselves fawning over her. (Spock's impressed with her reasoning, Kirk thinks she's a hell of a commander, she can talk shop with Scotty, and everyone wants a piece of her, OBVIOUSLY). It's that admiring "I wrote the ideal version of me into a thing I like and everyone wants to be my friend" dynamic that makes a Mary Sue.

It's not so much a power fantasy as it is popularity wish-fulfillment. (I think that got lost when some guy used the term incorrectly to describe Rey from Star Wars).

 

[Tonberry]

I know they colloquially get used as short hand for "way too good at everything", but competence/excellence isn't really what makes a Mary Sue - it's the tone. The original reference wasn't so much about how Mary Sue was the most awesome Starfleet recruit ever, but how the other characters fell over themselves fawning over her. (Spock's impressed with her reasoning, Kirk thinks she's a hell of a commander, she can talk shop with Scotty, and everyone wants a piece of her, OBVIOUSLY). It's that admiring "I wrote the ideal version of me into a thing I like and everyone wants to be my friend" dynamic that makes a Mary Sue.

It's not so much a power fantasy as it is popularity wish-fulfillment. (I think that got lost when some guy used the term incorrectly to describe Rey from Star Wars).

Wish-fulfilment was the term I was looking for, thanks ATL

 

[A man on a computer]

A "chosen one" is typical selected by God(s), Destiny, the stars, a chief of a tribe, or a by a king sometimes to get a plot device or save a damsel and/or the kingdom/world.

Like what Dokeshiishan said "chosen one" is a character's archetype, "mary sue" is how the character is wrote. And as MrMann mentioned they both intertwine if the writer sucks.

 

[Segadude113]

A "chosen one" is typical selected by God(s), Destiny, the stars, a chief of a tribe, or a by a king sometimes to get a plot device or save a damsel and/or the kingdom/world.

Like what Dokeshiishan said "chosen one" is a character's archetype, "mary sue" is how the character is wrote. And as MrMann mentioned they both intertwine if the writer sucks.

Chosen can also be chosen by people, a character that ends up being a leader without asking to. Usually the character has little to no confidence but has a heart of gold and wants to do the right thing so they build up courage to do it and end up saving the people. You can say it was predicted in some sort of prophecy but you don't NEED one. Sometimes it could be about a village that's ransacked by monsters and someone decides to finally do something about them. They pick up a sword and next thing you know, one of the monsters is on the ground bleeding and the hero is chosen.

 

[MemeAlert]

Here you go