How do you define a Mary Sue?

I've only recently heard the term "Mary Sue," so I'm not entirely sure what it is. A pointlessly powerful character, I guess?

If the character is something that the player wants to use, I don't really think it should be pigeonholed as something or other. Perhaps that farmer will go on to save the world, a true heroic story of sorts.

What if he started out not knowing he had such a power? Does the RP/background make a difference?

tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue

It seems to define a character (female in this case, though the male counterpart is often called a "Gary Sue") who is unreasonably perfect at everything. Because the term originated in Star Trek fandom in the 70s, its definition nowadays has become more prolific and unclear--according to the article a Mary Sue is basically a perfect female character, usually highly idealized and full of cliches. The term Mary Sue probably has the most meaning in non-RP fiction, as the plot usually in some way aids the portrayal of her perfection. I guess in an RP scenario a Mary Sue looks like a character who is a really beautiful female who always seems to have just the right skill for the job--whatever that might be at the time.

To add to Whir's question--no, a Mary Sue is dependent on having all of these perfect attributes as a part of her character design from the very beginning. Mary Sue does not have character development. She's already perfect in every way, in the author's eyes.

Straight from the article:

"The prototypical Mary Sue is an original female character in a fanfic who obviously serves as an idealized version of the author mainly for the purpose of Wish Fulfillment. She's exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye color, and has a similarly cool and exotic name. She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws — either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing.

She has an unusual and dramatic Back Story. The canon protagonists are all overwhelmed with admiration for her beauty, wit, courage and other virtues, and are quick to adopt her as one of their True Companions, even characters who are usually antisocial and untrusting; if any character doesn't love her, that character gets an extremely unsympathetic portrayal. She has some sort of especially close relationship to the author's favorite canon character — their love interest, illegitimate child, never-before-mentioned sister, etc. Other than that, the canon characters are quickly reduced to awestruck cheerleaders, watching from the sidelines as Mary Sue outstrips them in their areas of expertise and solves problems that have stymied them for the entire series."

The truth is that Lamina is just addicted to tvtropes.org.

For me, a Mary Sue is a character that constantly develops into being the best at everything, and is constantly at the center of attention for most of the story. So many Young Adult novels (a la Twilight, Vampire Academy, The Throne of Glass, Eragon, etc) have a terrible leading character that just somehow, someway, becomes the center of everyone's universe time and time again.

Bella from Twilight is a pretty girl that everyone falls in love with. Then she becomes one of the only few in history to give birth to a half-vampire half-human, but she somehow manages to survive. Then she gets a super power that negates all superpowers, effectively making her the strongest vampire alive. What?

Caealena from Throne of Glass is eighteen years old and is already a master assassin that is feared through out her country. She gets caught and sent to prison where everyone else dies in a week, but she survives an entire year. She gets picked to be in a master assassin race and INTENTIONALLY always puts herself in the middle so they won't realize she's so good. Turns out, she's a long lost princess of the nation. And she's also imbued with the strongest magical powers the world has ever seen in the last few centuries. Oh, and everyone falls in love with her.

Ay, curumba. Mary Sues everywhere.

Finally, someone who watches the same stuff as me.