History Main / AntiSue

* In ''{{Twilight}}'': Though she is never portrayed as malicious or obviously unlikeable, a lot of time is spent stressing how clumsy, average and otherwise imperfect Bella Swan is. Nevertheless, everybody loves her (at least five guys are immediately attracted to her) except for the obviously mean characters.

* The ''CityOfHeroes'' character [[http://www.virtueverse.net/wiki/Leah_Carpenter Leah Carpenter]], a (not so) CuteMonsterGirl with an insipid backstory that serves as a failed TakeThat against MarySue (or, more accurately, CommonMarySueTraits). She's incredibly loathsome, selfish, judgmental, and self-deprecating. She's also the CosmicPlaything, with an exaggeratedly huge amount of tragedy in her life that a SympatheticSue only wishes she could have. Yet in spite of this, the plot still idolizes her and the whole thing reads out like a battle between two cosmic deities, one bent on destroying her and one bent on saving her. Her personality means next to nothing as she walks through the story. Not to mention that canon characters get derailed like nothing to facilitate the "plot"... and this happens to be a troper's OldShame. [[ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime It all seemed like a clever idea at the time.]]

** Since the Sentry was originally written as a parody/joke character, and his powers involve [[spoiler: his greatest enemy being a manifestation of his own self-loathing and insecurity,]] combined with the fact that some of his own co-heroes (and he himself, on several occasions) acknowledge that his powers take him several steps higher on the staircase to godhood than most other Marvelverse characters, this is partially justified.
** Compare the Sentry at the end of his miniseries to the Sentry in the canon Marvel Universe, and tell me that he did not get massively [[CharacterDerailment derailed.]] The Sentry was never meant to be a recurring character, and when he entered the canon universe it rapidly became clear that [[BoredOnBoard nobody knew how to write him]]. Both his strengths and weaknesses are exagerrated to the point where he is unrecognizable when compared to his original depiction. Those of us who genuinely enjoyed the original miniseries were [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks not happy.]]

* ''Loverboy'' (not the one with Patrick Dempsey) has Kyra Sedgwick's character being as cold and snippy to ''everyone'' short of her own son (the title being his nickname) yet men such as Matt Dillon's character being almost magically drawn to her, kept her son out of school until Age 7 without getting even charged, has the movie itself attempt to villainize the teachers for being realistic towards her while all being intercut with flashbacks to [[FreudianExcuse explain her actions.]] However, it goes UpToEleven when [[spoiler: attempts to kill herself '''and her son''' via pills and carbon monoxide poisoning in the sealed-off garage, which only kills her then cuts to a flashforward where he [[ShillingTheWesley warmly talks about how great she was, even finding meaning in her CloudCuckooLander beliefs]] Damn.]] However, it becomes painfully clear that she ''really'' gets away with all this is because the director is Kevin Bacon.

* RobertAHeinlein's Lazarus Long was grouchy, sarcastic, abrasive and cynical, with outdated attitudes and a death wish... who every man wanted to be and every woman wanted (and had), and who was [[strike:nearly]] effectively immortal to boot. In fact several of Heinlein's characters seem to fit this mold, especially in his later years.

* KurtVonnegut's recurring character Kilgore Trout is an ugly, unsuccessful science-fiction author with bad hygiene, who takes odd jobs to supplement his usual income from the porn magazines who buy his stuff for filler. And he's frequently more clued-in to what's going on around him than about half of his fellow characters. (''Timequake'' ends with [[spoiler:him saving the world by thinking of exactly the right thing to say at the right time.]])

** It is worth noting that ''Desperate Struggle'' actually contains a healthy amount of character development - over the course of the game Travis starts to realize the error of his ways in that the assassins are people who shouldn't be killing each other over what is basically now a game and become a more traditional AntiHero. [[spoiler: He also does actually manage to get with Sylvia this time.]]

* CtrlAltDel's Ethan. There are many reasons: his obvious AuthorAvatar-ness, his incredibly antisocial personality, committing social behavior a 5 year old knows not to do, yet the series constantly revolves around him, all the other characters talk about nothing but him, he conveniently becomes [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands invincible and highly intelligent whenever necessary, even being able to built two sentient robots,]] and gets his girlfriend to apologize to him after she has a miscarriage. It just makes things worse that he is still the least likable character in the entire series, and several characters have been [[DisproportionateRetribution unnecessarily punished,]] or even [[PutOnABus removed from the series]] to give Ethan more screen time.

** [[UglyGuyHotWife The real kicker is that he's somehow married to ''Lois'']], who has somehow remained loyal to him despite being as negatively impacted by his bullshit as anyone and openly objecting to it. [[TheSimpsons At least Homer's]] a well-meaning idiot.

* {{Twilight}}. Though she is never portrayed as malicious or obviously unlikeable, a lot of time is spent stressing how clumsy, average and otherwise imperfect Bella Swan is. Nevertheless, everybody loves her (at least five guys are immediately attracted to her) except for the obviously mean characters.

* {{''Twilight''}}. Though she is never portrayed as malicious or obviously unlikeable, a lot of time is spent stressing how clumsy, average and otherwise imperfect Bella Swan is. Nevertheless, everybody loves her (at least five guys are immediately attracted to her) except for the obviously mean characters.

* [[''Twilight.'']] Though she is never portrayed as malicious or obviously unlikeable, a lot of time is spent stressing how clumsy, average and otherwise imperfect Bella Swan is. Nevertheless, everybody loves her (at least five guys are immediately attracted to her) except for the obviously mean characters.

* ''Twilight.'' Though she is never portrayed as malicious or obviously unlikeable, a lot of time is spent stressing how clumsy, average and otherwise imperfect Bella Swan is. Nevertheless, everybody loves her (at least five guys are immediately attracted to her) except for the obviously mean characters.

* Blaineley from ''TotalDramaWorldTour'' basically combines the worst traits of [[JerkAss Chris]], [[ImNotHereToMakeFriends Heather]], and [[TheWesley Owen]], annoys everyone during the Aftermaths, and then becomes an actual contestant, apparently just because the writers needed to fill up a few episodes and didn't want to bring an actually ''interesting'' character in.

* Blaineley from ''TotalDramaWorldTour'' basically combines the worst traits of [[JerkAss Chris]], [[ [=~I'm Not Here To Make Friends~=] Heather]], and [[TheWesley Owen]], annoys everyone during the Aftermaths, and then becomes an actual contestant, apparently just because the writers needed to fill up a few episodes and didn't want to bring an actually ''interesting'' character in.

* Blaineley from ''TotalDramaWorldTour'' basically combines the worst traits of [[JerkAss Chris]], [[{{I'm Not Here To Make Friends}} Heather]], and [[TheWesley Owen]], annoys everyone during the Aftermaths, and then becomes an actual contestant, apparently just because the writers needed to fill up a few episodes and didn't want to bring an actually ''interesting'' character in.

* Blaineley from ''TotalDramaWorldTour'' basically combines the worst traits of [[JerkAss Chris]], [[ImNotHereToMakeFriends Heather]] and [[TheWesley Owen]], annoys everyone during the Aftermaths, and then becomes an actual contestant, apparently just because the writers needed to fill up a few episodes and didn't want to bring an actually ''interesting'' character in.

* This is how [[YourMileageMayVary a portion]] of the ''FamilyGuy'' fanbase see Peter Griffin in some of the most recent seasons:he became a massive JerkAss with absolutely no redeeming trait that [[ItsAllAboutMe only cares for himself]]. Despite all the crap he pulls on everybody, including his own family, not only he awlays gets away with everything he does, but he never feels repetant for his actions. And, despite all of this, his family loves him and keeps putting Peter's happiness over theirs.

** It is worth noting that ''Desperate Struggle'' actually contains a healthy amount of character development - over the course of the game Travis starts to realize the error of his ways and become a more traditional AntiHero. [[spoiler: He also does actually manage to get with Sylvia this time.]]

* Gregory Benford's Nigel Walmsley is an abrasive personality with a tendency to get into trouble with authority figures. Nevertheless, he is a world-famous astronaut, scientist, and a ladies man with a talent for getting into [[AuthorAppeal threesome relationships with pairs of hot bisexual women]]. Despite his basic interpersonal incompetence, he has displayed the ability to successfully play the political game when he puts his mind into it. He is always right when it doesn't come into his personal life and has made more than his share of discoveries of aliens. Despite being a NonActionGuy, he has successfully used violence in a pinch. His most unlikely power is however the ability to decode alien radio signals. Remarkably, there had never been proper communication with the aliens, the transmission was a brief history of their race in pictures, and ''he decoded the whole thing in his head by hearing it played once. As sound.''

If a Mary Sue is "perfect", then the easiest way to avoid making one is to do the opposite, right? Well, the AntiSue shows up when an aspiring writer takes the opposite of "perfect" as "perfectly opposite" instead of "imperfect". A Mary Sue is a Friend To All Living Things who is [[SoBeautifulItsACurse So Beautiful, It's A Curse]] and can solve any problem in five minutes or less? Then an AntiSue will be The Grotesque and an EnemyToAllLivingThings who never does anything right. And so on.

Unfortunately, simply inverting the CommonMarySueTraits does not prevent a character from being a Mary Sue. When other characters still worship her and the plot still bends over backwards to facilitate her, she's still a Mary Sue, despite now being described as an unspeakably ugly, incredibly pathetic loser. This can actually be even more annoying than a vanilla Mary Sue — at least it makes some sort of sense for characters to worship a beautiful, friendly, hypercompetent Mary Sue, but when they're physically ugly with an unpleasant personality and can barely tie their own shoes (much less solve other people's problems) and everyone still treats them like the greatest thing since sliced bread, Willing Suspension Of Disbelief gets smashed into tiny little pieces.

Compare and contrast SuetifulAllAlong, a less extreme attempt to avert Common Mary Sue Traits.

MarySue is a highly pervasive character type that dogs most amateur writers. It's no doubt frustrating for people to pour their heart and soul into a story with an original character and get such negative response from everybody as they label their character a MarySue. But what is MarySue, after all? As they search the Internet for information, they find all sorts of lists of CommonMarySueTraits.

Wait, you mean it's bad for the character to be a FriendToAllLivingThings? No problem! [[AnimalsHateHer Animals]] '''[[EnemyToAllLivingThings DIE]]''' [[AnimalsHateHer in her presence]]. It's bad for her to [[ThePollyanna always be optimistic]]? No problem! She's now highly paranoid and has obsessive compulsive disorder to facilitate it. It's bad for her to have extraordinary abilities that allow her to do no wrong? No problem! She's now completely depowered, physically handicapped, and [[ThisLoserIsYou extremely incompetent]]. It's bad for her to be beautiful? No problem! She now looks like Janet Reno as painted by Picasso as a two-year old after someone mistook the painting for toilet paper. Surely, this fixed all the problems, right?

But wait, people still accuse her of being MarySue. It seems the other characters still treat her as being the most important thing in the world in spite of her anathemic personality, inability to do ''anything'' right, and ghastly visage. The plot still bends the universe to facilitate her. Why do they like someone like this? At least with the purple haired goddess, one could almost understand why they'd want to bask in her radiance. What horrible affront to nature have they inflicted upon the {{fanfiction}} universe?

Anyway, theatricality aside, this is basically when a character is a highly exaggerated ThisLoserIsYou that still manages to have the plot bias of MarySue. The author methodically reverses all the CommonMarySueTraits in a failed attempt to make the character someone the audience can relate to while [[CompletelyMissingThePoint missing the whole point]]. Even though it's such an abrasive, unattractive, and generally unremarkable character, the plot still seems to revolve around him/her and the other characters still act favorably to him/her. The traits commonly ascribed to MarySue may be gone, but they still exemplify the traits that makes MarySue so hated in the first place.

This character can best be summarized as an AntiHero without the traits that make them work in the first place. {{Anti Hero}}es very often have mental illness, crippling phobias, and generally aren't very pleasant to be around, but they don't have ALL of them. They have good points, too - a sense of honour that they feel is crippling their job, a sense of humour that keeps them entertaining, a desire to redeem themselves for a terrible act in the past, a conscience that just won't shut ''up''... What makes them interesting is in watching the long and arduous journey involved in overcoming their faults.

An AntiSue has the bad points, but the writer has forgotten to give them any good points that would add depth to their character. There's no long journey to redeem oneself, no difficulty in changing their personality - the plot and other characters do all the leg work for them, giving us an abrasive character without the benefit of the hero's journey. This is a pretty good illustration of one of the beginning author's bigger failings; namely, the inability to distinguish "things that happen to the character" from "CharacterDevelopment". The MarySue and especially the AntiSue will have all manner of events layered into the story, hoping to make them legitimate characters, without considering the fact that they still have an exceedingly generic and often obnoxious personality regardless of what happened to them. Here's a hint: "Things happening to a character" is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. "CharacterDevelopment" is how that first one affects the character and changes them.

This is probably the most hated type of MarySue. At least with the other types, their exaggeratedly positive character DNA means you can't so much hate them for their traits as you hate them for being ''too'' perfect. With this, you now have to deal with the very negative traits along with the plot bias that breaks WillingSuspensionOfDisbelief. Think TheScrappy that pretty much [[TheWesley never leaves the camera]] and you get an idea what it's like.

In brief, it feels like the author is just publicly crying about their low self-esteem.

See also SuetifulAllAlong and ActionSurvivor, which may or may not produce characters like this. Curiously enough, even though the vast majority of {{God Mode Sue}}s are also {{Boring Invincible Hero}}es, most {{Anti Sue}}s aren't {{Boring Failure Hero}}es; as many negative traits as Anti Sues accumulate, repeatedly losing doesn't tend to be one of them.

How to avoid both a MarySue and AntiSue as a writer: Remember that having ''some'' CommonMarySueTraits doesn't inevitably make a character a MarySue. For example, let's say that your character has some skill that makes her considerably more powerful than the other characters around her. It's possible to dodge Mary-Sueness on this without turning her into an Anti-Sue. Instead of taking away her power and making her a weakling, try one of these two options: 1) Make her extra power come at a price. Bonus points if each use of the power costs her more than the last. 2) Apply a long "cooldown period" to the power, so that it can't be used every time she fights. This has the added bonus of keeping her from becoming a one trick fighter, which would quickly become boring.

* The ''CityOfHeroes'' character [[http://virtueverse.com/index.php/Leah_Carpenter Leah Carpenter]], a (not so) CuteMonsterGirl with an insipid backstory that serves as a failed TakeThat against MarySue (or, more accurately, CommonMarySueTraits). She's incredibly loathsome, selfish, judgmental, and self-deprecating. She's also the CosmicPlaything, with an exaggeratedly huge amount of tragedy in her life that a SympatheticSue only wishes she could have. Yet in spite of this, the plot still idolizes her and the whole thing reads out like a battle between two cosmic deities, one bent on destroying her and one bent on saving her. Her personality means next to nothing as she walks through the story. Not to mention that canon characters get derailed like nothing to facilitate the "plot"... and this happens to be a troper's OldShame. [[ItSeemedLikeAGoodIdeaAtTheTime It all seemed like a clever idea at the time.]]

*** [[FridgeBrilliance Doing so would mean]] [[TakeThat coming into contact with Ethan]].

** Including one character that may or may not still live in the same house as the other characters. [[HandWave He doesn't want to leave his room]].

* DannyLilithborne is a troper on this site, but he's also the main character of a series of stories said troper wrote. He's the reincarnation of the son of Lilith, possesses the power of the archangel Gabriel, and has not only Lilith but a bevy of other women who love to sleep with him. You'd think he'd have a little confidence, but no. He spends the majority of the story moping about how he's only making himself happy and making his lovers depressed in the process. It's only when Lilith takes his memories that he gets over himself, but then he becomes a full-fledged MartyStu, although he reverts back to Anti-Sue status in the next story.
** Shouldn't this guy be a SympatheticSue, from what I read?
** These character traits extend to the main character of his ''{{Yu-Gi-Oh}}!'' fanfiction ''Yu-Gi-Oh! Negative Zero'', Shougo Aoyama; nevertheless, his depiction of Shougo as cowardly and passive-aggressive is not very different from how the character is depicted in Toei's movie, where the character comes from.

** Compare the Sentry at the end of his miniseries to the Sentry in the canon Marvel Universe, and tell me that he did not get massively [[CharacterDerailment derailed.]] The Sentry was never meant to be a recurring character, and when he entered the canon universe it rapidly became clear that [[BoredOnBoard nobody knew what the hell they were doing]]. Both his strengths and weaknesses are exagerrated to the point where he is unrecognizable when compared to his original depiction. Those of us who genuinely enjoyed the original miniseries were [[TheyChangedItNowItSucks not happy.]]