Which is adjacent to the point I am making; being flawless (or some approximation thereof) is not the cause, it's a symptom. It's one way in which the condition that is a Mary Sue can manifest.
(for the record, I don't think that Rey is one - badly written yes, but not in a way that constitutes Sue-ness; if she were to be counted as one, arguably so would Luke since his character and character arc hits many of the same hallmarks that people commonly point to for Rey, and I have yet to see anyone make that particular accusation)
The core component of a Mary Sue is to be (imaginary confetti here) SPECIAL (more imaginary confetti) in a way that other characters are not. This does not mean in-universe characteristics; it's the way the story treats the character relative to the characters around them that matters. The easiest way in which that happens is a character that has no complexity to their arc and is only praised for what amounts to their general existence without needing to do anything for it - this is where the misconception comes from that having no character flaws is the
cause rather than the symptom, since media literacy is a genuine skill that for various reasons is not taught or otherwise acquired equally, and communicating nuance is very difficult, so over time of it being the default example, it has shifted to be misidentified as the defining characteristic.
As the previous paragraph already says - this is a difficult space to navigate, and a lot of discourse is muddy and imperfect, so I do not fault anyone for operating under that misconception. I do, however, ask for people to
listen when additional nuance is brought in, because that misconception does not lend itself to meaningful debate of any sort, since at this point it is used largely as a bat to swat other parties in a debate with rather than being used as a good faith tool of analysis.
Back on topic; this is not the only way in which that particular structural problem manifests. Another way it manifests (one that I personally consider a much more severe example), one that I have alluded to in earlier posts, is a character being treated
as if they had no flaws, in spite of their objective presence; as one may have gathered, I use the term rather sparingly, but my favorite two punching bags of Gundam sidestories each have an excellent example of this: Astray's Lowe Gule, and 00F's Fon spaak. The former is a blatant war profiteer with the story trying its level best to pretend that it is totally fine if
he is doing the things that the main work is quite adamant are terrible; the latter is just a garden variety sociopath, a complete asshole to everyone who is openly against the goals of his organization and has purposefully, unambiguously betrayed them on multiple occasions, yet everyone in it still trusts him unconditionally.
he also survived a bomb collar one time, but that's neither here nor there. These are the marks of an actual traits of a Sue, and the very reason why the term carries such connotations of being a problem; merely a too perfect main character is boring. There are plenty of boring important characters out there, yet noone raises that much of a fuss about them; the thing about being a sue is that they are a problem in a way that extends past themselves, because the problem is not actually the character, the problem is the way the story treats the character.
This, incidentally, also shows up in the aforementioned examples, and is the final nail in the coffin for both: they keep showing up in places they have no business being in, being presented as/retconned into being the singular solution to otherwise complex problems that would ordinarily be in the dominion of other characters, whose importance is therefore undermined.
This last bit is also why I don't believe Mari can be called a Mary Sue in good faith; what does she do on her own that would otherwise have been the job of someone else? she doesn't steal anyone's show at any point, she is just there as a plucky support, the only time she really does something big is during the final battle when everyone else has something crucial to their character arcs going on.
You're free to dislike Mari - but doing so, I will ask for you to properly articulate the why, so the rest of us can also have something from it instead of just hearing the same hollow phrases repeated that everyone here has heard so many times already
I can see why Gendo hired Misato to do the actual commanding. He tried it once and did an appalling job. ~ AWinters
Your point of view is horny, and biased. ~ glitz2hard
What about titty-ten? ~ Reichu
The movies function on their own terms. If people can't accept them on those terms, and keep expecting them to be NGE, then they probably should have realized a while ago that they weren't going to have a good time. ~ Words of wisdom courtesy of Reichu