Rand al'Sue. (Spoilers from book 3 up to 11)

[TheGreyishGrayONE]

Actually in tSR Berelain herself says she would never aspire to marry the DR. Then RJ goes on and explains the situation.

He was not shocked, exactly; some girls back home mooned over whoever proved himself fastest or strongest in the games at Bel Tine and Sunday, and now and again a woman set her eyes on the man with the richest fields or the largest flocks. It would have been good to think she wanted Rand al’Thor.

 

So there should be all the proof a reasonable person could possibly need. I don't believe RJ would have wasted time with those examples if it wasn't what Berelain was doing.

[arkinia]

Many of RJ's characters are improbably awesome (ta'veren?).  That doesn't make them Sues though.  I think Egwene and Mat are the most Sue-like.  Egwene especially, because she gets away with everything and her flaws never seem to hold her back.

But the same person who would have written Egwene as a Sue wrote in those flaws!

[Mr Ares]

Yes, it's impossible to "prove" according to a standard you would believe, since you're convinced of the correctness of your own view and RJ is dead, so even if he was inclined to grab you, shake you, and correct you, he can't do it anymore.

Even if he was still able to do that, and even if he did, would it make a difference? After all, even if RJ says it, we still can't know with 100% certainty...

[ROB_88]

excuse me for not reading the whole topic, but what the hell is a "Sue"?

[Barmacral]

Its actually been explained about 4 times in the thread, mayhap you should go back and read it.

[Shard]

Here's a good comic to better explain what a Mary Sue is:

 

http://piratemonkeysinc.com/ms1.htm

 

 

[a_lily_in_winter]

All of RJs main characters are Sues in the sense that they are all very competent and beautiful/handsome.  I will agree that that gets a little on my nerves sometimes.  On the other hand, there are very few ugly people in WoT so maybe it is that they have much broader tastes then our limited set of dimensions. 

 

On the other hand, all of the characters have flaws.  More importantly none of them have too keen of vision.  They ALL have misjudged people. 

 

I find all of the Sue candidate discussion to be amusing.  I particularly love those who nominated Elayne.  I'll admit, that of all the main characters the one closest to being too perfect is Elayne.  She is very caring and almost too willing to take risks for others.  She is quite strong; although by no means near the strongest.  She is too good looking although again not the prettiest. 

 

Then I think of Hermione or Dumbledore in Harry Potter, who by all means are not the most Mary Sue of characters out there, and all the comparisons for any characters simply go away. 

 

Elayne, does not have intelligence beyond reason.  She is not even close to always being right, unlike Hermione or Dumbledore who are almost always right.  She has the intelligence she needs to survive in her position.  She was well trained and has good genes.

 

I could say the same for Mat and Lan as well.  Mat has above average intelligence for certain, but not crazilly so except for in battle.  He has certainly made mistakes in judging characters.  He is good looking, but not good looking enough according to the Seanchen.  Mat certainly has a large willingness to risk himself for the greater good.  But like, all of the WoT characters, he does not take that lightly.  He is a 'cool character' but I don't think that has anything to do with being a Mary Sue.

 

In the end, though the argument is silly.  If a character irritates you, you can either look for flaws, or you can say they are too perfect.  Either way, most of the time, except for truly bad writers, the problem is with the reader and not the writer nor the character.  The character represents something the reader dislikes or has a storyline they hates or somehow disses a character the reader likes. 

 

The real problem is when readers identify too heavily with a character and refuse to see where they are anything other then perfect.  Maybe we should pick a character name for this, such as a Fonz.  (I will be good and not name a WoT equivalent here ;) ) .  When someone does something that might irritate the Fonz the herd of readers go ballistic attacking that character.  And heaven forbid someone in real life say anything that might be considered in any remote form a criticism of the Fonz. 

[Mr Ares]

All of RJs main characters are Sues in the sense that they are all very competent and beautiful/handsome.

Being amazingly good looking and competent like me isn't enough to qualify for Sue status.

 

On the other hand, all of the characters have flaws.

Having flaws in and of itself isn't enough to avoid Sue status. All of them have significant enough flaws to avoid Sue status, though.