I don’t think Sues/Stus are ever appropriate, and here’s why, in a nutshell.

What I consider to be the primary Sue factor is the character’s perceptions always, or almost always, being in line with reality. They’re almost never wrong about anything outside of the most base of plot contrivances, and even on those rare occasions, all the secondary characters fall all over themselves trying to justify the Sue’s mistakes.

So I don’t really think that kind of character has any place in a serious story, since they have no room to grow when they’re right about everything.

Anyway, I’m interested in discussing some of the common secondary Sue traits and what people think of them, because I’ll admit to using some myself.

Things like unnaturally fast learning, unusual eye/hair color, of course fiery/rebellious princess syndrome(mine is a subversion, I swear), spirit bonding, secretly the child of heroes…

And other things like talking animal pets, was raped or has dead parents but is still purer than the driven snow anyway, is part-human, is heir to some kind of prophecy, and I dunno, that’s all I can think of off the top of my head.

Can we define what a Sue is? If I remember, a sue is a self-insert. Technically.

If I remember, a sue is a self-insert.

I don’t think that’s always the case. A lot of self-inserts turn out to be Sues because the author is trying to show how awesome they are by writing an idealized version of themselves.

I think some Sues have flaws, but the are not percieved as flaws in the story’s universe. The reader can tell that they are flaws, but the author didn’t intentionally give them flaws, so they are still “perfect” within their own universe (i.e. Bella, Eragon).

My protagonist’s parents aren’t dead, but she was taken away from them at a young age. I think she has flaws. She’s not really good at much.

Might be unnecessary, but a word of warning to some of y’all: Don’t just start superimposing flaws onto characters to avoid Sueishness. If you ever start thinking of it as some kind of equation where virtues minus vices equals good character, you’re doing it wrong. Authors shouldn’t give characters flaws for the sake of having flaws, but I digress.

Not directed at anybody in particular, but just saying. I just tend to think characters are better thought of in terms of value-neutral traits, which are helpful or harmful depending upon the situation.

At any rate, Sues don’t have any flaws because the whole purpose of a Sue is to be awesome and cool and not look bad. That’s why most of them come with satellite characters giving the Sue’s actions constant justification from the peanut gallery, so we readers know they aren’t really wrong.