Tony Winters as Mary Sue...

[David]

I'm curious what the reason is... LOL

[RyanM]

A Mary Sue is a character with several traits:

1) Their backstory doesn't fully support displayed skills or abilities.
2) They almost always succeed and even when they fail, it's no big deal.
3) They rarely make a mistake.
4) They're rarely physically or emotionally hurt.
5) They rarely show any personal growth since they're good at everything.

A perfect example is Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens (She actually out Mary Sue's the original Mary Sue). She's good at everything. She out flies Han on his own ship. She knows the systems better than Chewie. She shows more competence in the force than her (assumed) father and grandfather and a trained fallen Jedi. She fights better than a trained Jedi with a lightsaber she was terrified of not long before.

Her known backstory simply doesn't support her adeptness at a myriad of skills. It's made even more ridiculous by the fact that if she had all these skills, why was she working as a scavenger when she could have been a pilot or engineer?

If Tony loses, is hurt, make mistakes, and is generally an imperfect person, then I wouldn't worry.

[PS Power]

I tend to go along with that Ryan said in general on this topic.

The trouble there is that the term, like most others lately, is tending to morph into something different and broader.

*On Rey, who I liked at least as well as Luke (less whining) I hope that the second movie will explain a bit more as to how she came by her skills. It will probably be stupid (possessed by the force ghost of a master Jedi as a child, who comes out to help her. Luke did it from across space... Lots of video games gave her super skills.) but almost anything will be better than nothing at this point.

If they do it right, it should look almost as if it were what was planned all along. (Which may be?)

I can think of ten or fifteen decent ways to fix that part. A few that would take no more than a minute of screen time, without being exposition.

[David]

Well, the 'fallen' jedi was pretty crappy in a fight himself. He had a little talent throwing people around, but not much else.

Sure, she was probably a little too good in the fight, but it helped that Luke's nephew was kind of a bumbling idiot himself. He wasn't that trained.

Luke was a good flyer as well off the bat, so was Anakin as a kid, its a pre-trained Jedi thing. They all fly awesome. THat makes the Jedi Mary Sue, not just Rey.

as far as fixing things, no idea. I know according to the movie she was purposefully staying on the planet waiting for her family to return. She also made money by stripping parts off ships, maybe that meant she knew what those parts did, and where they went. She couldn't have been a pilot or engineer without leaving the planet.

I actually found the stormtrooper that could actually hit things far less believable. LOL

[DitN]

[willallen]

I don't care what you call it, Mary Sue or Barbara Allen, but I enjoyed the Tony Winters books and I would love to see more of them. And, as an aside, might I suggest leaving this series out of the multiverse. This way, readers can access the story without having to know the history of the multiverse. I mean this with all due respect, as this series lets the author branch out into more areas of readership. A great sports action and coming-of-age series might bring in a whole new demographic to the PS Power experience. Just a thought.

[imdanield]

Late to this thread, but I just finished re-reading the trilogy and wanted to see of there was news of a 4th book yet.

First, to keep thing on-topic, I don't consider Tony to be a Mary Sue. He works to hard and makes enough mistakes that I just can't see him as a MS. Gifted, yes, but but even more-so, desperate. This may be his only opportunity and he knows it. Desperate people can accomplish amazing things.

I also like the idea of keeping Tony out of the multiverse. There is no Sci-Fi or fantasy in Tony's world and I find that refreshing, even though those are my favorite genres.

[PS Power]

There are no plans for a fourth book for Tony at this time. His story is pretty well told out, I think?

Yes, I could write more in it, but it isn't really needed for him.

There should be other stories coming that are also good (I hope!) as well as different enough to keep people interest up.

Next year I plan to really branch out into a lot of new territories, since I think the big arc will be finished by then.