James Bond is a Mary Sue

>James Bond is a Mary Sue

Is she right?

When will people get over SW7 being shit?

no, he's afraid of snakes

mary sues dont have flaws and james bond is an alcoholic sociopath mass murderer

>October 28, 2013

Is she a psychic? Did she predict the future?

>assassin
>chauvinist
>sociopath
Well I guess so

He is supposed to be a male fantasy.
>fuck hot bitches
>drive nice cars
>shoot guns

Yes, he is supposed to be a mary sue. Nothing wrong with that.

this

James Bond might be something of a wish fulfillment character but he isn't extreme enough to be a Mary Sue

JB is a critique of the masculine ideal, and the fact that a women would call the character a Mary Sue proves how relevant and dangerous JB is.

Bond tends to pay a lot for being a male power fantasy. He almost gets castrated, he's not allowed to settle down and be normal; his world won't allow it, and his balls get smashed. A real Male Mary Sue would be Jack Reacher and again everyone admits he's a power fantasy. Men want to be him, wonen want to be with him.

>mary sue
>constantly gets shut down by his own boss and Moneypenny

FPBP

Correct.

Shit clickbait is shit, OP, nobody's going to give your shitty article any views, especially since you didn't even provide a link.

He was hardly a Mary Sue in Casino Royale, one of the reasons it's objectively the best Bond flick.

Let's also not forget that ultimately -EVER- single relationship with a woman has ultimately ended in failure.

>>JB is a critique of the masculine ideal
>He actually believes this

Yeah, I love how the Craig-era turned Bond into a depressed little bitch who can't handle the work

What are you talking about?

Bond has the experience to back up what he does, and even then he constantly gets the shit kicked out of him and captured in every movie.

course he is, you guys sound like SJWs defending rey

he's a male fantasy

drinks a lot
gambles
women fall over his dick
super elite assassin
kills dictators

I'd say the only mary sue quality to james bond is wish fulfillment, and perhaps he's not flawed in a meaningful way.

Everything else isn't there, like the narrative or other characters revolving around him for no reason, or being a low ranking/inexperienced character with inexplicable talents.

It's still schlock though. People don't watch bond movies for the writing. You'd have to ask someone that likes james bond what the appeal is.

Casino Royale didn't really have that. I feel like they didn't introduce that till the second film and then ramped up with each subsequent film. Honestly the Craig era Bond felt like it was ashamed they were making Bond movies and tried really hard to just make serious spy movies while still pretending to be a Bond film.

He's good at everything men wish they were good at

driving, shooting, seducing women, being rich and mysterious

I mean people on this board of all places think being a chauvinist and killing bad guys at will would be a bad thing

Now that Skyfall's soft rebooted the franchise. Is James Bond going to refind True Love so that Blodfeld can rekill his wife?

Why wouldn't I?

Devotion to a higher ideal outside empathetic want, aka loyalty.

Repression of emotions, stoicism, to achieve success.

Mastery of confidence despite every reason against feeling so.

I mean really, how can you not atleast see where I'm coming from here. JB is a fantasy only in that his character idealizes the crux of what can be seen as masculine.

He can't be a Mary Sue because of the side effects of those traits; inability to value relationships outside queen and country, alcoholism to negate the sacrifices he's made to complete the mission, and a shell built around himself so he doesn't have to feel the loneliness that the pursuit of this 'ultimate make fantasy' dictates.

What fantasy ends with being unfulfilled?

Yeah but a shitload of other series also do that, with the added benefit of an interesting narrative with interesting characters to pad the wish fulfillment. It's like james bond doesn't have enough going to keep it afloat, but it keeps going anyway. I think its because the brand and legacy is just too strong to die at this point. If anyone else copied the barebones formula exactly and executed it perfectly without the "bond" name stamped to it, it would be a total failure.

...

Again, what are you talking about?

?

None of those are flaws for his character, though. There's never a moment in these films where his alcoholism sets him back or is a detriment to him.

True. Aren't Bond movies primarily plot driven? There's a problem Bond, Solve in your usual way Bond: martinis, whores,and Violence.

How wonderful it must be to be new to storytelling! Of course since Bond's demons aren't magnified by close ups of him crying they don't exist. It'd be to much to look at why he needs martinis, whores, and violence.

Go back to wanking over How I Met Your Morher.

James Bond is a huge fucking Mary Sue. He can do fucking anything. Secret experimental Soviet bomber the only means of escape? Don't worry, James already knows how to fly it like a pro.

And yes he feels pain sometimes but he always finds a way to escape without lasting injury at the last second, because NO ONE can outsmart him when it matters. No one.

Yes, but it's also the whole concept of these flicks.

What is the biggest, most amateur mistake JB has ever made?

Making enough money to justify them shitting out these awful movies

What prediction?

>a socially disassociated alcoholic psychopathic killer is a gary stu that the readers and audience are intended to cast themselves in
w e w

Labeling Rey as a badly written mary sue is still triggering people over a year later lol

Probably getting played like a fool in casino royal for literally the entire fucking movie.

Fleming was a massive chauvinist, alcoholic, smoking, shagging intel officer who used JB as an outlet for his espionage fantasies never fulfilled in WWII. Watch his fucking biopic miniseries. JB is a huge mary sue for fleming. JB isn;t a critique

It's almost like an author uses personal experience to develop a character! Tell me how JB is satisfied beyond mission completion. It's almost as if Flemming made a character to reflect wartime need versus emotional want. Something that nobody could ever understand.

In the movies, definitely. He's basically the perfect male, whose only "flaw" to speak of is the fact that killing people doesn't really bother him. I've never read Fleming's novels so I can't speak for those.

It doesn't really matter though, nobody watches Bond movies for Bond, they watch it for the villains, beautiful women, and action.

>he's that much of a nu-male that he literally believes that a masculine cool character can't just be masculine and cool and it has to be some ironic self aware social commentary bullshit
>the actual fucking state of 2016

Indulgence on MI6's expense account, loyalty to country. Go back and read the books.

Staring no opinions relevant to the discussion and ending with a meme.

he is the best at almost everything he does. Everything he tries, he is really good at. He is lucky as fuck.
how is that not Mary Sue?

people use the term 'mary sue' too liberally, it's a lazy man's criticism when they can't think of anything else

Because that perfection doesn't come freely. Old JB is always isolated to mission with minimal character progression. Can you name one friend JB has? Felix is a contact, M is what's next. You don't even need to examine Craig's Bond to see the robotic need of loyalty dominant throughout the series. But it's okay because he fucks girls, let's forget why.

Well the whole "a mary sue is somebody that's the best at everything they do" has more to do with the fact that they're better than everybody else at things that everybody is supposed to be good at.

You don't see bond lecturing Q on how to better make bombs and shit or M on leadership.

There is literally nothing else to be said lol. He's a super spy who was created in the 1950s who drinks and fucks around a lot. He's not some fucking critique of masculinity, he's a cool spy dude, that's it. Don't project your insecurities onto an adored fictional character just because you got picked on for not liking football or some shit as a kid.

>You don't see bond lecturing Q on how to better make bombs and shit or M on leadership.
that's because he never tries to make bombs or be a leader. He doesn't want to do those things. But if he did, you can bet that he would be really fucking good at both of those things

You just sideswipe the 'why' to his character so ignorantly that I completely understand your view. I bet Neo from the matrix was just some Mary Sue to you.

Yeah James Bond is a Mary Sue

That's the thing: you can't really bring up his demons as an issue when the movies never bring up his demons as an issue. As far as the stories are concerned, no, they don't really exist.

In other words, him drinking isn't a problem in the movies, so citing it as a problem in the movies is incorrect.

Furthermore, James Bond is meant to be an avatar for the audience. The whole appeal of the woman is getting to live this life of women and action through him. If he were a complex character, it'd ruin that experience.

>whole appeal of the woman
whole appeal of the character*

No not really, I don't like using the term Mary Sue at all. I like Neo. You're forgetting that creators and critics/viewers think extremely differently and I really doubt there is any 'why' to James Bond to Flemming or most of the movies' writers (at least for the pre-Craig movies). Who knows though?

Is his Bond a Mary Sue?

James Bond is a power fantasy, not a Mary Sue. A power fantasy is a character that is not intended to be vulnerable, but rather invulnerable so that the audience can live vicariously through his fantastical abilities and adventures. The fantasy is being a completely different person entirely, able to do great things. It's not about growth, it's about role-playing. In real life, you are not James Bond, but it would be neat if you were.

A protagonist in an adventure film is a character that is vulnerable in a relatable way and the fantasy lies not in the character, but in the adventure that allows the protagonist to overcome their vulnerabilities. The fantasy is being presented with an adventure that allows you to do great things. In real life, you are Luke Skywalker. You just haven't been given the opportunity in the form of an adventure to express that side of yourself.

A Mary Sue is an adventure film protagonist that fails to be relatable because they have power fantasy attributes that undermine the need for an adventure. Why being invested in the growth of a character if they are already awesome? We can't, but the movie insists that she has things to overcome. We're supposed to be Rey in real life, but we're not.

The fact you doubt a why to JB's character inflicts it's own recognition. No point in argument, here, as you dutifully follow a surface plot.

I mean being a professional is sorta his job but bond has been captured several times

>I feel like they didn't introduce that till the second film

They didn't introduce it at all until the third film where Mendez went full retard.

That's whole point of Movie bond, he's escapism. However, I heard that in the books he's an alcoholic, he fucks women to "feel" something, and that he only does missions because he wants to die.

Did this author even watch Bond films? 007 is constantly falling to traps, getting manipulated, and depending on other people. Often times he survives by sheer luck or a handy gadget provided by an elderly man. His general competence is the result of decades of experience and undergoing some of the toughest training in the world.

>The fact you doubt a why to JB's character inflicts it's own recognition
Boy howdy are you smart, user! :)

There's no reason not to. Not everything's an allegory or a critique or some sort of metaphor, you can look into it more if you want but you're not gonna get anything good out of it and you're just going to end up with a whole lot of movies you no longer enjoy but I'm getting off topic here; it just seems extremely unlikely that this would be the case for a spy/action hero created in the 1950s by a war vet before all the stuff about toxic masculinity became a thing. Creators are just often more organic thinkers than critics.

The beginning of Skyfall (I think). Takes months to get back into MI-6 shape after boozing it up and surgeries.

Also the scene in Goldfinger. Didn't the girl get rekt and painted while he was out gambling or something?

James Bond is usually played by actors that have the charisma to pull the character off. If he was played by a gormless chav then he wouldn't be nearly as well received

Then let's dismiss organic thinking?

Thrall pre-mop.

Bond routinely gets captured, beaten up, tortured and put in death traps
I dont know how anyone could call a character that gets brutalized by his enemies so frequently a mary sue
Yes he is a lot luckier than is realistic and women jump him at a moments notice but the story never drifts away from a feeling of mortal danger for a first time viewer. It's only when you become jaded and used to the basic plot of a james bond movie that you begin to expect he'll win no matter what the odds.

He's not a Mary Sue, just a tired premise.

the popularity of Kingsman leaves me inclined to disagree m8
I mean yeah it's a transformation story but the protagonist still remains at heart a gormless chav; just one wearing a nice suit

In Skyfall, him being out of shape is blamed on his age. He's "too old," which could be a flaw for the character, but it's also one that only exists in one of the movies (they forget it in Spectre).

I haven't seen Kingsman so I can't comment but
Imagine Steven Seagal as James Bond. That's what I'm talking about. It would be ridiculous.

Why dismiss the artist when considering ANY work? Understanding any piece of art at its highest potential necessitates knowledge of the creator.

Fleming's experiences (semi-ineffectual-yet-lucky WWII intel agent, alcoholic, formerly rich, adulterer), as well as the society and political climate in which Bond was penned (post-WWII Britain, Cold War, patriarchal), both factor in to 'why' he was written as such. It's only during the rise of postmodernism (starting in the latter part of the 1900s) do we start to get things like Austin Powers, New Bond, and the narrative of 'self-critique'.

It doesn't really stand to reason that one should completely drop such an important piece of info like "authorial intent" just to prove a point that they, individually, read it a certain way.

>tl;dr - "I think this isolated thing means this" =/= "The creator of multiple things probably intended this."

True dat. Didn't he also act dead for a while and go on a bender, then dig out the bullet from his shoulder to pass the physical?

got tired of the TOO OLD DINOSAUR shtick, they laid it on pretty thick, even in Spectre
I feel none of the other recent films sustained the quality of Casino Royale, what seemed like almost wholesale abandonment of any story development in QoS just because the film was a dog for instance left that film completely without point

>mary sue
>can't manage to kill the friendly giant

i think he means that mary sue is a bullshit female character while marty stue is the male version

>got shot and almost died
>got captured and got his balls tortured
>mary sue

Just real quick gonna say you guys are missing the categorization of what a 'Mary Sue' is. It's when the character faces no challenges and overcomes anything intended to be a challenge. It does NOT mean very "powerful", knowledgeable, or characters with a lot of agency in general.

NOT mary sue: Batman, Goku, James Bond

Mary Sue: Bella from Twilight, Many 'fanfic' characters, Rey from Star Wars: TFA

It's rather hard to make a Mary Sue/Gary Stu as they categorically cannot be flawed, it's not enough for them to be 'super good'. That's why Harry Potter, Dumbledore, and Gandalf are not Gary Stu characters despite all being powerful.

Think my dudes.

What? Craig's Bond was a cold-hearted murderer in Casino. He only let one person in, Vesper, and after she died he became an even bigger asshole.

Bella isn't a Mary Sue

How did you possibly augur that from him posting the date twice, you nincompoop?

>Bella isn't a Mary Sue

Yes she is.

'hehe im totally normal and nothing goes wrong for me lol'

Mary Sues can have flaws, they just have to add to his character. Being an gin-drinking sociopath only adds to his appeal.

Mary Sues in fanfiction often have some flaw that sets them apart from everyone else so they can be "misunderstood" but isn't detrimental to their successes.

They're kinda missing the whole point of a Mary Sue.

Having a nearly faultless hero who saves the day and is just a genuine badass is not a problem. John McClane is not a Mary Sue, neither is any Arnold Schwarzenegger hero.

You know why, because they're the stars of the established movie/franchise. The movie is built around them. For this very reason I wouldn't consider Katniss from The Hunger Games to be a Mary Sue despite lacking any character flaws.

No a Mary Sue is a new character added to an established media who just blows everyone's mind by being so awesome and everyone is in awe by their presence.

Yes Rey from Episode 7 is currently a Mary Sue and we can only see what happens in the future sequels if that changes.

How is Rey any different from any 80s/90s action hero who impresses everyone throughout the movie with combative prowess and wise-cracking charm?

Mary Sues are INEXPLICABLY and UNEXPLAINABLY good at everything and best friends with everyone

Nothing is inexplicable with Bond, he is a super spy government agent who is SPECIFICALLY sent to dangerous places to do impossible tasks.

He was literally TRAINED to do what he does and seduce intel etc.

Mary Sues are ALWAYS from base origins, like a school teacher or something lame like living on a desert planet who are somehow good at everything.

What the fuck are you even saying? You can't just say shit and expect that makes it true you dumbass.

Where the fuck are you idiots getting these fucked up definitions from?

Did you read what you're replying to? That user explained the difference.

>literally slaps a lesbian into heterosexuality
>not satire

Because Star Wars has 6 films that established a lore and Rey broke virtually all of it one movie. Like here's the basics:

>To be a Jedi/Force User you have to train a lot. In the prequels Anakin is viewed as being too young to go to Jedi Academy despite being 9.
>Luke (already grown up) gets guidance on the Force in the first movie and uses it to time a pivotal Torpedo shot. It takes the till the second movie for him to be competent and that was after training with Master Yoda

Meanwhile Rey becomes as Obi-Wan Kenobi within 1 film, with no training from a Jedi whatsoever.

I don't hate Episode 7 but Rey in my eyes is a Mary Sue, they still got two movies to rationalizes her power.

Because she is not established as such.

Every 80s/90s action flick establishes the protagonist as an all around badass. Be it Predator, Die Hard, Demolition Man, The Specialist or Commando, the intro makes it clearly known the protagonist HAS done this sort of shit before.

Rey's background is a scrapper on a desert planet. Scrappers on desert planets don't get to beat everyone against overwhelming odds without being called Mary Sues, especially when they are female.

No. A Mary Sue is someone who joins the cast of an established series and one-ups everyone.

You can write a character who is good at everything, but if you insert that character into another story and try to make them outshine the main characters, then you've made a Mary Sue.

Have you got a source for this or it just your dumb definition of what a mary-sue is?

>How is Rey any different from any 80s/90s action hero who impresses everyone throughout the movie with combative prowess and wise-cracking charm?

Name one.

They were probably cops or ex-armed forces.

You simply can't explain why a 100lb girl is fighting off multiple people with a stick or can master a light saber in 10 seconds and fight a sith lord.

Don't even try.

If you actually watch the Hunger Games Katniss basicly fucks everything up, is terrible at everything besides shooting a bow, has to hide for most of the games themselves and only wins because she got bailed out by men.

But yeah the everyone thinking she is awesome is spot on.

This is what the first Mary Sue was like.

>or can master a light saber in 10 seconds and fight a sith lord.

She didn't master lightsaber combat. Kylo is not a Sith Lord, or even a Sith. Kylo was heavily wounded, having taken a shot from a gun that straight up was killing armored storm troopers in a single shot as well as being wounded by Finn.

Well... the Daniel Craig Bond movies are more realistic. The Roger Moore are perhaps the least realistic with the amount of times he runs into open space and not 1 bullet hits him.

>Mary Sue
I'll take terms that have lost all meaning for $500

>having taken a shot from a gun that straight up was killing armored storm troopers in a single shot

This is retarded too

>people are still defending rey

How, just how.

Real posters like this are the reason this board has any value, yet this is almost some kind of silent minority at this point, no one even takes notice. Literally full of plebs here.

I like Rey.

>gets shot (in the shoulder IIRC)
>falls off from like 100 meters into a river
>doesn't fucking die
he's a mary sue

>Implying there aren't guys who can fuck any girl they want
>Implying he doesn't get caught, or fucked up in all of the movies.
>Picture of Sean Connery era Bond, and not Craig era Bond.

>article written by a woman.

>Male Mary Sue (Gary Stu)
>Tough, Brave, Gets the girl, stops the bad guy.
>Female Mary Sue
>Outsmarts the ugly enemies, Outshines the ugly/average male friends, gets the muscle bound hunk, who she also outshines.

Wasn't James Bond basically the author...?

Ian Fleming was a naval intelligence officer who worked on operation goldeneye. So yeah, he inserted a lot of himself into James Bond making him a mary sue

Getting caught is part of the mary sue. If you dont get caught you cant make the perfect escape.

SW7 has a lot of good qualities, it's just a shame Rey is terrible when she's the focus of the entire film.
Finn could have easily held up that entire movie.

She's still referring to Connery era Bond,. Craig got tied to a chair and had his nuts beat with a knotted rope. The only reason he escaped was because someone killed the guy torturing him.

You missed a key point.
Male power fantasies make an escape based on their own actions.

Female power fantasies make an escape based on their enemies being retarded, and/or having a man doing it for her.
All the while the narrative makes it look like she did all the work.

If you ignore the 100lbs girl thing (which you have to in today's action movies; that's just how it fucking is sadly), I imagine being a scavenger on a harsh and desolate desert planet, having to constantly fight for your survival, endure dire circumstances, and scrape together a marginal existence without (presumably) any outside assistance, would at least allow for the possibility of her being a very competent fighter.

It's not perfect but it doesn't have to be. Star Wars movies aren't the type where you need some kind of fleshed out realistic backstory. If you look too closely at it, a lot of things don't make sense.

>mary sue
>all women
>not mary sue
>male fantasy characters I like

really makes you think

Can we agree that Casino Royale is the best movie of this franchise?

>sjw FUCKING RETARDS were actually saying that batman is a mary sue
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, A MARY SUE IS A WOMAN THAT DOESN'T NEED ANY TRAINING AND IS NATURALLY THE BEST AT EVERYTHING YOU FUCKING RETARDED FAGGOT KEKS, NOT A GUY THAT TRAINED FOR YEARS AND STILL DOES TO BECOME THE BEST, FUCK THIS COUNTRY, FUCK LEFTARDS TRUMP 2016