Natural Talent: Mary Sue and the Entitlement Problem, Part II

As I said on Monday, a lot of Mary Sue characters on their self-actualisation mission have a special talent. There's nothing inherently wrong with this-- everyone has unique skills, passions, and ways of seeing the world differently. However, there's a big difference between a 'busting their behinds to make it' plot where the talented character has to train and practice to overcome obstacles and take on the competition, and a 'acknowledge my mad skillz' plot, where the character is super talented with no major visible effort, and the main conflict is overcoming the haters.

There are several major problems with this plot. First of all, the character does nothing to earn their awesomeness, and yet the reader and the other characters are supposed to accept them as special. In many cases, the character is all talk (or all authorial editorialising), and not a whole lot of behaviour that backs up the assertion they are a magical unique snowflake.

Second, the plot runs on the idea that 'talent' is some inborn trait that runs on self-confidence, rather than being the product of hard work. Now, some people have particular talents or interests from a young age, but  in the real world 'natural' talent will only carry you so far. Talented folks have to work their butts off just like everyone else to be successful in their field-- the usual rule being 10,000 hours of intense, meaningful practice to truly master a skill at a high level. It's insulting (not to mention absurdly unrealistic) to have a 'talented' character breeze in with no real practice and do better than people who have been in the game for years. But in the end, it's the idea that some people are just inherently better than others, and should be fawned over and should not have to work for their success.

I should point out this plot is different from the 'misfit wants to pursue their passion' plot, a la Billy Elliot, because those plots usually include the character not only resisting the doubters, but working up a storm to do the one thing that gets them up in the morning. Seeing a character work and struggle and earn their success in spite of being told they'll fail-- now that's inspiring.