I know there are some posts about this going around and they're all cool. I just want to do my own take into this because... *Sigh* I love this fandom and it isn't as awful as others I've been in-- but man, today it managed to frustrate me so much (even though the chapter was AMAZING).
Warning: Spoilers of One Piece 763.
Alright, first of all: The term 'Mary Sue' is bullshit and we should stop using it. Period. But having said that, let's move on to what a Mary Sue is supposed to be.
When I used to be in the Spanish fandom more than six years ago, we used this term to refer to characters that are... too perfect. You know, they can do anything, they're talented at everything, they're beautiful, incredibly smart, incredibly strong, etc. If they have any flaw, it's some little thing that makes them cute or endearing, so it isn't a flaw at all. They also tend to have tragic stories that make people feel sorry for them. All in all, Mary Sues are... well, badly written characters with no complexity whatsoever.
Another way to use the term was to refer to OCs in fanfiction that suddenly became the protagonists of the story and saved the world. They made the actual canon main characters become little more than secondary characters and/or love interests for the Mary Sue. In this case, the term can only be applied to fanfiction. Why? Because yeah, there can be characters that steal the spotlight from the actual main characters in a story, it happens-- But when that happens in a canon, it's just... badly written. Let's stop using special fandom terms to say "this was awfully written".
Alright, so having these two definitions, we could try and apply them to Law, right? And we'd get something on the lines of:
He has one of the strongest devil fruits (being able to grant immortality, even though it's at the cost of his own life).
He has a tragic past.
He's very strong, to the point of being one of the eleven supernovas first, and becoming a Shichibukai later.
He's having a lot of spotlight in this arc.
He has a D in his name.
Clearly he is a Gary Stu.
But... this kind of "analysis" is really superficial. I can easily debunk all of these point without doing any in-depth analysis:
Strongest devil fruit: Well, Ace also had one of the strongest devil fruits and look at what good it did to him. Also, someone has to have the strongest devil fruits in the story. Just having one of them doesn't make him a badly written character.
He has a tragic past: So does 90% of the characters in OP.
Overpowered: Seriously? Seriously? In the manga where there are characters that can crack the freaking sky? In the manga where a guy consumed two devil fruits even though this is supposed to be impossible? I hope you guys are calling Kurohige a Mary Sue too, while we're at it. I mean look at him, clearly he's too perfect. AND he also has the D!
Too much spotlight: Newsflash: Vivi, Wiper, Pauly and the rest, Rayleigh, Keimi and Hachi, Buggy and everyone in Impel Down, Shirahoshi and her brothers, Smoker and Tashigi... you're all Mary Sues now. I mean HOW DARE YOU have spotlight in the arc that's focused in your island/story? Smoker and Tashigi are the worst because the steal so much spotlight when we weren't even in their homelands!!!! (Sigh, I will elaborate on this in a non-sarcastic way later in this post, I'm just too frustrated right now).
The D in his name: This has nothing to do with being a flat or badly written character. I mean, we don't even know what the Will of D is yet. In any case, there has to be characters that carry the D in their names, otherwise it wouldn't be such an important and big mystery in the story. Law was set up as an important character BEFORE we knew about this, and it wasn't accidental, as it seems that people with the D in their names tend to naturally stir up things in the world, intentionally or not. This is clearly important to the plot and not something that was randomly brought up. Oda thought of this carefully. Bear this in mind, and wait to see what's Law's real role in the story from now on before calling him a Mary Sue.
I think that all these points are really unimportant, though. The people who are using the Mary Sue/Gary Stu thing are missing the point of the term: What TRULY makes a Mary Sue is the fact that they're badly written. Not all these details. The little details ('overpowered', 'tragic backstory', 'too much spotlight') lose their meaning if you take them out of context. They sound awful on their own, but if you read them in the story they might not be badly written at all.
And this is the case with One Piece. Doflamingo's and Law's story isn't something that Oda took out of nowhere in this arc. We saw this story coming. Doffy was set up as an antagonist YEARS back. Law is a 'newer' character, but we also got hints about him being important when he appeared. This arc was carefully planned and all the elements we see in it ARE IMPORTANT FOR THE PLOT. Dear God, this is One Piece. We can criticize a bunch of things about OP, but you can't say it's badly written or badly planned. A character isn't given power or significance out of nowhere.
I kinda understand that people think that Law has 'too much spotlight' in these last two arcs (I don't think so? OP is always very balanced, but okay). But OP is a story that's mostly plot-driven. When characters get spotlight it's because it's important for the current plot. And sometimes that means sacrificing the spotlight of other characters, because they'll be important later, for other subplots and other arcs, but they're just not important for the CURRENT plot. OP isn't a manga where you'll always get to have the main characters in the spotlight just because they're the main characters. You'll get the characters that are important for the arc having the spotlight. Period. And after having the Straw Hats separated FOR TWO WHOLE YEARS (IN. REAL. LIFE.), I think we all know this by now.
That's all I have to say to the 'too much spotlight' thing.
Finally I want to talk a bit about the overpowered thing. When people use the term Mary Sue (in general), they often use it for characters that have 'too much power'. They think that 'too powerful' is the same as 'too perfect'. Here's the thing: People, real human beings, can actually be talented in many areas. There isn't some "Beautiful, Intelligent or Strong, pick max two" rule. These things don't make people "too perfect" to be realistic. Having no flaws has nothing to do with "having too many talents". Talents can be mastered in life, with enough training, and yes, some people do have it easier than others. It happens. People like that exist. But having no flaws means having no personality flaws. There's incredibly talented people out there that have really shitty personalities and are awful human beings. Being talented doesn't make a character less complex, but having only good personality traits (that never ever have bad connotations and are there just to make them likable) does.
Now, please look at Law and honestly tell me that he's too perfect.
He's not. He's someone driven by the desire of revenge. He's a pirate, for God's sake. He wanted to kill everyone when he was a child. He gets consumed by hate. He's capable of sacrificing his own life just for the sake of his revenge. He has major issues that we're JUST starting to see with this flashback (even though they were shown before). Law is someone who's lived through some really fucked up things (and this is an understatement, I believe) and he's been broken and traumatized, and he CLEARLY isn't over it (how can he ever be, honestly?). He's capable of doing awful things like taking people's hearts out (remember how he became a Shichibukai?), and then he's able to take his time healing the children kidnapped in Punk Hazard so they wouldn't suffer what he (and his sister and the kids in his city) suffered when he was little. He has all these awful things in his life, and we still get to see a lot of hilarious moments when he's with the Straw Hats and he gets carried away in the stupid and ridiculous things they do, or even when he's with his own crew.
Law is an interesting and complex character. He's definitely NOT badly written. He doesn't have a tragic backstory just because. All that he's lived has had consequences on him and lead him to the point where he is right now. You know, kinda like what happens with real people.
And let's be honest here. Is he really all that powerful? Because I'm not seeing him defeating Doflamingo with one attack, but maybe I'm reading the manga wrong. I don't know, I can't look at all these chapters we had of him handcuffed and unable to do anything and say "yeah, man, he's so overpowered". He has powerful tools. His devil fruit, all his training, even his brain... But he still isn't winning the battle, you know. Because there happen to be people, A LOT OF PEOPLE, that are far stronger than him. And even though he made a huge plan, it fell apart almost immediately because he failed to take into account a bunch of things, and simply because... well, life happened. He made mistakes. He has powerful tools, sure, but he's still human. He fails. He isn't strong enough to make good use of his tools, and he doesn't have the most powerful tools in the whole story. He carries the Will of D just as some other characters do, but does it give him some extra power? Does it make him win the battle immediately without any effort? No, it doesn't.
So tell me again: how in the world is he "too perfect"?
Honestly, let's stop throwing around this term every time a relevant character appears in a story. These characters that are deeply connected to the plot are important. They are needed in every story. Just being there doesn't make them badly written characters. Please, analyze them a little bit before saying that.
I can understand if people don't like Law because they just don't like him. But don't say he's a badly written character, because he isn't.
