Is Geralt of Rivia a Mary Sue?

Not to be an asshole about it, but I think it needs to be said anyway, specifically because this is a BW forum and many people here see TW franchise as an attack on BW (or something):

As always when it comes to TW and TW3 in particular, there are many people here who didn't play the game and yet are very anxious to give their opinions on it.

It's entirely legitimate to not like the game / the idea of the game or to not want to play it, but basing character assessment on some half-assed impressions based on things others said or snippets
one saw on social media / playing half an hour of the game - is hardly fair, and usually tends to be completely inaccurate.

Personally I find the "Mary Sue" question to be much less interesting and relevant than whether a character makes sense, both as a character, and from the PoV of in-universe realism,

because from my experience it is entirely possible to make a character who is technically a "Mary Sue" that still makes for a very interesting protagonist / NPC / etc. (though admittedly somewhat rare)

And my main distaste for Mary Sue characters usually comes anyway from that direction - meaning them not really making sense in the context of the world, etc.

Nothing I say is going to change the fact that many Bioware fans hold a deep grudge towards CDPR - which I suppose I even understand to a degree, but don't really care about,

possibly because I lost any love or respect I ever had to Bioware as a brand name, right now I only look at the products themselves.

Jan 4, 2018 17:44:09 GMT @carefull said:

no, Geralt, and I threw together a kindda typical amalgamation of a self-insert you'd find on fan-fiction.net, Crystal Star or whatever, what we traditionally expect as a Mary Sue girl-teen self-fulfillment character (I read a lot of fanfiction back in BG times). I have never really looked at Ciri, because most of the 3 games is Geralt, I just know she is his adopted daughter and playable for a bit in the third game. Lol... is she... actually superficially recognizable from this? Oh, gods...

My point was that by being disingenuous or simply due to ignorance, many characters can be stripped down into that archetype you are describing, and my argument is that it's simply not a correct interpretation of either character.

As for Ciri, I can't speak too much in regards to her, but with her at least the Mary Sue interpertation isn't as far fetched (though I'd still say not applicable in the end), because she's very much the "chosen one".

But her status aside, I'd say that she's also too brash, hotheaded, impatient, and irrational, to fit that archetype you were talking about.

And yes, she's good-looking, though not exactly in a traditional super-model sense.