Whom is a Mary Sue

I told Heirophant before, ut for me I lost all interest the moment Eren massacred Liberio. There was so much potential there when he had that exchange with Reiner, only to throw it all away as it turned out Eren was always the same brat from Episode 1. The story had tons of issues before that, some objective and some subjective (I hated everyone involved with the Stohess Massacre when they tried capturing Annie who in that instance was the good guy since she just tried getting out of the city while Eren killed all the civilians. Hitch became one of my favorite characters simply because she actually called them out on that). But at least between the basement and that we got a lot of worldbuilding so that was nice. Plus that battle killed two of my favorites, Zofia and Best Girl Scout Sasha, the latter being my favorite overall and the the only connection I had left to the "good guys" (until Best Girl Warrior Pieck joined). 
I don't like Reiner, but he is by far the best character in the series with how they wrote him. Too bad like everything else the ending ruined that too.
And agreed on Annie. I liked her at first since the backstory showed her being very reluctant, a child blackmailed by Reiner to help and then the only one of the three to see the Paradisians as people, but then when she went "I'd do it again." I was like "...well...screw you too then." 
With Armin and Liberio, it seemed to me his nuke didn't hit civilians but more just wiped out the military fleet. Eren was the one who killed the civilians there. Of course I don't he gets hate the same reason Eren doesn't get hate: fans are hypocrites. It's awful when the bad guys kill innocent people, but it's perfectly fine when the good guys do it because "Well the others started it" or "the good guys had to" completely ignoring that part of the plot. 
And yeah, I hate how everyone thanks Eren for wiping out 80% of the world population. He told them nothing new. Before when he said that, they all said he was wrong and had to be stopped, but now he said the exact same thing but now it's thank you Eren for taking on that burden and helping us. Screw you all. At least Pieck is just eing jealous with her "I wish I had a conversation (and Gabi and Falco being adorable with the tackle hug). 

This was my reaction after reading... 

"Thank you for becoming a mass murderer for us!" - Armin Arlert

Bert and Reiner were doomed from the start when they were going against Armin, and his not so genius strategy because the author likes to destroy the collective IQs of all characters in order to hype him up. 

The problem i have with time travelling, manipulation and the paths is that the author turned the main character into a near god like being who could influence the past, future, present. With that power Eren could create a near infinite amount of possibilities, but the author didn't explain to the reader why his main character choose his specific course of actions because he was too busy with maintaining the narrative's veneer of mystery to properly develop a coherent/cohesive narrative. Like M.Night Shyamalan with The Village & The Happening i think SnK's author got too caught up in the mystery box approach to writing.

About Armin not receiving hate. I think's it's because he's the author's self insert, and it's the sole reason why his character, and Annie (love interest) haven't faced any negative consequences for their actions and have been rewarded instead.

Lol, pretty much my response as well. Its also convenient Reiner has selective memory loss so he can lose, and the anchor doen't somehow get dislodged as Bert is blasting the area with the force of a nuclear bomb. Only the Beast titan's loss was acceptable.

I also agree with you on time travelling. Eren being omnipotent really hurts the story. The author constantly wanting to keep the readers guessing ultimately led to a weak conclusion. Almost like he wrote himself into a corner. The mystery behind everything was really lame and one dimensional to boot. I never realized what I truly disliked about Armin until reading your posts. So thanks for that. It makes me feel for Bert. Not only does he get shafted with the bad writing (he never reappears in any meaningful way), but he gets screwed in universe by Armin.

Yeah, it definitely seemed to be a lot for poetics. The Warriors attacked Eren's home, now the Scout's are attacking Reiner's home. And you're right about Armin's hitting them. I forgot about the ships crashing into the harbor. I thought the boy Armin saw though was from Eren's attacks rather than his own. And I love/hate those answers too, and that goes straight into the fans being hypocrites. The Warriors were a bunch of brainwashed kids who were told what they were doing was going to save their families, people, and the entire world when they attacked Paradis, and yet the fans always say they had other options or what they did is unforgivable. Meanwhile Eren actually had other options to achieve the same result, but suddenly any war crime is forgivable and they were forced. Like I get Willy declared war before he struck, but why not strike the allied fleet once they launch. You devastate that, ruining the world's military, and with minimal to no civilians lost the world would be at least more open to peace talks but if not at least it'll take time to rebuild the military. And yeah them never knowing, or maybe figuring it out after the fact without him telling them (and removing the forgiveness part) would have been better. 

Yay I'm glad you agree with Stohess. Most fans once again excuse Eren and the SCouts with the :"It's war"/"They had no choice" or even blame Annie like "Well if she didn't resist then it wouldn't have happened." They were going to torture and kill her, why would she not resist? And even when she did, all she did was run through open empty streets until Eren tackled her into the church and threw her through buildings and the market. 
But yeah someone capturing her, even though she was in a crystal thus useless to them, means al is forgiven because Main Characters. Show them get repercussions from that, like that being the reason the Military Police go after them rather than because of that conspiracy nonsense in the Uprising Arc. 
Floch gets hated? Must be a difference between anime and manga fans, since the manga fans are pissed that Eren betrayed Floch's trust and all that saying he was right about needing to Make Eldia Great Again and kill the world. 
Yeah Hitch was just awesome. She was fun even before that, but her after that was even better. I'm glad she survived, and that she does not really care about the Yeagerist stuff as seen with her yawning and barely raising her arm as the others do the cheer. And Zofia was like all the good parts of Annie without the bad stuff. And Pieck was just awesome, being other Best Girl besides Sasha, and Falco was one of the most innocent characters in the series so can't hate him. When the reader likes more of the "ad guys" than the "good guys", you know you messed up as a writer. SAme with him killing off SAsha, the Light in the DArk character. You don't kill off your Light in the Dark characters. THough in retrospect, at least she didn't suffer character assassination and is living happily in the afterlife unlike the others who are doomed on the planet since the environmental damage screwed the survivors.

Depends on the skill set required for the jobs I suppose. Going from an engineer to a HR Manager to a school teacher have a lot lower floor on the skills required than switching from a chemist to a lawyer to an astrophysicist. Etc., etc.

Going from a Prothean archaeologist to the Shadow Broker, yeah the change in skill sets that would be required there I understand why some would consider that to be skirting the line of Mary Sue'ish.


True add to that the level of writing in ME2 taking a pretty deep nosedive in general and... well we get things like Liara the Shadow Broker. /smh

Me neither. Any sufficiently intelligent and resourceful person can make the transition. And like you say it's not like she setup the SB network herself...she just took possession of existing resources. Of course we could make the argument that her lack of experience exposed her to Cerberus which resulted in loss of much of those resources...in which case that would make her less of a "Mary Sue."

Whoever wrote that line, doesn't actually understand how information brokering works. Liara would have to actively stalk each any all murder sites, as those murders happened to have any information worth a shit, not to mention uncover and hide evidence from official authorities, so as to keep those evidence hidden from police reports, so that they could be usable in her field, which also makes her involvement in the tampering of evidence a crime ... this line of action goes through so many fucking wrong turns, this is the absolute wrong way to go about information brokering, but rather is outright criminal activity. Liara would be wanted for, basically, withholding evidence, aiding and abating murderers and inhibiting criminal investigation.

It wasn't a literal statement, she was just saying the secrets she is digging up are more recent now. While some archaeology is in the field most of it is research before you get their.  They aren't just randomly digging and screaming eureka. Both jobs have a heavy focus in gathering information and contacts. The contacts likely are in different fields today, but her archaeology where she is fighting off bandits etc might have her developing a similar contact network.

Oh it fits humans pretty well.

Consider some of the other qualities a Mary Sue possesses and compare it to how humanity is represented.

Mary Sues are naturally gifted or capable at things their peers don't even come close to matching: Check - From my initial post 
Mary Sues are universally loved and idolized by all those around them; those that don't are secretly jealous or villains (possibly both): Check -

• The Council races' cold shoulder to humans was do to them being afraid of our capabilities, but deep down they actually respected us; going so far as to completely side with the newcomer humanity over the already established Batarians in any & all territorial disputes. Backing down from enforcing established galactic law concerning the discovery of humanity's deliberate pursuit of AI research; whereas they literally kicked the Quarians out of Citadel politics permanently for accidentally creating swarm AI. They also didn't do anything about curtailing the violation of ordinances concerning genetic tampering when it came to medigel; even going so far as to not fine or tax the Systems Alliance for the creation and sale of said product.

•Harbinger's intention to harvest humanity as the only species 'worthy' of ascension. His deeming of all the other species in the galaxy as 'too primitive' to be considered for anything other than extermination.   

Etc.

Then you'd really hate the idea I had that would have made Humans less susceptible to Reaper indoctrination. Something along the lines of what Samara said: "You are more individualistic than any other species I've encountered. Put three humans in a room, there will be six opinions."

Archeology really has no relation to what the Shadow Broker role seems to entail. You'd need knowledge of and experience in personnel management (Liara has none) in this case of a ruthless sort of underworld criminals who will be looking to replace you at any sign of weakness or incompetence. You'd need knowledge of the behaviors of political, criminal and business elites, how these type of people will think and react to certain stimuli in the legal frameworks they operate within so you can effectively predict their actions and utilize your position accordingly to your advantage. Liara also has none of this, self admittedly coming from a field she partially preferred due to her "awkward" social skills, and it's requiring of none of them.

She should be bad at predicting people, as she was in regard to Shepard. Those are life skills you only learn through experience.

Mind you we don't know anything about the Yahg either, but that at least leaves open the possibility of it being a political, business or crime boss mover and shaker on its own world, the type that would actually be suited to this sort of position.

Liara should end up no better off than Tali when the latter tried to challenge and make demands of the Shadow Broker. The quarian is a bit less naive and awkward than the asari, and due to the outcast background of the quarains, she's seemingly more used to under the table dealings (take them both to Noveria and compare their reactions), so in theory should at least be a little more suited to surviving the underworld. Regardless, she got taken advantage of and was nearly killed in about 2 seconds by some of the Broker's nameless low level goons. The same or worse should happen to Liara.

Also where the hell does Liara get the presumably millions of credits to hire an army of mercs if you don't help her? I guess she's a master stock market broker too? Add it to the list.

Of the ME1 squad the only one I could buy fitting in that role is Wrex, since he's already been a leader and knows his way around the underwold. He's been operating in it for hundreds of years so presumably has some contacts to speak of. Also has the ruthless personality required for it . Liara is literally the last one I'd pick and if you told me she was gonna become the broker after the naive little goody two shoes innocent waifu bait presented to me in 1, I'd have laughed in your face.