Hench the "borderline" prefix. Rocketman said it best in a previous topic:EXBadguy wrote:Whoa, "Mary Sue"? You going too far there. While I do see a couple MS traits in him, the big difference between them is that AT LEAST Trunks wanted to fight before Gohan died and he got all his Super Saiyan powers. All Mary Sue did is cry(and I haven't seen all Star Trek films)
The sue part only applies to his introduction, after he comes back he loses his sue status because Mary Sues actually have to do something to earn it. Although I guess one could make the argument that he slipped back into his sue-dom at the very end when he goes back to his timeline and one-shots the big bad punks who had been giving so much trouble because he trained in a magic time room that wasn't even hinted at previously until it became necessary to the plot.
KentalSSJ6 wrote:Its not like he was like "Hey guys I got this" and one shots everyone.
Uh...that's exactly what he does to Freeza and Kold.
Trunks in his first appearance embodies almost all the signifiers of Sue-dom.
1. Unique hair/eyes. ("All Saiyans have black hair")
2. Uses a sword in a setting where nobody does.
3. More powerful than all the established characters.
4. Uses a previously unique powerup/skill/etc effortlessly.
5. Kills the Big Bad effortlessly.
6. Related to established character
6b. Related to royalty.
6c. Child of two characters with no interaction.
NO
STOP
I can already hear your itchy fingers reaching for that quote button to do a point-by-point refutation! Don't do it! It is not the individual parts, but that they all exist in tandem!
Also the fact that Trunks comes back and is nowhere near the central character. The Gary Stu stuff really only applies to his intro.
I just feel that the whole time-travel and 3/4/however many timelines were clutter the series didn't need. I admit that my re-write attempt is a little clunky, but I genuinely believe that removing Future Trunks and all the time-travel nonsense could yield a more steam-lined Cell arc. That and Toriyama actually planning shit out one in a while, but what can you do?