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Apr. 9th, 2003 12:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynI've been reading the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
marysues community for some time now out of a train-wreck kind of fascination for the genre. (Well, that and the fact that it's a sort of mental Novocaine; if I read enough about these wretched characters, it's a little less painful to read the RL daily news. But mostly it's 'oooh, train wreck'.) Mary Sues, for those of you who don't know the term, are fanfiction characters who're just Too Wonderful For Words, whose primary job is to take the attention away from the main characters and to make their author happy. The name comes from a 1970's Star Trek fanfic about an Ensign Mary Sue somethingorother. Sues are generally female, although there are 'Gary Stus' out there too - but while male excessively wonderful characters are generally 'Godboys' capable of doing whatever the hell they want at 5000 times the competency level of the men around them, Sues are usually annoying in other ways. They're prettier than everyone else. They've got more talents than anyone else. The talents that other people have, they usually have at much much greater levels than anyone else. They can sing and/or play multiple musical instruments. They're almost universally liked, except for the book or fic's Designated Evil Person. They often cause the canon characters to fall hopelessly in love with them for no good reason. People have said that examples exist in published fiction and entertainment, although since they're the main characters they exist to be Improbably Fantastic At What They Do rather than to suck away attention. For Gary Stu, substitute Wesley "I'm Special!" Crusher, who was basically Gene Roddenberry's self-insertion character. For Mary Sue, substitute Ayla from the Clan of the Cave Bear books, or perhaps Anita Blake. (A case has been made for Polgara in the Belgariad, too, but since everybody in the Belgariad is more fantastic than anyone else EVER, I don't know how far she counts.)
Anyway, right now the two most popular fandoms for Sue infection seem to be Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Harry Potter Sues seem to be largely American exchange students (they've had one Canadian one, ever, but hardly any actual English original characters in these Suefics) and unknown daughters of Snape or Voldemort. Yes, daughters, most of these Sues seem to be female... which stands the LOTR ones in good stead, as vast numbers of them are excessively beautiful elvish or half-elven princesses who glomp onto Legolas like a barnacle to a whale's ass.
This includes the ones who 'fall through' from our world. Apparently, there has been a recent run of postings at fanfiction.net featuring teenage girls from our Earth who somehow wind up in Middle-Earth. They insert themselves into the Fellowship, or hang out at Rivendell, or come along after the Fellowship gets broken... you get the idea. A bunch of them turn out to secretly be long-lost elf princesses or something in disguise, too. Most of them apparently took one look at Aragorn and immediately shelled out their life savings for the Legolas Greenleaf Personal Hygiene Protection Program, because they all seem to keep their hair (red, blonde, black as a raven's wing, whatever - and usually down to their waist, too) in perfect condition and their makeup fresh even in the middle of the woods a zillion miles away from water that doesn't have to be filtered for mud. And they're all brilliantly wonderful at what they do, and they all seem to be able to pull the man - usually Legolas - of their choice into their orbit...
I'm so tempted to try my hand at fanfic now. I want an original female character who does take up some of the arts of war, maybe from our world, maybe not- but dammit, one who does it realistically. One whose life is muddy and grubby and tough, and whose relationship to the Fellowship consists of 'crap, we're out of men at Helm's Deep, I'd better put on a helmet' or something similar. Just because... well, dammit, there's other people in Middle-Earth besides the Nine Walkers, and they deserve a hearing too.
Will deal with that later, when I've had more time to recharge my brain. It's lunchtime and I have a PBEM post to write, too.
marysues community for some time now out of a train-wreck kind of fascination for the genre. (Well, that and the fact that it's a sort of mental Novocaine; if I read enough about these wretched characters, it's a little less painful to read the RL daily news. But mostly it's 'oooh, train wreck'.) Mary Sues, for those of you who don't know the term, are fanfiction characters who're just Too Wonderful For Words, whose primary job is to take the attention away from the main characters and to make their author happy. The name comes from a 1970's Star Trek fanfic about an Ensign Mary Sue somethingorother. Sues are generally female, although there are 'Gary Stus' out there too - but while male excessively wonderful characters are generally 'Godboys' capable of doing whatever the hell they want at 5000 times the competency level of the men around them, Sues are usually annoying in other ways. They're prettier than everyone else. They've got more talents than anyone else. The talents that other people have, they usually have at much much greater levels than anyone else. They can sing and/or play multiple musical instruments. They're almost universally liked, except for the book or fic's Designated Evil Person. They often cause the canon characters to fall hopelessly in love with them for no good reason. People have said that examples exist in published fiction and entertainment, although since they're the main characters they exist to be Improbably Fantastic At What They Do rather than to suck away attention. For Gary Stu, substitute Wesley "I'm Special!" Crusher, who was basically Gene Roddenberry's self-insertion character. For Mary Sue, substitute Ayla from the Clan of the Cave Bear books, or perhaps Anita Blake. (A case has been made for Polgara in the Belgariad, too, but since everybody in the Belgariad is more fantastic than anyone else EVER, I don't know how far she counts.)Anyway, right now the two most popular fandoms for Sue infection seem to be Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Harry Potter Sues seem to be largely American exchange students (they've had one Canadian one, ever, but hardly any actual English original characters in these Suefics) and unknown daughters of Snape or Voldemort. Yes, daughters, most of these Sues seem to be female... which stands the LOTR ones in good stead, as vast numbers of them are excessively beautiful elvish or half-elven princesses who glomp onto Legolas like a barnacle to a whale's ass.
This includes the ones who 'fall through' from our world. Apparently, there has been a recent run of postings at fanfiction.net featuring teenage girls from our Earth who somehow wind up in Middle-Earth. They insert themselves into the Fellowship, or hang out at Rivendell, or come along after the Fellowship gets broken... you get the idea. A bunch of them turn out to secretly be long-lost elf princesses or something in disguise, too. Most of them apparently took one look at Aragorn and immediately shelled out their life savings for the Legolas Greenleaf Personal Hygiene Protection Program, because they all seem to keep their hair (red, blonde, black as a raven's wing, whatever - and usually down to their waist, too) in perfect condition and their makeup fresh even in the middle of the woods a zillion miles away from water that doesn't have to be filtered for mud. And they're all brilliantly wonderful at what they do, and they all seem to be able to pull the man - usually Legolas - of their choice into their orbit...
I'm so tempted to try my hand at fanfic now. I want an original female character who does take up some of the arts of war, maybe from our world, maybe not- but dammit, one who does it realistically. One whose life is muddy and grubby and tough, and whose relationship to the Fellowship consists of 'crap, we're out of men at Helm's Deep, I'd better put on a helmet' or something similar. Just because... well, dammit, there's other people in Middle-Earth besides the Nine Walkers, and they deserve a hearing too.
Will deal with that later, when I've had more time to recharge my brain. It's lunchtime and I have a PBEM post to write, too.
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Belgalloreon Mary Sue...
Date: 2003-04-10 09:35 pm (UTC)Assuming Leigh Eddings's self-insertion (or David's insertion of his co-author) wasn't really Ce'Nedra (red hair! green eyes!), Taiba (purple eyes!), Vella (that Nadrak chit), etc, which ties back into your other point.
This all, of course, leaves the question of who the Marty Stu is aside...
* - Oh, wait, the answer to "how were they all so dense" is "the Prophecy made them that way," which is, I'm sorry, the crutch of a poor worldbuilder. () († (fn2))
† - Yep, footnoting a footnote, surely to gain me entry into an unpleasant editorial afterlife. Anyway, please 'scuse my bitchiness; I just re-read Enchanter's Endgame for the first time in awhile. My tastes have developed (matured?) in the past few years, and I'm just finding it... not even good brain candy. Hershey's when I was reaching for Ghiradelli or Godiva. ()
-- Lorrie