On the Very Possibility of Awesome Mary Sues?
Speaking as a het male, when I use a female character as a partial self-insert (and I prefer doing so over male characters) I generally want her to do double-duty as lust object as well. This creates absolutely zero cognitive dissonance in me. (Whether that's because I can keep the roles of self-insert and lust object separate in my head, or because I'm assuming that if I were going to be a fantastic woman than of course that would include being the sort of woman I as a het man desire, I can't say.)
At the end of the day, it's absolutely true that we need to retire the term "Mary Sue" as a term which has moved beyond the limits of redeemability. But it is equally important to continue to try to redeems those characteristics (other than bad writing simpliciter--and hey, if you want to try to redeem bad writing simpliciter, power to you) which at times the term may have been understood to denote.
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At the end of the day, it's absolutely true that we need to retire the term "Mary Sue" as a term which has moved beyond the limits of redeemability. But it is equally important to continue to try to redeems those characteristics (other than bad writing simpliciter--and hey, if you want to try to redeem bad writing simpliciter, power to you) which at times the term may have been understood to denote.
This entry was originally posted at http://alixtii.dreamwidth.org/345977.html. There are currently
comments there. You can comment there, using Open ID, or here.