A character named Sue
Seanan McGuire has made an excellent post about the misuse of the term Mary Sue. It really is an excellent post, thoughtful and insightful and calling out some issues that people really need to pay more attention to because they're those issues that just slide by insidiously, sucking all the while. Heaps of things about unconscious use of
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Ah,yeah. And you can't give "Froda, the woman who bore the ring to Mount Doom" a Millennium Falcon because... she doesn't exist.
Women don't exist in LOTR, in any meaningful way. *
And my biggest, worst most angrifying problem with the Mary Sue epithet stems from that fact.
OF COURSE young women will insert themselves into canon, because otherwise, they won't be there. And OF COURSE young women will write these women badly, because that is so little female plotting available to them as models for what women could do and how they might do it. And OF COURSE we want them to learn to write better. We (Or at any rate, I do,) want them to write more and better female characters. You ask around the slash communities, and see how many women stopped trying to write female characters because they got the "M-S" word tossed in their faces.
And I did read somewhere, someone calling Sara Rees Brennan's character "Mae" a Mary Sue, yes yes. So, no. Worrying about some Mary Sue Writing women getting away with it is supremely the wrong tree to be barking up.
Mary Sue is a bad word. It is a nutshell categorisation against which there is no argument, no defence. If you want to critique a female character for being too superpowered, or too sweet, or having that butterfly-winged kitty, by all means do so. But please, please, lay off the M-S- word when you do it.
*Well, three do, maybe four... One does Elven queening, one gets dumped, one gets a near-mortal wound and that'll show her, one sits with waterlilies at her feet. A few named walk-ons wait back home.
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My thinking has been predominantly about how I grew into adulthood reading fantasy - which in the early '90s was all of that '80s slew of first-adaptation-of-old-school epic fantasy, the Eddings and the Feist and the beginnings of Jordan. There are female support characters, but they're not really front and centre - for every Polgara there's a Belgarath, for every Queen Ehlana a Sparhawk to be her knight protector. But this never bothered me. I didn't feel displaced. I didn't feel like I couldn't be my own hero. I identified with and loved and followed along with the heroes - with Garion and Pug and Rand - even if they were male. They're characters; they're people. And I'm a person.
I'm not saying you're wrong. You're not, and I think it's important that kids - maybe especially younger than I was then - can look at media and see characters they identify with excelling. I'm just saying that this wasn't really the case for me, and I have never, ever been any sort of shrinking-female-violet in a gender-relations regard. (...I get confused when men wait to let me into/out of the elevator first.)
I'm not concerned with Mary-Sue-writers getting away with it. I actually support getting away with it, because people do enjoy that sometimes, and if someone enjoys it (harmlessly) then I think it should be. And I absolutely think that characters should be discussed on their merits, not slapped with a derogatory term. But even bad words have their place in the English language, as long as they are used "correctly" (quotemarks because part of what I love about English is that definitions are all more or less fuzzy around the edges) and with full awareness of their weight and connotations. Yes, the term is currently ill-applied and over-used. Let's work to remedy that, not invite Mary-Sue in for tea and cake.
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How would you use "Mary Sue" "correctly?" What weight and connotation would you assume the listener was aware of?
this is a serious and lexicological question, honest.
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I was thinking about this further on my walk to work, and I guess part of my thing here - which I didn't phrase brilliantly in the first place, I admit - is "why are we letting the detractors define the terms?" There seems to be a "well, if you're going to define Mary Sue like that [as a personally-defined "too something" female protagonist], then we think Mary Sue is awesome!" vibe, and I don't understand why we aren't saying, "No, that isn't Mary Sue, it is a strong character you just don't agree with." It's the misuse of the term that I'm concerned about people getting away with, I guess.
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And then I wonder-- what happens when you do? How do your listeners react?
I mean-- we've got two kind of different explorations going on here:
one about the fitness of the term, those two words "Mary Sue" and whether or not it is legitimate and right to ever use it-- and if so, where and when-- which is a question I do like to ask people to think about--
And the other is about the phenomenon of overdrawn characters who distort the story around themselves. Which can then be divided into sub-discussions, such as "why do they exist?" "Are they ever tolerable?" "If we don't invite them in for tea, who does?"
and then we can wonder why the default term for such a disruptive character is *female.*
Which brings us back to my first thing above.
As far as whether or not an unbalanced character can unbalance her own story-- or his own story, because honestly, Batman? Harry Potter? James Bond? The answer is obviously "yes."
But the phenomenon of Mary Sue is very specifically a fanfiction phenomenon. The first Mary Sue was a young cadet on board a fanfiction Enterprise, and she was written to mock the self-insertions that young writers were indulging in, and her name was Mary Sue.
And the fault, the dreadful sin of Mary Sue, is that she takes the plot love away from the canon man main characters-- be they Spock and Kirk, or Spike and Xander, or Sparrow and Norrington, who are so much more worth our time and attention, but not, of course, Marty Stu's themselves.
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You're correct on the origins. But though the term originated with fanfiction, it has spread out and can now be used to describe characters in original fiction. I have definitely read it utilized many times on non-fandom blogs to describe original fiction. Terminology spreads in the internet age. *g*
The fault with the Mary Sue/Marty Stu is not that they take plot-time away from the main characters (that's just a dislike of OCs in fanfic in general, which I think is preference that people should be allowed to have without criticism as they read fanfiction for the purpose of reading about the canon characters; to each their own).
The idea is that these characters distort the canon universe and canon characters in the service of raising Mary/Marty up. The author builds up Mary/Marty by tearing down the universe. It's that instead of inserting these original characters organically within canon, in a way that serves the plot and canon character dynamics, everything is warped to celebrate. It's generally not just Spike whose normal behavior & personality is distorted by the presences of this intruder, but also Buffy, Willow, Giles, Cordelia, etc. (When Willow is transformed in a Mary Sue, often Buffy is turned into an exaggerated, whining shrew. Sometimes even turned murderous. Tearing her down to built Mary!Willow up.) Which, if that's what the writer wants to write and what someone wants to read -- cool, that's the beauty of fanfiction*. But I don't think that all fanfic readers should feel pressured to say that they enjoy the trope or be criticized for expressing that they won't read stories containing it -- any more than they should be censored for saying that they don't read stories with soul bonds or forced marriage trope.
*full disclosure: I definitely read me some Marty!Xander and Mary!Willow back-in-the-day. I've read a bit of Marty!Harry Potter. I would read the shit out of some ridiculous Mary Sue-ized Elena Vampire Diaries fanfiction because she's my hero and I am dumb about her. Sometimes you just feel like bad fic, ok? Or, at least sometimes I do. ;) But I've also LOVED a fanfic sequel to Pride&Prejudice about Anne de Bourgh which is... basically centering a fanfic around an OC, because she was such a minor non-character in P&P... and this was in no way, shape or form a Mary Sue story. Perfect example of an OC female protagonist who was well-rounded and who was written to fit naturally within the canon universe, and the author did not rip down any part of Darcy or Elizabeth or poison canon in order to make this protagonist compelling.)
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Nobody ever has been pressured to say that, to my knowledge.
Everyone should be allowed to avoid reading fic that contains these characters.
In fact, there is no possible way anyone could be forced to read them.
My point is that you cannot use the term "Mary Sue," those two words, to have any sort of actual useful dialogue.
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Personally, I like to call a poorly written character "A poorly written character." And an overly important character I call... "An overly important character." And then we discuss the whys and wherefores, assuming the writer wants to do so.
I know it isn't catchy and sound-bite-y. But it is a better way to start dialogue. Soundbites tend to end dialogue, not further it.
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Re: using Mary-Sue. Very good point, actually. I would probably only use the term to my fandom friends - people who were "in the know" on the language, and who would immediately grasp all of the concepts that were bundled up in this piece of linguistic shorthand. Mind you, I might also use it in degrees. "Her Ginny is a little bit Mary-Sue, but the story's got zing and I really enjoyed it." Which is much quicker to say over beer than going into the ways and details. YES, lazy speech leads to lazy thinking which slumps us into unconscious bad ingrained attitudes of society. But full academic discourse isn't always appropriate.
But the phenomenon of Mary Sue is very specifically a fanfiction phenomenon.
That's where she was first recognised. But just as a whooooole lot of other fanfic tropes and terms are now appearing in published media - not uncoincidentally at the same time as a lot of fanfic authors are publishing original works - she's escaped into the wild.
The original post I was responding to agrees with you: a female heroine is only Mary Sue if she's in fanfic. But I disagree with that. Not all original chars in fic are Mary Sues, and not all original chars in original stories aren't.
On the "default gender" thing, I agree that it's not entirely helpful. But I honestly never use the Marty/Gary Stu appellation. I accuse male authors of Mary-Sueing as well. In my mind, it's a concept divorced from gender - which is fine for me, but I recognise that when I use it, that divorce may not have occurred in the minds of every audience member, and that makes it an issue.
aaaaaaand now I'm running late oops.
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Not all original chars in fic are Mary Sues, and not all original chars in original stories aren't.
Well, damn straight. But currently, it's impossible, in my experience, to find an original female character in any fic who isn't discussed in Mary Sue terms-- sometimes people comment on how much she isn't one. With great surprise.
I'm not sure if I can get across to you how pernicious I think this is, that female characters default to Mary Sue in reader's minds, and have to prove themselves otherwise. It's a brand-new Original sin, that all female characters have to atone for.
Or something.
I accuse male authors of Mary-Sueing as well. In my mind, it's a concept divorced from gender
But the words themselves-- they aren't divorced from gender at all. You couldn't get more gendered than "Mary," or "Sue." I think we could have used "James Bond" to express the same problematic aspects, yeah? So, why did we never do that?
ETA : And by the way, have I thanked you for hosting this conversation? *Muah!*
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True. I've done this myself - written a fanfic with an original female character and noted that I am actively trying not to Mary-Sue. Then again, I've made that note on stories where I've used in a canon female character in a way that could easily slip over into Mary-Sueing. I do this because Mary Sues do not just exist, they are common, and this means a lot of fic-readers (who are fic-rich and time-poor) just skip over an original female character. While there is the fact of such a large quantity of poorly-written Mary-Sue-involving fics, this is going to be the case. People do the same for fic that seems, from the minimal information conveyed in fic-headings, to be anything else common and not-preferred by the reader: cliche fic, or with an over-used trope. I do the same sort of note when I'm using a cliche in a hopefully non-cliche way. I would not expect anyone to necessarily give my story a chance unles I give them a reason.
But the words themselves-- they aren't divorced from gender at all. You couldn't get more gendered than "Mary," or "Sue." I think we could have used "James Bond" to express the same problematic aspects, yeah? So, why did we never do that?
Because, as you said, the first acknowledged example of the trope was called Mary Sue. It's like using Kleenex for facial tissues, or Hoover for a vacuum or the process of vacuuming. It's like how a particularly powerful early fic will influence the rest of the fandom in terms of details. It's shorthand and it's fanon.
I am all for the awareness of possible unconscious gender issues arising from the use of any term. But I feel that sometimes discussions of this nature overgender terms that are, actually, drifting into the ungendered. (For instance, the use of "man" or "mankind" in the generic, and particularly the idiotic advent of the term "chairperson".)
And it's my pleasure to host it! I love seeing ideas flying around the place, and agree or disagree, discussion is the best way to raise and maintain not just our own awareness of all sides of issues, but the awareness of others -participants, readers and lurkers - as well. <3
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I just don't see how you can say:...written a fanfic with an original female character and noted that I am actively trying not to Mary-Sue... and then claim that the term is not gendered.
To my mind it is absolutely impossible to "overgender" a woman's name used to mock and find fault with writing failures in a genre hugely dominated by women. That's just not ignorable. It's disingenuous to claim that the term is being misused for abuse, when it is a mocking and denigrating term in the first place.
Common wisdom claims that female Mary Sues are incredibly common in fanfic, but... I can't say that I've seen it. if it is, it's because each young woman commits the crime of self insertion once. And then, it's very probable, she will never risk writing another female character ever again. But she will very likely insert herself as someone canon-- Xander, for instance-- and warp the plot all around him. because no one would guess, right? if the character is male?
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To my mind it is absolutely impossible to "overgender" a woman's name used to mock and find fault
You definitely have a point. However, it's also difficult to find a generic shorthand term to refer to something that was originally created and named in the specific. Especially when the character being referred to so often is female when appearing in the original, classic manifestation of the term. Ease is going to default to use of the familiar term. But that doesn't mean that that use has to be done ignorantly, or applying this specific mock and fault to every single other character that shares a feature. Or that misuse of the term shouldn't be called out, because it absolutely should be.
Common wisdom claims that female Mary Sues are incredibly common in fanfic, but... I can't say that I've seen it.
Lucky you. When was the last time you spent any time reading over at fanfic.net? There was a meme a while back about searching ff.net for your own name - I scored a baker's dozen of mary-sues in three different fandoms with mine. Fandom on journalling communities is quite a sheltered experience, with flists serving as automatic quality-filters and many communities having strict policies.
Tacking on the end to address the rest of your final paragraph: I'm not sure what we can do about that. Be nice in criticism? Well, yes, I try to be. But no one has the time to go around and explain gently to every single self-inserting and/or Mary-Sue-writing (because I still don't believe they're the same thing) new author the subjective problems that people might be having with his/her work. Even if we magically removed the term "Mary Sue" from everyone's vernacular, that would not stop people saying, "This is shit."
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Is the Mary Sue discussion going around again? Here's a brand new post on the topic:
http://dubonnetcherry.dreamwidth.org/108159.html
And please note this perfect example of "misuse" and abuse recounted in this comment:
http://dubonnetcherry.dreamwidth.org/108159.html?thread=1055103#cmt1055103
Which is not really much more egregrious than anything else, allthings considered.
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Hi, sorry to rudely butt in! I hope I'm not unwelcome.
I'd agree definition can be vague. It's one of those things that's more like "I know it when I see it". It's... exaggerated, larger than life characters whose only flaws are pasted on for 'color' but don't really impede them in any way, it's unbalanced characters who we are told embody a series of admirable qualities but aren't build up before our eyes to earn our respect. The story serves this character, all the other characters serve this character. A common example I can think of is actually a Marty Stu -- there are hundreds of Harry Potter fics at fanfiction.net where Harry is transformed into a Marty Sue. Harry suddenly develops magical shielding powers, new unique talents, new political influence, wealth, groups of admirers. He gets contact lenses, starts wearing different clothes. Other characters that used to be strong and have their own opinions begin to flatten out and serve as props for this Harry character. He wins every argument with every character, or if he loses he'd then be proven to have been right. Either he defeats and outsmarts ever foe or horrible things keep happening to him that serve to dwarf anyone else's concerns -- everyone else's pain and interests are shown to be petty and selfish in comparison, as they should be focusing on what Harry is going through -- this is often even made explicit in the text.
(think about how much of a contrast this is with the "real" Harry Potter, who is sometimes short-sighted, selfish, flawed, revealed to have been oblivious to the pain others are going through, who can make bad choices and is often magically & strategically out-matched and wins by help from his friends or luck)
Back in my days in the BtVS fandom, I saw these things happen sporadically with the Xander or Willow characters as well as OCs. Pretty much the same modis operandi as described with Harry above. It's just a certain kind of badfic. Some people enjoy writing and reading it, and that's fine. Fanfic is supposed to be fun. But I don't think that means the character is well written and doesn't deserve some special warning labels on a delicious bookmark, so the people who dislike that trope can avoid. And the character being female doesn't give it any automatic pass from crappy characterization.
I agree with cupiscent that we can see examples of this in published original fiction (for male and female characters). God, I just read a Regency romance novel the other day where the female protagonist was the WORST example of it. And I've read male & female versions of this in bad urban fantasy. Maybe we shouldn't call it Mary Sue/Marty Stu. I dunno. Maybe we need a new label. But until we come up with a better one, and popularize it enough that people will understand what I'm talking about...
I guess what it comes down to for me is that I refuse to settle. I may be a lesbian but I won't welcome unbalanced, poorly drawn, paper thin queer characters. I won't roll over and accept any scraps they'd like to give me, because I'm supposed to be desperate. In the same way, I refuse to throw away my standards and pretend to adore just any female character a writer gives me.
I realize it's problematic, because yeah, it's good to support low budget gay cinema and programs with heavy POC, LGBT, and female representation. On the other hand, I think we're still allowed to have standards, to admit when something is subpar, be critical, want it to get better. I should still be able to say, "I love this show with a lot of POC character screen time but I think this one's POC character is boring and annoying." and "I love this female protagonist here but this one you'd have to pay me to watch."
One of the things I hate hearing from television/movie/novel writers is the whole defense of "I stopped including female characters because you viewers didn't like them" or "You viewers just hate women, that's why you don't like my female characters." Because, no, I didn't give a crap about those characters because I found them flat & completely uninteresting, because of how they were written. Dear authors/show runners, stop turning it around so it's my problem.
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