(no subject)
I was thinking about Mary Sues the other day. Specifically, I was pondering how often video game characters would qualify as Sues or Stus, with a brilliant example being our very own Sora, and yet conspicuously fail to be as irritating as a written Sue (thereby disqualifying them from Suehood). I mean, Sora would probably flunk a Sue litmus test horribly. And yet? Hands up, everyone who loves the hell out of him and wants to give him cookies.
And it finally dawned on me, thinking about a Sue I'd rejected from an FF7 RP I co-run, and that fantastic specimen we got in here with the ridiculous ability list that included talking to animals: Too often the focus of a Sue is not on who they are, but what they can do. The Sue is not a character; it is a power fantasy. It doesn't have to come with a laundry list of speshul abilities - even the fainting Sue that melts Riku's icy heart of woe and leads him to declare his undying love for her at first sight has the power to, well, make Riku fall in love with her.
And in some canons, power fantasy characters are just fine, so long as they have personalities that are interesting. Hell, power fantasy is a significant part of the appeal of video games! As players of Kingdom Hearts, we all enjoy bashing the crap out of things with a big key, casting devastating magic spells, jumping three times Sora's height and gliding and turning into things and all the other stuff Sora can do, right? It's fun! Who cares if it's totally unrealistic, this is great gameplay!
That's the distinction, though. We get to do all this stuff as Sora. If Kingdom Hearts wasn't a game, and somebody wrote Sora as a character who could do all that crap, and focused on it in the narrative, we'd hate him. Maybe his personality might be enough to redeem him, but without the game context, presented as a tiny unstoppable juggernaut more than a character, he'd be boring as hell. We don't love Sora because he's powerful. We love playing as Sora because he's powerful. We love Sora because he's an indomitable woobie who puts his friends first no matter what and loves everyone and would be the awesomest guy to hang out with, ever.
And that is why your magical princess animal-talking psychic swashbuckler cyborg ninja Sue with the pet unicorn is not interesting. We don't give a shit what your Sue can do, because we can't do it, and there's no substance under that ability list to make us want to care about her at all.
Personality first. Know it, love it, keep it dear to your heart. Personality is everything.
And it finally dawned on me, thinking about a Sue I'd rejected from an FF7 RP I co-run, and that fantastic specimen we got in here with the ridiculous ability list that included talking to animals: Too often the focus of a Sue is not on who they are, but what they can do. The Sue is not a character; it is a power fantasy. It doesn't have to come with a laundry list of speshul abilities - even the fainting Sue that melts Riku's icy heart of woe and leads him to declare his undying love for her at first sight has the power to, well, make Riku fall in love with her.
And in some canons, power fantasy characters are just fine, so long as they have personalities that are interesting. Hell, power fantasy is a significant part of the appeal of video games! As players of Kingdom Hearts, we all enjoy bashing the crap out of things with a big key, casting devastating magic spells, jumping three times Sora's height and gliding and turning into things and all the other stuff Sora can do, right? It's fun! Who cares if it's totally unrealistic, this is great gameplay!
That's the distinction, though. We get to do all this stuff as Sora. If Kingdom Hearts wasn't a game, and somebody wrote Sora as a character who could do all that crap, and focused on it in the narrative, we'd hate him. Maybe his personality might be enough to redeem him, but without the game context, presented as a tiny unstoppable juggernaut more than a character, he'd be boring as hell. We don't love Sora because he's powerful. We love playing as Sora because he's powerful. We love Sora because he's an indomitable woobie who puts his friends first no matter what and loves everyone and would be the awesomest guy to hang out with, ever.
And that is why your magical princess animal-talking psychic swashbuckler cyborg ninja Sue with the pet unicorn is not interesting. We don't give a shit what your Sue can do, because we can't do it, and there's no substance under that ability list to make us want to care about her at all.
Personality first. Know it, love it, keep it dear to your heart. Personality is everything.