Why yes, I did just spend my Saturday evening writing an essay on Mary Sues
I first came across the term “Mary Sue” when writing my Harry Potter fanfic, The Greatest Kind of Magic. My beta reader at the time defined it as “A character who is boring, clichéd and perfect in every way.” Of course, as I delved further into the world of fanfiction, I realised that definition didn’t quite cover it. A Mary Sue is a self-insert. A Mary Sue warps the story around her. A Mary Sue is universally loved by every other character in the story. Or, on the contrary, a Mary Sue is abused by every other character in the story, making her an angsty, suffering Sue. Suddenly, avoiding Mary Sues became far more difficult than simply ensuring the character has a normal-sounding name and not too many exotic powers. Hell, a character who is specifically described as being perfectly ordinary can still be called out as a Mary Sue if she is too angsty, or if another character falls in love with her for no apparent reason, or if she discovers something unusual about her past...
But hang on - don’t all stories require some element of the extraordinary? If your main character has no remarkable features whatsoever and nothing unexpected ever happens to them, you have no story.
Which leads me to the question: at what point is a Mary Sue no longer protected by the theory of narrative causality?
(For those unfamiliar with Terry Pratchett: the Theory of Narrative Causality states that things happen in stories because without them, you wouldn’t have a story - i.e. things happen because the plot needs them to happen. For a more extensive explanation, see this entry on Tvtropes.org.)
My thinking here comes not so much from fanfiction, but from “canon” Sues - the characters in original works who are described as Mary Sues. A very obvious example is Bella Swan from Twilight - a character with whose Sue label I wholeheartedly agree. And yet, I’ve had arguments with friends about other potential Sues. For example, one of my friends insists that Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter is a Sue, because she is popular and Harry falls in love with her (and this occurs without any sort of lead-up). I’ve seen virtually every character from the new Doctor Who series described as a Sue, not least the Doctor himself (and, if you think about it, the simple definition fits. Super-powerful? Check. Attractive? Check. Warps the world around him? Oh, yes. Oh, and has hordes of women falling in love with him. Oh and the angst. I won’t go on.)
But by that virtue, just about every major character in any work of fiction can be described as a Sue, especially in the fantasy/sci-fi realm, where the “chosen one” trope occurs with irritating regularity. Harry Potter? Chosen one, the only one who can defeat Voldemort, survives improbable situations over and over again. Buffy? Chosen one, super powers, so amazing that even Spike gets a soul so he can be good enough for her. Luke Skywalker? Son of Darth Vader, last of the Jedi, only he can restore balance to the Force...
Plenty of people use “Mary Sue” to describe any character they dislike. And I’d like to challenge that, to start off with: just because a character isn’t likeable, doesn’t make them a Sue. After all, being a flawless individual is the very basic definition of a Mary Sue. Real people may be selfish, or stupid, or whiny, or mean. The character only crosses into Suedom if they have very obvious flaws which are completely ignored by everybody else in the story, even when these other characters should have every reason to be annoyed. A nice example is Meridith Grey from Grey’s Anatomy, who spends season after season whining and moping about her tragic love life and her awful childhood. For some reason, this doesn’t seem to push people away from her, as incessant moping would in real life. Yet Meridith remains well-liked by all her friends and colleagues, and goes through a number of admirers before finally marrying “McDreamy”. About the only time she ever gets called out on being somewhat less than perfect is when she sleeps with her best friend George, who has an enormous and very obvious crush on her from the very first episode. Meridith essentially uses George to fill a void left by the latest break-up with McDreamy. George is not amused.
I’m also going to challenge the notion that being beautiful makes a Sue, because again, beautiful people do exist in real life... and in general, they attract more attention and romance than ugly people. Sad, but true - a beautiful woman will turn heads. She may not be the constant subject of “love at first sight”, but at least a few people will be interested, and at least a few people will comment on her beauty. What does make a Sue, particularly in books, is when the character’s beauty becomes a constant topic of discussion. (This is generally far less likely to happen in a movie or TV show, where the audience can see the person and judge the beauty for themselves). A long-winded paragraph describing every detail of a character’s appearance, particularly with third-person narration, should definitely set the alarm bells ringing - unless the appearance truly is important. I recently came across a blog post describing Clare and Alba from The Time Traveller’s Wife as Mary Sues, with the beauty of both characters being named as Sue characteristics. Well, I’m sorry, but we only ever “see” these characters from Henry’s perspective - i.e. Clare’s husband and Alba’s father. I should damn well hope Clare’s husband finds her beautiful, and as for Alba - given that Henry sees her for the first time when he time-travels forward from a moment before she is even born - is it any wonder that he takes in every detail of her appearance, and finds her beautiful, wonderful and miraculous?
I think the Mary Sue label also shouldn’t apply to minor characters. This was my main problem with the Ginny-is-a-Sue argument - at the end of the day, we don’t really know enough about Ginny to see what her flaws might be. We get glimpses of her personality, but only through Harry’s eyes - in the early books, she is shy and infatuated with Harry is sweet little-girl sort of way. Then she emerges as popular teenager, Quidditch player, fiery hex-thrower... yep, definitely heading to Sue territory... but then, we hardly see her in the middle couple of books. Whatever development she undergoes to get from scared-victim Ginny to awesome-firecracker Ginny happens “off-screen”. And what kid doesn’t change between the ages of eleven and fifteen? In a perfect world, every shy little girl would find courage and confidence as she grows - and even in the real world, plenty do. Now, if Ginny had been a major presence in every book, on par with Ron and Hermione, and her personality changed from one page to the next - that would be different. But the newly-infatuated Harry is not the best point of view from which to observe her flaws - and the two of them don’t spend nearly enough time together for us as readers to delve deeper into Ginny’s personality.
I’m going to propose a simpler, less far-reaching definition of Mary Sue, particularly in relation to original works. A Mary Sue is a major character in a story who lacks the depth of character to make them believably human. When you think about it, all “classic” Mary Sue traits stem from this central problem. A poor writer will spend more time on the character’s beauty than her personality, so when armies of men fall head-over-heels in love with her, it’s not believable: you might imagine them thinking her pretty, but love at first sight? That’s a rare thing, if it exists at all. In fiction, it only works if used sparingly. The same poor writer might tell us that the character is kind and clever, but if the character doesn’t demonstrate those traits in the story, again, the universal adoration does not ring true. And a character whose personality flaws cause him or her no problems whatsoever - that again is a Mary Sue, because in real life, it is our flaws that give us our challenges.
Fiction can be an escape, but I find it difficult to engage with any story that lacks a character I can connect with. They don’t have to be like me - they just have to be enough like me that I could believe in them being human. And that means reacting to events in a human way, and affecting the world in a believable way.
To demonstrate my Mary Sue theory, I will use an obvious and much-used example: Ana from Fifty Shades of Grey. Ana, by the way, is more or less the same character as Bella Swan. So: Ana, who doesn’t think of herself as beautiful, has at least three men fawning over her - not just saying she’s pretty, but actually getting scarily jealous when she pays attention to anybody else. And yet, besides this apparent “beauty”, which Ana seems oblivious to despite all evidence to the contrary, she really doesn’t seem to have any personality traits to make her remotely attractive. She has a certain snarky humour, which only emerges when she is emailing, and I suppose that could go some way to explain Christian’s interest later on... but when he first meets her, she’s little more than a very poor reporter. And as for being attractive to her friend Jose and that guy from her hardware store... what exactly do they see in her? Ana seems to spend most of her time listening to her “subconscious”, which tells her she’s unattractive and nobody could possibly like her. Once she meets Christian, her “inner goddess” emerges, but that’s just the bit of Ana that wants to have lots of filthy sex with Christian. Again, not much of a personality trait, and not particularly believable either, though I’m not sure how much of that stems from the fact that she refers to it as her “inner goddess”. Honestly, if she spent more time thinking “I really want to fuck Christina’s brains out” and less time with her “inner goddess” rejoicing, I’d probably like her a bit more. At least I could believe the former. Finally, Ana’s infatuation itself seems to come out of nowhere. Besides the fact that Christian is described as very attractive physically, there is nothing about any of his interactions with Ana that makes me think “yes, I can see why she’s into him”. Fuck his brains out? Maybe. Fall in love with him? Good God, why?
So there you have it: Mary Sues. I think my definition is kinder to a lot of characters than other descriptions of Mary Sues. But a lot of this is of course thoroughly subjective, and it could well be that I’m simply basing my definition on the characters I dislike - and making excuses for characters I like.
I’d love to see some discussion on the topic, but nobody seems to read LJ these days. Sigh.
But hang on - don’t all stories require some element of the extraordinary? If your main character has no remarkable features whatsoever and nothing unexpected ever happens to them, you have no story.
Which leads me to the question: at what point is a Mary Sue no longer protected by the theory of narrative causality?
(For those unfamiliar with Terry Pratchett: the Theory of Narrative Causality states that things happen in stories because without them, you wouldn’t have a story - i.e. things happen because the plot needs them to happen. For a more extensive explanation, see this entry on Tvtropes.org.)
My thinking here comes not so much from fanfiction, but from “canon” Sues - the characters in original works who are described as Mary Sues. A very obvious example is Bella Swan from Twilight - a character with whose Sue label I wholeheartedly agree. And yet, I’ve had arguments with friends about other potential Sues. For example, one of my friends insists that Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter is a Sue, because she is popular and Harry falls in love with her (and this occurs without any sort of lead-up). I’ve seen virtually every character from the new Doctor Who series described as a Sue, not least the Doctor himself (and, if you think about it, the simple definition fits. Super-powerful? Check. Attractive? Check. Warps the world around him? Oh, yes. Oh, and has hordes of women falling in love with him. Oh and the angst. I won’t go on.)
But by that virtue, just about every major character in any work of fiction can be described as a Sue, especially in the fantasy/sci-fi realm, where the “chosen one” trope occurs with irritating regularity. Harry Potter? Chosen one, the only one who can defeat Voldemort, survives improbable situations over and over again. Buffy? Chosen one, super powers, so amazing that even Spike gets a soul so he can be good enough for her. Luke Skywalker? Son of Darth Vader, last of the Jedi, only he can restore balance to the Force...
Plenty of people use “Mary Sue” to describe any character they dislike. And I’d like to challenge that, to start off with: just because a character isn’t likeable, doesn’t make them a Sue. After all, being a flawless individual is the very basic definition of a Mary Sue. Real people may be selfish, or stupid, or whiny, or mean. The character only crosses into Suedom if they have very obvious flaws which are completely ignored by everybody else in the story, even when these other characters should have every reason to be annoyed. A nice example is Meridith Grey from Grey’s Anatomy, who spends season after season whining and moping about her tragic love life and her awful childhood. For some reason, this doesn’t seem to push people away from her, as incessant moping would in real life. Yet Meridith remains well-liked by all her friends and colleagues, and goes through a number of admirers before finally marrying “McDreamy”. About the only time she ever gets called out on being somewhat less than perfect is when she sleeps with her best friend George, who has an enormous and very obvious crush on her from the very first episode. Meridith essentially uses George to fill a void left by the latest break-up with McDreamy. George is not amused.
I’m also going to challenge the notion that being beautiful makes a Sue, because again, beautiful people do exist in real life... and in general, they attract more attention and romance than ugly people. Sad, but true - a beautiful woman will turn heads. She may not be the constant subject of “love at first sight”, but at least a few people will be interested, and at least a few people will comment on her beauty. What does make a Sue, particularly in books, is when the character’s beauty becomes a constant topic of discussion. (This is generally far less likely to happen in a movie or TV show, where the audience can see the person and judge the beauty for themselves). A long-winded paragraph describing every detail of a character’s appearance, particularly with third-person narration, should definitely set the alarm bells ringing - unless the appearance truly is important. I recently came across a blog post describing Clare and Alba from The Time Traveller’s Wife as Mary Sues, with the beauty of both characters being named as Sue characteristics. Well, I’m sorry, but we only ever “see” these characters from Henry’s perspective - i.e. Clare’s husband and Alba’s father. I should damn well hope Clare’s husband finds her beautiful, and as for Alba - given that Henry sees her for the first time when he time-travels forward from a moment before she is even born - is it any wonder that he takes in every detail of her appearance, and finds her beautiful, wonderful and miraculous?
I think the Mary Sue label also shouldn’t apply to minor characters. This was my main problem with the Ginny-is-a-Sue argument - at the end of the day, we don’t really know enough about Ginny to see what her flaws might be. We get glimpses of her personality, but only through Harry’s eyes - in the early books, she is shy and infatuated with Harry is sweet little-girl sort of way. Then she emerges as popular teenager, Quidditch player, fiery hex-thrower... yep, definitely heading to Sue territory... but then, we hardly see her in the middle couple of books. Whatever development she undergoes to get from scared-victim Ginny to awesome-firecracker Ginny happens “off-screen”. And what kid doesn’t change between the ages of eleven and fifteen? In a perfect world, every shy little girl would find courage and confidence as she grows - and even in the real world, plenty do. Now, if Ginny had been a major presence in every book, on par with Ron and Hermione, and her personality changed from one page to the next - that would be different. But the newly-infatuated Harry is not the best point of view from which to observe her flaws - and the two of them don’t spend nearly enough time together for us as readers to delve deeper into Ginny’s personality.
I’m going to propose a simpler, less far-reaching definition of Mary Sue, particularly in relation to original works. A Mary Sue is a major character in a story who lacks the depth of character to make them believably human. When you think about it, all “classic” Mary Sue traits stem from this central problem. A poor writer will spend more time on the character’s beauty than her personality, so when armies of men fall head-over-heels in love with her, it’s not believable: you might imagine them thinking her pretty, but love at first sight? That’s a rare thing, if it exists at all. In fiction, it only works if used sparingly. The same poor writer might tell us that the character is kind and clever, but if the character doesn’t demonstrate those traits in the story, again, the universal adoration does not ring true. And a character whose personality flaws cause him or her no problems whatsoever - that again is a Mary Sue, because in real life, it is our flaws that give us our challenges.
Fiction can be an escape, but I find it difficult to engage with any story that lacks a character I can connect with. They don’t have to be like me - they just have to be enough like me that I could believe in them being human. And that means reacting to events in a human way, and affecting the world in a believable way.
To demonstrate my Mary Sue theory, I will use an obvious and much-used example: Ana from Fifty Shades of Grey. Ana, by the way, is more or less the same character as Bella Swan. So: Ana, who doesn’t think of herself as beautiful, has at least three men fawning over her - not just saying she’s pretty, but actually getting scarily jealous when she pays attention to anybody else. And yet, besides this apparent “beauty”, which Ana seems oblivious to despite all evidence to the contrary, she really doesn’t seem to have any personality traits to make her remotely attractive. She has a certain snarky humour, which only emerges when she is emailing, and I suppose that could go some way to explain Christian’s interest later on... but when he first meets her, she’s little more than a very poor reporter. And as for being attractive to her friend Jose and that guy from her hardware store... what exactly do they see in her? Ana seems to spend most of her time listening to her “subconscious”, which tells her she’s unattractive and nobody could possibly like her. Once she meets Christian, her “inner goddess” emerges, but that’s just the bit of Ana that wants to have lots of filthy sex with Christian. Again, not much of a personality trait, and not particularly believable either, though I’m not sure how much of that stems from the fact that she refers to it as her “inner goddess”. Honestly, if she spent more time thinking “I really want to fuck Christina’s brains out” and less time with her “inner goddess” rejoicing, I’d probably like her a bit more. At least I could believe the former. Finally, Ana’s infatuation itself seems to come out of nowhere. Besides the fact that Christian is described as very attractive physically, there is nothing about any of his interactions with Ana that makes me think “yes, I can see why she’s into him”. Fuck his brains out? Maybe. Fall in love with him? Good God, why?
So there you have it: Mary Sues. I think my definition is kinder to a lot of characters than other descriptions of Mary Sues. But a lot of this is of course thoroughly subjective, and it could well be that I’m simply basing my definition on the characters I dislike - and making excuses for characters I like.
I’d love to see some discussion on the topic, but nobody seems to read LJ these days. Sigh.