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In Which Feather Quill Rants...
I want to rant about MARY-SUES. Ergh, I hear you sigh. Not another person who found Fanfiction dot net and realised it was full of SHIT.
Well, actually, no.
This rant is in favour of Mary Sues. Well, kind of. I would like to know what Mary-Sues actually ARE. I know the 'dictionary' definition, but what that is and what it equates to in people's minds are two totally different things.
This is not something I have trouble with much anymore, since I haven't played (rp-d or fanficced) with my OFC much at all in the last six months, but it used to be something I came up against all the time. Hatred of OFCs, hatred of Mary-Sues. Being called Mary-Sue by people who hadn't even stopped to watch you play, but decided on it by simply glancing at your signature.
What exactly makes a female character a Mary-Sue? Commonly, it is the assumption that the writer/rp-er is making an idealised version of herself, that a MS is just too perfect to be real.
What bothers me is what makes a character be seen as a Mary-Sue. Any character who is seen to be both attractive AND intelligent is a Mary-Sue, any character who is more powerful than (than what? than Harry? than Dumbledore?) is seen as a Mary-Sue. And fandom hates them. Men hate them. Women hate them. Everyone seems to hate them.
What bothers me is the idea that a woman CANNOT be all of those things - beautiful, intelligent, sexy, powerful. The assumptions that these kind of women are to be bashed, flamed and put down - even in fanfiction - is distressing to me.
Thank God, women like this do exist. There are women in the world - in the workforce, in academia, wherever - that are all of these things. Flick through any glossy magazine. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Jennifer Lopez. Beautiful, sexy, rich, powerful, famous. Often cut down by reporters. If these women were written into fiction, would they be Mary-Sues?
I have heard people call Hermione Granger a Mary-Sue, just for being intelligent. The most horrible thing to do to Hermione, according to some readers, is to make her beautiful. Why is that? Is Hermione only allowed to be seen as a real woman while she is either intelligent OR sexy? Why can she not be both? When is she ever described in canon as being ugly? Admittedly, there are many writers out there who completely ignore canon and turn characters into horrible parodies of the ones we know and love, but why does a Hermione who decides that hey, maybe it would be nice to straighten my hair a bit immediately become a Hermione-sue? (Go and read Anna's Roman Holiday for a story where Hermione is both intelligent and sexy, and STILL a real, three dimensional, recognisable character.
And what about the male characters? People talk about 'Gary-Stu', but hardly as often as they talk about his female counterpart. Gary-Stuism usually happens to Snape, and usually involves some sort of makeover. But I'm not really sure that's what qualifies as a Gary-Stu, in terms of the 'projection' definition.
I have a friend who RPs Snape (or at least used to), and he refuses to believe that Snape could ever fall in love. Now, is something like that really canon at all? We know nothing at all about Snape in that capacity. All information we have about him is filtered through Harry, and through the channels of student/teacher relationships. We know NOTHING about Snape's desires for romance/relationships or lacktherof. Yes, this is going somewhere.
What interests me is that for a MALE RPer of Snape (and the other male Snape rpers that I know), the attraction seems to be to play a complete and utter bastard of a man who can tell people off as he pleases, or (in the case of the foremost Snape) take rp lovers that he will never care for or want for more than sex. Is this Snape 'canon'? Is snarky!bastard!hateful!Snape more canon than one who shows emotions in private? Is he more of a believable man than a woman who is intelligent, sexy and powerful? I don't really think so. I think the desire to play a Snape who is mean and nasty stems as much from perceived 'canon' Snape as it does from a desire to inhabit a factional character and act in a way that you would never be able to in RL, and hence exactly what women are criticised for when they create 'Mary-Sue' characters.
I don't think any of these characters are Mary-Sues. Obviously, I don't extend this to include those characters who have ten animagi forms, are part fairy and part Tolkien elf, are Snape's daughter and Dumbledore's granddaughter and both Harry and Draco's sister and going out with Ron, but I heartily dislike characterisation of all beautiful, intelligent, powerful female characters as Mary-Sues. Thanks to feminism and the battles fought in the past, women are able to be all of these things in the real world. Don't crucify them when they appear in the fictional one.
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Why not?
Well, okay, ALL of those are drastic. But what's wrong with an OC who isn't human? Look at Fleur.
I think OC's are treated unfairly because of the really bad ones. I mean, it's fine not to like OC's - I just draw t he line at people who wank those who cchoose to write them.
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And where is this Lucretia fic? Sounds rather neat.
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There is a link to my fanfic masterlist in my userinfo. Lu began as an rp character (and th fanfic is a spin off of rp scenarios).
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Here is Harry. Harry's mother is a Muggleborn. Nobody knows his dad's heritage, but it's been hinted that he may be pureblood. Harry grew up in an unloving home pulling spiders off his socks because he lives in a cupboard. All of his clothes are so big they practically fall off him. In the meantime, he gets to watch his cousin be spoilt to the point where he's bad as a rotted egg. Now Harry gets to go away to this awesome school and have all these amazing adventures. He'll make friends, do homework, fight trolls, get in trouble, develop favorites and least favorites, get in trouble, learn a few valuable lessons, get in trouble, get seriously beaten up by a crazy teacher who's being possessed by Voldemort, get in trouble, and discover that he's really not like everyone else, even though that's really what he wanted to be.
Now - here is Mary-Sue Harry (created by me). Mary-Sue Harry had pureblood parents who got killed and now he lives with relatives who are terrified of his powers, so all he has to do is say "jump" and they say "How high on a silver platter, master?" MS Harry is part veela, part phoenix, and part unicorn (yes, I know I said his parents were purebloods, but then nobody said Mary-Sues always make sense). When he discovers his Gringotts vault, he's not thrilled that he has money of his own - he's disappointed because there's not more, and why didn't he ever stay with the Dursleys even though they're stupid because then he could have SO much better than this? Harry falls in with Draco Malfoy but somehow gets sorted to Gryffindor because, you know, it's the best house, of course. A quarrel with Malfoy results and he ends up being a snob who just kind of leads Ron and Hermione around by the nose (and gets away with it because, you know, he's HARRY POTTER THE BOY WHO LIVED). He gets top marks in all his classes without even trying because, you know, he's HARRY POTTER THE BOY WHO LIVED and if that weren't enough all the teachers simply love him and can't imagine a better student. He never has to do homework, because his professors will accept any excuse as to why he didn't do it. And when he finds the Philosopher's Stone, he escapes with nary a scratch because Quirrell is more afraid of him than he is of what Voldemort could do to him.
Now, which one would YOU want as a friend, family member, classmate, etc.? As I said before, the reason the characters (even the nastier ones like Snape and the Malfoys) are so endearing is because WE ALL KNOW SOMEONE WHO IS EXACTLY LIKE THEM. My best friend is a Hermione; I'm a cross between Luna and Ron; my old social studies teacher is like a cross between Dumbledore (wisdom) and Lupin (personality, age, and disability). The stories wouldn't be nearly so good if the characters weren't real, but along come the Fairy-Sues (the really, really bad ones who can do all and see all and be all) to wreck the world of fanfiction.
I HAVE A PROPOSITION: Let us call all smart, good looking, etc. OC's Mary Sues or Gary-Stus and have that be a badge of honor - look, they've created a great character who is fairly believable and whose psychology works.
Then, as a badge of shame for the stupid ones who know more than Dumbledore and can do all and see all and be all, we will christen them Fairy-Sues - too good to be trues.
And a suggestion to anyone on this board who is writing Fairy-Sues and doesn't know how to stop - think about the psychology of your character. I studied basic psychology for nearly a year in order to write my story "What There is in a Bottle of Ink" because I knew I'd have, most likely, hundreds of OCs by the time I was done, and I wanted them to be and see and feel and interact like REAL PEOPLE, not tin-foil dolls.