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featherxquill) wrote2005-07-12 12:18 am
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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I mean, he has lived all his life with nasty relatives, mistreated, yet he still stays sweet and nice and good.
I'm sorry, but... what? He's really rather nasty to people he dislikes. In PS he laughs at Dudley being scared of the snake at the zoo. He constantly verbally puts the Dursleys down with sarcastic remarks. In OotP he taunts Dudley mercilessly, just because he's feeling frustrated!
He hardly trusts anyone, and isn't very popular - he doesn't have any close friends (although I think that's starting to change), save for Ron and Hermione. And he never opens up even to them.
He's brave, he's nice, he's loyal, everybody likes him except those nasty Slytherins and Snape which is how we know they're bad, because they dislike the hero.
he is brave, but I always wonder if it isn't because he's always fighting for the only thing he's got to lose; his life in the wizarding world.
He's not exactly nice though; he and Ron spent an awful long time not speaking to hermione because she told a teacher about the broomstick Harry got. He then spends a long time not speaking to Ron because og that whole triwizard thing. He spends a lot of time screaming at them in OotP (although some of it they deserved).
Of course he dislikes the Slytherins. To him, they're represented by Draco, and they've been having a very angry argument for five years now. (And that was started by more or less aseries of mistakes, but I won't get into that now, heh.)
And how could he ever had liked Snape? The man attacked him almost the moment he came into the classrom. But correct me if I'm wrong; isn't Snape the very example of a character who is against Voldemort and still not very nice? Harry was extremely wrong about him in PS; he was constantly saving Harry, and Harry was convinced that Snape was the one about to steal the stone.
When his friends get in a fight, he always stays perfectly neutral and doesn't take sides.
Dude, he and one Weasley twin both jumped Draco in OotP. He's completely on Neville's side when Draco steals his remembrall, and is the one wo tries to take it back. Sorry, but I can't remember more instances where his friends were in fights. Which ones were you thinking of?
He always saves the day, never gets in trouble (or at least wiggles out of it), and the headmaster is pretty damn biased toward him.
Oh, certainly Dumbledore is biased. He loves Harry, and it's human. *shrugs*
But Harry gets in trouble a lot. He's served many detentions, and lost his house a staggering amount of points (something that once made the entire Gryffidor House stop speaking to him) and made mistakes that has had dire concequences. When he carelessly goes to Hogsmeade in PoA, he feels great remorse when he's asked what he does with what his parents sacrificed for him.
He may go into a teenage angst moment sometimes, but it's always justified--his parents were murdered, his godfather is dead, something equally dramatic.
Not many fans I've talked to seems to thinks that he's justified. To an extent I do, however. In OotP he's not treated very well, and I would have been as angry had I been in his shoes.
You never see him freak out because he got a zit or can't find his left sock.
Well, he's not really the type, now is he? I've never been to upset about those things either. Also, he doesn't seem to have zits, heh.
He worries about his schoolwork every now and then though.
Anyway, I found him refreshingly different from all the cliched hero stereotypes I could think of when I started reading the books, that's why I love him so much.
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However, here is the argument AGAINST him being a Stue: he has no mysterious power over people (just look how the Dursleys continue to treat him). He seems to have been born with far more than his share of luck, but it doesn't mean he always gets out of things unscathed. On the contrary, he broke an ankle (or leg - can't remember which), nearly got killed, and we can assume compiled many more small cuts, scratches and bruises in the third task of the Triwizard. (Most Stues that I know of would have taken that 10-foot fall like a cat - rattled, offended, but not hurt at all.) He's a fairly good judge of a fake - see his opinion of Lockhart compared to that of Lupin or (the real) Mad-Eye Moody - but then again he is fallable (Quirrell, Crouch-Moody, Dept. of Mysteries). He has fears, ranging at the present from the death of his friends (he says so, indirectly, in the Department of Mysteries) to more minor worries over schoolwork and Quidditch.
I think it's safe to say that Harry is just like all of us in most ways: There are people who like him, people who don't, things he's good at, things he's not (like not procrastinating . . . ), and more that make him a balance of the would-be Stue and the reality.
And if you don't like Harry because you think he's too good to be true (something that seems to be so in PS but none of the other bookS), why are you reading Harry Potter anyway . . . ? *is confused*
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Most people, with the exception of Snape, DO react postitively to Harry in their own ways (even Malfoy offers him friendship in the beginning).
Well, it's his fame, right? And the glory quickly fades with those who know him. He's not overly popular, even in his own House.
As for becoming the seeker, that's the one thing Harry feels he really deserves, as it's a result of his own abilities. He really doesn't think he's good at anything else, as he states quite clearly to the fake Moody.
(Also, if I were a teacher who likes quidditch as much as McGonagall does who suddenly spotted the one chance to finally win back the Quidditch cup from Slytherin after seven years, I would have taken the chance too. I honestly think she would have done the same thing whichever student had been flying like that; she doesn't do it because he is who he is, but because he's a really exceptional flyer.)
And until the fourth and fifth books, his problems are somewhat dreamy, distant, far away.
Well, in PS he has to go through a traumatising ordeal with his friends in their fight againstr Voldemort. In CoS he has to bear the whole school hating and fearing him because they think he's the heir of slytherin, and then he has to fight a terrifying snake, and almost sees his best friend's sister die. In PoA, he's under constant danger of being killed (well, that's what they think anyway), has a run-in with a werewolf and loses his obnly chance to be free of the Dursleys. In GoF... well, you mentioned that yourself. I strongly disagree that he deals with that situation with any sort of grace or skill though. He can't do anything to save Cedric, and he just only manages to escape by running like hell. He is forced to sacrifice blood to his worst enemy, to the very person to kill his parents! Don't you remember how he felt during this?
And if you don't like Harry because you think he's too good to be true (something that seems to be so in PS but none of the other bookS), why are you reading Harry Potter anyway . . . ? *is confused*
I have no idea. Harry is my favourite character, but I keep running into fans who really dislike him, and often for reasons I seldom even agree are canon...
Hary has a bit of darkness in him, but I like that. Makes him more human and less saintly, heh.
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True. But the thing is, it happens. The first part of my post was intended to show what Sue-haters would see as reasons for Harry-bashing. This phenomena occurs in the real world, too, though - and if you don't believe me, put Bill Gates in a room full of normal people who have never met him. He'll leave with a room full of friends.
As for becoming the seeker, that's the one thing Harry feels he really deserves, as it's a result of his own abilities. He really doesn't think he's good at anything else, as he states quite clearly to the fake Moody.
Again, though, many people (including my mom, sadly) believe he was given this leeway because he's Harry Potter. And while Harry SAYS the only thing he's good at is Quidditch, both he and we know better - he can produce a Patronus at the age of 13 (when Lupin states specifically that it is high above O.W.L. level). He fought off a full grown mountain troll and was told he was lucky to survive. Ditto to Tom Riddle in book two. And what about that little time-traveling conundrum of Dumbledore's, which Harry solves almost immediately, in the third book? Trust me, Harry is either being overly modest or else he has serious self-esteem issues. (Actually, we already know that . . . )
Well, in PS he has to go through a traumatising ordeal with his friends in their fight againstr Voldemort. In CoS he has to bear the whole school hating and fearing him because they think he's the heir of slytherin, and then he has to fight a terrifying snake, and almost sees his best friend's sister die. In PoA, he's under constant danger of being killed (well, that's what they think anyway), has a run-in with a werewolf and loses his only chance to be free of the Dursleys.
All of these things are relatively minor when compared to Voldemort. In the first book, he meddled when he didn't have to (he would have been in danger if the Philosopher's Stone was recovered by Quirrell, but he didn't know that). In the second book he acted on his "saving-people thing"(why didn't he just alert the teachers?). In the third book, the danger didn't even really exist, mostly. Compare these to being tied up and helpless in a graveyard, or worse yet, facing Death Eaters two-to-one on turf you're not familiar with (and worse, many of them ARE familiar with it). You see my point in calling these things less important?
In GoF... He is forced to sacrifice blood to his worst enemy, to the very person to kill his parents! Don't you remember how he felt during this?
I might have been closer to what I meant if I said "strength and skill." I know if I had been in his position, I certainly wouldn't be sitting here now, because I'd be dead. I turn 17 in a week and I know full well that I wouldn't be able to do what he did, especially on a broken leg to boot. And while yes, he feels badly about it, he didn't do the stupid thing (cry, scream, try to claw Voldemort's eyes out). He kept his head until it was safe for him to let go - and that's a hard thing to do.
I have no idea. Harry is my favourite character, but I keep running into fans who really dislike him, and often for reasons I seldom even agree are canon...
Many people mix canon and fanon (the body of facts not stated directly in the books or by JKR, but generally agreed on in fanfiction or by fans), with results ranging from insignificant to astronomical. For example, almost everyone agrees that Remus has eyes that are either brown or blue even though Rowling never says so. Not really an important point, right? But then there is this huge fan base that agrees that Snape is watching over Harry because of his own interests, and not because he's in Dumbledore's service. Think about the impacts THAT could have if it were true in canon. Sadly, some people mix the two without differentiating, and that's where comments like "So-and-so from canon is a Mary-Sue" come into play.
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