In Which Feather Quill Rants...

[featherxquill]

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.

Comments

[technicolornina.livejournal.com]

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.


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.