New poster sticking her oar in. Hi all!

While I was reading about grammacites, it struck me that maybe Generics had their predators too.

Go to fanfiction.net, ( [www.fanfiction.net] ) pick any twenty Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings fanfics, and I guarantee that at least three will contain a beautiful, perfect and mysterious female character who enters the universe and shakes it to its foundations. Hermione will be her best friend, Harry will stand in awe of her quidditch skills, she will be brilliant at potions etc. etc.

Her flaws, if any, will be minor and purely cosmetic e.g a little TOO loyal to her friends, overly feisty when faced by injustice, romantic scar, white streak in her otherwise raven hair etc. In about 50% of cases she will be related to a major character (the best example of this I have come across is Sauron's daughter. WITH WHO?! we ask. Also: HE'S A FLOATING EYEBALL!!). She may save Hogwarts. Possibly she will die tragically in the attempt and end up with the other characters weeping over her grave. Other major characters will battle over this perfect creature - many may fall in love with her, losing all resemblance to their canon characters as they do so.

These Mary-Sues (named after a character in a Trek fanfiction parody back in the 70's who saved the Enterprise, cured the crew of space sickness with her special chicken soup, had Kirk and Spock fighting over her, then perished with everyone mourning by her bedside.) have been a staple of fanfiction for decades. Usually written by new or inexperienced authors, they are blatant author insertions into a beloved canon. Sometimes they look like the author - usually they are the same age, sometimes they even have the same name.

Wesley Crusher is the only widely know Mary Sue (or the slightly rarer Marty-Stu, to be more accurate) to have survived the transition to mainstream culture. An irritating Boy Wonder who repeatedly saves the Enterprise, Wesley is of course named after Gene Wesley Roddenberry. And everybody hated him. Everybody hates Mary Sues too. Read a couple of the fanfics, or check out the website below. You'll see what I mean.

[oddlots.digitalspace.net]

From a Jurisfiction perspective, Mary-Sues are obviously a form of parasite which latches onto generics, mutates them into these deeply irritating characters, then, during the second stage of its life cycle, attempts to insert itself into an established literary universe. With the exception of a couple of Victorian novels (see [www.merrycoz.org]) so far the Mary Sue's have been unable to insert themselves into the original version of a story (although I've always had my suspicions about Fanny Price in Mansfield Park).

More about Mary Sues [www.subreality.com]

Hi yourself, and welcome to the fforum.
That's a hilarious suggestion about Mary-Sues!

Welcome to the Fforum! Although I'm not an expert in fan fiction (and won't become one, after having read only few attempts of fanfic I decided to stick to the originals) so I just have to believe what you're saying, I think your idea is great. And a much more read-worthy first posting than the one I wrote when I first turned up here.



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Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.

(N. Chomsky 1957)

That's great, MW *giggles turn into floor-rolling hysterics* !

And by the way, welcome to the FForum. If you ever have any doubts about your sanity... don't come here.



Post Edited (09-13-03 21:10)

"What I need is a strong drink and a peer-group." -Ford Prefect

Brilliant! Laughed so much I nearly fell off my chair :-).


"With the exception of a couple of Victorian novels so far the Mary Sue's have been unable to insert themselves into the original version of a story (although I've always had my suspicions about Fanny Price in Mansfield Park). "

Jurisfiction needs to exercise constant vigilance - weak willed authors can be suborned into inserting Mary Sues by a number of crafty means. Dorothy L Sayers fell so madly in love with Lord Peter Wimsey that she married an idealised version of herself to him.

Even the great JA wasn't immune, though I'm not sure I agree about Fanny Price. She may be deeply irritating, but she's too much of a wimp to be a real Mary Sue. Emma Woodehouse - "handsome, clever, rich ..." is a much more obvious candidate, and Jane Austen even acknowledged that when she wrote to her sister, "I am going to take a heroine that no-one but myself will like." What narrowly saves Emma from Mary Sue-dom is the fact she got her comeuppance in the end.

Val

I've always rather liked Emma Woodhouse, who seems to me fairly amiable and well aware of her own failings. Fanny Price, on the other hand, was so teeth-grindingly prim and sanctimonious she made me put down Mansfield Park quite a few times. There's quite a bit of resistance to her at first among the other characters, but eventually, like an enormous, cloying blanket of damp pink angora she brainwashes 'em all until everybody is waiting on her hand and foot, proposing to her, fully appreciating her modestly hidden beauty and charm, realizing how little they truly appreciated her, being sorry they were so mean etc. etc. A classic Sue infection, I fear...

The wimpiness is just another brand of Mary-Sueness, albeit it of the 'everybody's mean and horrible to me and I'll put up with it quietly and bravely but it'd serve them all right if I went out into the snow and died then they'd all be sorry' variety. Mary Sues quite often have tragic childhoods, all the better to struggle through them courageously and stoically. The mean aunt is pretty much par for the course as well.

However I have to admit that she does cry an awful lot for a Mary Sue... see: [www.austen.com]

Wombat