So (Mary) Sue Me

[snorkackcatcher]

Assorted fairly random thoughts about the latest metafandom imbroglio/kerfuffle/wank/wtf term you prefer.

As various people have pointed out, there are several incompatible definitions of 'Mary Sue' about. I've always read it as pretty much the original "femgenficathon definition (qv), which is pretty much the standard definition -- i.e. an OC or supercharged CC who warps the story around herself to a ludicrous extent. And 'Gary Stu' the same but male. It's always struck me as being a clear enough term to describe one of those concepts that are fuzzy in definition but usually immediately recognisable when encountered, and it's familiar to many people even outside fandom -- especially outside the frequently inward-looking sub-sub-sub-section of fandom on LJ/DW. It doesn't mean that an Authorially Declared Awesome character can't be entertaining and likeable if written with enough storytelling mojo (we've all seen such, yes?), but the usual trouble is that there isn't nearly enough of it, because the character was lovingly crafted before such minor details as a plot were thought of.

So anyway, the common argument is, roughly: "we should ban the term Mary Sue because people have begun to overuse it to bash any half-decent female character, especially in bullying anti-MS comms, and this discourages awesome female characters". Several responses spring to mind.

OK, suppose we do manage to ban it, and then ... we expect said people to not bash and bully merely because they don't have a term for it? Or will they not just latch on to whatever substitute is found and use it in precisely the same way? Or for that matter just state outright that Character X is being Too Awesome For Her Own Good, which doesn't exactly sound like an advance? I agree that from what I've seen (not too much) these comms can often be over the top and cruel, but ... this is out of the ordinary in a milieu that contains Fandom Wank, and hatememes, and indeed a wide variety of international-standard flamewars?

It reminds me a bit like those shopping arcades that ban people wearing any hooded garment, simply because the hoodie is the uniform du jour of the young and thuggish. Yes, such garments make people uncomfortable, but the problem is the young thugs, not their fashion choices. The fire, it is misdirected -- at the symptoms, not the cause. (I'd like to say something fancy like 'the signifier not the signified', but unfortunately semiotic analyses usually make me run screaming and so I'm probably Doin It Rong.) But banning hoodies (garments) will do pretty much bugger all to get rid of hoodies (thugs). Likewise, banning the term Mary Sue isn't going to stop anyone attacking female characters for being Too Damn Awesome, if they're the sort of people who do that. Meanwhile, in both cases you're getting rid of something that was useful.

As far as can gather, this kicked off when people suddenly read the slightly changed rules for the sixth femgenficathon, noticed a reference to Mary Sues that had been there ever since the first one, and objected on the grounds that it was insulting and misogynist. (Yeah, I know there's a lot more to it than that one-line summary -- but there always is in metafandom discussions that diffuse over a wide area, and gehayi zapped the original thread before I even knew anything had happened, so this will have to do for the moment. If you want a fuller picture, you can easily find it.)

The definition originally read:

Since you are going to be writing about women and girls, I urge you to make them believable. Do not turn them into Mary Sues.

For the purposes of this ficathon, I am defining "Mary Sue" as "authorial stand-in who possesses many, if not all, characteristics that the writer wants to possess--good looks, intelligence, "attitude," "coolness," wealth, noble or royal blood, special toys that no one else has, the love of all canon characters, the love and desire of the author's lust object(s), special powers that may or may not be canonically possible, a Destiny--and a remarkable talent to send all canon characters OOC and to kill the plot.

A Mary Sue can be either an original character or a canon character. Believe me, I have seen Hermione and Ginny Sued many, many, many, many times.

Sounds about right to me. The entire, explicitly stated aim of the femgenficathon is to get more stories about awesome female characters, or at any rate ones that aren't defined by their ships (which is why the accusations that the comm is denigrating awesome female characters seem to me to be spectacularly missing the point). The basic trouble with Mary Sues is that they're ersatz awesome, not actually awesome.

Incidentally, the revised, decaffeinated version now reads:

Since you are going to be writing about women and girls, I urge you to make them believable. Do not write them out of character. For the purposes of this ficathon, please note that the parameters of acceptability being consistent with canonical behavior, canonical abilities and the reality of the character's world. I do believe that female characters can be awesome without being inconsistent with their canons.

Is it just me, or is that not at all the same thing? Quite apart from the fact that a lot of people seem to like writing their characters out of (canon) character, there are many many ways for a character to be OOC without turning into a Sue (e.g. Muggle-loving!Bellatrix, Meek!Donna Noble, or Sceptical!Luna).

Another suggestion that seems to be made a lot is that the term Mary Sue has become particularly corrupted over the last couple of years by concept drift, in which some people throw it at any female character they don't much like. Again, maybe it's just me, but my reaction was basically, "um, you only just noticed that?" I've been in fandom as such since about 2003-4 (not nearly as long as some, I know, but hardly a newbie), and I'm pretty sure this was common even back in the day, at least on the FictionAlley discussion boards. Anyone who didn't like Ginny or Hermione or whoever wheeled out the Suecannon and started firing. Meanwhile, half the threads in the "In Character" forum seemed to be basically asking "is my character a Mary Sue?", and a very high proportion of the time the answer was clearly "hell yes", posing the awkward problem of how to say so without being cruel. The forum archive goes back to February 2002: here's the first such thread and I think we can agree it's a paradigm case.

Incidentally, Gary Stus may be less often seen in the wild, but that's probably simply because male writers are rarer. The tendency seems to be just as prevalent, although it usually takes a different form -- an OC, or in HP quite commonly Harry himself, who gets powered-up with all sorts of cool abilities until he can basically take out an army of Death Eaters single-handed, and starts arbitrarily laying down the law and becoming judge, jury, and executioner. Same wish-fulfillment, different expression, and just as annoying. (Actually, this is considerably more likely to make me drop a fic in disgust than a Sue is. Incidentally, I noticed a couple of prime Stu-candidates here and here among the most recent "In Character" threads, both of them ill-advised.)

So, in short, my point. Do I have a point? Oh yeah. 'Mary Sue/Gary Stu' strike me as being terms that concisely express a useful concept -- a particular type of badly-constructed and generally naff character -- and are widely used and understood, both in fandom and beyond. Getting rid of them loses that, and I haven't yet seen an alternative term which quite captures the same meaning, nor am I convinced that the shifted usages are a new or an insuperable problem. So I'm going to keep right on using the terms where relevant, and eh, I expect the meaning will be clear enough if and when I do. So (Mary) Sue Me.

Comments

[meddow.livejournal.com]

I've been aware of the debate as well (although I wasn't aware of the femgenficathon controversy). I think you make an excellent point, doing away with the term doesn't stop the original bad characters the terms was created to describe go away, and we still would need something to describe those characters.

However,

Another suggestion that seems to be made a lot is that the term Mary Sue has become particularly corrupted over the last couple of years by concept drift, in which some people throw it at any female character they don't much like.

That's my problem with the term, and it has been for quite a few years. As a result of the term often being thrown around at canon characters, I've seen fic writers complain that the don't feel comfortable writing canon female characters because they are scared that they'll get accused of writing them as Mary Sues. Usually this comes at the back end of the bi-annual fandom misogyny discussion, so it could also just be an excuse as to why many writers don't write women. However, I've felt this fear myself and although its rarely stopped me, if it is stopping people from writing canon female characters, it is a destructive concept.

I think the term has to be reigned in to only include original female characters, and people need to remember that it's not all original female characters, just the ones with certain characteristics. Of course, narrowing a term is nearly impossible, so I don't think it ever will be, but that what I would personally like to have happen. So I don't think we need to do away with the term, its usage just has to be confined.

[snorkackcatcher]

Yeah -- if anyone's going to shouted down, seems to me better to shout down the people using the term as a generalised insult, rather than those using it with the meaning most people normally think of it as having.

I can see it's discouraging, although I'm not totally convinced that it stops people writing characters they really wanted to write, at least not as often as it's supposed to. The best thing to say to anybody put off by it is simply "who cares what clueless idiots think, just do it". But maybe I had the good fortune to start off in a forum where nobody got too fussed about Writing As Art and your OCs were what you made them.

[dharma-slut.livejournal.com]

In my research for my own meta post, I found this;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Criticism

There are a lot of fandom people who really have stopped writing women for fear of doing it wrong. That pisses me off.

And what pisses me off even more, is that a lot of people simply turn their awesome self-insert into a boy and write themselves in anyway, disguised by a penis. Yeah, that's gonna be real helpful to a woman's self image.

[plaid-slytherin.livejournal.com]

I've seen fic writers complain that the don't feel comfortable writing canon female characters because they are scared that they'll get accused of writing them as Mary Sues.

That is very sad to me. I've never felt that way about canon characters, but I have - and I hate this! - hesitated to include even incidental OFCs because of that bias. I don't generally write tons of female characters, usually because I write slash... here, on the other side of the spectrum - I often want to yell, "But I'm not one of those slash writers!" and I frequently worry that if I mention in passing that I dislike a particular female character, people will assume it's because I'm One Of Those Slashers.

I definitely agree about confining the usage of the term - while many writers DO Sue up Hermione or Ginny or whathaveyou, it's much more baldly obvious than a normal portrayal of a canon female character who still gets the Sue accusation. People call Ginny and Hermione Sues in canon. I don't think you can have a canon Sue. Mary Sue by her very definition warps canon to suit herself.

[snorkackcatcher]

Quick comment before I'm off to work: I agree you probably can't meaningfully have a 'canon Sue' in the sense that the original author put them there, although you can definitely have one in fanfic -- i.e. where an existing character acquires so many extras that they become badly-written OCs for all practical purposes.

I started off by not realising there was an anti-OC bias (and writing a story that included loads of them perforce), but even now when I'm more likely to look to see if a canon character will fill the role I want filled, if they don't I'll just create an OC and proceed from there. That approach is what should be urged, I reckon -- story-based not a OCs-good/OCs-bad binary. Dream on, eh?

[meddow.livejournal.com]

I've never felt that way about canon characters, but I have - and I hate this! - hesitated to include even incidental OFCs because of that bias.

I fear that as well. I once wrote a fic from a perspective of a OFC who happens to sleep with a much loved male canon character. I was really worried that I would be flamed for posting it, despite the fic not being OFC/Male character and it being a really good fic. Half the comments I got on the fic were praise about my OFC not being a Mary Sue. She wasn't, but it just goes to show that people see 'OFC' in a header and their first thought is Mary Sue. And still, even with that fic getting positive reaction, I'm still hesitant to feature an OFC as the main character of a fic. It is a problem.

People call Ginny and Hermione Sues in canon.

Yeah, I've seen this time and time again being used as a criticism of female characters. Funnily enough, I can't ever recall seeing a male character being labelled a Gary Stu. But we're getting into fandom misogyny which is a whole bigger topic.

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

I had no idea about the femgenficathon wank, but I'm definitely familiar with people throwing the term 'Mary Sue' around like it's going out of style. I must admit the very idea of 'canon Sues' bothers me because it's not a term that -- at least for me -- translates out of fandom. In my eyes, a Mary Sue/Gary Stu is a character that warps a pre-existing narrative around him or herself.

And, yes, I think there is a definite misogynist element that crops up because so many of these characters end up being female, but you do get male versions as well (goth!Harry comes to mind). I don't see what the issue was with femgenficathon -- I always understood what gehayi meant by it and it certainly hasn't stopped me from writing female characters.

[snorkackcatcher]

I suppose you have a good deal more confidence than some. :)

As I said to plaid_slytherin, I think 'canon Sue' makes sense as a description of a souped-up CC, but it would have to be really extreme to make sense in an original text -- the character would have to be warping reality itself around them, in effect, say by becoming a scientist who's also a rock star and famous architect and the President, who does covert ninja missions in their spare time, has multiple hot people falling for them and also cooks a mean gourmet dinner. :)

[lareinenoire.livejournal.com]

It does also help that most of what I write is genfic (although goodness knows I worried about Dorcas in Be All My Secrets Remembered because she ended up sleeping with Sirius) in more obscure fandoms these days. ;) It is incredibly difficult to write Shakespearean Sues, although I sort of want to try now just to see how it might work...

I've definitely run across characters who would fit the term 'canon Sue' (I'm looking at you, Anita Blake), but I'm still not sure the term itself is valid outside the purview of fanfic because it implies that there is a canon to warp, and I'm not sure that translates. But it could just be me.

[lisaquestions.livejournal.com]

Coming here from Metafandom.

This:

becoming a scientist who's also a rock star and famous architect and the President, who does covert ninja missions in their spare time, has multiple hot people falling for them and also cooks a mean gourmet dinner.

Is a near-description of Buckaroo Banzai (physicist, neurosurgeon, rock star, on very good terms with the president, does covert ninja missions in his spare time, not sure on the hot people falling for him, but, and he probably is a very good cook).

[plaid-slytherin.livejournal.com]

I think it's interesting what you say about the GS concept being just as prevalent because I've always noticed that MS and GS occupy two different environments and it's always struck me as a stereotypical "male author vs. female author" thing and I think it has to do with authorial development.

I've been around fandom just a little longer than you have and I remember back in the old days there didn't used to be this many powerful!dark!independent!Harry fics, though there were and still are a lot of MSs and that hasn't changed much in my view. I think the rise of GS/Harry-Stu has happened as the male fanbase has aged - I saw and still see very few teenage male fanficcers, but we all know there are many female ones, so I think these sorts of things started getting written when the first wave of young male HP readers got older. I think that has something to do with why GS is more "accepted" - he's better-written from, at the very least, a SPAG standpoint (may not be actually "good writing" but probably more readable than your average pottersues feature) simply because the author is older. I think that's the only reason GS is more "accepted." That and, you know. Sexism.

I certainly think a lot of what I've been reading on metafandom is stretching the definition of Mary Sue - they seem to be taking the anti-Sueism as anti-female-character-ism, which, while I'm sure it can be at times, it often isn't. Plus, to me, encouraging writers to move away from MS is encouraging them to move toward stronger, more well-fleshed-out female characters that aren't defined by their looks/ship/possessions/speshul powers. Lots of MS written by teenagers tend to be just a laundry list of abilities, which is certainly gratifying at that age - believe me, I was there once - but it's not the same as creating a good OFC, and I hate that fandom has become biased against OFCs because of MS while the same hasn't happened to OMCs. (I have written OFCs and OMCs in two different fandoms and the only time anyone ever made anything approaching a negative comment was for the OFC, albeit this was for Doctor Who.)

[snorkackcatcher]

I suppose that as someone on metafandom pointed out, there are several different extended definitions of Mary Sue that have little to do with the 'classic' version. That's why a lot of posts end up talking about different things.

Interesting points about Gary Stus -- you may well be right that male fanficcers tend to be older, which usually helps. Also, as you say, sexism is obviously part of it. I don't like to see the female-character bashing, especially canon characters who are objectively well-drawn, but I think excessive Mary Sue comparisons are just a symptom of the much more deep-rooted problem.

[lls-mutant.livejournal.com]

The femgenficathon wank has annoyed me intensely. Personally, I always thought it was incredibly clear what gehayi was trying to say, and I took it as such. I don't find it misogynistic- just a plea against crappy writing :)

I do think that the term "Mary Sue" gets tossed around too much. I've seen Mary Sues before, but I find them a lot rarer than other people seem to. I mean, the random witch that's from America and gets to sleep with Harry/Sirius/whoever? Not inherently a Mary Sue- I reserve my judgment, and even if it's obviously a self-insert, my scorn. The gold rider from Pern who was so beautiful and kind that people spontaneously threw rose petals in her path and a servant fainted dead away because she was overwhelmed by her beauty? (And yes, this was a real character?) Now THAT'S a Mary Sue.

I'd like to see people be more accepting of OFCs, and not freak out so much when they hear the term. And really- is it THAT terrible that someone writes a Mary Sue? It's not evil, it's not malicious, it's not something that sets feminism back eighty million years- it's just simple wish fulfillment and not great writing.

so yeah. SO with you!!!

[snorkackcatcher]

Mm. It's always annoying when complaints come out of the blue about something that's been there for years without anybody really misunderstanding. Dare I say that some people have a tendency to insist on worst possible interpretations? (Perhaps we might call it Eadying.)

I've never had a problem with OCs -- in fact I've liked a number of fairly classic Sues when they've had a plot to go with them. But some really do cry out for a spot of MST3King, and that's not a huge problem provided the standard rule of not chasing up the OP to tell them about it is followed. The loathing directed at female characters is a problem, but as I say, I don't think avoiding the term Mary Sue is really going to make a lot of difference.

Here from Metafandom

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I totally agree. I have been completely at odds with all the calls to ban the use of the word. It's a very useful word that became common because we really do need a word to describe the thing, imo. I don't even always use it to describe a character completely--I think it's useful to describe the problem with certain scenes with a character, for instance. Sometimes a character in general is too much of a Mary Sue. Sometimes it's just certain scenes or sections ring false because it feels that way. If I wasn't allowed to use the word I'd probably replace it with "that thing we used to call a Mary Sue but we're not supposed to anymore."

Of course people whip it out against characters they don't like and use the word badly, but I don't think that makes the word useless. If someone does that you just make them explain exactly why they're a Sue and you can disagree with them. It's still a useful starting point imo.

Re: Here from Metafandom

[snorkackcatcher]

She Who Must Not Be Named, maybe? :)

Yes, basically if someone says "Ginny is a Mary Sue!" or whatever the best response is "of course she isn't, because yada yada yada". It doesn't mean that the term isn't perfectly reasonable when talking about Serenity Moonstar Snape and her pet fire elemental.

[rusty_halo.livejournal.com]

Man, this is the sanest thing I've read in this debate yet. The problem isn't the term "Mary Sue," the problem is misogyny. Misogynists will continue to be misogynist regardless of whether the term "Mary Sue" becomes socially unacceptable, and meanwhile innocent people will get criticized for using a useful term correctly. We need to be criticizing the underlying misogyny that causes the misuse of the term, not the term itself.

[snorkackcatcher]

Yeah, I think that's what it boils down to -- and much more concisely expressed. :) There are lots of people who say pretty much the same ridiculous things about female characters even if they don't actually use the term Mary Sue.

here from metafandom

[dharma-slut.livejournal.com]

Forgive me for pointing out that the term is gendered. And it describes unacceptable women.

So I do not know how on earth you can use the term correctly and avoid making the point that this is a *female* that has failed so badly.

That's misogyny.

here from metafandom...

[dharma-slut.livejournal.com]

A a lot of women will disagree with you on the benign qualities of a word that defaults to female, that encompasses every possible bad thing a women could be.

The term was badly coined in the first place-- it's been misused since its inception.

Re: here from metafandom...

[snorkackcatcher]

See, that's where I think we're coming from different readings of the term. IMHO it doesn't encompass every possible bad thing an actual woman could be, it encompasses some bad things a woman character could be (which is a very different thing based on literary criteria rather than everyday life). The term may not be entirely benign but it's not as malign as all that. While it's well worth challenging the attitudes that get it used to attack authors, I don't see that it helps much to get sidelined into attacking the term itself -- cf my 'hoodie' analogy in the OP.

[lizvogel.livejournal.com]

Here via metafandom.

some people throw it at any female character they don't much like. Again, maybe it's just me, but my reaction was basically, "um, you only just noticed that?" I've been in fandom as such since about 2003-4 (not nearly as long as some, I know, but hardly a newbie), and I'm pretty sure this was common even back in the day,

I've been in fandom longer than many people in LJ-fandom have been *alive*, and you're absolutely right. The term, and its intermittent misuse by people who just want to bash a female character that they dislike, was common currency back when fanfic came in smudgily-mimeographed print 'zines. That doesn't make the term itself bad, it just means that some people need to be soundly thwapped with a dictionary.

And you're absolutely right that any replacement term would be misused the same way, and eventually take on the same associations, and the people now squawking about it being a gendered term would then squawk about how the new term had become sullied with gender-negativity and shouldn't be used, either. You can't fix that with a change of vocabulary; you'd have to change human nature.

IOW, "Mary Sue/Gary Stu" are indeed useful terms, and you're far from the only one on that side of the class-action suit.

[snorkackcatcher]

Cheers. Yeah, people probably stay much the same regardless. For all I know, there might have been the same complaints about what had been done to the characters of Irene Adler and Mary Morstan in Victorian Holmes pastiche, just using different terms. :)

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Mary Sue/Gary Stu' strike me as being terms that concisely express a useful concept -- a particular type of badly-constructed and generally naff character -- and are widely used and understood, both in fandom and beyond. Getting rid of them loses that, and I haven't yet seen an alternative term which quite captures the same meaning, nor am I convinced that the shifted usages are a new or an insuperable problem. So I'm going to keep right on using the terms where relevant, and eh, I expect the meaning will be clear enough if and when I do. So (Mary) Sue Me.

You have just encapsulated my entire response to this discussion (not that there hasn't been some interesting and thought provoking meta to read along the way). Well, maybe with a "but even though identifying a character as a Mary Sue can be a perfectly legitimate and useful form of literary criticism, don't bash individual teenage fangirls for writing badfic. They're fifteen. We're adults. Adults should not bully children," addendum.

Also word to this:
suppose we do manage to ban it, and then ... we expect said people to not bash and bully merely because they don't have a term for it? Or will they not just latch on to whatever substitute is found and use it in precisely the same way?

And to your point that Mary Sues can be entertaining and enjoyable if done by the right author (though I think it depends as much on how well the Sue fits into the reader's own wish-fulfilment fantasies, as much as it does quality. I adored Mercedes Lackey novels and The Clan of the Cave Bear in middle school, and love Ian Flemming's James Bond books to this day, but I can't stand the Sue character from Laurie King's Beekeeper's Apprentice - despite the fact that King's writing is probably superior to Lackey's).

Another suggestion that seems to be made a lot is that the term Mary Sue has become particularly corrupted over the last couple of years by concept drift, in which some people throw it at any female character they don't much like. Again, maybe it's just me, but my reaction was basically, "um, you only just noticed that?" I've been in fandom as such since about 2003-4 (not nearly as long as some, I know, but hardly a newbie), and I'm pretty sure this was common even back in the day, at least on the FictionAlley discussion boards.

Going by my memories (I got into fandom in 2001/2002 via FictionAlley), it was very common. People have been using (and misusing) the term "Mary Sue" in all the ways that have been cited in this discussion since at least 2002. Very probably they were before that, but I wasn't around to see it prior to the fall of 2001. I remember Lana Lang from Smallville and Ginny from HP both getting slapped with the Sue label endlessly about five years or so ago.

[snorkackcatcher]

I don't approve of actual bullying either, although when sporking follows the basic FWish rule of not alerting the source to what's going on, it's probably fair enough.

Good point about the likeability of a Sue/Stu being a function of the reader's preferences -- I suppose we're all like that, with canon characters too. Unfortunately I've never read the ones you mention. :)

I never quite saw how Ginny could get labelled a Sue, except for the obvious "hooks up with Harry" thing -- she's only really key to the plot in CoS and HBP, and even in CoS is kept offstage for the most part to hide her importance to what's going on.