I Have No Problem With Girls Making Themselves the Heroes

Subject: I Have No Problem With Girls Making Themselves the Heroes
Author: sjosten
Posted on: 2016-09-25 22:27:00 UTC

The problem is when it's done badly. I think it's cool when characters are best friends with Legolas or marry Caspian or any of the other things you mentioned. But it has to make sense. The girl who's a better wizard than Dumbledore should show it off and do something really cool and impressive. Sues usually just have a character SAY they're better than Dumbledore. The character who blows up the Super Double Death Star should have some big action-y sequence where they work as hard as they can and come out as a hero for it. Sues just have it happen. I don't need every story to be a cerebral look at the flaws of man and his failings. Heroes are allowed to just be cool. They're heroes after all. But the difference between a Mary Sue and a hero is that the hero earns the title and makes me like them.

The girl who does backflips is fine though, because that's legitimately impressive, and Legolas is a smart elf for recognizing that.

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On the radical nature of Mary Sue by Suvian on 2016-09-25 06:14:00 UTC Reply

The Importance Of Mary Sue
"When I was in Ninth Grade, I won a thing.

That thing, in particular, was a thirty dollar Barnes & Noble gift certificate. I was still too young for a part-time job, so I didn’t have this kind of spending cash on me, ever. I felt like a god.

Drunk with power, I fancy-stepped my way to my local B&N. I was ready to choose new books based solely on the most important of qualities… ABSOLUTELY WICKED COVER ART. I walked away with a handful of paperbacks, most of which were horrible (I’m looking at you, Man-Kzin Wars III) or simply forgettable.

One book did not disappoint. I fell down the rabbit hole into a series that proved to be as awesome as the cover art promised (Again, Man-Kzin Wars III, way to drop the ball on that one). With more than a dozen books in the series, I devoured them. I bought cassette tapes of ballads sung by bards in the stories. And the characters. Oh, the characters. I loved them. Gryphons, mages, but most importantly, lots of women. Different kinds of women. So many amazing women. I looked up to them, wrote bad fiction that lifted entire portions of dialogue and character descriptions, dreamed of writing something that the author would include in an anthology.

This year I decided in a fit of nostalgia to revisit the books I loved so very much. I wanted to reconnect with my old friends…

…and I found myself facing Mary Sues. Lots of them. Perfect, perfect, perfect. A fantasy world full of Anakin Skywalkers and Nancy Drews and Wesley Crushers. I felt crushed. I had remembered such complex, deep characters and didn’t see those women in front of me at all anymore. Where were those strong women who kept me safe through the worst four years of my life?

Which led me to an important realization as I soldiered on through book after book. That’s why I needed them. Because they were Mary Sues. These books were not written to draw my attention to all the ugly bumps and whiskers of the real world. They were somewhere to hide. I was painfully aware that I was being judged by my peers and adults and found lacking. I was a mess up. And sometimes a mess up needs to feel like a Mary Sue. As an adult, these characters felt a little thin because they lacked the real world knowledge I, as an adult, had learned and earned. But that’s the thing…these books weren’t FOR this current version of myself. Who I am now doesn’t need a flawless hero because I’m comfortable with the idea that valuable people are also flawed.

There is a reason that most fanfiction authors, specifically girls, start with a Mary Sue. It’s because girls are taught that they are never enough. You can’t be too loud, too quiet, too smart, too stupid. You can’t ask too many questions or know too many answers. No one is flocking to you for advice. Then something wonderful happens. The girl who was told she’s stupid finds out that she can be a better wizard than Albus Dumbledore. And that is something very important. Terrible at sports? You’re a warrior who does backflips and Legolas thinks you’re THE BEST. No friends? You get a standing ovation from Han Solo and the entire Rebel Alliance when you crash-land safely on Hoth after blowing up the Super Double Death Star. It’s all about you. Everyone in your favorite universe is TOTALLY ALL ABOUT YOU.

I started writing fanfiction the way most girls did, by re-inventing themselves.

Mary Sues exist because children who are told they’re nothing want to be everything.

As a girl, being “selfish” was the worst thing you could be. Now you live in Narnia and Prince Caspian just proposed marriage to you. Why? Your SELF is what saved everyone from that sea serpent. Plus your hair looks totally great braided like that.

In time, hopefully, these hardworking fanfiction authors realize that it’s okay to be somewhere in the middle and their characters adjust to respond to that. As people grow and learn, characters grow and learn. Turns out your Elven Mage is more interesting if he isn’t also the best swordsman in the kingdom. Not everyone needs to be hopelessly in love with your Queen for her to be a great ruler. There are all kinds of ways for people to start owning who they are, and embracing the things that make them so beautifully weird and complicated.

Personally, though, I think it’s a lot more fun learning how to trust yourself and others if you all happen to be riding dragons."

TL;DR: Mary Sues exist because children who are told they’re nothing want to be everything.

A girl making herself the hero of her own story is a radical act. Stop shaming girls for doing it. Stop shaming yourself for it.

Re: On the radical nature of Mary Sue by Bramandin on 2016-09-29 17:01:00 UTC Reply

I was curious about what people would think about this article.

Did you mean to link to an article? by Cat-on-the-Keyboard on 2016-09-30 20:31:00 UTC Reply

None of the words are clickable :(

--Key

The article in question, by Larfen J. Stocke, esq on 2016-09-30 23:42:00 UTC Reply

is the entire message from Suvian McBluvian (who may be a Whovian), which was copy and pasted from some fellow's Tumblr.
No citation or link, or anything, which is a wee bit rude, especially considering that it's a personal story.

Are you saying it was you who posted it? (nm) by Huinesoron on 2016-09-29 20:52:00 UTC Reply

I Have No Problem With Girls Making Themselves the Heroes by sjosten on 2016-09-25 22:27:00 UTC Reply

The problem is when it's done badly. I think it's cool when characters are best friends with Legolas or marry Caspian or any of the other things you mentioned. But it has to make sense. The girl who's a better wizard than Dumbledore should show it off and do something really cool and impressive. Sues usually just have a character SAY they're better than Dumbledore. The character who blows up the Super Double Death Star should have some big action-y sequence where they work as hard as they can and come out as a hero for it. Sues just have it happen. I don't need every story to be a cerebral look at the flaws of man and his failings. Heroes are allowed to just be cool. They're heroes after all. But the difference between a Mary Sue and a hero is that the hero earns the title and makes me like them.

The girl who does backflips is fine though, because that's legitimately impressive, and Legolas is a smart elf for recognizing that.
Nice Job Stealing a tumblr post by jebboy on 2016-09-25 16:25:00 UTC Reply

But here is the thing.
Take on look at my old whitewash representation of New Orleans and tell me that it's okay to show a mostly black city with a deep black history as Asian.

Take a look at all the bad ocs who use mental disabilities and illnesses as accessories to excuse their wrong doings or make them edgy and tell me that's okay.

The importance of sues and stus is that they are just a stage. An unavoidable stage that one must grow out of in order to let true characters and truly important characters shine through.

That's a really interesting point. by Huinesoron on 2016-09-27 12:30:00 UTC Reply

You absolutely won't see the same 'who cares if it's unrealistic, it's empowering!' argument for stories which turn black cultures into white ones, or have uber-masculine Suvians (ie, Stus) conquering everything, or make every religion have churches they go to on Sunday, or whatnot. It's a very targetted 'THIS type of bad writing shouldn't be criticised!'.

On the flip side, there's a solid reason for that: all three of those examples involve taking something that historically dominates the cultural landscape in the writer's area (white people, men, Christianity) and have them dominate more. The argument for female Suvians is that they're taking a historically weaker group (women) and making it stronger. In other words, write New Orleans as if it were white, and it's awful. Write Seattle as if it were black, and it's a deep insight into racial etc etc.

On the flip flip side: the majority of female Suvians don't actually come across as stronger women. The whole 'everybody loves them' cliche? That's an extension of the whole 'a woman's only value is in how much men like her' idea which leads to perfume adverts looking like underwear adverts. It's not strength if the thing you're over-intensifying is a bad idea to start with.

(And 'she can beat Boromir with one hand tied behind her back!' assumes that strong characters have to be physically strong - ie, that value is obtained only by achieving ultra-masculinity. Why yes, this is what we should be teaching our girls! [/sarcasm])

~do not go to hS for counsel, for he will say both no and yes

PS: My daughter's favourite toys are a) pink unicorns and b) tennis balls for kicking and throwing around the room. I got this.

Sadly I have by jebboy on 2016-09-27 18:18:00 UTC Reply

To be honest too many people let 12,or maybe it was it 13 I don't remember, year old me run around with a terrible New Orleans o...il someone did a criticism for your oc thread in which someone told me about how it wasn't okay. New Orleans is at least 60% black and the birthplace of a genre of music that was created by black people. I was running around with a weeb creation that didn't even make sense clothes wise.
If it wasn't for that I wouldn't of been able to toss the gary stu away and create a new one which I've built on to this day.

Hell if it wasn't for wanting to constantly research to improve my ocs I wouldn't have discovered amazing things about the two cities I loved or gotten the old books that told me tales of things like the south's leaders running to Mexico or the Baton Rouge Bus Boycott. Which just strengthened my love for the ocs I was making already.

If it wasn't for doing the research on them I wouldn't be able to have started research to make all my newer ocs good or at least decent. Hell at this point researching for my ocs is part of the fun!

Bad writing and poor research that is a big issue with all Suvians,they are meant to be one way but the writing tells a much different story. Blood Raining Night's protag for example,we're meant to take her seriously has a threat and side with her but the writing in both the fanfic and fanime portrays her as a bully whose willing to work with a criminal organization.

Hell improvement in character designs was part of the reason nearly everyone in the hetalia fandom was so excited for the new art style for the anime,the nations would finally get more correct skin tones that matched their canon skintones instead of highlighter pink to pale. The nations looked more like the nations they actually were meant to represent. Research and improving characters doesn't harm anything and in fact could make people much happier.

I agree. by Cyanogynist on 2016-09-27 12:14:00 UTC Reply

*raises Phantasm bow*

I have a better idea. by Neshomeh on 2016-09-25 15:40:00 UTC Reply

Instead of wasting your energy on us, why don't you take it and put it to use teaching the world not to tell girls that they're nothing? Then, according to this essay, they won't write godawful Mary Sues anymore, and maybe fiction in general will improve so that the next kid with a Barnes & Noble gift card will fall in love with a book that actually deserves it. Everybody wins!

Though, I'm pretty sure my own terrible writing had nothing to do with feeling undervalued, because I wasn't and I knew it. Also, this doesn't address boys creating godawful Gary Stus, which we also don't like. Just saying.

~Neshomeh

Snaps to this! by Cat-on-the-Keyboard on 2016-09-27 06:04:00 UTC Reply

And, ~~Suvian~~ original author of this post, I'm sorry it took you so long to find well-written stories about awesome female heroes. Because they exist. I was lucky enough to grow up with The Westing Game, Wild Magic, A Wrinkle in Time (and the rest of the series. A Wind in the Door was better; Meg gets to be more of a hero). The entire genre built around the idea of the damsel in distress taking charge of her situation and befriending the dragon / becoming a sorceress / fighting off the enemy / whatever needs doing. Matilda. There are hundreds of decent-to-good books about awesome women and girls saving the day. I'm sorry you found a bad one, but that doesn't mean that the stories which inspire girls have to be bad.

Internet tirades aside, I'm off to slip my local seven-year-old girl a copy of Igraine the Brave.

--Key

At the risk of undermining myself, a parallel thought. by Neshomeh on 2016-09-27 16:03:00 UTC Reply

I dreamed about becoming a Ranger. Maybe Aragorn would stumble wounded into the Prancing Pony, and I'd help nurse him back to health, thereby proving my skills enough to get taken on as an apprentice, and we'd go off and have father-daughter-esque adventures together. Man, I really wanted that. I still really want that.

And I would totally read a fanfic about that, too, if it were well-written and didn't involve the main character also, say, being a werewolf who is just fluffy and misunderstood despite werewolves in M-e being 100% evil because they were created by and served the second-most evil Dark Lord in the history of the universe. I don't object to a woman Ranger, but I do object to anyone being able to sew three dresses in one hour, balance on the point of a sword in someone else's hand, and making the noble, wise, and kind canon character that I love into a tool for propping up her own rightness. (I'm talking about the fic (now deleted) featured in this mission, parts of which I genuinely liked. Shame it was ruined by the above and more.)

Anyway, dreams make crappy stories without a lot of effort to weed out the nonsense and fill it in with logic. Dreams don't have to make sense, but stories do. Have your dreams, love them, remember them—but maybe don't write them down, and definitely don't put them where other people can see unless you're prepared to do the work.

~Neshomeh
Thanks for expanding on that point. by Neshomeh on 2016-09-27 15:11:00 UTC Reply

Also: The Blue Sword. The Hero and the Crown. Many of Anne McCaffrey's books, though IMO they do fall a bit flat on re-reading as an adult. But then there's pretty much anything by Sherri S. Tepper. Young Wizards. And so on, and so forth.

And, crazy as it sounds, girls don't necessarily have to find inspiration from reading about other girls. There should be more great books about great female heroes, absolutely, but what got me though the worst years of my life was The Lord of the Rings. Arwen and Galadriel and Éowyn are pretty damn cool, but mostly I think I needed a world where people were noble and wise and kind, where good wins in the end. I took the values of the story to heart without ever feeling I had to be a certain gender to live them. Because... y'know... women are just as good as men, the real world is the real world, and the story is just a story. Go figure.

~Neshomeh still believes most people are basically good, if apathetic.

The Blue Sword is awesome. by DawnFire on 2016-09-27 16:03:00 UTC Reply

A little slow at the beginning, but once it picks up... :D

I'd add Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain series to that list--it's a similar thing about values, with awesome characters who learn things about themselves and the world, and has the added bonus that the female characters are equally awesome and plot-affecting. His other books are pretty awesome too--he had this gift for writing interesting stories with great characters who developed over the course of the book. I've read and reread his books a *lot*--and I'm still doing it. I'd say they're good for just about every age.

I'd also add Gerald Morris' Squire's Tales series. It's a hilarious retelling of the King Arthur stories--he even has a similar series meant for kids who are new readers, and it's equally funny but with slightly different themes--has a lot of female protagonists, and basically treats everyone equally (whether it's to laugh at them or praise them) and, again, it's a certain kind of person--kind, wise, noble--that comes out looking best. That's another series that I've read so, so many times and am still rereading. It's another one for most ages.

Also, everything by Tamora Pierce. As an adult, I go back and notice various themes she wove into her books that obviously come from experience and experience with... I believe it was a women's shelter? I've forgotten the details. As a kid, I just accepted them as part of the story. And even now... it works. She wove so many things--from feminist struggles to how blacksmithing and glassblowing and *rocks* and jousting work--and it fits in very well and it teaches you all sorts of cool things. So almost anything by her is something I'll recommend highly, especially since it comes with so many wonderful characters whom I care a lot about. ~~Especially the Circle kids.~~

~DF

This is so ironic. by The Good Mod Addict on 2016-09-25 14:21:00 UTC Reply

It's funny, honestly, because the original character Mary Sue from Star Trek was a parody of the concept itself.

It therefore follows that any Mary Sue is just as bad as the characters created for Star Trek which inspired the parody in the first place. In short: We're not going to listen to you.

Not that it matters. I'm going to assume that you just posted this in a flash of anger and then disappeared into the ether to provoke us, with the exception of the troll comment. After all, you know we're not going to stop doing what we do: Writing good stories to show others how it's done and how to improve.
Hello, again. Welcome back. by doctorlit on 2016-09-25 13:52:00 UTC Reply

Your points are valid. Your opinion is valid. They simply aren't relevant to us.

We are not enemies. We are all fans. PPC authors and writers of Mary Sues are both fans. Yes, we have different ways of expressing our fandom love in our writing, but we are not enemies. We have no problem with other authors writing Mary Sues; after all, writing missions is part of our setting and tradition! Our goal is not to cause less writing to be made overall, but more writing, and better writing, by transforming poor writing into a completely different story that celebrates what we love about the original canon.

—doctorlit, from his cousin's bed on Long Island
Don't you have a tumblr blog to post your junk in? by 1visible on 2016-09-25 13:34:00 UTC Reply

I can assure you nobody in this lesser-known forum will be moved by your lengthy troll essays.
Hello again! I still don't care. >:) (nm) by eatpraylove on 2016-09-25 13:09:00 UTC Reply
That's a nice essay. by Huinesoron on 2016-09-25 07:46:00 UTC Reply

Shame...

a) it's not yours, per Delta Juliette.

b) you're probably the same Tor-using troll as posted the (deleted) reply to this, which is just attention-seeking.

c) it doesn't apply to the PPC. We have never, ever, ever shamed anyone for writing Suvians. Said they should do better, yes. Explained what the problems with the character are, yes. Done both of those with snarky voices, yes. But shamed them? Never.

hS
If you're going to try to be sanctimonious... by Delta Juliette on 2016-09-25 06:32:00 UTC Reply

...you should at least cite your sources. As far as I can tell, this was originally written by UnWinona, on their tumblr.
[Troll post deleted.] by Anonymous on 2016-09-25 06:15:00 UTC Reply

Honestly? by Data Junkie on 2016-09-25 06:22:00 UTC Reply

I don't mind Suevian. You, on the other hand, are simultaneously a menace and a bore. So kindly go copulate with broken glass or something. I'm sure it'll be more productive than your post here.

Whoah, don't add fuel to the fire. (nm) by DCCCV on 2016-09-25 16:22:00 UTC Reply