Subject: A classic case...
Author:
Posted on: 2013-05-25 22:53:00 UTC
Of the Suethor applying modern cultural standards to a fictional culture. I recently read a Star Trek Suefic where the Sue complained that she had purple eyes. Because in the 24th century, non-humans are totally rare and never join Starfleet.
Blame Thorin and Fili and Kili. They made dwarves look attractive. I maintain that Sues decide to be the prettiest looking race.
I personally don't think much of Mary Sue litmus tests, as they're more a list of common symptoms than an actual assessment of Sue-ishness. But I can't help noticing that one of the major ways to rack up some Sue points is to write an OC relating to canon characters.
I'm currently working on a fanfic for the Hobbit fandom, and my narrator Risa is, not very originally, the daughter of Thorin Oakenshield. I have tried very hard to keep her out of Sue territory, and she is deeply flawed in numerous ways, but I'm concerned that even just by being related to a central canon and by breaking the canon, she's already beyond hope of salvation.
Does breaking canon and being the child of an existing character make an OC a Sue? How can I be sure that she doesn't become one- other than piling on the flaws, which I don't think is particularly effective?
Thanks in advance!
-- Len
"I have tried very hard to keep her out of Sue territory, and she is deeply flawed in numerous ways,"
More often than not, unless the flaws in question actually effect the character beyond giving them a shield against critics in the form of "Mary Sues are flawless, so my characters can't be Sues because they have flaws", it really only adds fuel to the Sue fire.
What works better is having the character discover these flaws as they go along. It's more realistic then, and gives a more human feel to the character - makes them relatable, if you will - and doesn't end up seeming like a preemptive defense against potential critics like the "Oh yeah, and I have such and such things wrong with me" approach does.
For my character Iris, terrible misfortune is her flaw, and it's because of one instance where she had the misfortune of running head-long into a dragon and all she had was a bow and a hunting knife. From there, it developed into the full symptom of not being able to do hardly anything without something bad happening to her, such as her boyfriend Drake chucking a pebble and knocking her out of a boat from the force of the throw.
Okay, let me rephrase that bit. What I meant to say but apparently only telepathically typed (I do this sometimes when it's late.) was that I realize Sues have less to do with the number of flaws than with the consequences of those flaws and how the plot and other characters bend around them, and so even though she is flawed, I am still concerned because of the canon-breaking and genetics, and am wondering if anyone has tips on how to write an AU and significant canon relative without turning it into a Suefic.
The main cast were directly, but indirectly (they were there but didn't do much) involved with the main plot, and were more for interaction with themselves, the main cast and other people.
I say this a good deal when I'm writing new material - it doesn't necessarily have to be a huge, overarching plot of good versus evil, that's just what sells for big bucks, and understandably so because people enjoy watching a moral smackdown. Good stories can also be written about simplistic things.
There was one I wrote, or tried to, a few years back that focused on a defecting soldier and his romance with an artist. The worst violence that ended up happening was the skirmish that he bolted from in the first chapter (but only because I ended up abandoning the story because I didn't know my materials all that well. I was twelve, keep in mind.)
I'm just saying, if you need to write an AU relationship without the Sued-effects (see what I did there?), you could just craft the plot around that primarily, and everything else as just a side plot for the sake of keeping with a specific timeline.
I've also worked on plots with a similar sort of idea.
That's not quite what I had in mind with this one (although the concept of more emphasis on the characters and less on the combat and salvation of the realm is the same basic mindset) but I definitely like the suggestion! At this point I think it would be easiest to swap out the setting and race, as the plot can probably stand just fine on its own without the quest.
That was the idea I was trying to offer, so I consider this a job will done on my part.
¡Dicho gracias más para tí, amigo!
In conclusion, you can definitely place flaws on your character - goodness knows that Tolkien's characters are flawed, after all - just be sure to do it believably. Write the character as realistic to the setting as you can, don't just make her super great and then tack on downsides after the fact.
Hope this helps.
Thanks!
...because this immediately morphed into "A question regarding my character and plot."
*blushing*
...Or maybe I'm just exhausted... It would explain all these ellipses... The marks of a sluggish mind...
Since I suspect your feeling this way may be my fault. >.>;
Talking about writing questions that involve stuff you are working on is not bad at all! As you can see, many of us are happy to discuss all manner of fanfic- and writing-related topics. What I recently took issue with was a newbie starting multiple threads seemingly for the sole purpose of discussing their potential agent and refusing to drop it when asked, i.e. obsessing over Permission before it's even remotely appropriate. That's totally different from what you're doing here. {= )
To address the actual topic, I would just ask one semi-rhetorical question: Why is it important that the character be Thorin's daughter? And its semi-rhetorical corollary: Why can't the story be told any other way?
I say semi-rhetorical because I don't necessarily need to know the answers, and there aren't any guaranteed right answers. It's more of a "search your feelings: you know it to be Sue!" (or not-Sue, but that doesn't fit the quote) sort of deal.
~Neshomeh
Before I noticed your reply, I addressed this with a post aimed at another user, who had said that Dwarves were immune to disease, which is an absolute roadblock to the storyline, as it calls for an outbreak of septicemic plague. Which got me thinking that I either had to re-outline the second half of the fic or switch races- and thus, setting and family. Which in turn inspired me to wonder why it was even important that she be a Durin, and while I'm sure there was some reason those months ago when I dreamed up the idea... I can't for the life of me remember it.
So it's exactly what you said: I have no clue why it was important.
That clears up my issue, then, because by switching out her race for human, getting away from the canon relatives and the breaking of canon (by existing and by following the Company), I can now concentrate on the character herself. Focusing just on characterization should drastically decrease her chances of Suedom, and I won't have to fuss over the AU, since it won't be.
And the point of the story all along was the character development and the hardships each character has to go through, not the reclamation of Erebor, so changing the setting won't be a huge problem.
Have her live in Lake Town during the quest. How does she react to Thorin and Co lording it over her people? Would she believe they are delusional, or con men (Dwarves?), or what?
Would she move to Dale with Bard after the battles? How does she react to her town being destroyed by Smaug?
Unlike virtually any other canon I've read, there's just so much stuff - and all of it interconnected. For your idea, we know exactly how this character lived - how her home supported itself (trade with Mirkwood), what sort of perils they faced (mostly a certain dragon), the major trials (the Thorin Incident), and what ultimately happened to her (either died peacefully, or lived through/died in the Siege of Erebor during the War of the Ring).
And I love that... sense of world-out-there. The fact that, to take a random example, Shelob might once have spun her webs between Treebeard's herds - back when she was in Nan Dungortheb with the rest of Ungoliant's spawn, and he was:
To the pine-trees upon the highland of Dorthonion I climbed in the Winter.
Ah! the wind and the whiteness and the black branches of Winter on Orod-na-Thon!
My voice went up and sang in the sky...
It's just... connections all the way, back into the deeps of time (and where was Fangorn when Durin awoke for the first time in the forested heights of the Misty Mountains...?). Love it.
hS
You are correct; Mary-Sue litmus tests tend to test for symptoms. This is because there is unfortunately no uniform definition for Mary-Sue across all of fandom, but we think we know it when we see it. However, I believe that if you can pass the PPC standard, you can pass anybody's standard (unless your critic is a purist who hates any OC, much less any female OC).
The PPC Wiki page on Mary Sues gives an adequate definition, but I highly prefer the one given by Neshomeh in a not-so-recent discussion: a Mary Sue
"A. does not behave like a believable-for-the-context person, B. does not get believable-for-the-context treatment from others, and C. is successful just because the plot says so."
That said, the mere existence of a relationship between your OC and Thorin Oakenshield is not, in and of itself, a sentence of Suedom. What is important is that the OC look like she belongs in Middle-earth. So, a few questions:
1) Did you explain how your OC could possibly be the daughter of Thorin Oakenshield? E.g., Does Thorin has so many children that your OC could presumably have been one of them (but was never centrally figured in the canon story), or are you just trying to shoehorn her into the Oakenshield family?
2) Does she act like a daughter of Thorin? Thorin being a dwarf king, does she act like a canonical Tolkien-verse dwarf princess would act? And if not, did you create a plausible reason why not?
The difference between a well-written OC and a Mary-Sue is not the mere presence or absence of faults; a Sue is a Sue because she warps canon.
A canon's-relative OC isn't necessarily doomed to become a Sue, but they would have a harsher start than most other OCs that just start out with tangential connections like being from the same clan or homeland as a canon character.
You'd need to adequately explain the canon character's past history in a way that allows for the character's presence without distorting the sequence of their past life enormously(assuming you aren't going for a full-on AU here, because those have different standards for what does and does not constitute acceptable changes to history), and you'd need to come up with a plausible reason why the OC would never have been mentioned by the canon in their journeys.
In Thorin's case, this would be especially tricky, since he's said to be among the last of his line of Dwarf Lords and there would probably be a big to-do about him having a child, but it's not impossible.
And it's not all about piling on flaws, even though giving a character flaws is a big part of making them seem realistic. It's about piling on what makes a character or circumstance interesting. Not what makes them "good", because there's a distinct difference there. I'd object to the term "piling on" as well, but I'm not going to start dissecting word choice here.
See, one of a Sue's main problems is that she forces the canon characters to feel bad for her, or love her, or be interested in her, but the readers are not. If a character is interesting and well-formed enough, a canon's reaction to their situation should be something that would be a logical reaction based on their character and how well they know the OC.
While a Sue would cause someone to fall in love with her or sympathize with her immediately just because she's "different" or some such, a more well-rounded OC would cause such matters to happen gradually, or at least logically, based on the characters she's affecting and their personalities. People don't get suspicious with Mary Sue, they don't get angry at Mary Sue unless it's set up to make her look better, and they don't ever second-guess her or make her pull her own weight. A well-rounded OC, on the other hand, should be susceptible to the same problems that a canon character in their situation would undergo, and would thus possibly have to deal with all of those.
I'd say the first of those three especially with a Thorin's-daughter OC. Where did she come from? the other dwarves would think. Why did Thorin never mention his past relationships? Does this mean he's got a lover somewhere? They'd see the strange occurrence as what it was, and react accordingly, and this would probably make your OC uneasy, and she would react. That might actually place seeds for a character arc for someone there.
In addition to what I said before, you need to make the events plausible within the world you created or are using, you need to have setup and buildup, and everything needs to lead together. If something starts happening seemingly "just because", you've got a problem. If reactions become overblown or too unrealistically subdued, that's another problem, etcetera etcetera. As long as you keep in mind what you want to do with the story and what to stay away from getting there to keep the characters from getting Sue-d, there's nothing keeping a canon's-duaghter OC from becoming a decent and well-rounded member of a cast of characters.
Thanks for the advice!
As it so happens, the story does evolve into total AU, which is part of what worries me. Far as background goes, there weren't any particularly strange occurences. I did my best to keep it plausible, although it's certainly a breach of canon anyway. Through an arranged marriage, Thorin and a fairly well-respected dwarf maiden bore three children- one son and two daughters. He and his wife had a cordial, ordinary relationship until the Smaug incident. After the dwarves were driven out of Erebor, Thorin's wife and youngest daughter died of illness and starvation. His eldest son was killed during the struggle at Moria, leaving only the autistic middle child, Ri, who is the MC.
From there the story follows the plot of the book and movie, with added character development and, of course, the additional character herself. (She has mild separation anxiety and tried to follow the Company to the Shire.) However, at the audience with the goblin king things go horribly awry and after that it is almost entirely AU.
Also, I think it's worth noting that I did not, in fact, choose her family just to write about Fíli and Kíli, although they are influential in the story. Honestly, I have a soft spot for Bofur.
I guess I'm concerned about the cliché elements of the exposition and the major breaks of canon. I have never written an AU before, so this is a new experience for me, so if anyone is more seasoned in the art, I'd gladly listen to any suggestions.
This is quite the ramble. Apologies if it no longer makes sense.
It says here that Dwarf women marry once and for life or not at all, either because of their work, their fancied one already being taken, or their simple lack of desire to marry. That can be interpreted to say they have free will in spousal choice, so an arranged marriage seems a bit out of place. Personally, I think that free will is a huge deal amongst the Free Peoples of Middle-earth, and with that comes the ability to marry for love (for life).
True, since Thorin is Dwarvish royalty he could have been pressured somewhat to continue the family line, but could he not have found an eligible Dwarf lady on his own?
I mean, I'm not telling you to do anything, really; I'm just voicing my disagreement with placing an arranged marriage into a culture where an arranged marriage might not necessarily make sense.
Ahh...
Did not know that.
Now that I think about it it does make sense. It wasn't brought up in the book, so I was ad libbing a bit with the marriage traditions, but you have a logical point there.
Luckily, it hasn't actually been brought up in the story yet, so I can tweak that a bit. Thanks!
*mad scribbling*
(I have always found the History of Middle-earth to be invaluable in writing stories)
but being that I (and most PPCers, unless I am mistaken) are not fluent in the Tolkien languages, could you please provide a translation?
Khazâd = Dwarves, so it's something like "The axes of the Dwarves! The Dwarves are upon you!" Unless I've got it backwards, or I'm confusing it with another battle-cry. Or I'm completely wrong.
But really, only Dwarves are fluent in Dwarvish. They're very secretive about their language; even the names we know for them aren't the ones they use amongst themselves.
~Neshomeh
"Yet in secret (a secret which unlike the Elves, they did not willingly unlock, even to their friends) they used their own strange tongue, changed little by the years; for it had become a tongue of lore rather than a cradle-speech, and they tended it and guarded it as a treasure of the past. Few of other race have succeeded in learning it. In this history it appears only in such place-names as Gimli revealed to his companions; and in the battle-cry which he uttered in the siege of the Hornburg. That at least was not secret, and had been heard on many a field since the world was young. Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu! 'Axes of the Dwarves! The Dwarves are upon you!'" (Appendix F again)
hS
...and they have already proved it.
My plot calls for an outbreak of septicemic plague later on, and although I was aware that Dwarves' immune systems were unusually strong, being impervious to disease... won't work.
Thanks for calling this to my attention!
I outlined the story months and months ago, and while I'm sure there was some logical reason for the character being a Dwarf of that family... I can't remember it.
So it should be relatively easy to switch out the setting and race- simpler than rewriting the second half of the plot, anyway.
That should also clear up any misgivings about the canon relatives, breaking canon (which can now co-exist with the fanfic), and Dwarvish customs, so I can focus on the character herself, which is much more managable and less likely to veer into Suedom.
Thank you again!
Something I would like to see someone do - I may end up doing it myself - is writing a completely canon-friendly story of a Dwarven woman. It would probably be set during the First Age, when the Dwarves of Belegost and Nogrod had traffic with those of Khazad-Dum - and with the other two-or-four realms far to the east.
In fact, if I were writing it, I think it would be the tale of the fall of Gundabad - awakening-place of Durin, central meeting place of all seven races - to the Orcs... hmm. Plot-Nuzgul are dangerous things...
hS
"Nuzgul" does not look like any Tolkienverse name I know. The closest I know is "Nazgûl."
They were rabbitlike creatures, born of a typo of some sort, like the Fodfather from HFA.
Plot-bunnies+Arda+PPC=Plot-Nuzgul. Though I can see where your assumption was coming from.
And that, I think, is why beardless Dwarves ought to be a charge.
Maybe, instead of being a beardless Dwarf, or something to that effect, the character could have shaved his/her beard out of deep (really deep) shame or the extreme need to go into hiding.
Maybe the character was taken prisoner and shaving facial hair was a necessity in prison. I dunno.
But, whatever the cause, a beardless Dwarf would have deep emotional scars, which, handled properly, would make for a great character. (Now theres an idea...)
Not sure why I said all that. Probably just a need to let off some hot air.
Ergo if a Dwarf Sue lacks a beard and the requisite shame for lacking a beard, it would be a charge.
And there are an alarming number of beardless Dwarf Sues on the Pit (and presumably in the Circle, but I don't dare take a look in there). Since it's mentioned earlier that a Dwarf's beard is their pride and joy and that cutting or shaving it would be shameful to them, naturally a beardless Dwarf would feel great shame in a lack of beard.
However, many of these beardless Dwarf Sues seem to take their beardlessness as a sign of beauty. Yeah. Doesn't compute.
Er, not that you mentioned it, but I thought I'd bring it up.
I don't know if it actually made the movie, but if you do a google search, you get pictures of female Dwarves who...well, they do have beards. Just...very thin ones. But the beards are there! So the Sues have no excuse: they should either have full beards and be unrecognizable as being different from male Dwarves, or they should have thin beards and...well, they should have thin beards at the very least, let's leave it at that.
Although, again, I'm not sure if that even ended up in the movie. It could just be promotional stuff.
~DF
They were spotted at the beginning of the film, when the Dwarves were first exiled from Erebor.
Also, boo, Sues. You literally have no excuse whatsoever. Er, unless you haven't seen the movies or read the books, in which case, why are you writing fanfic of them??
~DF
Just out of curiosity from how people've talked in this thread.
http://disc.yourwebapps.com/discussion.cgi?disc=199610;article=244066;title=PPC%20Posting%20Board
In which hS quotes bunches of Tolkien.
Of the Suethor applying modern cultural standards to a fictional culture. I recently read a Star Trek Suefic where the Sue complained that she had purple eyes. Because in the 24th century, non-humans are totally rare and never join Starfleet.
Blame Thorin and Fili and Kili. They made dwarves look attractive. I maintain that Sues decide to be the prettiest looking race.
(for reference, this is AOS. Even though you've said it was the 24th century. Hope it's still funny...)
"Oh woe is me, for my eyes are a depressing shade of violet!" the woman wailed.
Jim Kirk gave her an odd look. "Uh, right. I'll just be over here, okay?" He turned and quickly walked over to the nearest crewmember on the bridge. "Uhura, help!" he hissed. "She's at it again."
The Communications officer rolled her eyes. "Is it the red-and-blue hair this time, or the purple eyes?"
"The eyes," Kirk replied, glancing back at the Cardassian Ambassador's aide. "I don't get why she thinks they're so unusual, we were just on a planet where everyone had them--shit, she's coming over here!"
"How couldst thou ever love one such as me?" the woman in question cried. A single tear slid down her cheek. "For I have amethyst eyes and glittery skin and crimson-and-cobalt hair--"
"Spock!" Kirk called. "Put that picture on the viewscreen, will you?"
Spock complied, and Kirk turned the woman to face the viewscreen.
"Look," he said. "See those people?"
The woman gasped. "But--but--"
"They look exactly like you," Kirk said. "Uh, except for the skin, but that's probably added--uh--right. Look, we were just on a planet where everyone had that coloring. So you can stop whining about it, and maybe even, I don't know, do your job." He let her go, and walked down to the Captain's chair.
The woman stood frozen for a short five minutes, during which the bridge operated normally (with perhaps a few added snickers). Then, the relative silence was broken.
"Woe is me," the woman wailed, "for I have naturally shimmering skin! How couldst thou ever--"
"Please get off the bri--"
"--love one cursed--"
"Get off the bridge!"
"--with such an afflic--" The woman's voice stopped mid-sentence, and most of the bridge crew breathed sighs of relief.
Kirk grinned. "I knew there was a reason I keep you around," he said to Spock.
The Science officer raised an eyebrow. "I was merely removing a disruption," he said calmly.
"Pay up," Sulu whispered to Chekov, and the Navigator complied.
"I cannot believe ze keptin did not crack first!" Chekov muttered.
Uhura took one more look at the unconscious woman lying abandoned on the floor, and turned back to her station, smiling.
--
I really need to see the new movie. I've missed these guys a lot.
~DF
I imagine TOS characters to be particularly used to Sues, and therefore expert at dealing with them. What makes this particularly amusing, though, is that this is the segment of fic I was complaining about:
Two things were off about my appearance, my eyes were completely purple, everything expect my pupils was a bright purple, and my wildly curly black hair naturally had random streaks of brown, blue, green and bright red.
It's like you knew that she also had colorful hair.
You haven't seen Into Darkness yet? You poor unfortunate soul. Go. You must. It is awesome.
Whoa, wait, she has no whites? Weird. But still, not very strange for an alien.
Heh, I see everything. /is bricked/ Well, no, I don't. It was a lucky guess. And I think I needed something to add, because just having purple eyes is kind of random.
I'd have to go to a lot of trouble to see it in theaters--I'm currently kind of far away from places that have them--but I'll catch it online at some point. Probably soon, since I'm starting to get mild spoilers and I want to join in with the Board discussion...
~DF
Western ideals of hairless beauty do NOT belong with the Dwarves for Glaurung's sake. I've ranted about this on Tumblr many, many times.
But Thorin and Fili had beards. Kili just had some stubble. Dammit Kili.
To me, anyway. Perhaps they're related? /bricked
~DF
Thank you! I'm sure these will be most helpful.