Subject: Relax.
Author:
Posted on: 2010-08-06 19:28:00 UTC
People accuse characters of being Mary Sues all the time. Sometimes they're right; sometimes they're wrong; and sometimes it's hard to tell. It can be hard, but don't take it as a personal insult to a story you like.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheBartimaeusTrilogy
Someone has made a claim that Kitty, the trilogy's resident Action Girl, is a Mary Sue, which I do not belive. I can probably shoot down his arguements, but I cannot organize my toughts to type my counterpoints because I'm too angry. Can anyone here help?
A counterarguement to the Entry got posted, then a Moderator deleted it. Was it one of us that did it (the counterarguement, not the deletion)?
As I recall, she spends a lot of the series screwing up royally and watching plans go horribly wrong - wasn't she pretty impotent until the end of the last book? I'd call that non-Sueish.
I vote for deletion and linking to this thread, or just writing up what we've discussed.
In hindsight, I shoudn't have been making so much of a fuss.
Kitty's not a minor character by any means, but the story really revolves around
Dang it, I shouldn't have hit Enter.
Anyway.
...the story really revolves around Nathaniel and Bartimaeus, and Kitty doesn't magically stop Nathaniel from showing his (mile-wide) selfish streak, nor does she create a plot black hole. Kitty's a highly intelligent, capable character; but she's too well-written to be a Mary Sue, and the story balances its focus between her, Nathaniel, and Bartimaeus way too well. If she were a Sue, you'd end up with her taking over the stage; but she doesn't... considering that she's balanced against a demon and a magician, she doesn't outclass the other main characters. If she were an everyday girl with no special abilities, she'd just be a sidekick.
And she doesn't figure out the connection between Bartimaeus and Ptolemy in two interactions, she figured it out in two interactions, two year of constant tought between the two interactions, and a book entry outright stating that there was a special connection between the two.
She also had help forming the commoner's government, a lot of help. And her magical resistance only came to play what, four or five times? Two of those weren't even against serious threats (unless you call moulers serious threats). And as the one person brave enough to mount a counterattack said, she opened Ptolemy's Gate because she wasn't completely trained. Honestly, I'm so close to accusing the Troper of furthering the 'Mary-Sue as a concept is antifeminist' notion, which would be spiteful and draw a bad reaction.
Which is why I didn't edit the article to reply.
People accuse characters of being Mary Sues all the time. Sometimes they're right; sometimes they're wrong; and sometimes it's hard to tell. It can be hard, but don't take it as a personal insult to a story you like.