Subject: Huzzah! A theory!
Author:
Posted on: 2010-06-14 21:42:00 UTC
I like this place already, although I don't entirely agree. My take on the classic 'pink' Mary-Sue is this: Mary-Sues are written by daydreamers and people that fantasize that are stupid enough to put pointless fantasies online for the world to see. This is inexcusable- I may enjoy drawing a dress with silver embroidery, but I will not punish my readers with a few paragraphs on the dress.
When I'm reading PPC missions and looking up multiple bad fics, I'm starting to notice a possible motive to why Mary Sues are twisting canon. The Scientific Theory of Suvian Origins may have established the "what" of Mary Sue but there's a missing vital piece of information, the "why" and their motives.
My guess is that Mary Sues are incomplete beings who can't self-substain themselves unlike canon characters. They lacked a vital part that makes anyone canon, gifted by authors. Canon is like a heart for a body to pump energy to survive. Canon is the essence of life and existence, I called this the "canon factor".
Mary Sues lacked the canon factor because their creators, the Suethors, can't publish their fics officially due to copyrights, thus they are posted as fanfiction. Without the canon factor, they slowly starve and if not fed, they die. This can only be slowed down just by being acknowledged by the Suthor herself but that won't be enough to ensure the sue's survival. Even with powers and/or the perfection, they are weak as characters for canon because canonical works rejects them because their involvement in most continua would harm their figurative structure as established universes.
The main method of surviving is to feed on canon energy. Usually, that energy can't bleed out by normal means but there's multiple methods to do that, interfere and/or twist canon through meddling canon affairs. Their acts of unholy uncanonized crimes usually affects the inhabitants, usually main characters but that also effects locations too. Ergo, canon energy bleeds off from the victims and the sue absorbs the energy, ensuring her survival in a disguise of a canon character. If the sue's powerful, she needs more energy. Should this be left untouched, the results would be catastrophic such as becoming a dry husk or a twisted mockery of itself or worse, cease to exist.
As for slash fics without Mary Sues, they are there alright but comes in a different form. Two sub-species called the author-wraith and the other is a clone called a Replacement Sue. Although they are different, the methods are the same. The victim of these monsters are "popular" characters, usually handsome or cute ones, beings with plenty of canon energy, enough to substain a canon location. Their ways are through pseudo affection and sex. Having sex with a sue is a very bad idea because no matter the gender, it drains the victim's energy quickly than the orgasms. These two are extremely dangerous so it is best is exorcisms for author-wraiths and assassinations for replacements.
To remedy these problems, the PPC has to do their jobs in order keep continua alive and healthy. Once the sue has been killed, the canon energy they stole return to their rightful owners as if they never step foot there in the first place.
This is one of many parts of this theory. I will write more about this in deeper topics such as the bond between Sues and Suethors.
I like this place already, although I don't entirely agree. My take on the classic 'pink' Mary-Sue is this: Mary-Sues are written by daydreamers and people that fantasize that are stupid enough to put pointless fantasies online for the world to see. This is inexcusable- I may enjoy drawing a dress with silver embroidery, but I will not punish my readers with a few paragraphs on the dress.
Of course the ACMSES has a different definition of Sue than the PPC, but I wanted to contribute.
The Mary Sue wants to fix something. The idea is that the Sue will do anything, anything at all, to ensure that the author's ideal of a perfect version of the fandom is achieved. Usually, the ACMSES just leaves them alone and groans (unless they get out of the author's control, in which we step in).
A Sue exists to "fill the hole" in the author's perception or heart.
Seems to me like the Sue has her author fooled, too. The author thinks s/he's getting to spend time with his/her favorite canon, or getting to "fix" the canon so it's "better"; but the Sue only takes advantage of the author's ability to create and change worlds to insert herself into a canon.
That would explain why the PPC doesn't just kill Suethors; they're only guilty of gullibility and inexperience, not malevolent intent.
If the Sue is a natural phenomenon, a creature that's evolved to take advantage of plot holes, it makes sense that she'd be able to influence authors. Authors, after all, can create those plot holes; and bad authors are most vulnerable because they create a whole lot of plot holes and don't close them; and Sues can manipulate plot holes.
If a Sue latches onto a plot hole in a new canon, she often turned into a Canon Sue, incorporated into the canon itself.
We kill those too, and those are essentially Suethors... Although I suppose that, since Bad Slash Authors are deliberately mucking with canon without being taken advantage of by a Sue, they're more guilty than Suethors.
People tend to use "author-wraith" and "Sue-wraith" interchangeably, but IMO, any time you get a canon character acting like a Sue, it's a Sue-wraith. (The term "slash-dwimmerlaik" is also used.) So, it still works. {= )
~Neshomeh
Theories are fun. And this is a good theory. I like it.
Perhaps Sues also gain some energy by being acknowledged by others? Not only the Suethor, but hapless readers of fanfiction? Reviewers and the like?
Or perhaps Sues are autonomous entities--maybe they can exist without authors, but must possess them in order to invade canon. It might not be the Suethors' faults after all. On the other hand, we still need to attack the abominable creatures that are Sue.
One of the most pleasing experiences of my life was to persuade a Suethor that her character was, in fact, a Sue, and had horribly mucked with canon besides. She took it down, and I haven't checked since, but she said she was rewriting it to improve. Small wonders, hey?
And congratulations on bringing the Suethor back from the Twisted Side.
It's great when somebody learns more about writing through the PPC. Warm fuzzy feelings all around!
Factory sues exist independently of Suethors. So it's possible for a Sue to exist independently.
Yes, I think Sues do gain some kind of power from readers. Otherwise, Legendary Badfic wouldn't be considered worse than plain old bleepfic.
As I said before, sues usually have short lives and suethors are like life support systems for their creations and also about reformed sues.
In canon, authors grant life to their creations but suethors create but unable to give the sues good characterization nor a normal life span. These kind of flaws made the sues suffer. Worse, the bond can be broken if the suethor disowned the sue and/or never acknowledged as her creation. The amount of glitter in her body is a hint of how strong the bond is. While this sounds good at first but the drawbacks overweight the benefits. Broken powerful bonds is lethal to the sue, usually death or force her into a comatose state. The bond is double edged sword for sues.
As for reformed sues, the bond is severed from the suethor which should make them really weak. The ones with strong levels of glitter are impossible since they are too much of a hassle to handle. Sues can be reformed into normal beings even without having rely on the bond. They just have receive treatments but there's one problem, glitter is like their blood so trying to remove it could be fatal until medical research provided us a way to cure them of their suedom.
Adding this level of detail to what sues are in the PPC canon are is just asking to be too difficult to implement to all the various PPCers.
My suggestion is that you make one of your agents have alot of pet theories on what sues are, and just sprinkle these speculations into his dialogue. That way they /may/ be true, but other agents are free to interpret however they like.
Just because it's too complicated to fit into some stories, doesn't mean it couldn't be right. Or true. Whatever. I think that it could be used but not concretely added to necessary fanon. Necessary fanon is the Sunflower Official, not theories. Necessary fanon might not even be the Reorganisation, if you just wanted to do a normal, mission-following fic.
I'm with you and VixenMage, I think. It's fun to think this stuff up, but it doesn't really fit with the PPC's set-up, which is that Sues are the creations of authors who write fanfiction, the Words of which interfere with the Words of canon, thus redefining the canon universe in an undesirable, disruptive way. All the PPC acknowledges that Sues come from bad fanfiction and that those badfics have authors; it doesn't really leave room for Sues as independent organisms with a unique evolution and biology.
Even the essays that Trojie and Crystal wrote don't really work for me for that reason, even though it is interesting to read them.
~Neshomeh
We have lots of conspiracy theories floating around the wiki, and I suppose having a "suvian parasite creature" theory that some agents hold to is ok. Doesn't make it official PPC canon, but given the craziness and paranoia of half of HQ, a suvian parasite theory seems like something that could get a following amongst some agents.
Elcalion
Let's not make things too complicated, aye?
Your basic PPC canon states that Mary Sues are created by authors and destroy/distort canon; when they're killed the distortions vanish. That describes things. Like Newton's law of gravitation--it describes what happens, but not the "why".
Along comes Einstein and figures out part of the "why". Newton's laws still apply in all but the most extreme of circumstances; and most engineers (barring a few specialized fields) never need to use relativity to figure out their problems. Einstein's additions to physics are like the ideas we're tossing around about the "why" of Mary Sues--impractical for most circumstances, where you just need to know the basic canon; but cool to think about, especially if you want to define the universe (or, in this case, multiverse) precisely.
Of course, there were multiple theories around the time that Einstein was figuring stuff out; and it wasn't proved by experiment for some time. It makes sense that we'd have multiple theories here, at least until one of the DMSE&R folks publishes some research on the problem. And I for one like speculating. It's fun. ('Course, I'm also the one with Elf genealogies in my head from my LotR phase...)
There are already a couple of theories about Mary Sues and the multiverse on the wiki; I'd like to have this one put up as well once everybody's got a chance to put in their ideas.
All of this talk about Sues as parasites reminds me of this fic I'm currently rereading called "A Sue's Story". Ever hear of it?
It's set in the Harry Potter continuum, but based some around some OCS who work with handing Sues. It's a different way of looking at it, so I don't know how some people will handle it...
So check it out, that is, if you want to.
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1811995/1/ASuesStory
...before boredom kind of set it. The beginning has parody elements in it, but that quickly gives way to just a regular story that would fit right in with the rest of the bad mary sue community.
It's not [i]funny[/i] enough to be a parody.
I don't think it's meant to be a parody, just a different look at the whole thing.
But hey, that's juts how I see it...
Admittedly, the author seemed unsure how to categorize it, but they do mention it as a parody in the author notes.
I find this idea pretty good, it completely explains non canon sues. However, Canon Sues are not quite the same problem - they ARE actually canon, so they are only resembling a Sue in behaviour, but do not share the same mechanics of energy stealing. In easy words, Canon Sues do not feed on canon energy, because they are in canon.
The Canon Sue is a Sue who has been smart enough to insert herself into a canon while it was still being formed. The canon grew around the Sue and adapted to her presence.
The Sue can't survive without the canon. And the canon can't survive without the Sue, because it was developed with the Sue already in place, and removing the Sue would cause it to collapse. It's like not removing a knife from a stab wound because it's plugging a hole in an artery.
A canon with a Canon Sue in it is weakened, but not destroyed, because it is in careful balance.
The canon is just powerful enough to support the Sue. And the Sue is just smart enough not to go too far and kill her host. The canon is by no means healthy, but there's no way to remove the Sue without destroying it altogether.
They may be but I have some thoughts about this. Canon Sues don't have to drain the host because they are "canon". They don't need to cause damage but if the story is bad because the author did that, not her even though some could be her fault.
So yeah, it's like that.
Nice thinking. Now the theory is complete, I think.
Good idea within the PPC, but don't forget that a lot of people consider canon Sues to exist. We're just not allowed to PPC canon.
See, I always thought Mary Sues existed because people like to write fanfiction, and some of them are really bad at it. And that we kill them because we don't like seeing stories about our favorite canons that are really bad. And that we made up the whole thing about them Killing The Canon to have an in-universe reason to do so, and because it makes for a good story...
--VM, being the polar opposite of helpful!
To be honest, I don't see the 'need'. I mean, why do 'scientific theories' need a reason? You might as well be asking for the motives behind why the Earth was created - which is a religious question, usually.
It would also create an additional ethical complication in that one could argue that the 'Sues are merely struggling to survive, casting agents in the light of genocidal murderers. I don't think that's quite what Jay and Acacia meant when they started this.
Still, if you want to think of it that way, that's up to you. I don't think I'll adopt it as part of my "headcanon", though.
And they aren't. There's not enough characterization to make them sentient; just a bunch of weird Sueperpowers tacked to a cardboard character. Factory sues are pre-programmed; also no sentience there. Very borderline sues who get recruited have to go to FicPsych just to get themselves a personality; and agents who get fully Sued tend to be executed by their partners very much like someone who got bitten in a zombie move. Too far gone, and there's nothing left of the person you used to know (which means risk of getting wangsty and should not be overused, but it has happened in the past...)
If it's "genocide", then it's more like exterminating a species of (reality-destroying) mosquitoes than it is like destroying a species of humanlike aliens. You might have qualms about disturbing the natural ecology of the multiverse (which is actually something I've been toying with lately--environmentalism, PPC style!); but other than their humanoid shape, there's nothing sentient about them.
FicPsych or DMSE&R should do neuropsych testing on Mary Sues...
For the record, I am a firm believer in animal sentience. Yes, even mosquitoes. Everything living has /some/ degree of self-awareness.
That bit of philosophy aside, they're still a species, whether they're sentient or not (and given that we are speaking of Sues, I'm willing to debate that point, animal sentience or no). Sues are living creatures like the rest of us, and they deserve a chance--the fact that we have rehabilitated Sues among our ranks is proof of that.
Wow, why don't I just go form the Internet Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Sues... xD
Still, if you want to look at it seriously, the ethics are dicey. I'd make a case that extermination of a species is just as bad regardless of whether they're sentient or not.
In a non-serious, more PPCish way... I prefer to think of them as creations of Words - just like everything else in a Word World - rather than a species with biological needs. Other effects of bad writing - like hair 'floating' away from a head or a sword splitting in two because phrasing isn't clear - don't need any further explanation, so I'd rather not give the Sues any more credit than they already have.
It's a matter of choice, of course.
If you interpret the entire PPCverse as words, then everyone ends up seeming controlled by them and... You know where I'm going with this... Soon, you end up with not a fictional universe at all but just a blob of... words...
And that isn't fun, at least to me. In my opinion, it's more interesting if you take the two concepts and mix them together, so the inhabitants of the PPCverse are biological, yet the words are such an integral part of them that the two are inseparable. If the body dies, the words are rendered inert, having lost their meaning. Likewise, if the words are somehow destroyed, the body ceases to function, the words acting like a life support system for the character.
Sues and Author-wraiths consist almost entirely of words, and are thus far less capable of acting independently from them. They're just puppets to act out the words that make them up, mindlessly following orders until something changes, in which it will feebly try to adapt (and fail).
...I don't know... I'm probably not onto anything at all, I'm just rambling on again out of sheer boredom. *hides*
Though I like the part where it says Sues are feeding on canon characters, I don't agree that Sues need to feed on canon characters because their authors can't publish their work officially. There's plenty of (officially) published fiction where there are Sues in the story.
It's not a matter of being published; it's a matter of the wide exposure of published fiction.
Stories come from World One minds--not just the Author's, but the readers' minds, too.
Three factors affect the strength of canon:
1. The skill of the Author who creates it.
2. The number of people who read it.
3. The fanfiction written in the continuum.
The stronger the canon, the more it attracts Mary Sues, but the more it can resist Mary Sue parasitism. And the strongest canons are the ones that are published and widely read... though even the strongest can fall to Mary Sues if they aren't protected.
...along with a few others. This is just the beginning of a series of essays. I hope research could help me support these theories but if some prove me wrong, oh well.