Subject: She lacks the key point of a Sue. The BIG one.
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Posted on: 2009-07-25 15:43:00 UTC
The other characters are not warped from themselves because of her. Alanna alienates people because of her short temper. Her actions have consequences.
The other things can be symptoms of a Sue, but they aren't the things that make one.
Too many people keep making that mistake. It's rather exasperating.
There is a reason that there is only one of them on the Pit.
http://dawnbluewings.livejournal.com/29577.html
Feel the pain...
Great job in taking care of the Sues/Stus. That story was plain awful. Yay! You threw them in Mt. Doom! Here's some bleepka to make you feel better about taking that badfic.
Things poor Ross gets particularly bitchy about:
1) Stereotypical portrayals of DID/MPD (Guess why)
2) "Male twin of the pair" Stus (I think he's afraid that he himself is, in fact, one of them, but just doesn't realize it. His sister laughs at this...)
3) Inaccurate representation of a character's ethnicity.
4) Falsifying Twinning relationships.
5) Falsifying Twinning likelihood. (Seriously. Twinning is rare unless there is twinning in the family, and then it skips a generation. So one of a set of twins is likely not to have twins unless her husband's parent was a twin...)
6) Trivializing Twinning relationships.
To name his top six...
And this fic had... 2, 3, 4, and 6.
... I like having the "Sane, controlled" one go off his rocker every now and then. There are two types of Ross Anger you have to deal with. The yelling, stomping, facewalling kind is easy to get him to calm down from. It's the slow, cold, deliberate stuff that gets out of control. As can be seen by... well, WRITING a Stu to death.
Seriously, that's twice now I've seen misquotes of it. That's a pretty impressive number, considering that it's in the front of every book in the most likely edition a fan writer would have access to, two other editions, and I highly suspect every edition ever. Furthermore, it appears in the fellowship of the ring.
Lastly, it's in poetry, the original purpose of which was to be easy to remember.
This may be a personal thing, but the forgetting of a space ticks me off because I pronounce dark lord and darklord a bit differently, and one doesn't seem to fit the pattern.
This is Badfic. *sigh*
It's in every edition that I've managed to come across in the past eight years. Including the ones that I first read, which were the same ones that my MOTHER first read... Yeah. That poem is in basically every edition ever, as it is the basis for the WHOLE DAMN STORY.
And you are right. Dark lord and Darklord are pronounced differently, and the second doesn't scan right...
I especially liked the little reference to His Dark Materials :)
Ross is of the opinion that "Oh, you want to trivialize your relationship with your twin? Let's see how you like it when that relationship is severed wholesale!"
I just hope I got that part at least partially right. The one book I don't have in that series is, in fact, the first one, so I couldn't really check... But so far as I remember?
Seriously, though, I found the original, and I'm surprised you came through with your eyes and brain intact. It's no wonder your Agents were a little... annoyed toward the end. Nice job~
Had the author actually finished the story (or at least not abandoned it) I would have put it forward for potential Legendary status... I mean, there are some horrible stories out there, but this one was for me at least a whole new level of awful..
Watch as my Agent(s) go on a killing spree of all of that author's work that they have any knowledge of...
Done well, a Tortall/Tolkien crossover might be awesome. I've just being rereading the Song of the Lioness series (and I've discovered that Alanna may be a Sue: violet eyes, awesome skillz and everything. Discuss).
However, I suspect this one isn't done well?
She's got purple eyes and red hair, and she's chosen by the Goddess. Other than that?
Well, she has Knightly Skillz, yes, but remember how she worked her arse off in training, because girls are naturally weaker? It's not Sueish to have muscles after a hell-camp like that, it's realistic. Actually, it would be more Sueish to have her still be weak, or complaining about not being as strong as the guys.
She was chosen by the Goddess, I think, because she was the first woman knight in centuries. (I'm sure Tammy mentioned somewhere that there were lady knights, long ago in the past.)
Anyway, if you want to find a Canon Sue in that series, I'd point to Daine, love her though I do. She's a girl with a tragic past, (bastard-like birth [redeemed of course] AND orphaned by bandits, AND traumatized by her powerz, and awesome beyond-the-ken-of-man powers that she can't quite control, AND of course immediately liked by [almost] everyone (given this is Tortall, where generally the cast is pretty friendly), AND gets the Older Wiser Court Wizard to fall in love with her, AND has Brand New Speshul Magicks.) Canon Sue, much more strongly than any other character, I think. Everything always comes easily to her, with just the right amount of angst. But, as I said, I do love her, because Wild Magic was my first Tammy book. And because, what can I say? AMINALSSS.
I love Daine's character, too, (who wouldn't want to talk to animals), but she is most definitely a Canon Sue. Powers, Past, Prettiness... *sigh* It was sort of awkward for me to read the romance parts in the third and fourth books, but now that I think of it, eleven years difference is nothing compared to ninety-one years difference, Twilight-wise. Look at how many teen girls dig that relationship.
Also, Wild Magic was the first book I read that was by Tamora Pierce, too.
Wild Magic was mine too. And I love the Twilight comparison. :D For me, though, it was Skysong that made me squee. I'd take lovable dragon kit to talking over animals any day. It may explain why I want to copy the idea in any similar fantasy I write. *hugs Skysong* Someone needs to make a Skysong plushy. I'd totally buy that. :P
And yes, Alanna came along a century after the last female knight had died. Fortunately, Keladry came along in less time. :P
As for the training, exactly. I'm using that as help for part of the draft for one of my fics, training Heroes. A Hero in the fandom is basically a knight/samurai/Jedi (including a magical power known as Force Push :D). It's difficult to know what pushes them over the boundraries of Sue in the training and what would actually happen had these guys existed.
But she's a Canon Sue. Not only that, she's OUR Canon Sue. And we love her, for the most part. Except when we don't...
And yes, done well, it might be awesome. But... extra rings, Daughter!Sues, and Legomance?
Get the fic away from me!
If I didn't have too much other crap to do (and if I had the first clue where to start), I'd probably write a Tortall/LotR crossover. However, chances are, I'll find myself drafting a plot anyway.
I just put her through The Universal Mary-Sue Litmus Test (Springhole version) and... She's about a 78. Test-point factor: 50+ - "Kill it dead. Or make sure you read the instructions properly (some people don't do this, which causes freakishly high scores) and take the test again."
Ah, poor Alanna. You know, it's really hard to make a first character in a place like Tortall, make them the first female knight in a century, and not make them Mary Sue-ish. Alanna had it coming to her, being the Goddess's Chosen and purple eyes and all. I still like her character, anyway. At least she isn't freakishly gorgeous or decides to always speak in this stupid condescending manner like this: "Duke Roger, you are a worthless, zombiefied maggot. You are not fit to even kiss the ground of Tortall. I shall kill you now!" Oh, wait...
The other characters are not warped from themselves because of her. Alanna alienates people because of her short temper. Her actions have consequences.
The other things can be symptoms of a Sue, but they aren't the things that make one.
Too many people keep making that mistake. It's rather exasperating.
She does take the consequences. But she does have rather a lot of the symptoms. Tamora Pierce just writes her characters much better and that helps to balance it, per say. I guess it depends on your perspective.
In most Universal Litmus Tests, the pre-test instructions are not to panic if you get a really high score (at least, the ones I've seen, or the ones aimed at authors, not agents. Plus, that might be the fanfic bit you're using; Canon characters are different.), because in all honesty, if it's written correctly? Characters with higher scores can be interesting, thought-out, very human characters. It's all about personality, context, flaws. Alanna has all of these, and I think Tammy pulls it off perfectly, leaving you wondering at the end (if you've had experience with Suefics beforehand) how on -Earth- she just wrote a purple-eyed, red-haired, Goddess-chosen, magic-wielding Knight and somehow made her human, real, and completely drew you into the story, too. (I think one of my favorite things was how she turned down Queenship for George. Not Sueish. Sues would downright seduce Jon for that chance.)
I haven't read these books for years! Shh! :P I had remembered though, vaguely, about Jonathan and George. Jon marries Talia, isn't it?
But yeah, I agree that it's how the character is written that does it. Otherwise, I'd be utterly screwed every time I tried to write a Jedi or similar.
We'll have to be more careful about those, sorry. And, yeah,
-Spoiler Alert!-
Jonathan marries Thayet.
And Thayet, that's it. I was... kinda close... I guess.
Tamora Pierce does pull it off pretty well at the end of the book series, but during the first few books she does seem a little over the top, even though it's pulled off and balanced. Also, Tammy is a much better writer than most of the fanbrats we have to deal with. Yeah, the score was really high, but I have to agree with you. I'm certainly not going to panic over it, but I may poke fun at it in a parody or two.
The Immortals anyway. I don't think I ever liked Circle of Magic for some reason. I think I was in love with Tortall.