So why do you call her a Mary-Sue?

Subject: So why do you call her a Mary-Sue?
Author: Huinesoron
Posted on: 2014-02-04 13:04:00 UTC

You've said that her personality is consistent with her backstory, and that she doesn't drive the canons (one 'n', by the way) OOC; that her dynamic with the 'male hero' (I'm assuming a canonical protagonist?) is realistic; you've implied, though not stated, that she doesn't have powers, abilities, or other elements explicitly contrary to canon.

So why do you call her a Mary-Sue? That's not a label that should be applied lightly - otherwise we just feed into the people who occasionally post essays about how we just call every female OC a Mary-Sue, and that's sexist. Which it would be, if that were what we did.

The only things you've listed to justify applying the label are:

-Her appearance (pretty).
-A tragic backstory.
-A fluctuating personality - but you attribute that to her backstory, so that can't be included.
-Physical(?) strength.
-Loved by her people (one assumes she's a ruler or related to one)
-Loved by a hero.

So, er... that'd be Eowyn, then.

Yes, it's sexist that every female character in fiction seems to be unbelievably good-looking - but it's not in any way specific to this character. Take that away, and what have you got? A beloved warrior-princess/queen with a sad history. That's really not a Mary-Sue you're describing.

In summary: OC =/= Mary-Sue. Self-insert =/= Mary-Sue. 1D character who throws the canon out of whack to serve her own ends == Mary-Sue.

hS

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So there's this sue... by Halcyon on 2014-02-04 12:45:00 UTC Reply

I know she's a Sue. Long platinum blonde hair, purple eyes, a body to die for. Tragic backstory, a fluctuating temperament that can range from sweet, to bitingly sarcastic, to bratty annoying wench. She's almost stupidly strong, loved by her people and the male hero in question.

The catch is, that she's pretty well-written. I mean she's still a sue to be sure, she has those sue qualities and later on in the story the writing starts to slip along with some of my suspension of disbelief (the Suethor in question does have a habit of pulling plot twists out of her ass). Moreover its completely predictable but still...

Her characters mesh into cannon almost seamlessly. Her Sue's personality draws heavily from her tragic backstory and it all seems to be very well thought out. The male hero in question is actually pretty close to being in character and their dynamic has a sense of realism to it that I'm not used to seeing in most OC stories.

I should have every reason to like this character and take the chance to appreciate a well-written Sue but the thing is...I can't. I guess it's just me and my attitude of "A Sue will always be a Sue"

(Sad I know.)

What do you guys think? Can a well written Mary Sue be a likable Sue or is she forever hindered as a character because of her role as pure wish fulfillment on part of the author?

Hijacking the thread... by Herr Wozzeck on 2014-02-05 04:29:00 UTC Reply

...with an actual badfic!

So I found a bad Assassin's Creed II self-insert here:

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/10005861/2/Sucked-into-Assassins-Creed-2

Aside from numerous crimes against the space bar and general bad formatting ideas (seriously, the author puts stuff in Italian and then provides a parenthesized English translation instead of, you know, footnoting the translation so it doesn't get in the way of the narrative flow), I encountered this conversation soon after a pair of Sues get warped to their destination:

"E quello che sembra essere il problema? (And what seems to be the problem?)"A male voice asks.

"Il mio amico, ha una ferita alla testa. (My friend has a head injury.)"Becca responds.

"You seem to have trouble responding in Italiano. You are Americano, no?"The male voice responds.

For those of you uninitiated in the Assassin's Creed continuum, these two Sues have just been warped to Italy in friggin' 1470.

If I have to tell the PPC why this fic completely fails at world history, then I'm going to have a conniption.

Aside from that.... by Sergio Turbo on 2014-02-05 09:13:00 UTC Reply

The answer the girl gave is actually way more correct than the question.

The right question would be "Qual'è il problema?", while in the answer the only correction I would make is to remove the comma.

And... Wow. The US didn't exist until, what, three or four centuries AFTER 1470? Hell, nobody even KNEW that there was a whole continent there until more than thwenty years later!

Well, no one in Europe. by Lily Winterwood on 2014-02-07 20:42:00 UTC Reply

At least, no one in the bits of Europe that European history cares about. Vikings found North America in 10th century AD, and there have also been mummies discovered in Egypt that contained New World plants, suggesting that trade existed between the Americas and the Mediterranean area even before the Age of Discovery.

Still doesn't excuse the presence of the US in 1470 though. That part's patent bs.
Wait, you mean a majority of the Italian has bad grammar? by Herr Wozzeck on 2014-02-05 12:58:00 UTC Reply

Ouch... God help you if you should look through the rest of the fic, then, 'cause Italian shows up quite a bit in there. She also capitalizes the hell out of some of the words as if it were a Frank Miller comic or something like that, and lord Jesus does that get annoying.

Of course the grammar's going to be wrong. by wobblestheclown on 2014-02-05 18:26:00 UTC Reply

Chances are the author's using Google-translated modern Italian; medieval Italian is really rather different, not least because of all the dialects knocking around at the time. It's like the difference between Harry Potter and The Canterbury Tales.

No, I don't have a life, how did you guess?

You mean Renaissance Italian. by Herr Wozzeck on 2014-02-05 19:28:00 UTC Reply

The point still remains the same, but it's hard to call the setting of the game "Medieval Italy" when friggin' Leonardo da Vinci is a major character.

Eh, haven't played any of the series. by wobblestheclown on 2014-02-05 19:39:00 UTC Reply

Somebody else mentioned 1470 and I went off that. Mea culpa.

Maybe she should try German? by Cyba Zero on 2014-02-05 13:35:00 UTC Reply

After all, all German nouns are capitalised.

The problem is... by Herr Wozzeck on 2014-02-05 13:55:00 UTC Reply

...that Assassin's Creed has never gotten anywhere near Germany yet. So the Sue would need to contrive an excuse to get close to Germany.

Holy Roman Empire? (nm) by Storme Hawk on 2014-02-05 17:31:00 UTC Reply

So why do you call her a Mary-Sue? by Huinesoron on 2014-02-04 13:04:00 UTC Reply

You've said that her personality is consistent with her backstory, and that she doesn't drive the canons (one 'n', by the way) OOC; that her dynamic with the 'male hero' (I'm assuming a canonical protagonist?) is realistic; you've implied, though not stated, that she doesn't have powers, abilities, or other elements explicitly contrary to canon.

So why do you call her a Mary-Sue? That's not a label that should be applied lightly - otherwise we just feed into the people who occasionally post essays about how we just call every female OC a Mary-Sue, and that's sexist. Which it would be, if that were what we did.

The only things you've listed to justify applying the label are:

-Her appearance (pretty).
-A tragic backstory.
-A fluctuating personality - but you attribute that to her backstory, so that can't be included.
-Physical(?) strength.
-Loved by her people (one assumes she's a ruler or related to one)
-Loved by a hero.

So, er... that'd be Eowyn, then.

Yes, it's sexist that every female character in fiction seems to be unbelievably good-looking - but it's not in any way specific to this character. Take that away, and what have you got? A beloved warrior-princess/queen with a sad history. That's really not a Mary-Sue you're describing.

In summary: OC =/= Mary-Sue. Self-insert =/= Mary-Sue. 1D character who throws the canon out of whack to serve her own ends == Mary-Sue.

hS

Well shit... by Halcyon on 2014-02-04 14:28:00 UTC Reply

You've got a really good point actually. Calling her an outright Mary Sue wouldn't be fair. More like she's walking a tightrope. She actually does have powers that don't exist at all in canon proper. Moreover, she was able to take down a creature that all the other characters in canon proper still haven't been able to fully overcome with all of their strength combined. Honestly its debatable if her initial existence (her and her tribe) violates canon outright because the author does make crafty use of a, ah...loophole in canon. I suppose you could write it off as a speculative AU so no harm done there.

Yeah the characterizations seem to be the author's strong point. The only thing that really bothered me was the lack of consistency between some of her actions and her personality way down the road in the fic. For instance from the first few chapters you get the feel that this is the sort of person who's excellent at short term, on the spot thinking, but doesn't have the patience or temperance for long term strategy, and she doesn't. Mostly she leaves all that work to her brother, but in the recent chapter she'd been revealed as the mastermind behind everything? Once again, a bit of a stretch.

I didn't mean to apply the label lightly and I should've provided more context for my descriptions in my previous post in order to avoid giving that impression. There's actually a lot of ridiculously strong and beautiful and well rounded female characters with tragic pasts in original fiction that I love. Like Shana from Shakugan no Shana. I honestly don't believe that an OC from an orginal work of fiction can be a Mary Sue, per se, because it's their world and their story. They are a part of canon.

OC's in fanfiction however, I've always been wary of. Not every OC in fanfic are Mary Sues. In fact I've seen a few that are quite the contrary and that have made me genuinely care about them. (I know this one in FMA fandom that's literally a girl after my own heart.)

Perhaps though, I've had it wrong about this character. She has some suspicious traits to her but calling her a Mary Sue might be a mistake because although she's not the most smartly written OC I've seen, I don't think she's one dimensional either.

Symptoms by Lenore Snow on 2014-02-05 03:12:00 UTC Reply

Judging by your description, I agree that this character is certainly irritating, maybe even overpowered, but I also think you may be mixing up the symptoms of Suehood and the essence of an actual Mary Sue. In my mind, a Sue is defined more by her impact on the canon plot and characters than by her physical appearance or even, to some extend, her abilities. If this 'Sue' fits seemlessly into the canon, and does not warp the plot, effortlessly gain influence or affection, or throw the characters OOC, than she isn't the kind of Mary Sue the PPC normally deals with.
The truth is, many people do have fluctuating personalities, especially if they have experienced trauma in the past. It may be an infuriating characteristic in a character- especially in an OC, which seem to be held to much harsher standards- but it is not necessarily an instant-Sueifer.
Many Sues have purple eyes, but is Suehood defined solely by eye color? Or uncommon hair, for that matter.
This is just a thought, and depending on the severity of her non-canon powers, she may actually be a Mary Sue. That's up to you as the reader to decide.
Er, language, please. (nm) by Huinesoron on 2014-02-04 14:37:00 UTC Reply

According to PPC's policy... by darklordaakmal on 2014-02-04 12:55:00 UTC Reply

A well-written 'Sue' is not a Sue.