![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
On "Mary Sues"
Jan. 18th, 2015 03:33 pmToday on Trying To Avoid Law School: The Sitcom—let's talk about the concept of Mary Sues.
I've seen a bunch of Tumblr posts slamming the concept of Mary Sues in general, calling it just a sexist way of criticizing female fanfiction writers and criticizing female characters for not having enough flaws.
I disagree.
Do I think the concept of Mary Sues is sometimes taken too far? Yes. Do I think it's sometimes used to attack female characters in an unwarranted way? Yes.
But that doesn't mean the concept of Mary Sues should be thrown out altogether.
1. Although we should probably talk about the fact that the term "Mary Sue" by default applies to female characters, the concept itself is gender-neutral.
I've seen that critical writing communities online by and large don't hesitate to call male characters Mary Sues (or Gary Stus). And I don't particularly see why, if people have such a problem with "only" female characters getting labeled Mary Sues, they don't turn around and start applying the label to male characters, to show that the problem is just general bad characterization/bad writing. Because it is applicable to male characters, too.
2. The original concept of the Mary Sue was not as vague as "a character who doesn't have flaws/is too perfect." The orignal idea was "a character who is unrealistically good at things they shouldn't be good at."
I've noticed that, in interviews about playing leading female characters, actresses often stress that the character they play is "strong, but also flawed/vulnerable/human." And something about this bugs me. Because why can't female characters just be fabulous? Do they have to be vulnerable and flawed? I mean, I am 200% for complex, flawed characters, but I feel like this can play into the gender stereotype that women can't be too perfect and also women are by default more emotional/fragile than men.
The issue isn't (or at least, shouldn't be) about female characters who are awesome. One of my favorite book series in recent memory is The Testing series by Joelle Charbonneau, and when I looked at Goodreads reviews for the book, I saw many people described the protagonist, Cia Vale, as a Mary Sue. Which I really didn't like, because I loved her character. Sure, she's knowledgeable about a lot of stuff, but it made sense within the world that she would know a lot about both mechanical engineering and biological engineering, plus she's one of the 1% of teens chosen for the super-prestigious Testing, she has to be intelligent.
The issue is a character who's unrealistically and unreasonably good at things. Like Celaena Sardothien from Throne of Glass, for example. It makes sense that she's super-skilled in killing people. It doesn't make sense that she's also a lover of classical literature and theater, knowledgeable about politics, and a star piano-player to boot.
This kind of characterization is bad writing. And it should be called out, just as people would call out plot holes or bad grammar.
3. The thing about using the term to "attack" female fanfiction writers...
Fanfiction occupies a strange place. Because anyone can post, especially young teenagers, it does seem that young girls may write and post fanfiction as some kind of catharsis.
However...there are also plenty of people who read fanfiction and also happen to be highly critical. I've written before on how critical readers tend to get attacked as trolls/flamers, but that's really not what critique is about.
I critique things because I want people to be better writers. I want to be wowed and amazed and blown away by the fic I read, not have a "Well, that was a waste of an hour" reaction to it. And critical reviews actually take a long time to think about and write. I'm actually more hurt when people don't like my fic and don't bother to leave a comment explaining why they didn't like it—because it means they didn't care enough about the fic or my writing to be bothered. (Or, admittedly, maybe it's also that "don't want to be seen as a troll" mindset again.)
So these two attitudes—writing fanfiction for the hell of it, versus approaching fanfiction with the same critical mindset as approaching published fic—are undoubtedly in tension with each other. I don't know if there's any way to reconcile these two attitudes, but I will say that, in my experience, people going online and leaving scathing comments to "attack" a fanfic writer just doesn't happen, unless for some reason they happen to have a personal vendetta against that particular writer. Everyone's busy with their lives; no one has the time for that.
Also, I don't know whether I support the idea that young people who post their writing online should be coddled. I'm sorry, but it's the internet. If you post your stuff online, you should know (or quickly learn) that not everyone is going to like it. If you don't want negative comments, then you should probably reconsider posting your stuff online.
Are there gender issues involved with female fanfic writers writing Mary Sue OC self-inserts? Probably. Maybe it's because girls/women are faced with enormous pressure and double standards that they end up writing these kinds of characters. And that should be talked about. But the Mary Sue/Gary Stu concept developed to describe a particular type of poor characterization, and to that end I strongly disagree with the idea that the label should be abandoned altogether. (Or just find a different name, if it's the name that's bothering people so much.)
I've seen a bunch of Tumblr posts slamming the concept of Mary Sues in general, calling it just a sexist way of criticizing female fanfiction writers and criticizing female characters for not having enough flaws.
I disagree.
Do I think the concept of Mary Sues is sometimes taken too far? Yes. Do I think it's sometimes used to attack female characters in an unwarranted way? Yes.
But that doesn't mean the concept of Mary Sues should be thrown out altogether.
1. Although we should probably talk about the fact that the term "Mary Sue" by default applies to female characters, the concept itself is gender-neutral.
I've seen that critical writing communities online by and large don't hesitate to call male characters Mary Sues (or Gary Stus). And I don't particularly see why, if people have such a problem with "only" female characters getting labeled Mary Sues, they don't turn around and start applying the label to male characters, to show that the problem is just general bad characterization/bad writing. Because it is applicable to male characters, too.
2. The original concept of the Mary Sue was not as vague as "a character who doesn't have flaws/is too perfect." The orignal idea was "a character who is unrealistically good at things they shouldn't be good at."
I've noticed that, in interviews about playing leading female characters, actresses often stress that the character they play is "strong, but also flawed/vulnerable/human." And something about this bugs me. Because why can't female characters just be fabulous? Do they have to be vulnerable and flawed? I mean, I am 200% for complex, flawed characters, but I feel like this can play into the gender stereotype that women can't be too perfect and also women are by default more emotional/fragile than men.
The issue isn't (or at least, shouldn't be) about female characters who are awesome. One of my favorite book series in recent memory is The Testing series by Joelle Charbonneau, and when I looked at Goodreads reviews for the book, I saw many people described the protagonist, Cia Vale, as a Mary Sue. Which I really didn't like, because I loved her character. Sure, she's knowledgeable about a lot of stuff, but it made sense within the world that she would know a lot about both mechanical engineering and biological engineering, plus she's one of the 1% of teens chosen for the super-prestigious Testing, she has to be intelligent.
The issue is a character who's unrealistically and unreasonably good at things. Like Celaena Sardothien from Throne of Glass, for example. It makes sense that she's super-skilled in killing people. It doesn't make sense that she's also a lover of classical literature and theater, knowledgeable about politics, and a star piano-player to boot.
This kind of characterization is bad writing. And it should be called out, just as people would call out plot holes or bad grammar.
3. The thing about using the term to "attack" female fanfiction writers...
Fanfiction occupies a strange place. Because anyone can post, especially young teenagers, it does seem that young girls may write and post fanfiction as some kind of catharsis.
However...there are also plenty of people who read fanfiction and also happen to be highly critical. I've written before on how critical readers tend to get attacked as trolls/flamers, but that's really not what critique is about.
I critique things because I want people to be better writers. I want to be wowed and amazed and blown away by the fic I read, not have a "Well, that was a waste of an hour" reaction to it. And critical reviews actually take a long time to think about and write. I'm actually more hurt when people don't like my fic and don't bother to leave a comment explaining why they didn't like it—because it means they didn't care enough about the fic or my writing to be bothered. (Or, admittedly, maybe it's also that "don't want to be seen as a troll" mindset again.)
So these two attitudes—writing fanfiction for the hell of it, versus approaching fanfiction with the same critical mindset as approaching published fic—are undoubtedly in tension with each other. I don't know if there's any way to reconcile these two attitudes, but I will say that, in my experience, people going online and leaving scathing comments to "attack" a fanfic writer just doesn't happen, unless for some reason they happen to have a personal vendetta against that particular writer. Everyone's busy with their lives; no one has the time for that.
Also, I don't know whether I support the idea that young people who post their writing online should be coddled. I'm sorry, but it's the internet. If you post your stuff online, you should know (or quickly learn) that not everyone is going to like it. If you don't want negative comments, then you should probably reconsider posting your stuff online.
Are there gender issues involved with female fanfic writers writing Mary Sue OC self-inserts? Probably. Maybe it's because girls/women are faced with enormous pressure and double standards that they end up writing these kinds of characters. And that should be talked about. But the Mary Sue/Gary Stu concept developed to describe a particular type of poor characterization, and to that end I strongly disagree with the idea that the label should be abandoned altogether. (Or just find a different name, if it's the name that's bothering people so much.)
