[Texasgirl]

found this on google while searching for the perfect avvie picture...take a look

http://www.answers.com/mary+sue&r=67

TG

[Alassante]

So if we write a character that is totally opposite of everything Mary Sue, wouldn't she still be Mary Sue because she would be written as being better than everyone else?

[SpaceWeavil]

[Alassante]

If you think about it, Mary Sues SHOULD be in Tolkien fanfiction. Look at the man himself - all of his females in the LOTR are Mary Sues! Eowyn - super warrior kills Witch King, Arwen - super pretty (movie version washed the Nazgul down the river) considered the most beautiful in all of the land, and Galadriel - all powerful elvish ruler.

So in all fairness - fanfiction by Tolkien should require a Mary Sue, right??

[ZeeDrippyVessel]

You know, I'm feeling MIGHT prickly these days. And this topic is the prickliest of them all.

There are SO many definitions of "Mary Sue" and I find people who just get up in arms and bash just to be the penultimate of moronic.

Is she self - insert? Sometimes

Is she all - powerful? Sometimes

Is she drop - dead gorgeous? Usually

Is she different? Almost always

Is she believable? Depends on the skill of the writer

Does the canon character fall in love with her? If he knows what's good for him he will!

Is she deserving of all the scorn and abuse heaped upon her head? no and Hell no!

That she is normally the first character a writer experiments with - Almost always. So I hate reviews that have - this is really good, but your character is such a Sue. And I see them with younger writers.

So she has odd eyes, interesting (weird) hair color, strange names, massive major super special powers? Who doesn't want their character to be striking? Different? My God people! You gotta make the poor girl stand out SOME way! How ever will Legolas see her in the sea of feminity if she doesn't? Angst? God forbid! That she should have PROBLEMS in her life. Or none at all.

And the sad thing is even plain, frumpy, not perfectly built OFC's with bad attitudes will be pointed at and mocked and labeled Mary Sue. I know. I wrote one. Damn PROUD of her I am too! And part of me doesn't get it! I was told - don't write her young or beautiful. Don't write her ALL powerful, not a perfect body. Give her weaknesses, give her problems. I did. She STILL got labeled. She doesn't belong in ME.

It's a no - win.

Well folks, I have really BAD news for you... Tolkien PURPOSELY left holes! The only canon females are far and few between and they are TAKEN! And as previously mentioned - they are mega-Sues too!

You know, if we are going to look at Sues, let's look at the PROFESSIONAL Sues in Tolkien. Faramir is admittedly JRRT's self-insert. So therefore, we SHOULD bash Faramir.

But I personally LIKE Faramir. He has his moments, you know?

And Aragorn - let's take a GOOD look at Aragorn: He was born poor, raised by Elves, everyone loved him... well those that hated him like... DIED... he becomes King of the most important country in Middle Earth and he marries the most beautiful female in the land - who gives up her IMMORTALITY to be with him , no less, and lives and dies happily ever after.

I'm screaming Marty Stu here! But I don't care, because he fits.

I don't really care if a story has a Mary Sue or not. Call me easy to please. That's not true. As long as it's well written, believeable (to me) and everything is put in it's proper place, I'm a happy camper.

Elves need lurve too.

[ghettoelleth]

[Eyborg]

Speaking of self-insertions... I think Tolkien himself admitted that both Aragorn and Beren were self-insertions. See:

Aragorn + Arwen
Beren + Luthien
John Ronald + Edith

Go figure.

And Aragorn is definitely a Sue.

As for "normal" females in LOTR... how about Rosie Cotton? She isn't a Sue, isn't she? And neither is Lobelia...

[SpaceWeavil]

[Thuriniel]

I honestly don't know why people make such a fuss about eye color. ANY eye color can be described as absolutely amazing and out of this world.

You can say "she had hazel eyes" or you could say "she had eyes the color of gold mixed with the green of new leaves." Am I describing the same eye color? Yes! Do "normal" people have this eye color? You bet! So do we all have a bit of Mary Sue in us? ... now ... that's a thought ...

I haven't found yet a satisfactory explanation of Sue ... so if the fic is good, I read, Sue or not. If the fic doesn't call me ... I drop it.

I stopped looking very long ago for Sue warnings.

[Viv]

Sues are just like slash: some of 'em are really good, and some of 'em are really bad. It all depends on the strength of the writer and the realization of the character. One of my top-five favorite published writers, Orson Scott Card, consistently writes Sues/Stus. He has millions of copies in print and is frolicking in his vast success. So very obviously there's a market for that sort of thing.

I think the crusade should cease being anti-Sue and become instead anti-cliche. The quality of fic would go up considerably, I think.

[inglor]

To me it has to be an obvious "person dropped into ME" for the specific purpose to shag a canon character/join the Fellowship for said shagging to be a Suefic. I usually avoid those but there are the good ones like ZDV's. However, Suefics like Panic that try to say what would really happen are wonderful.

I was looking at some of my writing and I see a great deal of myself or my actions in them (no, for those of you who have read my stuff, I have never messed around with anybody's wife...that I know of ), so I guess all my stuff is a little Marty Stu-ish

Inglor, Stuthor

[NancyBrooke]

[Viv]

Is wish-fulfillment necessarily a bad thing in fic?

If you match Aragorn or Luthien or Eowyn up against a Mary Sue litmus test, they score pretty high. So does Ender from Card's Ender's Game. So does Luke Skywalker (off the charts, in fact).

My point is, we need to stop saying "Mary Sue" like it's a bad word. It's not. It's a subgenre, a nuance, an element in the telling of a larger story.

This is why I say often that I like Mary Sues. Sue isn't inherently vile. She's just drawn that way. A lot.

[Eyborg]

Okay, I see your point Nancy (hey, you forgot Luke Skywalker!), but like you said, those you mentioned are all male. Why can male characters always be "Sues" and nobody says anything (I think the "Sue" thing can be interpreted any way you want, and you do have a point in what you said) but if somebody writes a female version of this type, she is always labelled as a Sue (and that as a bad thing)? Right now I can only remember one female "Sue" in literature who gets away with being a "Sue", and that's Astrid Lindgren's Pippi Longstocking. In many ways she's a Sue, but at the same time she is like an "anti-Sue". I think Mrs. Lindgren even said that Pippi was a self-insertion of sorts.

By the way, my favourite "Gary Stu" is probably Hergé's Tin-Tin.

[Eruanna]