starza
2004-05-30 05:37 pm UTC (link)

To be honest, I don't know how there can be a Mary Sue/Gary Stu in an original book/video game/etc. One bad thing about Mary Sues/Gary Stus is that they mess up canon. Mary Sues/Gary Stus that are established in canon can't really do that since they're a part of canon already, so they're not messing up canon, per say.

If anything, this would be more of a 'perfect' character than a Mary Sue or Gary Stu. Not all Sues and Stus are 'perfect' characters either, some just mess up canon so badly, that it's a nightmare to read. Those tend to be the more annoying ones though.

Sues and Stus are for fanfiction, really. 'Perfect' characters are more for already established canon works and you can pretty much chalk it over as 'bad' writing, really.

So really, most of the characters being named don't bother me at all, some of them, surprisingly enough, DO have faults in them and aren't 'Oh-so-perfect' as people make them out to be.

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(Anonymous)
2004-05-30 06:08 pm UTC (link)

I think... that there's a line that can be crossed. True, one of the biggest Marks of the Sue is that they steal a main character's importance, which can't happen when a "canon-Sue" is the main character. However, when a character's exploits and powers become completely ridiculous, then they start picking up Sue-attributes. Look at Luthien Tinuviel: half-elf, half-angel, most beautiful woman ever, amazing singing voice, recovers a Silmaril with her mortal hubby, angsts when said hubby kicks the bucket, brings him back to life, gets all the elves to mourn for her when she dies... she definitely has Sue qualities, and if someone like that dropped into, say, Harry Potter fanfic, she'd be declared an uber-Sue, even if she just sat around drinking tea.

Wanker ID: Crazythorn@LJ

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	No Self-Insert, No Sue/Stu zozma 2004-05-30 06:35 pm UTC (link)
	I'll grant that Luthien does appear to be flawless. But you never get the slightest inkling that Tolkien sees himself in her. She's his ideal woman, not his idealized self. Beren is Tolkien's Stu. Hard to argue against that point when he admitted to it to this extent himself. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: No Self-Insert, No Sue/Stu telophase 2004-05-30 08:31 pm UTC (link)
	For me, the hallmark of the Mary Sue is the idealization, not the self-identification. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: No Self-Insert, No Sue/Stu seventy_three 2004-05-30 08:38 pm UTC (link)
	I think people get too hung up on the definition of Mary Sue. There is sucky characterization in both fanfic and source material. Mary Sue is just a label; is the character plausible and engaging, or irritatingly unrealistic? (For me, Luthien falls into the latter category.) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: No Self-Insert, No Sue/Stu

iczer6
2004-05-30 09:14 pm UTC (link)

Good point.

When you get down to it 'Mary Sue' is just another way of saying 'bad characterization'.

I think it is possible to make a canon character a Sue, I mean look at what happened to Xena in the later seasons, and lets not forget Anita Blake.

Though what gets me is that we have a community for this, Canon_Sues, go there if you want debate it, that's why it was created in the first place.

Icz

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	Re: No Self-Insert, No Sue/Stu arielchan 2004-05-31 01:42 am UTC (link)
	Oh, but if you're going there I have to pull out the Anne Rice card and mention what happened to Lestat after Memnoch. Bleh. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: No Self-Insert, No Sue/Stu ragnarok 2004-05-31 07:05 am UTC (link)
	Oh, thank you for mentioning Anita-Sue. She even looks like LKH, for god's sake. I used to love those books, but the last three have just been Mary Sue hell. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	Re: No Self-Insert, No Sue/Stu hoorofcrowley 2004-06-01 07:27 am UTC (link)
	You mean that Anita's not meant to be that magically and sexually astounding? NOOO! My world is crumbling! How can I ever live without her succubus/necromancer/Nimir-Ra/Bolverk/RPIT aid/trigger-happy heroine/whateverelsesheis self? A world without Anita Blake is like a world without plot holes and giant chasms in Logic Land! Damn you! curls into a ball and dies (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: No Self-Insert, No Sue/Stu

littlest_lurker
2004-05-30 11:45 pm UTC (link)

I think people get too hung up on the definition of Mary Sue.

Good point. I also think that another part of the problem is that everyone has their own different definition of what a Sue is. Some people think that it's an OC that warps the canon and steals the show in a fanfic, some think that it's a flawless character who is worshiped by every other character in the canon, and some people see a Sue as a very idealized self-insertion of the author.

And while I do think there is such thing as a canon Sue, people who see them everywhere annoy the hell out of me.

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	Re: No Self-Insert, No Sue/Stu sarajayechan 2004-05-30 11:49 pm UTC (link)
	By the "Every main character is a canon Sue/Stu" logic, Chiyo-chan shoulda been reported ages ago. :P A good example of a character that could very easily be a Stu, but isn't, is Strong Bad from H*R. He's strong, handsome, an irresistable girl magnet, rich, awesome, smart, and the future ruler of the world...IN HIS MIND. XD (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: No Self-Insert, No Sue/Stu littlest_lurker 2004-05-31 05:09 am UTC (link)
	Hee! I hadn't thought of Strongbad that way before. Yeah, and even though she's smart, rich and cute, I would sooner call Osaka-chan a Sue than Chiyo. :D Call ne crazy, but I can't see the character as Sue-ish. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: No Self-Insert, No Sue/Stu sarajayechan 2004-05-31 05:13 am UTC (link)
	Yeah. XD Strong Bad's imagination is a Stu! None of the Azumanga girls are Sues. <3 (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	Re: No Self-Insert, No Sue/Stu selene_avis 2004-06-01 09:35 pm UTC (link)
	Agreed. Osaka-chan is adorable, not 'sueish. (Reply to this)(Parent)

Re: No Self-Insert, No Sue/Stu

azazello
2004-05-31 01:05 am UTC (link)

Beren is Tolkien's Stu.

Luthien was supposed to be Tolkien's wife - Edith. She looked a good deal as described too. Very pretty with dark hair.

The names Beren and Luthien are on their gravestones too, underneath their real names. The quest story echoes the difficulties they had in marrying owing to religious differences (he was devout Catholic, she was devout Protestant) - and it is intended to reflect their own love story.

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	toxictattoo 2004-05-30 08:20 pm UTC (link)
	Not that I can talk too intelligently on the subject, but I have to wonder if the more appropriate term would be self insert. Like Wesley Crusher was a Gene Roddenberry self insert. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	llama_treats 2004-05-30 08:21 pm UTC (link)
	Shut up, Wesley! [So what was the excuse for Gene sticking his annoying wife in almost every episode?] (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	toxictattoo 2004-05-30 08:36 pm UTC (link)
	[laughs] Because of ~~the pussy, or lack thereof if he didn't~~ her incredible talents [coughs] as an actress could only serve to uplift the show. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	kijikun 2004-05-30 08:57 pm UTC (link)
	~~sex~~ ~~love~~ She had blackmail material? I rather liked her as Troy's mother, and liked her even more on Deep Space nine...and yes I squeed when she was on Babylon 5 that time. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	llama_treats 2004-05-31 12:30 am UTC (link)
	Let me put it this way...every time she showed up in an episode, I looked to see what was on other channels. (And don't even get me started on "Earth: Final Conflict"...) But to each his own, I suppose! More power to you! (Reply to this)(Parent)

	notjo 2004-05-31 02:53 pm UTC (link)
	I love your icon! It's taken me a while to remember what it was from. It's been too too long since I saw an episode of Reboot. I must get back to the Western Hemisphere soon... Um... topic... Um..... Look, over there! runs away (Reply to this)(Parent)

	ashenmote 2004-05-30 05:40 pm UTC (link)
	Sounds all so very very familiar from the last ten times it was discussed. With the exception of adding ~~Pouty McCleavage~~ Anna Valerious to the list, of course. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	jaseroque 2004-05-30 08:45 pm UTC (link)
	... dude. You mean she has a last name? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	ashenmote 2004-05-31 12:56 am UTC (link)
	Yeah. Cheap cgi effect. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	jaseroque 2004-05-31 05:05 am UTC (link)
	Ohhh. That one I knew. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	isntitironic 2004-05-30 06:16 pm UTC (link)
	As amusing as this is, I doubt this wank can ever again reach the heights it did the time somebody claimed that Avril Lavigne was a living, breathing Mary-Sue. Brought a tear to my eye, that did... (Reply to this)(Thread)

	sarajayechan 2004-05-30 06:18 pm UTC (link)
	XD I remember that. It came up in the comments thread of a really bad Rayearth Sue I reported over a year ago. (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	littlest_lurker 2004-05-30 11:33 pm UTC (link)
	Really? Someone said that? boggles slightly Links please? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	sarajayechan 2004-05-30 11:37 pm UTC (link)
	http://www.livejournal.com/community/marysues/147191.html (Reply to this)(Parent)

	toxictattoo 2004-05-30 08:18 pm UTC (link)
	I saw that this morning, I think even linked from your community and thought to myself...'self? This is a wank waiting to happen.' And myself said, 'uh huh. You got that right.' (Reply to this)

blue_linnet
2004-05-30 11:20 pm UTC (link)

I think that while Mary Sue started as a fanfic term, it's kind of branched out from that. Which I like; the other day I read a review of a novel that talked about the heroine as being a 'Mary Sue' and I cracked up.

I've never been really comfortable with the self-insert definition, because to do that you have to say that you know the author's mind. I mean, sometimes it might not be a self-insert at all, but rather the author doing that because her readers expect it after a certain point, or lots of other reasons. I wrote an extremely Sue-ish character when I was younger, but she wasn't really a representation of me--rather she was this character idea I thought was *so clever*.

Sometimes people will start to call any annoying or slightly cliched main character a Sue, which isn't entirely accurate. One of the hallmarks to me is that all the good characters love her, and she has an instant distrust/dislike of all the villains. (*cough* Mercedes Lackey!)

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rhi_silverflame
2004-05-31 10:28 am UTC (link)

Hee, yeah . . . Misty Lackey does have a lot of Sue-ish tendencies to her characters, doesn't she?

I can't figure out why it doesn't bother me so much with her stuff, though. Maybe I'm just too distracted by the way she manages to contradict her own canon. (Take a Thief just horribly mangled the entire continuity of Skif's history, not to mention being practically unreadable for the first three quarters of it.)

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blue_linnet
2004-05-31 01:27 pm UTC (link)

Oh, God, 'Take a Thief' was wretched, wasn't it? There were some interesting bits to it, if one ignores the absolute destruction of canon and the way she wrote out the thieves' speech phonetically. She really shouldn't be writing prequels because she can't keep her canon straight worth a damn. Which doesn't surprise me as the feel of the world in the 'Arrows' series is quite a bit different than later. Alberich's book was better than Skif's I thought, but again, so many inconsistencies.

Yeah, her Sues don't really bother me as much compared to others, probably because the whole tone of the books is sort of fairy-taleish. Except for Vanyel, she didn't rave about the characters' appearances, which helped. And Kerowyn was a lot of fun--I love how she was sort of the anti-Herald in a lot of ways.

Good lord, how can I remember so many details about books I haven't read since I was in high school, yet can't remember to set my alarm...

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notjo
2004-05-31 02:56 pm UTC (link)

I'm the same way. I read the paperback copy of Magic's Price so very often in high school that when I got my own copy, and it didn't have the same line repeated (where Stefan and Van are realizing that they love each other, and Stefan ducks his head and says "Well, do you miss that, then?" in response to Vanyel's telling him that he was Lifebonded to Tylendal), it confused me every time.

I can't *believe* I remember that so clearly. I'm old! It's been 10 years since I saw that old paperback!

I think it has to do with the age that one discovers these books, though. I love Vanyel, but I think I would see the same character, if discovered now, as very very frustrating. Same with Talia. I just was completely unable to enjoy the Owl Knight/Flight/Sight/whatever series at all.

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rhi_silverflame
2004-05-31 08:54 pm UTC (link)

The Owl books are pretty damned lousy -- my girlfriend and I were just discussing the other day how it's practically impossible to get into the second one because the first six chapters are schizo!Keisha talking and angsting to herself. Although I have to admit I did dig the scene with Keisha refusing to let the Companion choose her, if for no other reason than it was a refreshing change from the "she looked into the horse's bright blue eyes and felt herself falling forever" bit.

Oddly enough, I only started reading these books a couple of years ago, and I have a marked tendency to go back and reread a lot. (And the Valdemar books are really brain-candy . . . quick read, fairly enjoyable except when the editor forgets how to spell Selenay for pages on end, and not heavy reading, though not quite superficial. Great for passing time in a doctor's waiting room.) Vanyel's Stu-ish tendencies don't really bother me -- probably because by the time I read the Last Herald-Mage trilogy, I'd read the Arrows and the Mage Winds trilogies and he was already established in my mind as a legendary figure from Valdemaran history, as opposed to a fanfic original character that came out of nowhere. And I think Talia's inability to Mindspeak, and her generally timid personality traits, ameliorate those Sue-ish tendencies of hers for me as well.

Now, Lavan Firestorm . . . he's a Stu. Brooding country kid forced to move to the city, doesn't get along with his family, gets bullied by kids at school until his latent Firestarting gift gets activated by a particularly brutal beating and kills almost all of the bullies, lifebonds to his Companion, gets shoved into Whites half-trained because Karse is storming the border and ends up being the legendary hero of White Foal Pass . . . because an assassin kills his Companion and he goes berserk -- and succeeds in wiping out Karse's forces but never harming a single Valdemaran!

Granted, Vanyel's got a lot of similar tendencies . . . but I think partly, the fact that his story is spread out over three books gives more time to develop the more human, less Stu-ish aspects of him. With Lavan, everything's crammed into one book, and the angsting and Stu-age just kind of takes over.

Oh yeah, and then there's Herald-Chronicler Myste . . . who is obviously Misty's self-insert, which was fine since she was always in the background doing nothing until Exile's Honor when she started to hook up with Alberich. :P

I cannot complain about Kerowyn, though. Kerowyn just kinda rocks.

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blue_linnet
2004-06-01 04:19 am UTC (link)

The very first book I ever read was 'Magic's Pawn', and I absolutely loved it--it was the first time I'd read about a gay main character, so I got incredibly excited about that, and hey, I was fourteen. What fourteen year old doesn't feel that their family doesn't understand them, and if only they could be somewhere everyone would appreciate their true talents. Because I didn't have the backstory, I had no idea that he'd end up dying, so was weepily shocked by the end of the third book.

Talia had quite a few Sue qualities that irritated me, namely the fact that every single character loved her, except for the characters who turned out to be evil. But yeah, as you say, her personality and the fact that she wasn't drop dead gorgeous helped, as well as the fact that she didn't have every damn male character pining after her. Just Dirk, and that was mutual. (I'm thinking of the Kris thing; with a real Sue, he'd be the tragic figure who had a death wish since he knew she'd never be his, whereas he was just her friend she slept with a few times. Yay for casual sex! I mean, uh...Scripture.)

Yeah....the lifebonding to the Companion in Brightly Burning confused the everloving hell out of me, and gave me really unpleasant images that I'd rather not have, thanks ever so much, Ms. Lackey.

<--also needs to stop posting about this.

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diamonde
2004-06-01 08:14 am UTC (link)

Vanyel never really struck me as a Sue. He gets close to the line in places, but she manages to steer away from it. Like when he's young - he's pretty and talented, but bitchy, whiny, vain and nobody likes him much. And then when he's older he's bitter, bitchy, self-martyring and makes people nervous. If everyone had loved him and he'd always been right, he would have irritated the crap out of me. But he never really has many friends and fucked up quite a lot, he liked being pretty but it didn't really help him much.

With Talia I enoyed the books, but I never liked her. Because absolutely everybody in the books who wasn't completely evil adored her. Otherwise, she's not really that much of a Sue. Like you said, she's timid, not unusally beautiful, and a little handicapped with the Herald stuff. But she was so universally fawned over that I just couldn't like her. It was always all about her, she was always special and coddled, nobody even got annoyed with her dithering and whining. Except Kris. Without him, the series would be fairly unreadable for me these days.

Possibly that's just my Sue-button - I can handle them being beautiful or intelligent, as long as they're not precious and irrationally adored.

God, Mercedes Lackey is such a good example for exploring levels of Sue. And usually a good read, too. Which is at least part of the problem with the Owl series - not only was the main character excessively Sue-ish, only the middle book was at all interesting. Compared to something like By The Sword or The Black Gryphon the whole series is just depressingly awful.

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blue_linnet
2004-06-01 10:41 am UTC (link)

Because I'm bored, and kind of a dork, I ran a couple of the characters quickly through this, test, which I found at the canon_sue community.

http://www.angelfire.com/gundam/otto/grayswandir/mary-sue-test.html

Talia came out as a 36 (borderline) and Vanyel as a 55 (uber-sue). Talia got most of her points for her tragic past and everyone immediately loving her. Vanyel got them for exceptional abilities and physical appearance (though he also got some points for tragic past and so forth). But it was kind of necessary to the story, and also since Heralds are by definition sort of Sue-ish (psychic abilities, Companion) that probably needs to be taken into account.

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rhi_silverflame
2004-06-01 03:20 am UTC (link)

"Take a Thief" made me want to claw my eyes out for that horrible, horrible "dialect" she made the street kids talk in. And yes, there were some interesting bits to it (like the fleshing out of Skif's past history with Orthallen) but the continuity-rape kind of negates all those minor points in its favor.

"Exile's Honor" did better in that regard, although Sendar's death was also a continuity glitch. (If you really want to split hairs, it might not have been, but still, it's questionable enough.)

You're right about the feel of the world in "Arrows," and how it changed a lot as Valdemar and Velgarth expanded.

And I really need to shut up on this subject now. ^_^

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	selene_avis 2004-06-01 10:57 pm UTC (link)
	Plus, most characters contain a little bit of the author who creates them. You can't escape that. Self-insert and mary-sue tend to be so closely associated because of all of the mary-sues that are direct self-insertations of the author in fan fictions. You can usually spot them because the author will say so. (Reply to this)(Parent)

dawnswalker
2004-05-31 03:12 am UTC (link)

Personally, I think that aside from the obvious red flag instances (Mary Sue marries Clow Reed and ascends into heaven after creating super-powerful Sue Cards which her reincarnation has to go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to retrieve along with her Guardian Beast Hikaruhime-chan), the definition of a "Mary Sue" is so indefinite that one could make a case for pretty much any character in any story in any format.

Besides, most of their examples of Canon!Sues are from popular and/or lucrative series, so you can't say that the authors, artists, and producers don't know what works.

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notjo
2004-05-31 03:03 pm UTC (link)

That is part of it.

Oh, wait, I feel a rant comign on about it. Forgive me.

The thing that most internet people seem to forget is they aren't the only people in the world. They're a minority of people. Hell, they're probably still a minority of people in the US and Canada. (I pick these examples because I know them.) The fact that there are whole communities of people who bash "Mary Sues" does not mean that the majority of people who read even know what the heck one is. I didn't know the term until I got bored one day and stumbled on pottersues over at LJ. And that was just a few months ago.

So, I think there are a lot of internet fans of things that think "Yes, the majority of people I know on the internet think that Anita Blake/Terry Goodkind's stuff/Buffy Summers/Anakin Skywalker/whatever is a horrible character and should die" because they know a bunch of people who think that way, and there are a lot of people on the internet who will completely agree with them....

But the internet isn't the only fanbase in the world. So there are obviously thousands and thousands and thousands of people who love where Anita Black/Terry Goodkind's stuff/Buffy Summers/Anakin Skywalker are going. Which is why the books sell so well, and continue to sell so well, and aren't going to stop selling, even if the internet fans all stop buying them at once. Cuz we are just a drop in a very very very big bucket.

*sigh*

I think I'm done. I wasn't directing that at you so much as near you. Sorry 'bout that. I'd love to say it won't happen again, but this is an argument very dear to my heart.

That, and which is better: chocolate chip or chocolate chunk.

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necronomist
2004-05-31 06:05 pm UTC (link)

"the internet isn't the only fanbase in the world"

True. Even though Mary Sue came out of science fiction/fantasy media (specifically Star Trek), which also has a heavy Internet presence, not everyone knows about it. Heck, not everyone cares. I did a survey of canon Sues/Stus in their fandoms (on my LJ, which kinda proves your point). Most read for other reasons than the characters (world building, other characters, one of the expected hazards of anime/manga, etc), and most kept on reading even though they know the character is a canon Sue.

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bishounenhuntrs
2004-06-03 09:23 am UTC (link)

most kept on reading even though they know the character is a canon Sue.

No, most look at the fandom when it's going off about the Main Character being a Mary Sue and go "Yeah right. I'm glad I don't do this fandom thing". And that's if they even care.

Ever time I see someone say that Harry Potter is a Sue/Stu
just shows me how much horseshit the idea of canon Sues is.

Now excuse while I get a mop and bucket to clean up mythis splooge.

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	selene_avis 2004-06-01 09:32 pm UTC (link)
	People, this is a defining moment in history. There was wank about canon-sues. And it didn't take place on canon_sues. And I wasn't the wanky one! (Sure, I made a comment here and there, but nothing wanky.) (Reply to this)

	bishounenhuntrs 2004-06-02 03:54 am UTC (link)
	By these rules Odin, Zeus, Beowulf, Christ, Buddha, or any other epic character is a Sue/Stu. Which makes the term 'Mary Sue' bloody well useless, doesn't it? (Reply to this)