new Goodfic Guide article; Mary Sues!

[rc45]

Why Mary-Sues are Bad: An Essay by Gundamkiwi

We've all done it at one point or another - created the ideal female character, one who is practically perfect in every way, and inserted her via convenient plothole into the canon of our choice. Our perky female OC is nearly always loved by each and every canon character she encounters, is always brave and beautiful to the point of tears (her readers'), sings like a nightingale or lark or some other appropriately romantic-sounding bird, and can cow and embarrass even the most hardened of male warriors with her Very Witty Comebacks (tm). She's usually snogging her lust object of choice before the end of the third chapter, or at the very least, sometime before the end of the fanfic.

Like I said, everyone has at one point created such a character. The masses who do this can be divided into two groups: The first group consists of those who are wise enough to keep their perfect female OC to themselves - if they do commit their particular 'Sue to the keyboard, they at least have sense enough to keep her firmly and safely hidden within the depths of their hard drives, and would never dream of placing her onto the 'Net where others could see. We're not concerned with this first group of writers, because they have the sense that they were born with, and also choose to exercise it. The group of writers we are concerned with is the second - those who see nothing wrong with writing such a character into existence, and then depositing her all over the internet.

The existence of the Mary Sue might not even be so terribly awful, it is supposed, were it not for a few key factors that the lot seem to have in common. It is these factors this essay is concerned with, and will in fact expound upon in the next few paragraphs.

The thing about Mary Sues is that...well, that they're perfect. They're so bloody perfect that, once inserted into the author's canon of choice, they usurp and outshine all of the characters within that canon. They even, on many occasions, change the course of the entire story, twisting and bending what was once a perfectly wonderful tale and turning it to suit their own shallow purposes.

Take, for example, the venerable J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy. The story is finely tuned, perfectly executed, and, taking certain unavoidable events into consideration, ends very well indeed for nearly everyone involved. The characters within this story all have distinct personalities and motivations. They act as real people might be expected to act - they experience doubt, fear, anxiety, happiness, sorrow, hope - the list goes on. As written by Tolkien (and indeed, even as portrayed by Peter Jackson), these characters are perfectly believable in their own flawed, human manner.

However, all that careful crafting as executed by Tolkien flies out the window and shatters onto the concrete into tiny, itty-bitty fragments when a 'Sue enters the picture. She may be the youngest daughter of Elrond, or the beautiful sister of Éowyn. Sometimes she manifests as an evil sorceress in league with Saruman, or, for the especially enterprising, in league with Sauron himself. Very often, she is a young woman (usually between the ages of sixteen and nineteen-and-a-half) from our own modern Earth, who tripped through a plot-hole and landed in the middle of The Council of Elrond or across the paths of the Fellowship sometime during their journey.

It is this latter case that I will discuss first - the modern girl from Earth, appearing abruptly with no explanation in the middle of a secret council is perhaps one of the most over-done plot devices conceived by LoTR Suethors yet. Even though she is a stranger, known to none, she is always promptly invited to join the Fellowship on their journey to Mordor. This is incredibly stupid for a variety of reasons, which I shall explain.

First and foremost, she is a stranger. No one knows who she is, and there is no way to verify the truth of what she may proclaim. This in and of itself should be enough to get her removed from the Council and taken to a place where she can be questioned in privacy at greater length and at a later time. However, such silly concepts of logic and common sense flee in the face of the Great Mary-Sue.

Secondly, no matter how vehemently she may claim otherwise, she is a child. In the eyes of the Elves, she is little more than an infant, not even having claim to two decades of life. In the normal way of things, Elves are (as I understand) rather protective of their children, and it stands to reason that they would also have some sort of paternal instinct in regards to others they perceive as children as well. Lord Elrond, who is described by Tolkien to be "as kind as Summer" would never, ever send a child on such a dangerous and potentially fatal mission as that which Frodo is about to undertake.

Thirdly, there is the slightly more technical matter of numeric symbolism Tolkien established when he decreed that there would be nine Walkers. Nine Walkers against the nine Riders, the Nazgul. Details such as these are what endears The Lord of the Rings to so many readers. Many LoTR fans find it upsetting when 'Suethors willfully ignore this symbolism, or are ignorant of its significance to the story. To paraphrase several different sources, Nine is the number of the counting, and the number of the counting shall be nine. Ten shalt thou NOT count, etcetera. Ten is RIGHT OUT, and with very good reason.

While these first two examples basically stand only for the "Girl-falls-into-Middle-earth" 'Sue, the third one applies to all varieties, be they Elrond's Youngest Daughter or other random, made-up canonical relation.

Even though the example I've used here comes from Lord of the Rings, it is not exclusive to that particular continuum - Mary Sues in any continuum tend to cause what are supposed to be rational, intelligent characters to display a complete lack of common sense and logic, and do so in an astoundingly insipid manner.

In addition to ripping our favorite characters out of character, most 'Sues add insult to injury when they act at all times in a manner befitting a spoiled 12-year old girl. The most common personality traits shared among Mary-Sues in any continuum are not exactly endearing. Vapid, rude, insulting, obnoxious, aloof - these are a few ways in which the average 'Sue will act towards all around her. Somehow, despite a complete lack of endearing personality traits, her lust object will always inevitably and inexplicably fall in love with her. It is at this point where logic implodes and splatters all over the Generic Scenery in a gelatinous, urple-y mess. Please have a look at the sample I've written below:

"Ha-HA! I have beaten you and proven that I am just as good as any man!" Mary-Sue crowed triumphantly.
"I never said you weren't - " Aragorn began, but was cut off by an imperious wave of Mary-Sue's hand.
"It doesn't matter. All men are by definition pigs, and as such must be put in their place."
"Er, well, if you say so -"
"I do! Now make hot, passionate love to me, Strider"
"Okay, babe."

Most Suethors are aware that Aragorn is engaged to and very much in love with an intelligent, beautiful, kind elf by the name of Arwen, but they don't care. Which brings me to my next point - Another reason why Mary Sues are hated by the masses is because they not only display a complete disregard for the canon they don't know (these would be the ones whose disclaimers included the words, "I've only seen the movies, the books were so boring! Isn't Orli hot tee hee?"), they also display a complete and utter disregard for the canon they do know! ("I know Aragorn's supposed to marry Arwen, but she's not good enough for him!")

Further exploring the ways Mary-Sue interacts with the canon characters, let's have a look at how she handles the folks her author doesn't like: One Gimli, son of Gloin. Poor Gimli gets shoved off to the side and is forgotten in many a 'Suefic, and when he's not being ignored by the perfect 'Sue, he's being ridiculed, insulted, and made fun of. This is apparently an attempt of the author to prove how witty and awesome her character is, but all it does is irritate LoTR fans. What did Gimli ever do to the 'Sue to warrant such treatment? What's that? He's...hairy? What does that have to do with anything? Yeah, I don't know either. Apparently Dwarf with beard = unattractive = Mary-Sue nemesis.
Or perhaps they're jealous of his friendship with Legolas? They can't possibly see him as competition, can they?

...Can they?

Of course not. They're just continuing with the pattern of shallow self-absorbency that has been established before, and that includes treating anyone and anything they find to be unattractive like something the cat dragged in. I would like to take a moment to mention that the aspect about Legolas that I personally find the most fascinating is the development and evolution of his friendship with Gimli, and vice-versa. Legolas and Gimli are like Merry and Pippin. They come as a set, and shouldn't be separated, because one without the other is like cake without frosting. If you try to separate them using your annoyingly perfect Mary Sue, you've just dumped a pile of salt on the cake. It's ruined, and no one is going to want it now. Congratulations.

Of course, the most outspoken 'Suethors try to claim that "It's only fanfiction, I can do whatever I want with it!" This is a very silly claim, because the whole point of fanfiction is to take the already established rules of the canon you're writing in and craft a story by following them. Tolkien's rules for his canon (and indeed, PJ's rules as outlined in the movies) leave absolutely no room for a random young woman anywhere in the Fellowship's quest. Even disregarding the quest, Tolkien's rules for his canon are so detailed that they don't leave much room for random young women anywhere. Younger daughters and sisters popping up in the Elven family tree is as uncanonical and rule breaking as Mary-Sues get, especially as there are so many detailed tables outlining the lineage of many of Tolkien's more prominent Elven characters.

Furthermore, you as an author have a responsibility to your readers. If you write and post a story in a public forum like ff.net and expect people to enjoy it, you need to care about the characters and the world you're writing about. If it's clear that the only character you care about is Leggy (ZOMFG Hawt!!1) and how quickly you can make him snog your OC, you're not going to get a very positive response, if you manage to elicit one at all. People read fanfiction because they want to read well-crafted, interesting, believable stories about their favorite characters, not because they want to read about your hormonal sexual fantasies with said favorite characters. If you truly care about your readers and the characters, motivation, characterization and plot all need to make sense.

"Random Girl falls into Middle-earth and causes Legolas to fall madly in love with her for no other reason than because she's beautiful" is not a valid plot. It cheapens the character of Legolas and creates little to no reader sympathy, especially since Random Girl aka Mary-Sue is wont to acting, as mentioned above, like a spoiled, pain-in-the-arse twelve-year old. It's clear to anyone with half a brain that your fascination with the character Legolas is incredibly superficial, and that you only like him for reasons that have nothing to do with his character.

If you really like Legolas that much, why not do a little research? Find out about his family, about his history. Of course, Tolkien didn't really give us a whole lot of specifics when it comes to Legolas as a person, so try filling in his personality based on what you know of his background. You know he's the prince of Mirkwood, so he's probably a sensible, responsible individual, as that is how princes of any race or age are raised to be. As such, he wouldn't throw a hissy fit at the drop of a hat or (one hopes) in response to other, more critical circumstances. We also know that Tolkien's elves are immortal, and will live forever unless they are killed. With this knowledge, it is probably pretty reasonable to assume that they will take their time with most important aspects of life, especially concerning such things as love and marriage. Taking this into account, it should be pretty obvious that Legolas would not fall in love with anyone "on sight" or even after a few measly days or weeks. He would take the time to fully explore and work out his feelings in this regard, and that could take some time – even several (hundred) years!

Whatever fandom you are writing in, take your time with the characters. Learn about them, get to know them, make them into people, and not just pretty faces. You'll often find that once you begin treating the characters as people and writing about them as such, you won't need your own original character to make writing fanfiction interesting for you. You'll be a better writer for it, and your readers will also appreciate it as well.

While of course the rules of many canons are much less strict than the ones put down in LoTR, it is still intensely appreciated when the author of a fanfiction taking place in a non-LoTR canon attempts to follow them to the best of her ability. Writing fanfiction while ignoring the rules results in much the same mess as playing a game of cards while ignoring the rules - no one has a clue as to what's going on half the time, and the other half of the time, no one's having fun, either. A canon that has no place for a random female character should not have one put in it, be it Lord of the Rings or otherwise.