Fanfiction: the definition of Mary-Sue

[StarJewel]

People getting stuff wrong is very annoying...but it can be a lot worse. I had one review (anon, of course) saying that Celegorm, not Maedhros, was the eldest son of Feanor. I think I just stared in utter shock at the screen for a few minutes, then started shrieking obscenities (which would ignite computers everywhere if I typed them here) at the screen. THen I calmed down and just deleted the offending "review".

Encaitare- thanks for the kind review. It's always cool finding other authors, especially ones who know what they are writing about.

[Isowen]

StarJewel, I just wanna say WOW! that is a great site and extremely fabulous stories

[Encaitare]

No prob, StarJewel! I look forward to reading the rest of the series! Hooray for great Silm writers!

Note to everyone: follow the URL on her sig and check out her fics... "Feanor's Children," especially.

[Lérië]

They sound disgusting. How hard would it be to kill one, I wonder?

[Aganzir]

So, there’s this girl. She’s tragically orphaned and richer than anyone on the planet. Every guy she meets falls in love with her, but in between torrid romances she rejects them all because she dedicated to what is Pure and Good. She has genius level intellect, Olympic-athelete level athletic ability and incredible good looks. She is consumed by terrible angst, but this only makes guys want her more. She has no superhuman abilities, yet she is more competent than her superhuman friends and defeats superhumans with ease. She has unshakably loyal friends and allies, despite the fact she treats them pretty badly. They fear and respect her, and defer to her orders. Everyone is obsessed with her, even her enemies are attracted to her. She can plan ahead for anything and she’s generally right with any conclusion she makes. People who defy her are inevitably wrong.

God, what a Mary Sue.

I just described Batman.

(Courtesy of adventuresofcomicbookgirl.tumblr.com).

While I'm all in favour of well-written, round characters who have their faults, I'm a teeny bit tired of 'ideal' characters only being criticised if they're women.

[Nerwen]

Agan, I think this whole thread has been about fan-fiction Mary Sues- and a lot of the reason people complain about them is their habit of taking over from the actual characters, in a general "anything you can do, I can do better" way. They're more beautiful! More talented! They have bigger and better angst! They're the ones who really save the world!

When you start applying the same criteria to characters in original fiction... then, yes, it becomes problematic. Not that "canon Sues" don't exist, because of course they do, but the definition is often stretched so far that it becomes meaningless. Not only that, but some people definitely do seem to use a simple equation of "female protagonist = Mary Sue".

[Aganzir]

Yeah I got the impression, but I see no reason why serious literary criticism shouldn't be applied to fanfiction as well. I rarely read it myself but I'm quite aware of the rise and fall of the concept of Mary Sue over the years, and it baffles me because although there's talk of Gary Stu also, he doesn't seem to get nearly the same amount of hate.