Mary Sue Misogyny?

[zelda_queen]

ZeldaQueen: I am writing this, not to be a big meanie head, but to give myself a chance to organize my thoughts in a nice rebuttal. Please no linking of this back, lest I hurt the author's feelings. This is not the entire essay, and you can read the entire thing here. This is just the points I had a specific response to. Hope I make sense.

Note - the essay seems to be protected now. I apologize if you are unable to read it. And if the author somehow does find this, let it be known that I am not attempting to take anything out of context

Writing these women as they appear in canon would constitute writing them as "Mary Sues" -- They're special. They're competent, they're attractive, they have weaknesses and insecurities and by virtue of being protagonists and first-string supporting characters, they warp plots and universes and other characters to their needs. Elizabeth is Peter Burke's greatest weakness; Kel talks to the king and gets him to rescind a law she doesn't like; Number One is executive officer of the Federation Starfleet flagship despite being only a lieutenant and is "the most experienced officer on the ship," second to Pike himself, to boot.

ZeldaQueen: Those things are often indicators of Mary Sues, but don't make characters necessarily Sues. The fact that you pointed out that they have weaknesses and insecurities actually goes against most concepts of Mary Sues. Yes, Sues can be overly special, competent, attractive, and so on. The problem isn't that. The problem is does it make sense. There's a difference between competent and having knowledge of future events that seems extremely unlikely, unless the author looked ahead. There's a difference between having special abilities and having abilities that make them vastly overpowered to the point of being boring.

And Mary Sues can take place in canon. They are called, appropriately enough, Canon Sues. Of course, and this will come up a lot, what constitutes a Canon Sue can vary

These characters are awesome. No really, look at these characters: how awesome are they?

ZeldaQueen: That would depend on the opinion of the viewer. What is a Sue to some people is a fantastic character to others. I know a lot of people who think Amy Pond of Dr. Who is flipping amazing. My mother can't stand her. She thinks Amy is extremely annoying and smug and thus probably would consider the amount of attention she gets as unnecessary and undeserving. To my mother, I'm sure Amy would qualify as a Sue

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Once upon a time, the term "Mary Sue" was a value-neutral genre descriptor: Original (female, let's be real here) characters who entered the story, won the admiration of all the canon characters around her, who won the day and maybe developed a romantic relationship with one or more of said canon characters (usually the author's favorite).

Pat Pflieger writes her paper, 150 Years of Mary Sue:

The Cinderella portrayed by Drew Barrymore in the movie Ever After, especially, is everything that defines the Mary Sue -- intelligent, funny, beautiful, physically strong, competent, lovable -- but there isn't the hint of self-deprecation we see in some of the Mary Sues cited above. From Schumann's paper, we get a sense that young teenaged girls now aren't as willing to abdicate their natural powers as were girls of previous generations; it's their right to be competent and strong, and to carry off the occasional prince over their shoulders.

ZeldaQueen: One would probably say that the reason Drew Barrymore's Cinderella is not a Mary Sue while others (say, Disney's) are has to do with the characters. Danielle was strong and competent, but she didn't singlehandedly solve every single problem that came her way. She didn't give her stepmother a speech that caused the Countess to renounce her wicked ways. While the prince was interested in her, he didn't fawn over her twenty four-seven. She defended her honor by pointing a sword at a man's throat, but didn't defeat a trained soldier in armed combat.


The term was coined in 1974. It is not the value-neutral term it once was, and you only have to look so far as Protectors of the Plot Continuum (PPC) to see this for yourself. Or Godawful Fanfiction. Or marysues, or deleterius, or ...

Let's look at PPC. The website intro reads:

But changing the *main plotline* of the canon story is ridiculous. (Except in speculative AU "what-if" type stories.) And Mary Sues upstage the canonical main characters, which really should not happen. If you want to be the main character, try doing original fiction. Then you can even publish it without breaking copyright laws, maybe even get rich. But if you do that, please knock your character down a few notches from "angel".

The Fanlore description of PPC reads:

Protectors of the Plot Continuum, often abreviated PPC, is a cross between sporking and an RPG. The PPC is an organisation dedicated to the elimination of badfic. It is divided into various departments such as the Department of Mary Sues and the Department of Bad Slash. Writers create characters called Agents who go into badfic, spork the story, and fix it by killing Mary Sues, exorcising OOC characters, and otherwise restoring the story universe back to its original state.

Translated, roughly: PPC goes around bullying tweens, teens, young women and yes: older women, too -- for daring to write fanfiction not up to their (dubious) standards. For writing original female characters, minor canon characters and major canon characters in a manner that is empowering to them.

ZeldaQueen: I fail to see how they are any more "bullying" than the cast of MST3K was to the movies they rifted. Or reviewers of Channel Awesome are to the games and movies that they scream about. As they - and many other sporkers - point out, the authors who write Mary Sues put them online. They are inviting commentary. They are making their works public.

As for empowering - there is a difference between a liberated, empowered woman and a female character that is so overpowered that it just isn't funny. Take, for example, the infamous Rose Potter. She has mental abilities out the wazoo, can transform into various stuff, and has kung-foo abilities. The author also takes every minute available to describe her breasts and other private bits, basically devoting her and almost every other female character to personal fanservice. Is that "empowering"? Jenna Silverblade was most definitely a Mary Sue and acted like June Cleaver. Is she empowered? What about Holly Potter, who has mental powers and strong magic, but is always crying and wangsting and never doing anything, instead letting her multitude of male friends take action? Hell, what about Bella Swan? Case in point. In fact, that is one of the reasons so many people hate Bella - she lives her life in the service of men and doesn't think for herself at all

For writing Tenth Walkers, for writing fourth members of the Harry Potter trio, for making Christine Chapel an Olympic-level figure skater before she entered nursing. For empowering themselves through their writing.

ZeldaQueen: I repeat, there is a difference between empowering a character and making them so teeth-gnashingly angsty or smug or undeserving of so much attention. In a way, it's like how people think that just because a female character beats up men, whether or not the men deserve it, it's "feminist". It doesn't work like that

The Call of Mary Sue isn't just limited to PPC, of course, nor is the mission directive: Check out [Unknown site tag]deleterius's userinfo page:

If you find your story here and are upset about it, try to relax.
There are reasons you should try to relax:


1. Throwing a tempter tantrum will only serve to amuse us further.
2. Amusing us further will cause us to sink our claws and teeth in deeper.
3. Throwing a temper tantrum will not incite me to remove your fic. So long as no LJ TOS issues are being violated, it will stay posted. Don't like it? Sucks to be you.
4. "But it's fanFICTION, I can do whatever I want!" No, you can't. Move along.

And from the linked rant, by [Unknown site tag]magdaleina (in 2005, I will grant you: ancient internet history, back before we talked about why this sort of thing was even discussed, before anyone had bothered questioning whether this behavior was bullying, was harassment, was anything other than okay.).

What those intimidated by criticism fail to realize is that they needn't remind anyone -- specifically not a fan of a book who actually read it -- that their work is fiction (because half the time, the reviewer would rather not believe the story was ever written, much less whether it's real or not). What a reviewer is actually questioning is the merit of the writer's fandom; whether or not they are a true fan.

Instead of, "write to the best of your ability", the message is: Don't you dare write characters who are too perfect! Don't you dare write characters who are too flawed! Don't you dare make your characters too forthright or too timid, too connected to canon characters or not connected enough!

ZeldaQueen: I once wrote a rather awful Mary Sue. She was a first-time Pokemon trainer who snuck out on a journey against her parents' wishes, had more Pokemon than I could count on one hand before reaching the first city, had bright pink hair, and could talk to her Pokemon. Looking back, that fanfiction makes my teeth ache. I'd hardly call something like that writing "to the best of my ability"

There's also the fact that a lot of Mary Sue writers have no shortage of fans and positive reviewers. Rose Potter, one of the most notorious of Harry Potter Sues, has an entire Yahoo group dedicated to her. Any time there is a rare criticism, all of the other members swarm to accuse that person of being a troublemaker, asking why they're there if they don't like the story, to go read something else if they don't like this, and if they know so much, why don't they go write somethin better?

Don't you dare put any of yourself into your characters, lest you commit the crime of pepper jack cheese!

Pepper Jack Cheese, from the Godawful Fanfiction Dictionary, linked above:

Pepper Jack Cheese = Where a badfic author includes silly little details that have nothing to do with the plot, for his/her own amusement. Well known sporker Pottersues came up with the term from a Harry Potter fanfic where the author repeatedly mentioned that Hermione liked pepper jack cheese (which isn't available in the UK) just because it was the author's favourite cheese.

And if you do, if you dare: we'll make fun of you for it, we'll mock you for it, we'll question your worth as a writer and as a person behind your back! We'll dogpile you and we'll get all of our friends to tell you you're wrong-wrong-wrong for daring to question us, to defend yourself, and if we're feeling really ambitious we'll make you cry and then laugh about it!

ZeldaQueen: I personally don't care about stuff like that, depending on the context. I know that there are people who like to write fics where Harry and Malfoy face off on American Idol. If a fic's supposed to be silly, I personally don't care. I know some people do, I just don't.

Here's the rub though - if one is writing in a fandom, one is usually expected to stay within the realms of what is available and acceptable, given the time and place. To use an example, My Inner Life is set in the quasi-medieval setting of the land of Hyrule, yet the writer felt the need to continue to put in things like Christian wedding ceremonies, modern kitchen appliances, heated baths, and the like.

Bottom line is that there's a difference between putting "any of yourself" into a character and fitting your character around yourself to the extent that it noticeably is anachronistic.

I'm also sort of getting mixed messages from the "behind your back" thing. To me, that's the point of sporking - it's a private way to let off one's frustrations at an unbelievable character or story. It's a way to release steam without directing it directly at the authors of the works (and, at the risk of sounding like a bitch here, it also seems to me that a lot of the more prominent Mary Sue writers are also rather snitty when it comes to criticism of any sort, flames or not, so it seems that criticism, however snarky, is only best behind closed doors). There's also the fact that this essay continues to act as if sporkers are waving their products in the authors' faces, go "nya nya, lookey what I did!", but then implies that sporkers are sneaky bastards for doing it in private. If they keep it hidden, how the hell does it cause all of this self esteem ruining or whatnot? The authors shouldn't know about it. The only way they would is if they're shown it (which, I'll admit, is bad taste) or if they themselves actively seek it out. If it's the latter case, then they have no right to complain, because the sporking was done in private and intended to be kept private and the authors would essentially be pitching fits over the literary equivalent of eavesdropping. And, as Aslan reminds us in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, eavesdroppers rarely hear compliments about themselves

And yeah, this bears a remarkable resemblance to the bullying a goodly number of us experienced as geeky misfits, growing up.

ZeldaQueen: And what about the aforementioned authors who throw snit fits at the first sign of criticism, period. What about the many, many authors who have dozens of fans for their Mary Sues? If someone has two hundred reviews praising their Sue to the high heavens, then I don't have much pity for them getting one or two mocking sporkings any more than I feel sorry when a handful of people say that Meyer or Rowling or Stephen King is a hack writer, amidst their respective ginormous fanbases

This is the environment of Mary Sue. This is the context and the history, today, of Mary Sue.

ZeldaQueen: Yes, how dare people make fun of poorly-written characters? The nerve!

So to abandon for a moment my quasi-professional tone:

If you think that you can use "Mary Sue" as a value-neutral term in this environment, and with this history, you are contributing to the environment which approves and encourages the bullying and harassment of women for the sin of daring -- daring! -- to write characters in such a way that is empowering to them.

ZeldaQueen: What.

I'm personally wondering why the author of this essay keeps insisting that Mary Sue was ever a "value neutral" term. It has always referred to the same thing. If anything, the only difference is that it has became more common to label men with the title as well.

Second of all, I've already addressed the fallacy of assuming that Mary Sues are automatically empowering to women. No, author, they are not, no more than Bellatrix Lestrange or Saffron from Firefly are "feminist" just because they beat up people indiscriminately.

Now see, the logic failing I see here is that the author seems to be going under the idea that "empowered female = Being Called Mary Sue = Misogynistic". That is not true. She pointed out that a good many strong female characters are not Mary Sues. Even within fanfiction, there are a lot of original characters or even rewritten canon characters that are empowered and not Sues. A Sue is not made through her power or connections or attractiveness or intelligence. She or he is made through how those qualities are applied. If a character is allegedly uninteresting and unattractive but gains the instant adoration of everyone in the room, if a character is way overpowered without any drawbacks or compensation, if a character's only flaws are ones that aren't their fault or aren't truly flaws to begin with, if a character is a complete and utter jerkass to everyone for no reason and no one ever blames or calls them out on it - those are signs of a Sue
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Writing "Mary Sues" is empowering. Writing them being awesome is empowering. Calling Mary Sue, and contributing to an environment such as the above, which encourages the denigration of female awesomeness in fiction, which encourages the bullying and harassment of participants in female awesome, is participating in that culture.

Calling "Mary Sue" in this environment is shaming women for empowering themselves.

There is no substantive harm in writing a "Mary Sue" -- there is no substantive harm in creating a character, original or otherwise, who "warps the world around them", who is "adored by all for no particular reason", who wins the day.

ZeldaQueen: There is no harm in writing Mary Sues, no not at all. There is no harm in engaging in fantasy. The thing is, when you write such a character and put it on the internet, for all of the public to see and criticize, you are asking for people who don't like it to make fun of it! If you want to have fun and write something that's not to be taken seriously, keep it on your computer in private. Or in a journal in the bottom of your closet. But don't write something and then complain when people pick at it.

Also, why does the author keep only referring to female Sues? What about Gary Stus? How do they fit into the equation? 

There is substantive harm in bullying and shaming real people for empowering themselves through their writing. Words have power. Words cause harm. Words hurt, and the wounds they leave are deeper and longer-lasting than many physical wounds. I nearly stopped writing entirely, as a teen, after having my work and my OC called "Mary Sue". I have friends who did stop writing because of it.

ZeldaQueen: Again, if you put your work in public, for all to see, expect people to criticize it. People will call Mary Sues for what they are, even if it is not in sporking.

And that Mary Sue of mine, in that Pokemon fanfiction I mentioned? I put it up when I was fourteen. That was when I got the only review, which said in the first sentence that she was a Mary Sue and pointed out all of the many plot holes I had in the first chapter alone. I was a bit stung, yes, but I realized that the guy was right. If you can't survive your characters being called a "Mary Sue", I don't know what to say. What this comes across as is that those works got bad reviews which couldn't be dealt with. I don't know. I don't know what those reviews were like. But it doesn't help when you pull the "fit and flounce" card

Before anyone says: "Oh, they/you should just have sucked it up and grown a thicker skin! Learn to accept criticism!"

Think.

You are blaming the victims of bullying for their bullies' behavior.

That is Not. Okay. Ever.

ZeldaQueen: The "victims" are also the ones who made their works public. They put it up for everyone to see and criticize. And, in my experience, a lot of Mary Sue criticism comes from disappointment. Readers check out something, looking for an interesting read. Instead, they get their favorite characters twisted into unrecognizable personalities. Characters are demonized or made almost unrecognizable. The focus is shifted from the protagonist, who they wanted to read about, to some random character who just dropped out of the sky and who shouldn't matter at all in this adventure - but who somehow got herself shoehorned into the thick of the action. A character who is smug and too dumb to live, only surviving because the author favors her. A character who edges between a pair of canon devoted lovers, just because the author wanted to get into one of their pants. A character who bashes and hates on the characters the author hates and is always agreed with, even if the reader knows that the canon characters would rip this new character a new one ordinarily.

Or heck, look at the Twilight series, and all of the people who call Bella a Mary Sue. What's one of the biggest complaints about her? She's boring, she's bland, and in real life no one would look twice at her. And we're given four entire books, filled to the brim with everyone talking about how wonderful Bella is, how she's so clever and funny, how she's gorgeous, how everyone wants to get in her pants, and how werewolves and vampires will go to war for her. It makes no sense and leaves readers gnashing their teeth because no one will call Bella out on anything or react believably to her. It's that annoying.

And finally, I must repeat my previous point - what about Mary Sues that are, themselves, quite misogynistic? That is one of my personal peeves when I spork. Just because a Sue is powered and hot and gets a lot of attention doesn't mean that she's somehow a great example of a strong female character. Look at Sue-Hermione in the Hogwarts Exposed series, and how she basically adjusts her views of sexuality to fit what Harry wants, instead of doing what she wants. Or how the other Mary Sue girls live their sex lives by their own boyfriends. Or one particularly galling chapter, when Hermione is all but forced to accept her eleven-year-old daughter's offer to use her empath powers to rub her breasts and keep them firm and perky. Because Hermione will be having a baby and no one wants her to naturally become saggy or wrinkly.

So yeah, what about cases like that? If the sporker's complaint is that the work is misogynistic, is the sporking itself misogynistic? Does the misogyny balance out somehow?

And am I the only one growing kind of fond of the word "misogyny"? Misogyny!

And this, ladies and gentlemen, this is the baggage the term "Mary Sue" comes with. This is the context. This is the culture and the environment and the experience of many, and it cannot be divorced from the term itself.

ZeldaQueen: That's what the term has always been associated with. The term was first used for a parody sue, in a Star Trek fanfiction. She would have fit this author's idea of "empowered woman" - she was fifteen, the youngest Star Trek officer, ran the ship single handed, saved the crew when they were captured, and honored by all when she died. She was meant to be a scathing mockery of characters in that vein and was never meant to be taken seriously


When someone says, "your semantic choices are hurting me" the decent human being response is to access how you can stop hurting people with your semantic choices, not to throw up your hands and go:

"BUT I DON'T WANNA! I LIKE MY HURTFUL WORDS!! YOU'RE JUST BEING OVERSENSITIVE!!!"

ZeldaQueen: I'd like to repeat my previous point - what about authors of Mary Sues who do just that? The ones who refer to all criticism, no matter how kind, as hurtful flames and just throw a fit over it and flounce off instead of accepting the criticism? From what I've noticed, those are the worst Sues and those are the ones most likely to be sporked

...
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I would like to close with two quotations, one from AC Crispin, who you might know as the author of the Han Solo trilogy:

The term 'Mary Sue' constitutes a put-down, implying that the character so summarily dismissed is not a true character, no matter how well drawn, what sex, species, or degree of individuality.

Bacon-Smith, Camille, Enterprising Women, Television Fandom and the Creation of Popular Myth. Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1992. via Wikipedia

ZeldaQueen: Generally, if a character is "well drawn", then people don't think that's a Mary Sue. The trouble is that a "well drawn" character depends

Another is on a fannish essay which summed up my desire to see "Mary Sue" removed from fannish parlance far more eloquently than I just have.

Thirdly, the accusation of “Mary Sue” is most often made against those characters appearing in stories authored by young women. They are problematic (it is said) because they are shameless self-inserts and represent a female fantasy and nothing else.

And what, pray tell, is wrong with that?

It seems to me that male-authored literature and media is full of self-inserts that represent male fantasies. How many skinny nerds become superheroes or martial arts masters or secret agents charged with saving the world? How many of them get ripped and get the girl? How many adolescent males authoring fan fiction do you think make their male self-inserts well-rounded characters? And how much critique do you think these young men get when they fail to do so?

We not only critique young women; we made up a whole term to point out their literary sins!

No, “Mary Sue” has to go. Not only is it being applied too broadly to exclude female characters in general, but it is being used to devalue the writings and fantasies of young women. It asks, why should they be writing about themselves as an equal, as a Tenth Walker, when they could just pick one of the boys that JRRT gave them to write about?

by Tolkien fan Dawn, at The Midhavens, March 2009

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ZeldaQueen: There is nothing wrong with female fantasy, so long as it is tasteful and well-written. The reason people complain about Stephenie Meyer's Twilight, as I said before, was the unrealistic reactions to Bella's character. J.K. Rowling, on the other hand, wrote Hermione Granger and Ginny Weasley. Both are smart, brave, loyal, attractive, and very important. The main character is dependent on both for some degree or another. I'm not sure how much fantasy Rowling uses them for, but she has admitted that Hermione is her closest to a self-insert.

Not just Rowling though - Diana Wynne Jones, Louis Lowery, Gail Carson Levine, Patricia Wrede, Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, they're all female authors who have written female leads who are strong and interesting characters. I don't hear of many people calling Sophie Hatter, Kira, Ella, Cimorene, Emma Woodhouse, Lizzy Bennett, or Jane Eyre Mary Sues though

Just a note before we go: If you are going to ~~titter titter~~ insinuate or state outright that your experience seeing "Mary Sue" used as a value-neutral term somehow invalidates my or others' experience being bullied, harassed or discouraged from writing female characters in a manner that is empowering to them: You are welcome to keep your mouth shut, and you are doubly welcome to remove yourself from my safe space in my journal.

ZeldaQueen: Did...you just pull the standard Mary Sue author "don't like, don't read" card? O_o

Return to the Sporking Chamber

Comments

[freya-sacksen.livejournal.com]

Wait - my brain isn't properly functioning yet, and I don't know if it's the early morning or the essay. Is she claiming that giving constructive criticism is misogynistic?

...

I'm gonna go get some more sleep, see if the world makes sense when I next wake up.

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

I think she's referring specifically to sporking, which admittedly *can* get kind of cruel, depending on how frustrating the fanfiction is. The thing is though, as I said up there, all sporkings I've seen are kept hidden away. No one really tells a person when something of theirs is sporked. So it still shouldn't matter, since she's pretty much saying what people can and can't do in their own time.

But yeah, more sleep probably will help.

[freya-sacksen.livejournal.com]

So...what, it's okay to write crappy fanfics but calling people on it and doing what is (in most cases) teasing is misogyny?

Also - as far as I can see, most sporking sporks the characters, not the author. A bit of a difference between the two as I see it. If writing Mary-Sues really is empowering women, shouldn't the empowered women be empowered enough to continue empowering themselves without letting others cease their empowering? It's not like we're telling the empowered women to take their shoes off and get back into the kitchen. We're telling the empowered women that their empowering characters are too empowered and need to take a step back, and that having empowered characters who are nonetheless believable is more empowering that empowered characters who aren't believable and are dumb. Oh, and what about the Gary-Stus and the male Mary-Sue writers? I notice we conveniently leave these out. Unless we're meant to believe that women are still empowered by the empowering force of other people writing overly empowered females, which goes completely against what the empowered person above meant. Empowered.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I think this girl needs to get a better perspective on this all.

[madamchaos.livejournal.com]

This person was almost making a point until they boiled down PPC into "bullying teens, tweens, young women, and older women" because wut.

No. They go about letting off steam about people who write Mary Sues. I know that some MSTers (or sporkers) will snipe at the author as they go along, but it's usually considered to be in poor taste; the focus is on the story and the characters (unless the author inserts their notes and asides, in which case, well, fair game to address what they said).

The point kind of degenerated from there until the point basically comes down to "We're allowed to write whatever the hell we want and you guys are allowed to SHUT UP." Nice way to alienate everybody who just wants to do their own thing.

I get the point of the essay, but seriously, if you can't stomach your characters being called out as Mary Sues, then you won't be able to stomach people picking apart real writing. We all fear criticism in one way or another, or to stop outright because somebody says "This character is a Sue", well, I'm sorry to hear that, but seriously?

And calling it misogyny? That's just... silly.

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

I love how the essay is so gender specific. Is it horribly misogynistic if people spork male Sues? Or if the author is a man who wrote one?

The problem is, I don't think the author has a clear idea of what "Mary Sue" really is connotative of. I think the implication is that if a female character is at all strong, it's belittling to call her a Sue. But the point is, it's quite easy to make female characters who aren't Sues. People do it all of the time.

"The point kind of degenerated from there until the point basically comes down to "We're allowed to write whatever the hell we want and you guys are allowed to SHUT UP." Nice way to alienate everybody who just wants to do their own thing."

That's the other thing - her essay essentially falls down to telling people what they can and can't do in their spare time, about works they don't like. So far as I know, sporkers don't go to the people who write those fics and go "Looky at what I did!" Maybe some do, but I don't know about it.

[madamchaos.livejournal.com]

Precisely; it's fine to vent about how you believe the sporking community is bullying (although misogynistic is reaching, to say the least), but turning around and saying "You guys can't do this because you're meany heads!" is pretty hypocritical.


The problem is, I don't think the author has a clear idea of what "Mary Sue" really is connotative of. I think the implication is that if a female character is at all strong, it's belittling to call her a Sue.

Yeah, it seems that she isn't really grasping what warrants a Sue. To be fair, the term is pretty sweeping, and it can be applied to female character (primarily) that a person just doesn't like and thinks has too much importance. canon!Ginny has been referred to as a Sue, for instance, primarily by Harmonians whose ship was sank, even though Ginny is a well-rounded, realistic female character who doesn't garner an undue amount of attention (despite being the hero's love interest); even canon!Hermione is called a Sue because she's so very smart, even though she has plenty of flaws (she's not particularly likable, she seizes up under fire, stress gets to her more easily than it does the boys).

But for all my time in the MSTing community (well, reading MSTs, anyway), they only ever call out OCs as Sues/Stus when they really freaking deserve it. Sporkings that I read usually reach a certain Level of Egregiousness before they're attacked.

And hey; if you're making this post because your characters, or character that you like, are oftentimes called Mary Sues? You might want to look a little closer at them...

[carmyn]

I have to agree with Freya Sacksen; if writing Mary Sues is a source of empowerment for the female writers, then why aren't they empowered enough to shrug off flames and constructive critism? I like how the author of this essay never mention the reviewers who legitamitly want to help the author better her (or his) writing, and then get...you know...BULLIED. They get labelled as flamers and haters when they really wanted to help. This is where people start to dislike Mary Sue writers; any and all critism is negative and you are a flamer/hater if you suggest anything short of praise.
Again, Meyer and Twilight is the perfect example. Meyer never grows as a *writer* throughout the series, or even in 'The Host' because her family and rabid fans protect her. Her growth as a writer becomes stagnant, to the point where she writes the same thing over and over again. People stifle her, so in turn she never realizes her potential. If I see a Mary Sue, I personally hope that my review gives the chance for the writer to grow and better themselves, the last thing I want to do is discourage someone from writing. On the same token though, yes, if you place something on a public forum, then you are opening yourself to critism, whether it be good or bad.

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

Exactly! I'm not saying that every Mary Sue has a million fans, but Twilight? Rose Potter? Holly Potter? DW's time traveling sociopathic Harry Potter? The Hogwarts Exposed series? They all have tons of reviews gushing about how great they are. If an author is able to "empower" themselves through a Mary Sue and have so much praise and still be horribly put upon by sporkings which they aren't usually even meant to read, I don't know what to say.

[shaolina.livejournal.com]

So agreed on Meyer. The more I read her works the more I feel I'm reading the same story over again. I can't imagine her mermaid story be any different. And it's not like she doesn't care or doesn't have a good idea here or there, she just doesn't know what she's doing.

A;so I agree on reviews. I believe everyone has the potential to tell a great story, but they have to open themselves to the good and the bad. And it;s in the bad that we improve the most.

[beacon80.livejournal.com]

A bit of advice. When leaving a review, drop the phrase "constructive criticism" in the first sentence (e.g. "I hope you don't mind some constructive criticism.") This makes it clear from the beginning that you aren't doing this to be spiteful, but are honestly trying to help. Keep in mind that tone does not transmit over the internet, and even the best criticism can be construed as "here's a list of reasons why you suck."

I often also end with a reminder that a true author is always trying to grow.

[shaolina.livejournal.com]

Hate to take out the ol' cane and shout at you pesky kids, but back in the day you could find fics with actual A/N saying they wanted to be MSTed. Some even collaborated with the MSTer sending them new chapters or writing little treats for them and it wasn't a big deal (My favorite example being "The evil guy from another dimension series"). Yes, some got butthurt, but a lot of the authors that landed in my circles didn't care or laughed it out. I had three fics with the disclaimer "MST this/I don't care if you make fun of it" and there were lots more that I didn't used because they were too silly to make fun off.

We also had rules: make fun of the work, not the author; ask permission; be funny and so forth. And while I don't follow these exact rules (since I can't ask Meyer for permission on her work) I try to follow them as close as I can.

Then again being a self insert in my parts were mostly done for parody and authors liked getting an anvil or two dropped on them for laughs. It's amazing how much has the virtual world changed from the days when I had to hear a cat getting skinned alive to go anywhere. XD Now making fun of Sues is evil.

[freya-sacksen.livejournal.com]

I remember that! There was a really funny guy on ff.net who did some Chrono Trigger MSTs, and the writer he used not only gave him permission but also sent him her other fic and went 'Hey, have a look, mock it to your hearts content!'

It was one of the funniest things I had ever read. And now I can't find it. Bugger.

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

Ah, those were the days.

I wonder how people would react to that concept now?

[turtlecrackers.livejournal.com]

I don't know... Maybe I'm strange for thinking this, but I can't really see what's so empowering in the action of writing a perfect female character. So, I write this character who is attractive, strong, has MENSA-level intelligence, plays seven different musical instruments, speaks ten languages fluently, makes everyone around her like her and can solve any problem perfectly. ... How does that empower me as the author? I'm not that character. I'm still homely, mousy, overweight old me. ]=

Still, I like the homely, mousy, overweight (... well, maybe not that part XD) old me much better than I would like a character like that. If I made a character like that, I would probably end up making it so that her hands would show signs of years of practicing the musical instruments, and she'd constantly mix up the ten languages she knew, and try to pass it off as if she was just showing off.
She would also be very arrogant, due to the constant adoration from the people around her, and the fact that she considers herself to be more intelligent than the rest of the world, since (in her mind) she ends up having to solve all problems around her on her own. Still, she needs all the attention she gets, because to her, it's a measurement of her own awesomeness.

... Excuse me, I'm off to write a character sheet and properly work out how this one could work. XD; I kind of went off on a tangent there.

Too bad I couldn't read the entire essay (I think it would probably have made my brain implode). The quoted parts were enough for now. I don't understand the way some people think. I guess some people just want to see persecution in everything around them.

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

I think the author mixed up wish fulfillment with empowerment. In fact, I think that's one of the reasons why badly done self insert Sues are so hated - they're so blatantly supposed to be what the author wants.

And as for the parts I snipped out, the first part was her describing female characters in TV that she liked and thought were empowered and going on about how terrible it would be to call them Sues, hence my opening statement about how there probably *are* people who think they're Sues. The second part was the author criticizing metafandom and gehyi, and I just didn't have anything specific to say about that.

[kitsune9tailed.livejournal.com]

Regarding her assertion that males can get away with wish fulfillment and author insertion... umm... heard of Eragon, much? Sure, it has it's fans, but anyone with an inkling of writing talent criticizes it for being a bland, plagaristic, poorly written wish fulfillment, with an obvious Mary Sue (or Marty Stu, Gary Stu, whatever) as the main character.

So, no. Guys don't get away with poor writing either. It's just that the VAST majority of fiction being criticized at this grassroots level (ie FF.net, LJ, etc.) are women and younger girls. And a couple of fanfics that have been sporked mercilessly, with "Mary Sue' thrown around like confetti on New Years, were written by guys: Rose Potter and Hogwart's Exposed.

I guess I can't really understand or support her point, given the evidence against.

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Which really raises some questions. I mean, the author here says that it's horribly misogynistic to criticize a female writer who creates a female Mary Sue, but what about a male writer who creates one? Is it bashing the male gender?

[overlordmikey.livejournal.com]

What about Gary Stus? How do they fit into the equation?

Mikey: Then they couldn’t use the sexism argument because heaven knows “you can’t be sexist towards men” since we’re all evil pigs of anti-feminism who just wanna rape (which only men can do) every women we see after all! And in the case of I a every man to - Mwhahahahahahaha men are sooooooo~ evil! *Ominous clouds and lighting flashing*

Okay I’m done… :)

-

Before anyone says: "Oh, they/you should just have sucked it up and grown a thicker skin! Learn to accept criticism!"


Mikey: Um but they should… This isn’t life or death. It’s a fanfic! The only way one can improve is by getting criticism. Apparently we should all be nice or say nothing at all… Everyone should remain mediocre, why bother to improve? I love that flawed concept so~ much. :)

ZeldaQueen: Did...you just pull the standard Mary Sue author "don't like, don't read" card? O_o

Mikey: I hate that card. It’s terribly misused. If you don’t like Pokemon then don’t go reading Pokemon fanfics, yeah that makes sense. Why the hell are you reading a Pokemon fanfic then, Mary Sue or not.

If you LIKE Pokemon and you read a terrible Mary Sue fanfic then why are you being told “don’t like, don’t read” when the only way your going to know if you like something is if you read it. Heck even if the description sounds horrible maybe you’ll like it, or it’s misleading, or maybe you think it might be so bad it’s good, or maybe it’s well written and makes sense in context? Or maybe the description was a flat out lie.

I can’t be the only person who’s seen this-

You discover that the fanfic is awful and derails your favorite characters for the sake of either an original character or sometimes a derailed version of your favorite character.
You post your displeasure and you get “don’t like, don’t look” but the problem is YOU DO LIKE, THAT’S WHY YOU LOOKED!

I hate that…

-

I know there are some real jerks out there who do send cruel messages and bully people online, but some of the nicest people I know are those who have been willing to honestly tell me flaws in my work. Hell one of my worst fanfics was MSTed by someone and I laughed, because even I knew the fanfic was horrible! It was cheesy, chiche, and had an obvious anti-drinking message with a twist ending you could see a mile away!

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

"Then they couldn’t use the sexism argument because heaven knows “you can’t be sexist towards men” since we’re all evil pigs of anti-feminism who just wanna rape (which only men can do) every women we see after all! And in the case of I a every man to - Mwhahahahahahaha men are sooooooo~ evil! *Ominous clouds and lighting flashing*

Okay I’m done… :)"

Yeah, honestly couldn't figure that one out. And I'd have nicely asked her opinion on the matter, but like I said, she locked the post.

"I hate that card. It’s terribly misused. If you don’t like Pokemon then don’t go reading Pokemon fanfics, yeah that makes sense. Why the hell are you reading a Pokemon fanfic then, Mary Sue or not."

I think the phrase actually means "If you don't like this particular fanfiction, don't read it". Which makes even less sense, because (A) how do you know if you like it or not if you DON'T read it and (B) as you posted, a lot of fic descriptions are lies or misleading.

[flamefire124.livejournal.com]

I get the "don't like, don't read" card for stuff like shipping because you tend to know if you like that just by the pair.

But it loses it's punch when it's "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." card really.

[sith-droideka.livejournal.com]

As an MSTer myself, I don't believe I've ever seen an attack on the author unless they truly deserve it (example: Neil). And I know I'm not the nicest of MSTers- I don't ask permission for one thing. But bullying? I think that MSTing is only extremely elaborate constructive criticism.

For instance, way back when I was in middle school I read an awful script-format high school AU. Now I'm taking on said high school AU, but despite it being hypocritical, melodramatic, noncanonical, biased, and not using any actual Pokémon in a Pokémon story, I refuse to attack the author. Yeah, I know, small favors, but still.

But you know what? That one fanfic shaped a lot of my shipping opinions in that series for the next year (before I left shipping altogether) so in my tribute to its influence I decided to rip it apart. So to me, fixing and mending is what MSTing is about. It's not about slaughtering some poor, victimized author's fanfiction for an ego boost, it's about trying to make them, and myself, a better writer (or just letting out frustration), even if they will never see it.

Wow, that was oversensitive.

[(Anonymous)]

Lemme guess... this idiot is a social justice blogger, isn't she?

Doesn't refute their main argument.

[blackmanga.livejournal.com]

Which is that there is a double standard among the fans, esp the female ones, on what is a Mary Sue. The male ones get passes for being cute, while the female ones get held to standards where the writer can't win. (unless the female knows her place and doesn't get involved).

Re: Doesn't refute their main argument.

[zelda-queen.livejournal.com]

I've seen plenty of people get angry at Edward Cullen, Christian Grey, Jace Wayland, and countless fanfiction versions of Harry Potter or Draco Malfoy, among others, for being overpowered, smug jerks, perfect at everything they try, and adored by just about everyone who knows them.

While I agree that the Gary Stu should be just as known and accepted as the Mary Sue, that doesn't mean Mary Sues should be considered acceptable. There are plenty of ways to write female characters who are beautiful, strong, smart, or competent without having them be Mary Sues.

As I pointed out, there are quite a few cases where it's a matter of opinion on what makes a Mary Sue. If a person doesn't think a character's intended flaws balance out her strengths or that a character is given unrealistic amounts of attention or if a character is considered overly special without reason, they'll think that character is a Stu or Sue. If another person thinks that the same character is well-written, has genuine flaws to contend with, and has an understandable place in the story, they won't think the character is a Stu or Sue.

Now, I know people often use the Stu or Sue term to snipe at characters they simply don't like, which is a problem.

The issue I have with the article is that it seems to be saying that either if a female character is strong, independent, beautiful, talented, special, etc she'll automatically be labeled a Sue (which is not necessarily true - for every character on FF.net accused of being a Sue, you can find plenty of other people praising that character as being well-written. The only exceptions I can think of are characters like Ebony Darkness D'mentia Raven Way, who are that over-the-top) or that because a character is written as incredibly strong, independent, beautiful, talented, special, etc she's automatically a fully-developed character and calling her a Mary Sue is disempowering to women (which is also not true. Just because a character is beautiful and powerful and have magical powers doesn't make them a role model. Like I said, I've seen plenty of characters who fit that mold who were also ridiculously objectified and stripped of any sense of actual agency). That was what I had issue with, not the idea that male and female characters should be held to different standards. Well-written characters are a standard that should be a given for both of the sexes.

I hope I explained myself properly there and I apologize for being long-winded. :)

Don't know if reply is showing up.

[blackmanga.livejournal.com]

"As an actress, I realize that viewers are entitled to have whatever feelings they want about the characters they watch. But as a human being, I’m concerned that so many people react to Skyler with such venom. Could it be that they can’t stand a woman who won’t suffer silently or “stand by her man”? That they despise her because she won’t back down or give up? Or because she is, in fact, Walter’s equal?

It’s notable that viewers have expressed similar feelings about other complex TV wives — Carmela Soprano of “The Sopranos,” Betty Draper of “Mad Men.” Male characters don’t seem to inspire this kind of public venting and vitriol. "

When you see hatred like this though, one can only conclude that the feminists have a point on this issue:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/24/opinion/i-have-a-character-issue.html?_r=0

At Clippercon 1987 (a Star Trek fan convention held yearly in Baltimore, Maryland), Smith interviewed a panel of female authors who say they do not include female characters in their stories at all. She quoted one as saying "Every time I've tried to put a woman in any story I've ever written, everyone immediately says, this is a Mary Sue." Smith also pointed out that "Participants in a panel discussion in January 1990 noted with growing dismay that any female character created within the community is damned with the term Mary Sue."[11]

"However, several other writers quoted by Smith have argued that in Star Trek as originally created, James T. Kirk is himself a "Mary Sue," and that the label seems to be used more indiscriminately on female characters who do not behave in accordance with the dominant culture's images and expectations for females as opposed to males.[12] Professional author Ann C. Crispin is quoted as saying: "The term 'Mary Sue' constitutes a put-down, implying that the character so summarily dismissed is not a true character, no matter how well drawn, what sex, species, or degree of individuality."[1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Criticism

There are professional authors considering this a problem and a whole panel of women saying they simply don't write women anymore because of the mary sue label and the problems it brings.

If the criticism's enough to affect pros so bad they refuse to write about half the planet's population, then can you imagine the potential it has to damage a young amateur's writing prospects?

The Mary Sue label reaches the ears of writers simply by reviewers leaving feedback on their own books via amazon or their website or FF.net. One really wouldn't have to go to a spork looking for it.

Imagine a fic where a little girl learns instantly what it took her masters 50 years of training to learn, can outperform said masters even before she hit puberty, defeats every major villain even as a child, threats that have terrified the greatest masters of the past, can break whole armies, is innocent and pure of heart, ad her love interest wanted to marry her the first time they met.

It seems to me alot of people would be calling SUE on her. But that's Goku from Dragonball. Not Dragonball Z or GT, just Dragonball. Hardly anybody calls him a Gary Stu at that point.

In an original fic? Alot of people would still call SUE if it was a girl. You know that.

Is Mary Sue a gendered term? Not exactly, but that's an oversimplification.