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Date Posted: Thu, Apr 15 2004, 19:13:01
Author: Dragoness Eclectic
Subject: Re: Question: What makes Mary Sue so annoying?
In reply to: Godgifu 's message, "Question: What makes Mary Sue so annoying?" on Wed, Apr 14 2004, 23:21:33

>I was thinking it over today, and I started to wonder
>precisely what is it that makes Sues so obnoxious?

Because the classic Mary Sue is given a free walk-through in all conflicts, which makes for BORING stories. Mary Sue is so wonderful and capable that she solves everything without breaking out in a sweat--and what's interesting about that?

Heroes have to work for their victories; they need to go through hell and get the crap beat out of them to keep it interesting. Thus, the more capable your characters, the nastier the opposition needs to be. Ordinary guys get human criminals for enemies; the penultimate mortal warrior gets evil alien gods to fight.

Mary Sue is often highly improbable for whatever genre she is in. How did her awesomeness come to be, and why wasn't she the hero of the story in the first place if she's so much better than the canon heroes? Also, due to her bland awesomeness, she's not usually a character anyone but the author can identify with. We all have flaws, and can often identify with the flaws and tribulations an interesting hero puts up with. Almost none of us can identify with Mary Sue the Perfect Barbie Doll--she has nothing in common with us or anyone we know.

Joe Average doesn't need a lot of explanation for his existance, and we can identify with him very easily; at the other extreme, Kimbal Kinnison gets 3 books about his ancestors just to explain his place in the universe, and a lot of character development with him and Clarissa McDougall to make him sympathetic. You can't identify with the awesome power of the Second-stage Lensman, but anyone who's been in a hospital can identify with his reaction to hospital food! And girlfriend problems ;-)

In short, Mary Sue is boring and makes for bad stories. If the story is good and the protagonist interesting, I'd argue that it isn't a Mary Sue, even if it's named after the author and lives in her house.

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