I’ve been hearing this “Mary Sue” character, in “Not Another Bloody Conspiracy”, in Noacat’s website’s entrance…
Who the hell is this Mary Sue?
Okay…if it’s the ‘Mary-Sue’ I think it is, it’s an it, not a she. A Mary-Sue is where a character is completely perfect in every way…and I find that it ticks people off quite easily.
Kappesh?
I myst confess that in first fanfic I was unknowingly a Marty Stue, a mistake which shall never be repeated.
I’m not sure exactly where the term comes from, but as Aaliyah said a Mary Sue is a perfect characer - one created by the author and which is supposed to be the author her/himself. StarStorm wrote a rant about 'em just a few days ago, lesse…
Edit: Ah, here:
http://agora.rpgclassics.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12913
WE find them, we ridicule them, and after that we tear them apart like the sewer drainage they are. Simple really.
Okies.
No Marty Stues… Heh, a hero must be weak in psychological ways to be a hero, right?
And as… Umm… StarStorm? has stated:
-Rinoa should NOT leave Squall to be with the character. The character should NOT be Cloud’s long lost brother or son.
HAHAHAHAHAH!
Pierson, is that avatar an image of Spawn?
shrugs Basically, a hero has weaknesses, full stop. Could be physical, could be mental. Or a weakness for large things with claws and talons.
A Mary\Marty Sue is not necessarily the physical and\or pyschological manifestation of the author, but often is. Also the character is, as alluded to by Starstorm, also often some sort of relation to one of the main characters and usually introduced with practically no introduction. The characters only defining characteristics are either derivative with whatever could be deemed a failing removed or completely unbelievable. A filtered version of the author as they imagine themselves, but way ‘cooler’.
According to an old pen pal of mine, the first Mary Sue was a character in a series of Star Trek Fan Fictions written many, many years ago. The character WAS a woman named Mary Sue who not only ended saving the universe, she married Dr. Spock! And died heroically. I think the author (I dunno if it was a woman) never realized how annoying her stories were to most of the other fans who read them.
The name since then became a term for similar characters.
Oh, and on the matter of Heroes and Weaknesses: a hero does NOT need to have a failing, or at least not a large one. Many popular heroes SEEM perfect (Superman, for example.) Some people like their heroes to be better than real people. However, most of us prefer them to have failings, so we can connect better with them.
So THAT’S where it came from! Thanks, Wil! I was wondering!