What *is* the matter with Mary Sue?

[truepenny]

Whenever a discussion of Mary Sues¹ starts, the viewpoint is inevitably advanced that there's nothing wrong with them and why are we making such a big fuss about it? Or, alternatively, why are we witch-hunting for Mary Sues every time a character is at all out of the ordinary? What's wrong with making characters exceptional?

I've been thinking about that--and oddly enough, it cross-pollinated with this meditation on Sylvia Plath over on Websnark--and some things have clarified in my mind.

There's nothing at all wrong with Mary Sues, if you're writing for yourself. Or for a cadre of like-minded people, who share the same needs in terms of what their wish-fulfillment fiction does for them. And sometimes, as we all know, some of us to our shame, that cadre can be very very large. If you get enjoyment from writing your Sue, and give enjoyment to others, then, dude, knock yourself out.

But I don't want to write Mary Sues, and I don't want to read about them, either. Part of it is that I just don't find wish-fulfillment fiction very interesting anymore, and part of it is that I have opinions about what fiction is for.

Fiction is, first of all, for entertainment, and that's why Mary Sues aren't wrong. And if that's all you want your fiction to do, that's fine. And you probably want to stop reading now, because what I'm about to say is going to sound elitist and offensive.

I think fiction is for trying to tell the truth.

Looks like a dead-end paradox, doesn't it? Especially considering what I write. As per usual, Ursula K. Le Guin has blazed this trail before me and said it better than I ever will:

... the problem of communication is a complex one, and ... some of us introverts have solved it in a curious, not wholly satisfactory, but interesting way: we communicate (with all but a very few persons) in writing, but indirectly in writing. As if we were deaf and dumb. We write stories about imaginary people in imaginary situations. Then we publish them (because they are, in their strange way, acts of communication--addressed to others).²

She's talking about communication and the self, but I think I can stretch it a little farther and say she's also talking about truth. Because that's, after all, the point of communication, especially in this tricksy and roundabout fashion: trying to tell the truth to the best of your ability and understanding.

The truth about what? Well, that depends. It depends on the day and the story and the mood you're in and what you've read recently and what idiocy the government is perpetrating this week. It depends on what you dreamed the night before, and whether you remember your dream or not. And a lot of the time, you don't know what you're trying to tell the truth about. At least, if you're me. You just know that you have to keep trying.

And that's why Mary Sues give me spasms. Because they're not truth.

Now, the truth of a character is not in the character him, her, or itself. Because the character is, after all, fictional. Imaginary. An airy nothing given a local habitation and a name. Fictional characters are inherently lies, just as the novelist is inherently a liar. But. Novelists are liars trying to tell the truth with their lies and their little, strutting, brightly-colored marionettes and the truth that they tell is in how they teach us to look at their lies.

Which is to say, a Mary Sue isn't in the laundry list of characteristics. It's in the way the narrative presents it.

This is why Felix, for all his faults, is not a Mary Sue. Because the narrative may sympathize with him, but it does not admire him. Frequently, a Mary Sue is not merely admired, but worshipped by her narrative; she is not admitted to have faults (except perhaps of the cute-and-charming variety that make the reader want to spork their own eyeballs), and nothing she does will ever have negative repercussions (except possibly a metric ton of angst, if that's the kind of story it is, and in that case it's not a negative repercussion, but a chance for a nice old-fashioned wallow). The Mary Sue is a lie, but she is also a lie that in its turn is lying. Falsity heaped upon falsity, and so it may be entertaining, but it also leads to a surfeit, like the White Witch's Turkish Delight.

Telling the truth through fiction may be a fool's game, but this fool, at least, values it and thinks it's worth playing. Even if you always lose. And that's why I object to Mary Sues. Because it isn't whether you win or lose.

It's how you play the game.

---
¹And again, I'm using that term broadly to mean over-romanticized characters as well as author-insertion. Also using it as a gender-neutral descriptor.
²Ursula K. Le Guin, "Dreams Must Explain Themselves." The Language of the Night. Rev. ed. 1989. New York: HarperPerennial-HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. 41-51.

Comments

[menin-aeide.livejournal.com]

V. good post. I wonder - have you read Iris Murdoch's The Fire and the Sun. She makes a distinction between (wish-fulfilling) fantasy and (truth-seeking) imagination:

The Fire and the Sun is her fullest and most concentrated treatment of these matters, in which her long preoccupation with Plato bears fruit . She distinguishes fantasy from imagination, and links them to art by identifying bad art with art that aids the artists and audiences daydreaming self-contained fantasies and good art with art that exercises the imagination and leads out of the selfish ego to an apprehension of reality. This allowed her to propose a Platonic conception of art fashioned from materials in the Philebus, the Phaedrus, and the Symposium that contrasts with, at the same time as it explains, the condemnation of poets in the Republic. She extended her Platonic account in a discussion of mimesis and the problems presented by music and abstract paintings in "Art is the Imitation of Nature" (1978). Acastos is a lucid and relatively elementary presentation of the view in mock-Platonic dialogue form (it was staged as a National Theatre Platform Performance in 1980 under the direction of Michael Kustow). Her final thoughts on the subject are contained in the first five chapters of Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

I've been reading all this talk about Mary Sues with a great deal of interest (and anxiety) because I fear creating a Mary Sue character and I really want to make sure my favourite character is not a Sue. I've been trying very hard to glean from these posts just what I should and shouldn't do with him, but I'm not sure this concept of truth is all that helpful. I have greater goals than just including this character in the narrative; I have some form of truth that I'm reaching for. This story would happen without my favourite character (albeit somewhat differently), but I'm not sure that makes him any less a Sue.

The idea of Sueness seems to have bled so much into other things...it's hard to feel completely certain about the definition itself let alone whether or not you're giving it legs inside your story. I'm not sure the goals of the author are enough to insure non-Sueness (which is how I'm reading this post).

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

No, author intent is certainly not enough. But I'm afraid the thing I'm trying to get at is something I don't have a good way to articulate. I don't even know how to explain how one IDENTIFIES a narrative's attitude toward a character.

... it may be that a better way to consider the issue, from the nuts and bolts perspective, is to think about perfection. Because the kind of character I'm objecting to in this post is the character who seems to be perfect. Or even Perfect with a capital P. And, again, it's not a matter of characteristics or competencies, it's a matter of how the narrative regards them.

An example. The Great Race (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0059243/), which is one of my favorite movies of all time, stars Tony Curtis as The Great Leslie. Now, Leslie is Perfect--that's the point of his character, that he's good and handsome and brave and true and can do anything, and do it well. But the narrative of the movie does NOT regard Leslie as Perfect, which it shows in a variety of little ways, but my favorite is the catastrophic food fight at the end of the Prisoner of Zenda subplot (I love this movie). It's the largest pie fight ever staged, with cakes and pies and custard flying every which way. And Leslie (who habitually dresses all in white) makes it through without a single spatter of frosting on him ... until the very end, when he bends down to tie his shoe and plants his face right in the pie Maggie DuBois (Natalie Wood) is preparing to hurl at someone else.

It's that moment of undercutting that saves Leslie from being a Mary Sue. And it's not the fact that the narrative can laugh at him that does it; it's the fact that the narrative can suddenly make him human. There's something a little inhuman, to my mind, about Mary Sues, and it's because their narratives are too invested in making them Perfect to allow them to get pie on their faces. A Mary Sue is recognizable (let me try this another way) by the fact that her narrative protects her, not by any characteristic, or list of characteristics, that she does or does not have.

I dunno. Does that help?

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think that helps. I'm still highly paranoid about it, but it helps. I guess it's made more complicated by the fact that it's not any one thing that defines a Sue..but you know it when you see it. I think I know one when I see it, but I don't trust my eye on my own story at all. I figure no Mary Sue writer can tell a Sue when they've written it; why else would they write it? And thus my fear.

But I appreciate everyone wading into this debate. Every single word is helpful, really. :)

[veejane.livejournal.com]

Oh, I think many Mary Sue authors know what they're doing -- they're expressing what would, in sex-writing, be called a kink. Fulfilling a craving, like. There are certainly Mary Sue writers who don't know, but I wonder how self-aware they are in general (or aware of devices of literature in general).

I'm firmly of the opinion that an authorial self-insertion and a Mary Sue ought not to be mentioned in the same sentence (except to differentiate). Lots of writers begin with themselves as subjects, and that's totally legitimate -- I've read thinly-disguised autobiographical novels that will scorch with their raw intimacy. But that's not necessarily Mary Sue; Mary Sue is the process of removing drama by inserting wishes.

Wishes are fine, if you're into that sort of thing, but most thoughtful people can discern the difference between wishes and drama, I think.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't call what you're describing "authorial insertion," though. Authorial insertion, as I use and understand the term, is when the author inserts themselves into a story that they don't belong in. Quite different from autobiography--whether the autobiography has been fictionalized or not.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I tend to hew to the general meaning of "authorial insertion" -- the author inserts herself into fiction, whether it works/is warranted or not.

I guess I'm thinking of a novel I read recently, which is obviously not factually autobiographical -- but it is so painfully told that you can't help but know the main character is modeled on the author. (This is Caucasia by Danzy Senna.) It works and is totally warranted, but it's not, strictly speaking, a fictionalized autobiography.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I want a new word!

No, really. Because what you're describing doesn't seem to me to deserve the word "insertion," suggesting, as that word does, the intrusion of something foreign. In particular, for me, "authorial insertion" always sounds like the author putting themselves in a story that would be complete without them. And what you're talking about is something else.

"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master--that's all."

[telepresence.livejournal.com]

"There's something a little inhuman, to my mind, about Mary Sues"

I agree with this sentiment, but it also marks my one point of departure from you. If you are seeking to make characters that are human, Mary Sue's, with their inhuman perfection are problematic and to be avoided.

However, for certain kinds of writing, I'm not sure the characters need to be human. Mostly I'm thinking of what I'd loosely call fantasy, or fables. Either erotic fantasy, or adventure fantasy, or socio-political fantasy, be it propaganda or satire or certain kinds of folktales or parables, etc).

In those cases the characters may be sufficiently secondary to another point (to get off, to thrill, to convey a philosophical or religious or political point, to teach a lesson), that a Mary Sue may not be harmful, because the people may be sympols or proxies, and the story may not be very concerned with truth, or perhaps the truth is a shadow created by shining light through a properly constructed lie.

[veejane.livejournal.com]

I think I get what you're saying: Jack, in all the Jack Tales, isn't ever going to grow and change as a person. The point of the story isn't Jack; it's the adventures and the outcomes, and the lessons taken obliquely therefrom.

It's not that Cap-O-Rushes realizes she has the personal power to confront her father at the end; she gains literal power instead, healing and then marrying the prince. She's not a character, but a tool for implementing the story.

But she doesn't have striking violet eyes, or a unicorn, and Jack isn't the smartest cookie in the jar. I'd posit that folk-tale heroes are a different breed entirely, because novels are so unlike folktales. Cap-O-Rushes isn't a vessel for wishes; she is a vessel for story, and I think that's an important distinction.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

There's a difference, though, between Mary Sues and cardboard characters. And a difference between either of those and allegorical characters.

veejane says a big chunk of what I'd say, so I shan't repeat it.

It's certainly true that for particular types of stories, you don't want characters who get in the way. On the other hand, the hallmark of the Mary Sue is exactly that: she gets in the way. The narrative stops while we hear about her violet eyes and mane of Titian curls or her amazing singing voice or how all of her past lovers still love her and would jump into bed with her at the drop of a hat, yet understand why she couldn't stay with them and don't resent it a bit. I would argue that a story with this kind of character can't and isn't interested in teaching or conveying a message of any kind; it's too busy watching the light shine out of Mary Sue's perfect ass.

Which is a remarkably crude way of articulating my point. Sorry about that.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Okay, that really helps. I guess in this case the examples help with the definition. When you put it that way I know just what you mean...still, I wonder what those writers thought they were doing when they wrote it. I presume they imagined everyone would feel the way they do about this character.

I wonder if that's a kind of test; if the reader doesn't like your character, does the story fall apart?

Yes, I'm looking for the easy answer to ease my own paranoia. Granted, I'm paranoid about pretty much everything when it comes to writing, because I feel that I'm trying to do something that's just a bit beyond me. Of course that's the part that makes it interesting to try. ;)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

"Like" might not be the best word. I, personally, have a great deal of trouble engaging with a story if I don't find the protagonist likeable. And I don't want to give the impression that I think protagonists shouldn't be likeable, or that we shouldn't be cheering for them, or that we shouldn't sympathize with them. (I tend to flirt with disaster on that issue in my own writing, but let's ignore that for now. It's the opposite of what you're worried about anyway.)

I think, maybe, that one way to see Mary Sueism is to ask yourself whether the narrative is TRYING to make you like the protagonist or not, or is it leaving you to make your own judgment calls and getting on with the business of telling the story? And I know, it can be hard to tell the difference between character development and trying to make the reader like the character--no one ever said this writing thing was easy. *g*

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

I'm currently converting that Mary Sue test into a form so that you can check things off without seeing how much they're worth and get the server to calculate your score for you. Because I think I keep miscalculating as I go. (The character I'm worried about got a 30 in my calculation, but I want to run some other characters through it to see how they do, but I hate tabulating it on the go. Well, that and this gives me a way to channel my angst.)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Ah, the time-honored tradition of cat vacuuming.

If I were actually going to use that thing as a tool, I'd be sorely tempted to customize the questions, too, to reflect my own observations (and my own kinks). Not that I would be enabling your cat vacuuming or anything.

:)

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Well, see, I'm not so tempted as I don't trust my own spidey-senses on this one. But I would be more than happy if you folks have suggestions. I'm nearly half-way through, and discovered that I can deal with this 'subtract one point' parts without bending myself into shapes. This is how I learn php; I find some obscure use for it and then milk it for all it's worth. :)

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

I would submit that...hmm. I'm going to apologize in advance, because this may sound snarky and that's not how I mean it at all.

I see lots of writers--some of them newish writers, but by no means all--who work very, very hard to avoid making mistakes. They very consciously struggle to avoid writing Mary Sues, or cliches, or so on and so forth. I understand the desire, and I sympathize, and yet... And yet.

A lot of these mistakes (it seems to me) aren't mistakes so much as they are points on the learning curve. Going too far out of your way to avoid them seems a bit like learning to run without walking and crawling first. It can probably be done. It may save you some embarrassment. But it's not necessarily the most efficient or long-term desirable way, and once you start running, you maybe don't know that you can pick yourself up if you fall.

What I'm trying to say is, pay attention to things, absolutely yes. Try to write your stories as best you can. But it's okay to make mistakes. And it's okay to own your errors, too, and to turn them into strengths; texture is a good thing. What makes a story go is that it does things right--not that it doesn't do anything wrong.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't apologize for that. I need that kind of comment, to be honest. This spectre of the Mary Sue has pretty much scared me out of writing further. I'm stalled in the middle of a chapter because of it.

So any kick in the pants, or permission to screw up, from any quarter, is more than welcome.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Aiee.

I had not realized that this was an in-the-middle-of-trying-to-write hang-up. It had looked to me more like either a revision problem or a laying groundwork for writing problem. Silly me. Sorry about that.

No, by all means, WRITE. Write the story. Write the character however he wants to be written. Once you've got a finished draft, THEN worry about whether he's romanticized or overly perfect or any of the other thousand and fifteen things that can make a character implausible. That's what second drafts are for and why we are all profoundly, profoundly grateful that writing is not performance art.

The only thing I've found that I need to keep in the front of my head WHILE I'M WRITING is the need to follow through. If an action or a remark ought to have consequences, it is my job to make sure it does. Even if it makes my characters uncomfortable.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Oh, no no, please don't apologize, it's no one's responsibility to ruffle my hair and tell me everything will be okay. :) I've really appreciated the conversation; I felt like Ms. Bear had plucked that litmus test out of my bookmarks. All of these posts and comments have been very helpful to me.

I'm playing in dangerous water anyway because I wanted to talk about specialness in the first place. My main two characters are absolutely not normal, and that's the point, that's where the tension comes from. I think I spewed this at you already once, but the idea I'm attempting to convey is basically about what it would mean to be ultra-special, what it would cost. In a constructed universe, of course. Also what it would mean if certain kinds of "specialness" were the basis of determining castes or classes in a society, and how thoses would be ranked, and how they develop laws and expectations for themselves. And if you were truly special in spite of all the specialness around you, if you had tons of powers, how those powers would become frustrating and annoying, and how people would trust you less because you possessed them. I know I'm walking a fine line between something that might be interesting and something that's a load of unnecessary angst and melodrama, but apparently that was the path I opted to take when I started this. So rather than writing a story about the specialness, I'm trying to write a story where the specialness is a given and the narrative works from there.

I started it quite some time ago when I was very comfortable with taking a cliche and working with it until I thought it said something new and different; I have always really enjoyed doing that, actually. I have less of that confidence now, but I'm still stuck in the purposely cliched story. I still believe in it, and I still think it can be interesting and maybe even compelling, but I really left myself wide open for these kinds of criticisms (even though I'm not done yet...maybe because I'm not done yet).

I'll just do as you said and finish the draft and then work from there. I got blinded by the fear of it all for a while there. But even if it turns out a massive mary sue story, no one has to read it anyway. :)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

If being special has a cost, then you are not writing Mary Sue. QED.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

I realize affirmation needs to come from me, but I really appreciate this affirmation. And back to the chapter I go! Thanks so much.

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

(And for whatever it's worth, your premise/goal sounds like a thoroughly worth-the-trouble one. Good luck with it!)

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, the mid-draft freeze. Welcome to my world. *g*

::kicks:: Go screw up!

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Best. Advice. Ever.

Thanks. ;)

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

"Cat vacuuming"?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Any suitably time-consuming activity which is notable for NOT being work.

Some people prefer "cat-waxing," but I find the mental image just too unfortunate.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

I had a cat who loved being vacuumed. Not that that's relevant to anything.

[ivyblossom.livejournal.com]

Oh by the way, I did make an html/php version of that litmus test...and I sent it to the authors of the test. So maybe we'll see a php version replacing that score-yourself one soon. :)

(It was remarkably fun to create actually. There was some creative math involved, which is only fun in such a practical context.)

[michael-b-lee.livejournal.com]

I couldn't agree more.

To me, fiction should be about grappling with humanity, which means revealing all the essential dichotomies of human existence: nobility and venality, compassion and cruelty, courage and cowardice, etc. Mary Sues by definition exist without contradiction, externally or internally, and so they are antithetical to real storytelling.

Wow.

[ambartil.livejournal.com]

Just wow. Rarely have I heard the spirit of Ms. Le Guin invoked with such eloquence and APPROPRIATENESS. And I truly think she would approve of the use to which you put the quote, and the context in which it finds itself. You rock. Keep writing.

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

Good points, all! And you helped me crystalize what I want out of the reading experience, too. (Lengthy rant, here (http://jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com/108388.html).)

[libskrat]

On a slightly more, um, venal note (is it venality when you're suggesting the venal thing?), I think there is an excellent book of essays on genre-fiction in you, truepenny, and I think you ought to consider shopping it around. The stuff you've written on Cooper and Sayers ought to be enough to get a publisher interested.

[cassiphone.livejournal.com]

The most interesting characters to me are the ones that would be Mary Sues if the author was slightly less twisted and ingenious. Take Miles Vorkosigan - the smartest man in the universe, brilliant and clever and dazzlingly competent. But this is balanced by the fact that he is not only physically handicapped, but his brilliance comes at the price of regularly skirting the edges (and occasionally falling off the cliff) of complete insanity.

I love the idea of someone being exceptional and outstanding, but there should always be some kind of price for this. Because in life, that's usually the case. The most beautiful girl in school is the one who's secretly cutting herself. The smartest person in the room when it comes to philosophy and astrophysics is incapable of noticing when someone is attracted to them. Or equivalent handicaps. No one is perfect.

As soon as there is no price for being exceptional, the story lacks tension... just like a romance falls apart if the obstacles are too easy to overcome, or a fantasy falls apart if magic does everything for you.

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

And also, according to con-conversations, when choosing a plot direction, Lois asks "What is the worst thing I could do to these characters?" And then she does it. And when the characters get hurt they feel sorry for themselves, because people do that thing, and then they go on with life. Not like the hurt never happened, but like you have to go on if you're going to get on. Authors generally don't hurt Sues/Stus, unless they're after the metric ton of angst that trupenny mentions. It's not a springboard for plot and character development.

[seajules]

My own view of Mary Sues is that particular characteristics have little to do with it, though certain characteristics do seem to show up with regularity. It's how the narrative regards the character, and how the narrative wants the reader to regard the character. Is he protected from the natural consequences of every action? Is she loved by everyone except those the narrative earmarks as "villain?" Are his flaws presented in such a way as to be easily mistaken for virtues? Does everyone we're meant to admire/respect/like in the story listen attentively to every word she says, agree that she's right, and then later the narrative proves she's right? Are most of his enemies motivated by jealousy? If the answer is yes to any or all of the above, you've got a Sue on your hands. Which sounds very like what you're saying here, only you're saying it more eloquently.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

I keep saying that the defining characteristic of a Mary Sue is legitimacy.

The term does come from fandom, after all.

What attributes the character may have are variable; what causes annoyance is the introduction of a cuckoo into the canon's nest, some bigger, brighter, louder character who steals the limelight from the characters the reader chose to read about, the intrusion that distorts the text.

Fans have extended the term Mary Sue and applied it to other characters by assimilation, because bad writing, self-insertion, and wish-fulfilment are overlapping characteristics and striking ones found in Mary Sue fanfics and elsewhere.

But legitimacy is at the core of the question.

And that's why Mary Sues give me spasms. Because they're not truth.

Whose truth? The authors who create Mary Sues do so to find a place for themselves in diegeses created by others. The reference is a pre-existing text, or set of texts, a canon. A set of laws.

The reference for "original" writing (as opposed to fan-fiction) is reality, cultured and interpreted by shared ideas. Against this background it is commonplace to find bad writing, authorial avatars, and wish-fulfilment, bolstered by the myths and the laws of those who rule the world.

Self-aggrandisement for men, and self-abasement for women.

A Mary Sue is unacceptable because she does not have the weight of law enforcement behind her, simply the author's fantasy, and her presence is at odds with the world into which the author inserts her.

Insurgents do not often have the benefit of a long experience wielding power such as the power to create the world from a word.

Fans oppose Mary Sue in defense of the worlds into which they were invested before she arrived. And the word Mary Sue is turned back against those other characters whom fans thereafter deem illegitimate too.

It is possible to try to erase the stigma of Mary Sue's illegitimacy by working at attaining congruence with acceptable standards of literature, but the other option is to revolutionise the power behind those standards.

[ide-cyan.livejournal.com]

Made a mistake while editing this comment: the word should be "illegitimacy" in that first line.