What *is* the matter with Mary Sue?
Jan. 27th, 2006 01:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
truepennyWhenever 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:
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.
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.
