As I finished reading this article, I felt a giant roar of "THAT'S RIGHT! RHAAAA!" welling up inside me. I used to spend a lot of time howling to Phil about "Why do the Manga artists get away with this kind of blatant wish-fulfillment stuff when I feel guilty about it every step of the way?!" For that matter, I see Harry Potter stuff as the same kind of blatant wish-fulfillment, but nobody's called him a Mary Sue when I've been listening.
Believe it or not, I went to college. Yes, I did. Where I was taught that certain types of art are derivative and masturbatory and therefore unworthy. Writing comics automatically puts you in the dirt pile (unless you're Art Spiegelman) but that aside, writing a story where your character is a pretty blonde girl genius who is the mysterious heir to the legendary vanished heroes and the prince is madly in love with her and oh, yeah, she's got a magic talking cat...
Well, according to my training, I believe I'm expected to commit some kind of exotic ritual suicide.
But really, I spent a lot of years not writing anything at all because nothing that seemed fun ever passed my sneer test. Well, to Hell with that. I finally read enough stories, popular professional stories, where other authors were getting away with what I considered literary murder and having a wonderful time doing it. I felt like a five-year-old forced to watch other children wallow in birthday cake while being told that I should feel superior because I was better than them for not eating sweets. Finally, the impotent rage broke me, and I'm learning to be shameless now. No more worrying that the latest story idea that makes my toes curl with happiness is too self-serving. My new motto is "No Fear." And I always recall the advice that James Ernest (Cheapass Games, and more awards than he can fit on his piano) gave me long ago, which was along the lines of "Make what you want. There will be other people out there who also want that, and you can sell it to them."
He's a smart man, that James Ernest.
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Comments
Batman as a psycho ninja, paranoid against everyone. X-Men coming back so often that it's become a joke, and now Bucky (dead since the 60s) has come back as well. I honestly think the last good books I read was Angel & the Agpe or Stanley & His Monster.
Oh, and Phil needs to blackmail someone into letting him do more comics for MythAdventures.
"I came to see if I could help you understand why people-- fanfic readers and writers-- react to you the way they tend to do."
This gave Mary Sue pause, and she toyed unconsciously with the jeweled clasp of her cape. "Do you...really know? Can you explain how come characters all love me, but everyone else hates me?" Her lovely wide eyes glimmered with tears. "Even the people who write me try to deny I exist!"
"Well, this is just my opinion," warned the Writer. "But I think maybe it's because just about every Writer who ever turned out to be worth five minutes of a reader's time started out with you. So you're like a security blanket-- once kids outgrow them, they're embarrassed by the whole concept of ever having used one. Until they get old enough for nostalgia, that is."
It's a little in-jokey, as a story, but I feel like the concept holds up fairly well. http://www.neonnurse.net/marysue.ht
... compliment, I think.
Hyeah! Dot's Right! Hyu Tell 'Em!
Agatha has none of these qualities. She's a person, the people around her are people (including the constructs) and they interact accordingly.
But anyway, who doesn't love a Cordelia Vorkosigan?
But I've never really been much of a one for including myself in stories anyway, idealized or not. Or playing RPG characters based on me (I'm looking at you, Villains and Vigilantes, which said so right in the part on character creation). I'm in this to escape my real life, thanks much.
Nor have I ever been a big fan of the uber-wonderful can-do-anything character. My husband grew up idolizing James Bond, Sherlock Holmes, and Captain Kirk ... all of whom make me sick to my stomach. I recently had to quit reading The Count of Monte Cristo because it did what I thought was the impossible -- the title character was even more cloyingly, grossly, overwhelmingly Mary Sue than was D'Artagnan. Urk!
Really just rambling here, but I've enjoyed reading about your voyage of discovery through the wonderful world of Sue.
-- Christine
I consider this a cackling triumph.
If you make it work so no one knows, then gloat. (Besides, Agatha has various scary pipples after her, and she's human, and she rants. I don't think good little Mary Sues are allowed to rant.)
...besides, some of us are madly in love with the prince, so we're all doing that self-identification thing. (Maybe that's what differentiates a Sue from a non-Sue -- if only the author can identify with her and enjoy her exploits (because the reactions feel "real" only to the one who wrote them?), she's a Sue. If everyone has that identification, then she's a heroine? (And now it's early enough for me to babble about the EverySue/Everyman conjunctions, and I'll toddle off now.)
No Fear! If it makes your toes curl, it'll probably make our toes curl just as happily.
Not-as-such. One of my pet-peeve Mary-Sue character (Anita Blake) rants constantly.
The thing is Anita didn't start out being a Mary-Sue(tm) character, well not until she got overpowered, hypocritical, and truely annoying to read about. I haven't read anything since Obsidian Butterfly (or maybe the book after that...)
Anywho, my point (and I do have one) is that there is a fine line between a Wish Fulfilment character and a Mary-Sue(tm). I think it basicly comes down to the question of: Does the character seem real to you. Agatha (from what I've read) is hardly what I would call a Mary-Sue(tm) mainly because she seems all-too-human in that she isn't the master of every situation, has flaws, weaknesses and even has those who are (gasp) better at what she does that she is.
So keep on writing and we'll keep on reading.
Just my 2 gil.
Oh, wait, that might not be quite what you meant...
Yes, I often wonder what it must be like to be James Ernest, doing things you enjoy and getting paid for them.
Und Hy LUV de jagers. Vith lines like dis, Vo vouldn'?
"Oh, dot. You gots smekked by a piece ov de bridge. Yah, dat vos it. SEE?"
"I hitt Mr. Lars." (Syned) A Brick
Art is something that I get something out of, even if it's something as simple as momentary pleasure.
As such, I'd emphatically qualify Girl Genius as art. I'd consider Vigilante to be art. Of course, I'd also qualify many ecchi works as art. (Does that cheapen GG? I hope not.)
Something that just makes me go, "Huh?" until someone explains it to me in a snooty accent? No, that's not art at all. Art is in the viewing, and is different things to different people.
On the topic of Mary-Sues. It's true that many good characters meet the general definition of a Mary-Sue (Wonder Woman, Emma Peel, heck, even Jane Eyre if you want to stretch things a bit), but I don't think anyone would call them un-readable. When you get down to it, Mary-Sues aren't dynamic. Through conflict and plot devices galore, they remain the same, which is why they grate on the nerves so.
In my humble reader's opinion, Agatha, as a character has grown and in certain ways re-written herself; a truly dynamic character. One a look forward to reading more of as the story progresses (hopefully for some time to come).
Putting the screws on a supercharacter does work though. A very satisfying variant is to have roughly double story arcs where, in the satisfying anticlimax of one resolution, you suddenly up the ante on the secondary conflict and bring about some real fireworks as it climaxes as well.
It's sooo odd that talking about story structure so often sounds so very sexual... :)
Woot! :)
http://www.megcabot.com/
Also, did you check out the Naked Quidditch Match?
http://daisygrrl.com/quidditch/
-Lori
I fear the Naked Quidditch Match, but I'll have a peek after I read this week's Inuyasha. Eek!
My question to you is....if you learned that in college...and its obviously not the correct way of doing things.....do you question what you've learned?
I read your posts every chance I get.....I enjoy all your work, and I think you should do whatever you want -- don't let anyone every say otherwise.
Do what YOU feel is right. I think everyone will be better off and you will be much much happier!
What I learned in college is clearly crap. I knew it then, and argued with my Professors a lot. But there's still that little voice deep inside that must be crushed. Weirdly, I don't hold other people to the same rules that I hold myself to. I never felt like sneering at other people's stuff, I buy loads of wish-fulfillment escapist fantasy and adore it. I always have. It's only the ideas I have myself that I look at and think "oh, that's so derivative and self-serving."
So it's mostly a question of giving myself permission to enjoy the stories I come up with without worrying "...will this rival Tolstoy?"
http://santiago.mapache.org/toys/ja
:)
but hey thats just me.