fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2750 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2750 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

__________________________________________________

02. [WARNING for animal death]

__________________________________________________

03.

__________________________________________________

04.

__________________________________________________

05.

__________________________________________________

06.

__________________________________________________

07.

__________________________________________________

08.

__________________________________________________

09.

__________________________________________________

10.

__________________________________________________

11.

__________________________________________________

12.

__________________________________________________

13.

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 058 secrets from Secret Submission Post #393.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

01. http://i.imgur.com/QD1Txvv.png

There are a lot of male hero characters that would be labeled Mary Sues if they were women.

This is actually why I loathe James Bond lol

YES THERE ARE AND IT MAKES ME SO MAD

"would be"? I label male characters as Mary Sues all the time.

AGREED!

Yeah, I realized that when I found myself guffawing at the character Helix in one version of GI Joe... "Wow she's such a Mary Sue, this video game studio made their own custom character whose so super awesome at fighting that she can beat Snake-eyes." Wait isn't Snake-eyes himself a bit of a Mary Sue?

There's still a problem with that particular character cause her fighting prowess is basically the result of a very unscientific "Super Autism," but it stuck me as odd that the thing that even I initially thought was off about her character was the ease with which she could beat the previously established best fighter... who happened to be a guy.

GOD that guy is creepy-looking. Like a wide-mouthed snake in human form.

I tend to think he looked a lot better after he hit 60.

Nah, I'm a Bond fan and I'm in total agreement. There are lots and lots of male wish fulfillment type characters (Example: almost every male action movie star ever), but they rarely get called out on it the way female ones do.

This guy's face freaked me out.

The thing is, with James Bond it sort of depends on how he's written. From what I understand Fleming himself was horrified the film adaptations made him so "sue-ish" for lack of a better word, because the character was really supposed to be a maladjusted asshole.

I do think they've gotten better in the last few adaptations, though.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-07-15 19:23 (UTC) - Expand

Honestly it's true that male characters often don't get looked at and criticized for "sue ness" as female characters. That's why I wrote a lot of male OCs early on and was afraid to show people my female OCs.

from my evil purple lair, with my evil purple-veined brain, i will watch you humans, doing your human things and making your love. but then i will descend upon you and capture you to do my evil purple bidding.

(Anonymous) - 2014-07-14 23:59 (UTC) - Expand

funyarinpainahat - 2014-07-15 00:07 (UTC) - Expand

(Anonymous) - 2014-07-15 00:07 (UTC) - Expand

(Anonymous) - 2014-07-15 20:36 (UTC) - Expand

It always kind of bugs me when people refer to male characters as Mary-Sues. The male version has its own name.

I thought it was just common knowledge that James Bond was a super duper male fantasy character, though?

Marty Sue?
It's just that Mary Sue for girls is the most beautifull, charming, nice, etc. For boys it's the strongest and coolest. Which Bond is kinda is. Then there's teen Mary Sue which is rebelling and outsmarting everyone.

(Anonymous) - 2014-07-15 02:26 (UTC) - Expand

mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com - 2014-07-15 02:39 (UTC) - Expand

solticisekf - 2014-07-15 22:58 (UTC) - Expand

mimi-sardinia.livejournal.com - 2014-07-16 07:28 (UTC) - Expand

solticisekf - 2014-07-17 00:40 (UTC) - Expand

I don't have a problem with the idea that Bond was half Flemming, and half Flemming's fantasy.

Him and the vast majority of male action heroes and video game protagonists, imo.

So many of them are explicitly written as wish-fulfilment fantasies for the male viewers/readers but they aren't called out as much as their female counterparts.

(My theory is that it's more normal for guys to have their power fantasies. When girls have power-fantasy characters, it's considered weird.)

(Anonymous) - 2014-07-15 03:07 (UTC) - Expand

(Anonymous) - 2014-07-15 03:44 (UTC) - Expand

Gary Stu, guys. A male Mary Sue is called a Gary Stu.

Agreed, although at this point, I'll take any critique of James Bond I can get. Fuck that dated franchise.

My Mary Sue criteria is, as follows -
Are we told more about them than shown?
Do plots have other characters hold the idiot ball in order to make them look better?
Do they suffer realistic consequences?/ Are they given realistic opportunities?

And any the character comes off as Sue-ish, all three are very Sue. And I base this mainly on Wesley Crusher. The teenager is the only one not to get addicted to an alien video game because he's smarter and more awesome than every single other crewmember on the ship? Really? And I think there was something with super-advanced aliens discovering he was The One Human who was worthy of superpowers or something.

Just being a wish-fulfillment character isn't enough to be a Sue. I also think wish-fulfillment characters in long running media with different owners are more likely to be Sues, like Batman and Bond. Because everyone wants to add a cool new thing to all the stuff before, but they can't really take away any of the old stuff, and it starts getting into Super-Weaving levels of ridiculous.

(Anonymous) - 2014-07-15 21:13 (UTC) - Expand

It's official: The term "Mary Sue" has now been diluted to the point of uselessness.

"Mary Sue" was a fanfic concept, where you take somebody else's characters and setting and make them all bow down before your self-insert character.

James Bond is not a Mary Sue. He is a power fantasy. He's not an insert into some other story. Unless you're trying to argue that power fantasy characters somehow "Mary Sue" the elements of the real world, in which case you're really arguing against a lot of aspirational and escapist fiction.

Re: e_e

mithen - 2014-07-15 23:07 (UTC) - Expand

(Anonymous) - 2014-07-15 23:28 (UTC) - Expand

I think it's more that Bond has a tons of super-masculine traits that are considered sexy in some quarters--sex god, undefeatable, super competent, suave, always wins, etc etc

I've only seen some of the older movies myself, and I've never been fond of the character, but I'd never thought of him that way until now. Probably because when I think male Sues/Stus I think of male fantasy protagonists. It seems like they're all pretty similar though, the only difference is a lazy origin story.