fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #477 ]

[ SECRET POST #477 ]

⌈ Secret Post #477 ⌋

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

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 16 pages, 393 secrets from Secret Submission Post #069.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 (lolol) 2 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 1 2 - not!fandom ], [ 1 2 - too big ], [ 1 - personal attack ], [ 1 - person has TOO MUCH FREE TIME ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Nia is not a Mary Sue, she's an ancient fictional character archetype.

"A romantic, innocent character, almost always a preteen girl, who is essentially a fairy-tale heroine in the present (or in the science-fiction future). She is naive, ignorant and all she has going for her is her pure heart, which will save her -- she never gives up, no matter what, and will eventually get the better of her tormentors."

Sounds just like Nia? Well, it's the Naive Everygirl, like that young mechanic from Porco Rosso. Really, you guys are not doing the proper research.

She is naive, ignorant and all she has going for her is her pure heart Uh, yeah. Sue. Poor storytelling and characterization is not anything new.

Why is a naive, pure hearted character bad storytelling? Seriously...

Exactly. It's a larger-than-life, idealistic character... that's what Gurren-Lagann was all about.

Because that's basically her only character trait?

Oversimplification is awesome, right? Kamina's only character trait is his "indomitable bravado"! Simon's only character trait is that "he never gives up"! Rossiu's only character trait is his "pragmatical sense of responsibility"!

But let's not stop with Gurren-Lagann! Tenma's only character trait is his "belief in the good side of humanity"! Don Quixote only character trait is his obsession with knights and fiction!

Stop using straw man logic and empty statements as actual arguments, it only makes you look silly.

Then please enlighten me. Tell me, besides her sheltered, naive outlook what flaws does Nia actually have? And please don't respond by saying something ridiculous like "she sucks at cooking" because that's a skill, not a trait.

The problem with Nia, IMO, is that she has no flaws. The only one she has is her naive nature, and that's more of a Sue quality than anything else. And that's my position on Nia: She's a Sue. You're entitled to like her if you want, but IMO, she's still a Sue.

She's socially retarded.

And really, besides being "short-tempered" what flaw does Kittan actually portrays? What flaw does time-skip Simon actually portrays? It's a show full of larger-then-life, unrealistic figures.

She's socially retarded, but that's more an after-affect of her naive nature than anything else.

And who says I'm a fan of those characters, either? :P I don't like Kittan for similar reasons, and the whole point of time-skip Simon was to show how much he developed from when he was 14, where he was full of flaws.

Character flaws are after-effects of their true nature, that's the whole point of a character flaw. They're not inherent to the character itself, they're things born from their nature.

I was responding to your comment that her social retardation was a flaw, which stems to her naivity. That just brings us to what I said originally: her naivity is her only flaw. And that is written for endearment purposes more than anything else.

Character flaws exist only for endearment purposes. Character depth exists for people to feel empathy for the character. Most character flaws you can name were written for people to feel attached to the character, so they're in no way different from Nia's social retardation.

Why do you think authors try to make characters be as human as possible? Because they want people to feel "endeared" or "attached" to them. You don't write a lead character with the intention of making people hate him or her, do you?

I believe we already had this conversation before (you were the anon from page 2, right?), so any more conversation on the topic would just be repetitive. But it essentially comes down to this: Some people find certain traits endearing, others don't. I personally find Nia's naivity annoying as hell, but I acknowledge that it's more of a personal preference than anything else. You're entitled to like her as much as you want, but just because a writer intends for the audience to take a flaw a certain way doesn't mean everyone will share the same opinion about it. What some people find adorable other might find irritating.

If you found Nia's naivety annoying... then why do you consider her a character without flaws? Her main flaw is enough to warrant your annoyance, so I would say it makes impossible to consider her a Mary Sue. A Mary Sue would annoy you due to being "flawless", not due to her or his main flaw.

But didn't you just say character flaws are meant to endear the audience? That's why I mentioned my own annoyance: to show that character flaws can easily cause irritation for the viewers.

I did say that Nia's naivity was a flaw, just that it was a rather Sueish one.

Characters flaws exist to endear the audience, but since everyone is different you can't create character everyone comes to love.

And I don't see why determined "flaws" are inherently more Sueish than others.

Character flaws can exist for many different reasons. It's a gross generalization to assume that every single character flaw was created for the sole purpose to endear them to the audience. I find it hard to believe that the flaws of, say, villians and morally ambiguous characters are intended for the same purpose as the flaws of protaganists.

Nia's particular "flaw" is deemed Sueish by others because the cast never holds her responsible for her actions as a result of it.

a) I obviously meant protagonists.
b) She can be held responsible of her actions as result of it. She would be responsible of her own death if Adiane had killed her, for example.

a) It's not necessarily obvious, considering characters who fulfill different roles are portrayed in different ways. A perky, bubbly character is going to be portrayed a lot differently than a stoic, brooding one, for example, and their flaws will reflect that. But we're going off topic here.

b)But Adiane didn't kill her. It's no use arguing about what "would have" happened unless it actually occurred on the show. The point is, Nia's naivity was never a quality that other main cast members held her responsible for.

But other than Simon's insecurity "killing" Kamina at episode 8, no other character flaw became the source of a mistake said character would be held responsible for.

You asked why naivity would be considered a Sueish trait, and I told you. If you want to debate the flaws of other characters with me, than feel free to do so, but I am only referring to NIA'S flaw, considering the was the one the secret was pertaining to.

A Mary Sue is only a Mary Sue in relation to the fiction she is written in. The definition you copied from Wikipedia said so itself. Since Nia fits among the GL cast she is not a Mary Sue.

Did everything I say before just go through one ear and out the other? XD I said before that it was a combination of her other traits that lead me to believe she is a Sue. You think she is not, and I think she is. It's as simple as that. But apparantly you will not rest until I admit she is not a Sue, which isn't happening.

But you have no proof of her being a Sue, it's as simple as that. If you will keep calling her a Sue, I will just keep disproving you as much as it necessary. Every single definition of Sue in existence involves "breaking suspension of disbelief", you're fishing for something that isn't there. It's like being obstinate over yellow being orange, it's just grasping at straws.

But do you honestly believe that a character MUST break the suspension of disbelief to be called a Sue, completely disregarding all his/her other qualities? See, this is where the core of our argument lies. The definition of Mary Sue has become much more flexible than when it first came out. I could say that Nia breaks the suspension of disbelief because no character could honestly be that perfect at everything, but that would just lead to another debate that will never be settled because we both refuse to believe our opinions are wrong.

[ SECRET POST #477 ]

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