[ SECRET POST #3803 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3803 ⌋

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

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04.
[Dramatical Murder]


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06.
[Agents of SHIELD]


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08.
[NCIS/Bull (Michael Weatherly)]


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09. [WARNING for discussion of rape]











Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #544.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: Inspired by #6

[(Anonymous)]

This is a really good point. I mean, I understand the temptation to use the term to describe original characters, but ultimately it probably isn't fair to do so. That's just not what the term was meant for.

Mary Sues are the extra special OCs that are pretty obviously created as stand-ins for the fic author/reader. The fact that they're oh-so special, suddenly or central importance to the story, and usually sporting that weirdly bland yet attempting to be idiosyncratic "every-girl" persona, is grating and intrusive specifically because the Mary Sue is being dropped into the middle of a pre-established fictional universe that isn't meant to accommodate such an entity.

Take away that last part, and you're left with...a protagonist who may not have been written well, but who isn't really based on different tenets (i.e. relatability, being of central importance to the story, extreme competence, the author taking inspiration from their own personality) than plenty of other, successful protagonist characters.

Re: Inspired by #6

[cbrachyrhynchos]

Yes! Superman, Wonder Woman, and Edmund Dantes, are larger-than-life, wish-fulfillment protagonists, but they're not Sues because making those characters larger than life is a big part of the genre stories they appear in.

Re: Inspired by #6

[(Anonymous)]

DA - I think you can have canon Sues, they're just much rarer because they have to be universe-breaking and most protagonists are universe-defining.

Wesley Crusher is a famous Star Trek Sue, because his episodes tend to break established universe rules. Sure, god-like beings showed up all the time in TOS the TNG.... because humans are interesting to play with, sometimes torment and sometimes help and maaaybe eventually befriend. Wesley has gods show up out of the blue just to fawn over how he's the most perfect and pure and near-godly human that will ever exist. No playing, no twist, just a flat out over the top "Yes, Wesley is better than everyone else."

Then there's Jaxom and Ruth from the Pern books. We have a whole bunch of books establishing universe-rules about the dragon colors and how things work, nobility can't be dragonriders too... except Jaxom. Dragons come in established colors with certain power sets.... except Ruth who's white with a shimmering rainbow of ALL the dragon colors, and he has extra powers that no other dragon has. Ruth's asexual, so none of those pesky (rapey) psychic bond issues for Jaxom. His only 'flaw' is he's small so other people underestimate that he's literally better than every single other dragon ever.

It's like saying a book or movie or TV episode "feels like fanfiction." It's not specifically that they are, but sometimes when you're really familiar with trope-sets stuff just feels like something else. And it SUCKS that there's a huge gendered double standard that guys write and publish fanfic all the time and it gets lauded while women get mocked (I mean how often does 50 Shades being fanfic with a name change get brought up as a bad thing, while Hitchhiker's Guide being fanfic with a name change being a good thing for how clever he was? Or just ignored because it's a good book, don't bring that into it) so when magic color changing eyes and everyone loving them and them being naturally better at everything is applied to a dude character everyone smiles and accepts it, but a female character gets scrutinized.

Re: Inspired by #6

[cbrachyrhynchos]

I feel the problem with that is that you have plenty of author-insert characters who don't necessarily break the rules, such as James Bond. James Kirk and Spock at various points were mouthpieces for Roddenberry. And calling Wesley Crusher a Sue is a shallow criticism that doesn't begin to address the systemic fuckery of TNG through the first two seasons.

Re: Inspired by #6

[(Anonymous)]

And I'd say that author-inserts who don't break the rules aren't Sues. Power fantasy yes, wish fulfilment absolutely, but not Sue. A Sue would be if JKR wrote about a house elf who looked exactly like Arwen and fell in love with her human master, because we've already established that house elves look like ET had sex with a Keebler elf.

Like how Rey may get the criticism a lot, but she's not a Sue because literally everything she does is a rehash of previous established character abilities. She can pilot really well possibly without training? Yeah, so can Anakin, Luke, Kanan Jarrus, Ezra Bridger, and tons of other Jedi/Force sensitives. She can understand multiple languages? So can Han Solo in the first movie. Star Wars has been giving people plot-relevant skills/powers for 40 years and hers are all easily within normal universe-rules.