WHAT makes her a Mary-Sue?
Feb. 17th, 2012 11:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
were_lemurDiscussion in the comments of a post in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fanficrants turned to the subject of Mary-Sue tests. Out of curiosity, I put the main OC of my WIP through the Universal Mary-Sue Litmus Test.
She scored thirty. Fanfiction authors beware - Mary's on the loose. There's still a chance you can save this character with some TLC, though.
So what was the one point that put her over the top?
Since a lot of her points are either plot-critical or a side-effect of same, or necessary to make her background make sense (she gets one for being adopted, ffs, despite the fact that she's had a nice, normal childhood), I guess it must be one of the things I did to give her an actual personality.
Maybe it's the fact that the canon characters like her and want to help her? Since she's eight, and basically well-behaved, that really shouldn't be much of a surprise that the members of Team Torchwood have a generally positive reaction to her. Even if she was a total brat, the plot circumstances are such that they would, in canon, be the ones to deal with her.
*checks test again*
Oh, I know. How many major characters does your character fall for? It's her crush on Captain Jack Harkness that puts her over the top.
But wait, you say, doesn't EVERYBODY fall for Captain Jack Harkness? And don't people fall for other people all the time without it being a major plot point?
But my biggest issue with not just the tests, but the very concept of the Mary-Sue, is how gendered it is. Male OCs get a lot more slack, and female canon characters are often labeled as Mary-Sues for displaying the exact same characteristics that make their male counterparts the awesome badasses that everybody loves. (The Doctor would be catapulted to Mega-Sue levels by number of languages spoken alone.)
fanficrants turned to the subject of Mary-Sue tests. Out of curiosity, I put the main OC of my WIP through the Universal Mary-Sue Litmus Test.She scored thirty. Fanfiction authors beware - Mary's on the loose. There's still a chance you can save this character with some TLC, though.
So what was the one point that put her over the top?
Since a lot of her points are either plot-critical or a side-effect of same, or necessary to make her background make sense (she gets one for being adopted, ffs, despite the fact that she's had a nice, normal childhood), I guess it must be one of the things I did to give her an actual personality.
Maybe it's the fact that the canon characters like her and want to help her? Since she's eight, and basically well-behaved, that really shouldn't be much of a surprise that the members of Team Torchwood have a generally positive reaction to her. Even if she was a total brat, the plot circumstances are such that they would, in canon, be the ones to deal with her.
*checks test again*
Oh, I know. How many major characters does your character fall for? It's her crush on Captain Jack Harkness that puts her over the top.
But wait, you say, doesn't EVERYBODY fall for Captain Jack Harkness? And don't people fall for other people all the time without it being a major plot point?
But my biggest issue with not just the tests, but the very concept of the Mary-Sue, is how gendered it is. Male OCs get a lot more slack, and female canon characters are often labeled as Mary-Sues for displaying the exact same characteristics that make their male counterparts the awesome badasses that everybody loves. (The Doctor would be catapulted to Mega-Sue levels by number of languages spoken alone.)
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Date: 2012-02-17 08:27 pm (UTC)