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Mary Sue being 15 and a half is a bit creepy.

Manchu wrote:If "Mary Sue" is only used for characters that are authorial self-insertions then it should be a term that is almost never used. I mean, how do you prove something like that without being personally familiar with the author? To show that a character is just the author's wish-fulfillment presumes knowledge of what the author's wishes are.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to spot. That said, not all author-inserts are Mary/Gary Sues.

Like any criticism, there's no real burden of proof on the critic to prove the character is a insert. Once a character matches the criteria (and as discussed in this thread even when the chracater doesn't) the criticism gets leveled. Most of the time though authors will admit when asked if the character is an insert. The only one who comes to mind who doesn't is Stephanie Meyer, and frankly she lives in denial if she thinks Bella isn't a Sue (and oddly people have suggested Edward is a Gary for her husband).

Mary Sue being 15 and a half is a bit creepy.

In all fairness, it was the 70's

That doesn't really help the situation unless you mean the 1870's.

I think it was meant to be creepy. v

It was a parody after all.

Melissia wrote:

Kaldor wrote:

Melissia wrote:Kaldor, do you even know what cliche means?

It's a trite or overused expression or idea

I'm glad you agree, then, that you misused the term.

Yes, except that I didn't,

So that would actually be no, then.

Yes you did. Nothing I described is necessarily cliche.

Nor is cliche necessarily anything I described.

Or perhaps you are under the delusion that cliche is the same thing as bad writing?

Melissia wrote:Yes you did. Nothing I described is necessarily cliche.

Nor is cliche necessarily anything I described.

Or perhaps you are under the delusion that cliche is the same thing as bad writing?

All cliche is bad writing.

Not all bad writing is cliche.

A character with only good traits, as I initially responded to, is something trite and overused. Cliched. Trying to excuse it by saying 'it's meant to stand out' or 'it's not a negative story' changes nothing.

Melissia wrote:Yes you did. Nothing I described is necessarily cliche.

Nor is cliche necessarily anything I described.

Or perhaps you are under the delusion that cliche is the same thing as bad writing?

You're confusing tropes and cliches.

Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means "stereotyped and trite." In other words, dull and uninteresting. We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. We are here to recognize tropes and play with them, not to make fun of them.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage

The line between not cliche and cliche is a very blurry line. Lots of the Tropes listed by TV Tropes are in fact cliche's. That's partially because the folk at TV Tropes have chosen to simply list everything they can rather than quibble over what is and isn't cliche.

This is of course that TV Tropes actually does not use the word trope correctly (they're definition, funny enough, is a definition for cliche, but cliche is taken as being more negative than it used to be). A trope is an actual figure of speech. It defines similes, metaphors, analogies, etc. Ideas/concepts are better defined as motifs if they want to avoid calling themselves TV cliche's, but TV Tropes is a catchier title

Lynata wrote:What's the reason behind that development, though? Isn't it true that the original meaning had a very, very limited range of application?

The original term did have a very limited application, but that's okay. Lots of words are highly specific. Defenestrate, for instance.

The problem is that there was already all kinds of words to describe one dimensional, over powered, power fantasy characters, there was no need to change the meaning of Mary Sue. People only started doing that because dressing up reviews or commentary with jargon makes it sound more authoritive, even when the jargon is being used incorrectly.

Not sure I can agree to that. If we were to follow this, we'd prolly still be stuck communicating with a series of growls.

Language evolves - together with its culture. It's just a fact of civilization. In just about every generation there are people trying to stem further development, even though every single word they use already is a corrupted version of something else. *shrugs* Why stop now?

You've ignored what I actually said though. I didn't say 'words should never change meaning', I said that when some words lose their original meaning, in order to be used to describe something that already has words describing it, then our ability to describe that thing has been diminished. That is, we should endeavour to maintain the original meaning where losing it would result in a less nuanced language, and therefore one less capable of communicating ideas.

So, for instance, once irony loses its original meaning there is no way of describing irony anymore. Instead we just get another synonym for coincidence, and the actual concept of irony is basically lost.


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Manchu wrote:If "Mary Sue" is only used for characters that are authorial self-insertions then it should be a term that is almost never used. I mean, how do you prove something like that without being personally familiar with the author? To show that a character is just the author's wish-fulfillment presumes knowledge of what the author's wishes are. So if we insist on using this very technical definition, the term will be of extremely limited use, like having a word for winning the lottery on the third Wednesday of April during a thunderstorm.

Lots of technical jargon has very limited use outside of its field. I think that's okay.

Along with others ITT, I think "Mary Sue" is more helpful if it is used to refer to a character that has no story-relevant flaws. Then again, I think the best thing is to say "that character has no story-relevant flaws" rather than saying "that character is a Mary Sue."

That's the thing. There's already plenty of ways to describe other kinds of over the top characters, and in almost all cases actually specifying what it is about those characters. A lot of people don't do this though, in part because they don't take the time to really think through what they're actually thinking, and in part because they haven't thought about it too much beyond 'I don't like that character, and want some jargon to make my opinion sound more considered than it really is'.


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Amaya wrote:Mary Sue being 15 and a half is a bit creepy.

The point is that the author is a 15 year old girl. 15 year old girls having fantasies about being sexually attractive aren't creepy.

So a well written fantasy take X to Y to save the day with nuance and plot and character development is in your opinion bad writing?

Excess of anything is bad, given you do not comprehend the risks involved in the excess. Because excess, not properly monitored promotes innacuracy and further excess.
That said, knowing that something is in excess (cliches, a 'flawless' character, a 'Mary Sue' (both versions)) can be mitigated by controlled usage of the rest of the experiment/literary techniques/film techniques. It requires Skill, practice and experience and monitoring the potential side effects down the line, with a likely leeching stage if or when the usage becomes no longer useful to the system.

Manchu wrote:If "Mary Sue" is only used for characters that are authorial self-insertions then it should be a term that is almost never used. I mean, how do you prove something like that without being personally familiar with the author? To show that a character is just the author's wish-fulfillment presumes knowledge of what the author's wishes are. So if we insist on using this very technical definition, the term will be of extremely limited use, like having a word for winning the lottery on the third Wednesday of April during a thunderstorm. Along with others ITT, I think "Mary Sue" is more helpful if it is used to refer to a character that has no story-relevant flaws. Then again, I think the best thing is to say "that character has no story-relevant flaws" rather than saying "that character is a Mary Sue."

Actually, some authorial self-insertions are fairly obvious. Generally, authorial self-insertion characters resemble normal people who have somehow come across vast amounts of power. They sometimes have story-relevant flaws, but usually just ones that people find endearing.