The fic I've resumed poking at still isn't writing itself fast enough

[elspethdixon]

I’m torn between gleeful squee at how glorious the Real Ghostbusters fic I unearthed from the internet graveyard yesterday is (when I can convince my brain that RGB Peter Venkmen isn’t Bill Murray, because when my brain reverts to the standard movie-visuals I internalized in childhood, some very, very Wrong mental images result), and irritation at my octopus James Bond fic, which is now over 5,000 words long and should be well into the hot threesome sex or, y’know, finished. I blame this on Felix, who has started to manifest deep angsty issues of his own, in addition to not seeming all that sexually interested in anything other than his hotrod. You have James Bond in your bedroom, Leiter. Why is he not naked yet? It’s not like he isn’t incredibly easy. Stop mixing drinks and being awkward and start ripping clothing off! You can snark about James’s massive issues after you and Honey Ryder have had your wicked ways with him.

For fun, I’ve also been wasting time running various fictional characters through the Mary Sue-ometer. Hannibal Sefton scored a 28. January and Shaw got 33s. Clarissa Harlowe got a 58. And Gerald Tarrant, angsty bishonen of Coldfire Trilogy fame, scored a massive 124 (this on a scale where “70” puts you in the top category of “irredeemable Sue”).

Hmmm… too bad there was no box to check for “character is a serial killer,” or “character is the only survivor of his family because he murdered them all,” or I think Tarrant’s score would be a bit lower. Damien, conversely, only scored a 31, “Borderline Sue,” which I think might be a bit low.

Edward and Vera are both Borderline Sues, apparently, and Reed and Anne are full-blown Sues. I wonder if intentional over-the-topness counts.

Comments

[bbathory.livejournal.com]

It'd be interesting to run more fantasy characters through and see how they score. Like Harry Potter. Or, well, any of your epic fantasy protagonists (c'mon, there's usually the unusual birth, being adopted...skip a few years, then the responsibility of saving the world that's usually kicked off by the death of a close friend, which involves lots of angst and selflessness...). Or see how different cowboys from traditional westerns rate. Seems like we tend to enjoy larger-than-life heroes, even though it often pushes the boundaries of probability.

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

Well, James Bond scored the 45 of a full-blown Sue, but since he's pretty-much universally acknowledged to be Ian Flemming's Mary Sue, that should surprise no one. I think Bond manages to be an interesting and sympathetic Sue instead of an annoying one because a) not only did Ian Flemming wish he was James Bond, so does the entire rest of the male population, b) he actually has character flaws, and c) he blows stuff up.

I haven't run any Western characters through yet, but I'm betting Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp rack up a pretty high score, too, despite being actual, historical people. T.E. Lawrence certainly did (according to the test, he was a full-blown Mary Sue, and history needed to re-write him to avoid making WWI in the Middle-eastern theater annoying to its readers). Which begs the question, can a real person be acurately declared "larger than life?"

[bbathory.livejournal.com]

I found it interesting that the litmus test you used was a more...lenient version than the one I found. I think what distinguishes a Mary Sue from other characters is the writing, not necessarily the exploits. I don't read or watch James Bond, so I can't vouch for its quality or lack thereof, but looking at your criteria...the typical Mary Sue writer wants to do the stuff the character does (such as, say, go to Hogwarts and have half the male population fall for her), and they get to do magic. I suppose Mary Sues have a few flaws (like split ends, maybe).

I wonder, now, if there isn't a gender component to the phenomenom. You said that "not only did Ian Flemming wish he was James Bond, so does the entire rest of the male population." To go back to the HP MS example, many a fangirl would like to go to the HP verse. So why is it OK for 007 to have his exploits, but not her? I wonder if any of it has to do with the fact that the fandom is predominently female and we tend to be harsher on other women...?

As to western characters, I actually had in mind fictitious ones--the John Wayne type. And it's a genre I'm out of my league in, but the characters do seem to have epic adventures--for example, one of my mom's favorite westerns by Don Bendell features a character who manages to survive a grizzly attack and drags himself across a desert with two broken legs. Pretty amazing. I'm not familiar with Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp to judge if they're MSs (and I'm from Kansas, too!).

[elspethdixon.livejournal.com]

I wonder, now, if there isn't a gender component to the phenomenom... To go back to the HP MS example, many a fangirl would like to go to the HP verse. So why is it OK for 007 to have his exploits, but not her? I wonder if any of it has to do with the fact that the fandom is predominently female and we tend to be harsher on other women...?

I’m not sure it’s entirely fair to compare an HP OFC with Bond, since he gets away with a lot of things that would be slammed in fanfic by virtue of being the hero of his own series (HP-verse’s Bond-equivalent would be Harry, who has his own galaxy of Sue-like traits, starting with the angstily-murdered parents and portent-of-doom facial scar and moving on from there), but I agree that readers are often harder on female characters—both canon characters and OCs—than they are on male ones. Look at all the ranting about Ginny and Hermione that went around after OotP and HBP came out. Look at the disproportionately high female-to-male ratio among the characters listed at canonsues. For some reason, we’re automatically suspicious of female characters in a way we don’t apply to male ones. Because an unrealistic female character is more likely to ring false to another women than a character of a different gender is? Because of societal pressures against women? Because women are conditioned to turn upon one another like rabid weasels where men are involved? (might explain the disproportionate amounts of hate that canon female love interests often get—they, and all romantic OFCs, are competition for the men of our fantasies).

Clint Eastwood’s “Man With No Name” Western hero didn’t score as Sue-ish at all (hard to have a past full of overdone angst when you’re a nameless figure of mystery), despite possessing aggressively cool action hero abilities, which makes me wonder if male heroes might not need a different test than female ones. Some stereotypically Sue-ish traits are far more likely to be feminine traits (more evidence of tougher standards for female characters?), while things like “can the character withstand ridiculous amounts of physical punishment before killing his tormentor with his bare hands” rarely show up on MS tests despite being just as unlikely as “hair like a dream of cornsilk.”

Female Sues tend to be defined passively, by what they are (half fairy/half unicorn princess, victim of massive abuse, so beautiful it’s a curse, &ct.) while male wish-fulfillment characters get less physical descriptions and fashion accessories and more aggressively cool fighting abilities – they break the reality curve by what they do.

[seanchai.livejournal.com]

Edward and Vera are both Borderline Sues, apparently, and Reed and Anne are full-blown Sues. I wonder if intentional over-the-topness counts.

Depends- I think the intentional melodrama of the storyline helps balance things out a bit.

And I'm surprise Damien scored that low- he's such a drama queen, you'd think that he'd be higher.