sophinisba: Gwen looking sexy from Merlin season 2 promo pics (Default)
Sophinisba Solis ([personal profile] sophinisba) wrote 2005-10-17 12:33 am (UTC)

How I love your long, meaty answers.

I think I get confused because I hear such different ideas as to what calling a character Mary Sue actually means. Teenage girls (or, for that matter, twenty-something grad students) magically transported to Middle Earth is not something it would occur to me to write, that kind of fic is not a danger. Then some people think any OFC who gets into a romance with a canon character is a Mary Sue. Again, this is not something I'm tempted to do. On the other hand, what about taking care of Frodo or Aragorn when they're sick or injured? Isn't this something many of us would like to do? If Mary Sue is a projection of the author onto a character, then can't an older woman in a motherly role be one too? What do you mean when you say, "she's very much not a Mary Sue"?

Some people say it's a character who is too similar to the author, and some people say it's a character who has all the wonderful powers and/or interesting history that the author lacks in real life. So if your writing an OFC, should you make an effort to make her very different from yourself? Is it a lost cause?

I appreciate your mentioning the bait and switch thing. Like I said, I haven't actually read any of these, so I wasn't aware that they sometimes sneak up on you like that. Though I can see how it could happen, without an author even really intending it too. She's writing a story about Aragorn, say, and she needs some character to come in and do something for the plot, and suddenly, hey, this girl seems really interesting (to her)! She has to tell her story! And it's easy to forget that no, her story is not likely to be as interesting to most of your readers.

I think Frodo as Mary Sue works. Yes, as readers and writers of course we like to identify with somebody in the story, and yes, for me that's usually Frodo (or Elijah or Casey, depending). Not that it would be a good idea to alter his character beyond recognition, but to make the emotional connection with him, yes.

And I like your idea of OCs who reflect or enhance canon characters, though I wonder if you could explain a little more what you mean by that. I've been meaning to do this post for a really long time. I'm enjoying the responses a lot.

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