Please Let Me Keep My Sanity

(Or, “Why I Hate Mary Sues”.)

            Rules bend for her. Laws break for her. History alters itself to suit her. Universes twist themselves to fit her. Males everywhere grovel for her attention. Engaged males abandon their love for her. Females everywhere turn green with envy at the sight of her. Females that don’t become her very best friends. The vilest of vile villains shiver and whimper like babes at the mere mention of her name.

            She is beautiful beyond telling. Her talents extend beyond imagining. Her heart is made of pure gold. She embodies courage, compassion, motherly instincts, loyalty, honor, intelligence, wisdom, strength, dexterity, charisma, faith, hope, virtue, love, etc. In short, she is the gift of gods to mankind.

            Actually, she isn’t. She is a pain. And her name is Mary Sue.

I’ve wanted to pen an essay on Mary Sues forever. For one reason or another, I never get around to doing it. Now I do. Ph33r m3.

First off, let’s make this clear. I hate Mary Sues. Most people do. And, likewise, most people have created Mary Sues of their own, including me. Remember some of those horrible stories you jotted down when you were younger? Some really horrid ideas of, “what if I were in this show and the hero fell in love with little old me”?

Raise hand if looking back on those ideas doesn’t make you cringe. No, really, do raise your hand, so I can promptly cut it off to the elbow. It’ll be quick, I promise, and relatively painless. Why do I hate Mary Sues?

Why not?

Well, if I must give reasons…

Misguided Feminism

            “But she is a woman!” exclaims Boromir, a son of Gondor who all too often gets hit by the Misogynist Bastard role. “How can she journey with us? A woman belongs to the kitchen, and all she deserves to do is working like a slave for her husband!”

            The Warrior Sue puts her hands on her hips and lifts her chin, all self-righteous dignity. “Well then!” she cries, unsheathing an overlarge sword that is longer than she was tall. The question of her being able to wield it is, of course, not the point. “I challenge thee to a duel, for offending my Grrl Powerz!”

I’m female, and proud of it. Nevertheless, I am very much offended by all the male-bashing, heaves-the-misogyny-on-males that is so common in Suvian fanfiction. The authors who write them are shallow, and their idea of feminism is to scream, “All men are pigs! (Except, of course, their lust object.) We must rebel and make them see that Females Are Better!”

Idiots are equally distributed, I think, between the two genders. Not only males are stupid. In the case of these authors, I don’t think I need to say who is the idiot in question. Suvians often make the male characters they hate (usually Boromir or Gimli, and occasionally Aragorn or Gandalf) Misogynist Bastards. How many times have you seen this happen, Boromir crying almost exactly the exclamation above? I can say with good authority: too many times!

            Sue Silverstar eyes the dresses with distaste. “But I don’t want to be a lady!” whines she. “Why do I have to wear dresses, behave properly, and marry whoever daddy Aragorn wants me to?!”

What many authors need to realize is that not everyone, every culture, every era, is Politically Correct. Female physique is usually frailer than male. In older times, mortality rate was high, and women were encouraged to have as many babies as possible. So naturally they were kept out of harm’s way. Besides, you don’t need to whine and wail and scream that you don’t want to be a lady. If you think you can, run away from home to avoid pampering. Live alone in some caves. Go to somewhere else where you won’t be recognized. Without money, without comfort, without someone (read: parents) working their arses off to feed you. But keep in mind that Sue Silverstar, a princess pampered in king Elessar’s court all her fifteen years, isn’t going to last a second in the spider-filled Mirkwood.

You want a strong female character? Sure, why not? I’m all for a strong female character, when they are done right. Let me cite some examples: Mara of the Acoma in the Empire Trilogy (by Wurts and Feist). She is the daughter of a powerful house, whose father and brother are deceased. So, pressed with the circumstances, she leads her house, plays with politics, and eventually she ends up with her son as the emperor, and herself as Mistress of the Empire – the most powerful person in the whole kingdom.

And she never once lays a hand on a weapon. Never. Get that? If you are wondering, no, she does not have magical powers at her disposal. None.

Nor do the authors specifically bash males, even if the setting’s culture is based on the oriental where males have superior positions. Mara achieves what she does through wits, determination, and yes, feminine guiles. She is intelligent, inspires loyalty, and resourceful, although by no means perfect. She never has to shirk from wearing dresses, she never wails about how all men are sexist pigs, et al. If anything, she uses underestimation of her gender to her advantage: being a ladylike, seemingly frail woman is good. And as far as I’m concerned, Mara is one damn good character.

An author once told me that her (Sueish) character came with a “waah, waah, I don’t want to be a lady! They made me wear a dress! Waaah!” attitude because she was “trying to communicate how often many girls, like me, are pressured to "Sit up straight!" "Don't bite your nails!" "Shoulder's back!" "Don't use snuck or ain't!" we get from granmas and moms."

Stop.

Not all readers are of the age to relate to similar problems; some teenage girls don’t even consider it a problem. Moreover, consider these facts: if you are a medieval girl, your outlook and living style would not be the same as that of a girl from twenty-first century. There are also cultural differences. There are mental differences. Today, feminism and social equality are promoted; they were not in a medieval era. Why would someone who can live all her life in wealth and comfort want to go burrowing through an ancient tomb?

And, most important of all, your character is not you. Your character should be a character on her own, not an outlet for you to whine through.

And anyway, do you really want to be biting your nails when interviewing for a job? Having some resemblance of manners is not a bad thing.     

Absence of Realism: The Physical

            The Warrior Sue, with a sword that is longer than she is tall and twice as broad as her thigh, pounces with oh-so-stunning grace. She trades blows with Boromir, wielding the monstrously and impractically large weapon with only one hand, and scores many a hit. She then tackles Boromir, despite the fact that his sheer body mass should have made throwing her off quite easy. He, unfortunately, can’t, for he is under the influence of a Sue.

You don’t do that.

Especially when your pwetty heroine is a girl from twenty-first century, has never had any training, and has all the figure of a stick. (And if she has large breasts, it’ll obstruct.) Examine the following facts:

1. Gimli, Boromir, Aragorn, Legolas, et all, are fully grown adult males of their respective races. This gives them certain advantages over wittle girls who have never so much as picked up a sword in their lives. Like muscles, body mass, brute strength, and height (not for Gimli, but that’s not the point). All of these mean that they will beat up any modern Sue in a fistfight. As well, in a swordfight, greater height means greater reach.

2. Gimli is a dwarf with a really big, scary axe. Boromir has been a warrior for most of his life. Aragorn is old enough to be your grandfather, but has the body and vigor of a man in his prime. Legolas is at least five hundred years old. No matter how talented a beginner/novice/what-have-you you think you are, experience is not easily beaten. Go out and practice in the wilderness for a few decades, then you can come back and talk.

3. Fencing and real swordfight are not the same thing. In fencing, you acknowledge every hit and count scores. People don’t do that when they want to kill each other, and they will use anything to their advantage, such as environs and additional weapons; they don’t fight fair, and obey no rules. Therefore, even if you are trained in fencing from modern world, you won’t last very long in Middle-earth.

4. Real steel swords are heavy. Practicing with them will hurt your hands until you develop calluses, not to mention will make you feel like your arms are about to fall off. Scrawny teenage girls probably won’t be able to wield a long sword in one hand, never mind a bigger weapon. Plate armor is ultra heavy. You won’t be able to move around very easily wearing armor unless you are really used to it. Cut the sctick about your heroine “gracefully dancing a dance of death and slaying orcs by the scores”, please.

So if you are going to make your character a kickbehind fighter, do study reality first – or some critic is going to smack it in your face.

More to come. I have so many gripes with Mary Sue that the measly 1400 words here are hardly enough.