Captain Jack "Mary Sue" Sparrow?

[dwgm]

The Mary Sue question is an interesting one. jenthegypsy, new to fanfic (what an adventure lies ahead!!), was asking me what a Mary Sue is, and, coincidentally, a member of little_details asked about the origin of the term. The term apparently dates back to a fanfic story in the Star Trek: The Original Series fandom, which actually had an OFC named Mary Sue. However, this site referenced in a comment in the little_details post has this to say...

She (or he) is created to serve one purpose: wish fulfilment. When a writer invents someone through whom he/she can have fantastic adventures and meet famous people (fictional or real), this character is a Mary Sue. (We don't have a name for the male version -- suggestions?

and that...

storytellers have been rehashing Mary Sue since the dawn of time....

By this definition, most any major canon character would be a Mary Sue, not just original characters. Think about it. Harry Potter? Frodo or Aragorn? And, most especially Jack Sparrow, and all the main characters of Pirates of the Caribbean.

Another referenced article in the little_details post has this to say about Mary Sue's characteristics...

She has better hair, better clothes, better weapons, better brains, better sex, and better karma than anyone else. Even next to the strong and interesting heroines of twentieth-century media and fiction, she stands out. She is singular; she is impossible to ignore.

Now replace "she" with "he", and you've got Jack Sparrow all over.

You could make a case that any main character in any story is a Mary Sue, unless he or she is a true antihero, with characteristics and adventures that serve as dire warnings rather than desirable examples. And who wants to read that, at least most of the time?

It doesn't seem to me that it's possible to write any character and fail to project one's experiences and philosophies through that character, canon or otherwise. And I don't think I am alone in wanting to read stories that are uplifting, and about people who are extraordinary, in one way or another. So it seems to me we're destined to be inundated with Mary Sues, as we have been since people started telling stories.

Comments

[wcspegasus.livejournal.com]

The easiest way, hands down, to tell if the character is a mary sue, is if you have to change basic canon facts to make her fit.

For example. Using an actual MS I once met in a fic. If the Hogwarts students are tormenting or being hostile to the MS and Dumbledore steps in to defend her.

This changes and mutates canon to make the MS character "special." Because how many times has Dumbledore left Harry (the feature character of the books) to deal with his torment alone. Heck, just read Chamber of Secrets and you'll understand that Dumbledore isn't about to step in like that for anyone.

Or the Mary Sues who become a 10th walker in Lord of the Rings. That's a basic canon fact that's actually referenced as being important in the book at least once (9 walkers against 9 nazgul).

That is the easiest way to tell if a character is just an OC (who is used to enhance the story and can be quite useful) or a MS (which undermines the very basics of canon and is actually detrimental to the plot).

And canon characters can be turned into sues as well. Any massive, inadequately explained change to a canon character makes them a Mary Sue. Yeah, I've read fics that were set in the future and where the canon characters were very different from how they are in the books. But backstory generally adequately covers that. I'm talking the characters who overnight become an almost completely different person, with no more explanation than...they felt like it...or something like that. Those characters are actually Sues, they just take on the name of a canon character to disguise the fact.

And if you think about it. Almost every other definition you see out there, fits under this one in some way.

Canon characters can be Mary Sues from their beginnings (Hermione has often been IDed as one and several of the characters in Clive Cussler's novels are Sues/Stus as well), but since they're part of the canon, they're acceptable.

The fact is, if you take the time to create your own canon, you can put any character you want into it. But if you're playing with someone else's canon, you'd better make your characters fit.

[geekmama.livejournal.com]

The fact is, if you take the time to create your own canon, you can put any character you want into it. But if you're playing with someone else's canon, you'd better make your characters fit.

I think you're right, as readers of fanfiction are THERE because of the canon characters, and an OC should enhance their story, not take the focus away from them.