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

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

It's definitely a very fine line. I can't imagine writing from the point of view (3rd or 1st person) of a character with whom I couldn't sympathise. And I don't think -- apart from the whole Slash Question -- that we're warping Shaftoe or Sparrow unreasonably. bwa ha ha ha ha. I think I'd define Mary-Sueing as when the character has become more like the writer than like the original canon person -- that's completely off the cuff, though.

And as for More, please?: am just about to head back to the laptop and edit chapter 41 ...

[geekmama.livejournal.com]

...am just about to head back to the laptop and edit chapter 41 ...

*rubs hands together gleefully*

Happy Saturday, indeed!

Hope all is well over there in Merrie Olde. It's been cold (for us) and raining here again, a couple of inches--the pool's clear up to the top! Saves on the water bill, of course.