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

[tessabeth.livejournal.com]

*prods co-author*

*co-author rouses sleepily, displaying horrendous case of bed-head*

Wha'? Oh, no, not alone. And not only Sparrow.

Gloria darling, you're depressingly right, of course; canon Shaftoe wouldn't have a bar of it; besides which, he's obsessed with horrid icygirl Eliza. If I Mary-Sue at all, it's in the additional-to-canon parts of Shaftoe. Because Shaftoe's as straight as a die; we're warping him, there's no two ways about it. It can't be anything but non-canon; which *isn't*, at all, the same thing as out-of-character, of course. (She said, providing herself with a lovely Out.)

I think the thing that saves Shaftoe from total MS is that he's got so many wonderful faults. He's grubby, and he can't read, and he's got a terrible tendency to do frankly stupid things, thanks to the Imp; also, half the time, hello: his penis has been amputated*. He's a long way from perfect, in fact in real life he'd probably drive you insane; the point is, that *Sparrow* finds him perfect :)

Shaz, when you do get round to reading it, you're going to interpret real-Shaftoe in light of impofperversity-Shaftoe anyway; if you see anything out of character, you'll probably (being such a darling, and all) put that down a faux pas on the part of dear Mr Stephenson :)

*Oh, god, have just had hideous thought; perhaps this makes him an even more perfect recipient for self-projection. Shit, that one's worthy of therapy.

[geekmama.livejournal.com]

Shaz, when you do get round to reading it, you're going to interpret real-Shaftoe in light of impofperversity-Shaftoe anyway; if you see anything out of character, you'll probably (being such a darling, and all) put that down a faux pas on the part of dear Mr Stephenson :)

Oh, there's no doubt of it.

Plus there's no Jack Sparrow in it. So remiss of Stephenson.