the Sue in the Mary Sue

[lobelia321]

Some of you will be aware that I have a fondness for the Mary Sue. I do not mean by this the kind of Mary Sue that is an ideal, pretty, popular, constantly victorious projection of the author's misguided ego (e.g. JKR's Harry Potter -- for me the Mary Sue par excellence). No, I mean a different kind of Mary Sue, and to differentiate between the two kinds I will call 'my' Mary Sue simply Sue.

So what do I like about the Sue, and how did I identify her to begin with?
I first became aware of the importance of the Sue (for me) when writing a long and abortive Dom/Karl fic at a time of difficult psychological depression. I poured a lot of my own emotional troubles at this time into that fic, and I thought I was pouring them into the Dom-character. Two betas separately pointed out that the fic felt wrong, and it was because I had misidentified my Sue. I was actually pouring my emotions into Karl, and the fic would have worked much better if I had noticed that early on and switched to Karl pov.

For me (and I don't know if that's the same for anyone else), the Sue is the character who is my libidinally cathected site in this particular fic. (Die Sue ist für mich libidinös besetzt.) To explain: Libido is Sigmund Freud's term for the sexual drive which is also the life-creating drive (as opposed to the death-drive: eros vs thanatos). Cathexis is Freud's term for the libido's charge of energy. A cathected site or a cathected object is a love-object, an object or person that is invested with strong libidinal energies. So for me, the Sue-character is the one I invest most of my psychic energy in. I could say that the Sue is the character I 'identify' with most, but that would be simplifying the quite complex interactions I have with my Sues. And anyway, it still begs the question how 'identifying with' someone actually works in practice. Especially if that someone is nothing but a collection of words in a piece of fiction.

Now, I personally tend to have rather passive Sues. This is why I am talking about Sues as opposed to Mary Sues. My Sues are not at all glamorous, successful or beautiful. They tend to be odd-looking, let life pass them by, miss opportunities, wallow in guilt or repressive activities. I have to spur them into action. I have to take great care to round them out. This is why I find it crucial to identify my Sue early on: so that I can take the care required, so that I can 'know myself' and thus know my characters better, so that I can refine the Sue-character's interactions with the other characters.

In slash, characters tend to come in pairs. So there tends to be the choice between an A and a B for Sue. I find that my Sue tends to be the character who needs most pov-sections of text. Sometimes I mistake my Sue for the one whom I desire most, the good-looking one, the sex-object, the one whose physical appearance and habits in bed I swoon over. But that is not the Sue! That is the man desired by the Sue! So to me it's one indication: if I find myself thinking a lot about A's appearance and ways of moving and shape of penis, and if I have to force myself to think about B in these terms: then B is almost certain to be my Sue in that fic.

For me, it does not work if I force my way into a non-Sue. If I take the sexy guy and make him the exclusive focaliser, through whose viewpoint we see nearly all of the action: then something will go awry quite soon. If I stick with the true Sue and make him my main focaliser / pov-character, the prose tends to flow. By the time I came to write my present HP-fic, I was alert to the issue and figured out fairly early that my Sue was not at all Harry (as I had expected) but most overwhelmingly Draco. This helped the whole plot fall into place.

I've learned quite a bit about myself through careful attendance to my Sues. I've discovered that I go for passive Sues, and that's made me realise something about myself irl. It's partly to do with myself often feeling controlled by life and not in control of it. It also has to do with my sexual inclinations veering more towards the sub of the spectrum rather than the dom. And it also significantly has to do with the way I can control my fictional characters. Making a character very passive and at the mercy of outer forces can almost be a form of character-torture. So there's an interesting split between me-as-my-Sue and me-as-author. Because the author, of course, is never passive and controls every aspect of the fic, including all of the characters.

Anyway, this is why I love the Sue. I find it endlessly fascinating and illuminating to speculate and think about who my Sue might be and how the whole Sue-thing works, what fictional ploys to use to get around thorny issues, what weaknesses to uncover and correct and what strengths to exploit.

Comments

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

This is all very interesting and i need to think more about my own Sues, because I'm sure I have them. I absolutely relate to the passive nature of the Sue, although my passive characters shift about - at least in lotrips. Passive, reflective, self-contained. My Sues are like spacemen or deep-sea divers, watching the world from inside their goldfish-bowl helmets.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

See childeproof's interesting point below about how we might invest ourselves in a 'bad' or 'hopeless' or 'pathetic' character in the hope of being emdlessly forgiven. There's something to that but I've yet to think exactly what it is.

[noblerot.livejournal.com]

Die Sue ist für mich libidinös besetzt.

Great essay. Doesn't every fictional text require a Sue/cathected site, unless it's an experiment in narrative omniscience? It seems to me that the primary difference between a Sue and a Mary Sue comes in the latter's rejection of its identity -- it denies its role as the writer's avatar.

[cleverthylacine]

Sues can be a lot of fun. I wrote one on purpose but it was so revealing I only let friends read it.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I heartily approve of on-purpose Sueishness.

*grins fiendishly*

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

The relationship to narrative omniscience (or zero focalisation, to use the technical term) is a thorny one. I have yet to write a sustained narrative omniscient fic, and perhaps that's why I can't do it: I need the investment to sustain a long fic. I can do it only in short or crack!fics: in experiments, as you say yourself above. So I don't know: but perhaps it happens there, anyway, and is contained in a different way through the stylistic device?? I love the idea of an avatar! And you are so right: as soon as something is consciously reflected and thought about, it becomes, to me, palatable. It's the mindlessness of run-of-the-mill Mary Sues that quite possibly makes them Mary Sues to begin with.

from d_s

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

My Sues are not at all glamorous, successful or beautiful. They tend to be odd-looking, let life pass them by, miss opportunities, wallow in guilt or repressive activities.

i always was for including those kinds of mary-sues in the ff discussions; they seem less obvious than the heroic original characters writers invent, but i actually see them more often. i see them in people writing snape or snarry, in remus/sirius fics, and always thought that rl pains and troubles and most of all personalities made up most of the fanon characters.

Re: from d_s

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what you mean by ff discussions: discussions on ff.net?? And your point about Snape and Snarry etc. is extremely interesting! I suppose my point was that letting rl intrude into fic is not a bad thing, and it's the reality of real authors' pains and troubles (as you call them so nicely) that adds to the credibility of the fictional characters. I think. It's also what drives me in writing.

2nd time (typo)

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

sorry, i meant "fan fiction", not that net.
i agree, not a bad thing - as long as you realise what you are doing yourself, methinks! and it seems that in all discussions of mary sues what you termed "sue" is ignored, both the bad (overdone whining, melodrama, lack of realism) and the good (real emotions etc.). as you said, without an impuls to express what is in you, your writing might have much depth.

don't you agree that snape and snarry are especially prone to show "the author's pains and troubles"? :)

Re: 2nd time (typo)

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I don't know! I don't read enough Snape and Snarry! Well, a bit of Snape but mostly in weird pairings like with Neville. But what you describe is very, very recognisable to me from lotrps fandom. Nobody projected their own troubles and woes into, say, John Noble but whoa, those tormented Elijahs....!!

omg, draco in the office .. *shudder* or poor boy?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

bwahaha, i can so imagine the tormented elijahs! i read some lotr before it came to that, when it was mostly elf/man or man/hobbit sex.


i don't read snarry at all these days (unless i beta it) for just that reason. i don't even discuss it, because to put highbrow academic angles onto such sues is ridiculous to me - not the sues as such, just transforming motives and pretending falsehoods.

Re: omg, draco in the office .. *shudder* or poor boy?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Mackenzie!Draco is teh hot! Yes, by all means, shudder but make it a shudder of lust!

[zoepaleologa.livejournal.com]

There is a difference between the original character based on oneself, with flaws "warts and all", and Mary Sue. Yes, I know Mary Sue is about self-insertion, but there are good and bad Sues. Let's call the good ones Marianne Susannahs, to distinguish them.

There is an irritating tendency in the Potter fandom to brand all OFC's Mary Sue, regardless of how well drawn they are. Shippers are particularly prone to these sort of attacks. Me, I've read shipfics that range from outstanding, down to okay, right down to utterly abysmal. I've seen canon characters (most commonly Hermione) be Sue-ified, too. For my own part, the writing quality is always going to be a great deal more important than whether or not an original character is Mary Sue. And I'd also argue that if the fic writer finds the male Canon character she is writing about sexually attractive then in that respect however well drawn, the OFC will be a Sue.

Sue-ness does not matter, really. Attack bad writing - it needs attacking more - and bad writing will embrace all that is odious in Sueness, too.

[msilverstar]

Almost all the OFC fic I read is very Sue, not Susannah, and it's boring. Even the best-written ones are lack the distance that writing an existing character / person usually brings. Sigh.

[zoepaleologa.livejournal.com]

Almost all the OFC fic I read is very Sue, not Susannah, and it's boring

I agree, but I was trying obviously to demonstrate what the writer of OFC's can aspire to.

[cleverthylacine]

My main OFC (who is paired with Snape) is very unlike me, and doesn't think like me at all. If there is a character in my main WiP who is a Sue/Stu, it's probably Dylan Mulciber, but given his popularity among normally sane people, I don't think so.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I think you misunderstand me slightly. I'm not ranting about or attacking the Sue; I'm trying to analyse the way it works (for me -- it's very interesting to me to read how it works for others).

I know what you mean about characters, warts and all, being based upon oneself but that is not quite what I mean, either. E.g., I didn't base Karl on myself nor did I base Draco on myself -- in the case of canon characters, it's quite obviously difficult to 'base' them on oneself but even in the case of some of the origfic I've devised in the past, I didn't 'base' any character on myself (least of all the one I now, in retrospect, identify as having been my Sue -- a man, of course; I rarely Sue women; slasher-to-the-core, that I am).

I didn't mean by Sue a character 'based' upon myself. For me, it's more of a realisation that comes after I've created my characters and start moving them about in a plot and in interaction with each other. I will find that one of the characters is more strongly cathected for me than the others. It's a discovery not a conscious plan.

[msilverstar]

I find your analysis always fascinating. I do, because of how i'm approaching fanfic, write out some of my issues. I learn something about myself when I do that.

But I like the other-ness of RPS very much, partly because I enjoy accounting for the complexities of human behavior (e.g. Billy in Manolo shoes). I loved writing in Elijah's voice in Volcano partly because it was so not-me It's even more fun in RPGs where other people have reactions you don't expect and it's easier to let creativity go and let the character evolve in interesting ways. I have an Edwardian aesthete Orlando who's a bit of a bastard, and that's so much fun.

Rambly here, sorry.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I absolutely empathise when you say you learn something about yourself when writing. I know I do. Or I know I have done with some fics (not with all, some are just little pleasantries). And of course you are completely right about the not-me. It has occurred to me that I nearly always have a man for a Sue (for want of a better term); it's the difference that spices up my relationship to the character but it's also the difference that fuels my psychic investment in that character and somehow makes the whole writing process so exciting.

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

I think this is exactly right. Because it wasn't very long ago, I remember perfectly starting to write my first RPS and having no particular pull towards any of the characters, choosing a pairing more or less at random, and choosing the character through whom I was going to focalise more or less at random, too. But over the course of the next couple of fics, Sean Bean-as-Northern-Sue had emerged and was becoming my libidinally-cathected site at a rate of knots. But part of the issue, as I think you say implicitly, is that you cannot focalise through the character you desire most without losing a great deal of the erotic charge that comes from describing someone externally.

I realise retrospectively that I chose to focalise 'Boiling Point' through Sean Bean rather than Viggo because I fancied Viggo more, and wanted to be able to include lingering accounts of his juicy toothsomeness, in a way that would be difficult -- though admittedly funny -- if it were a Viggo POV, eg. 'He looked in the mirror and noted his general air of rugged manliness, his toned torso' etc etc. (Not that people don't do this, but it is the essence of badfic.) Whereas it is entirely appropriate for a lust-befuddled Sean to orgasm quietly over the look of Viggo's ass in the distance.

Isn't this in general one of the most NB things about the Sue?

However, it then got more complex than that, and now Sean is the psychic centre for me of that dyad. It would be ridiculous to suggest that he is me in even the most superficial sense, but his bad temper, intermittent self-loathing and pessimism are qualities in which, shall we say, I am 'invested'. And Viggo is now the wanky wish-fulfilment half of the pairing, with his endless capacity for understanding and general niceness. There should be a term, equivalent to the Mary Sue, for a stock character who fulfils all our desires to be endlessly forgiven our bad behaviour... Sort of Counsellor!Sue.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Absolutely!

I love you. This is exactly what I was getting at. And the thing about the being-endlessly-forgiven: I think you are absolutely onto something there. There is so much that is not known (or perhaps I just don't know it) about the psychology involved in writing. I find it fascinating how that works. I realised that it is a dimension that is missing in current litcrit theory etc. when I was doing my narratological analysis: there is endless stuff on how to analyse what's written but the author is taboo: authorship is dead, conjectures about intentionality are moot. It's not even if I disagree with these things but it is interesting to turn the table and to look at the writing not from the point of view of the finished text (author = quite morte) but from the point of view of that author and from the point of view of process not product (process of writing, that is; I know that everybody these days agrees that *reading* is a process).

I can also completely empathise with your description of how cathexes can change during writing. And you've pinpointed something that I felt uneasy about when penning this post: it's not that I am invested in *one* character to the exclusion of others. It's a difference in type, kind and emphasis. As you describe so acutely vis-a-vis your Viggo/Sean dynamic.

outside?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_inbetween_/]

stealing some moments to read throught the threads i noticed i left out your pov-point, even though - when you discuss it like this - it is closest to my heart. lately i did not enjoy fics much as only one person was described and looked at (but i won't go into "the look/gaze" here).

when i write i want both people to be seen, and to see each other, which might be the best proof i have of never writing anything close to a sue, mary sue or susannah. what i hate(d) most about some romance novels i attempted to read again was that he was doing everything, she was not even doing any touching. i came to slash to find something else. i have no problem shifting perspectives and keeping both men in view, showing attraction going both ways, and i would like to see more of that vis-a-vis dynamic.

Re: outside?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Sorry, you misunderstand me. What I precisely do not want to suggest is that identifying your Sue means giving up on the other characters. For me, it has meant exactly the opposite. In cases where I mis-identified the Sue it led to mis-characterisation of all characters concerned, the whole dynamics went wonky. Now that I've got a bit better at discovering early whom exactly I'm channeling or cathecting, I find that this also makes crawling into the other characters' heads easier. It adds that edge that I need. When I crawl into Dudley's head it's almost a trespassing, it's exciting -- because he's the non-Sue, he's the one the Sue-character desires so it's fascinating to find out what he's like inside. Irl that never happens, of course. We lust after someone but we never get to crawl into their head. That's what I love about writing.

No, writing is, in Bakthin's words, dialogic and poly- hm, I forget what term he uses there, poly-something but to do with having a multitude of voices (he's talking about the novel). I cleave to that. If you only get one pov, it diminishes fictional life.

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

I'm most interested in the Sue-notions above. Do you think that one's Sue might change, even over the course of a longish episodic fic? I know my attitude to my viewpoint character can change while I'm working on a fic. My ability to think from within a potential Sue varies continually while I'm writing fic that includes that character -- whether as POV, lust-object, panting lust-er, whatever. And some characters just have more interesting (to me -- therefore, possibly 'more shallow') POVs.

Am waffling. Bath. Bed.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely. As I was just saying to childeproof above, I have been feeling uneasy about writing about the Sue-character as if it were the only libidinally invested person in a fic while writing. It isn't, and investments in different characters do change during the writing process (they certainly do for me), and maybe it's not even ultimately that useful to think about this in terms of Sue at all but perhaps there are different kinds of Sue, Sue1, Sue2 -- and I just don't have a term for them.

[judas-iscariot.livejournal.com]

You bring up a very interesting concept to consider while writing.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Thank you. It is a subject of endless fascination to me.

[maralily.livejournal.com]

Technically all fictional characters (and the RPS versions of 'real people') are "Mary Sues." All of them. Male or female, it doesn't matter. Writers always put aspects of themselves, glamorised selves and debased selves in characters, regardless of what they are writing.

I personally hate the term Mary Sue because in fan fiction, if you place any original female character in a story, you get people that call it a Mary Sue. There are many stories, usually written by teenagers that involve the wonderful flawless girl with long flowing hair and everything about her is perfect, and she is a Mary Sue. However, look at popular fiction and film; Arwen is the ultimate perfect chick. So is Eowyn. They were flawless. If they were written by a woman in fan fiction, they would be called Mary Sues. So would Scarlet O'Hara, Ophelia, and every pretty female in any fairy tale ever written. Pick any fictional heroine who is attractive (most of them) and imagine them written by a fan fiction author- bam, there's your Mary Sue. Usually, the male characters are just as pumped up perfect and moreso than the OFCs are, but no one calls them Mary Sues because they have a name you recognize and a penis. That's about it.

Whereas Mary Sue used to mean an obvious and shallow self insertion into a story, with little regard to character development, it seems to me that it has evolved into simply meaning Original Female Character. I think that thinking of it this way is a weird form of misogyny (sp?) that female writers and readers have begun to accept as normal. I've even gotten emails from readers saying, "I love your story, but you shouldn't put any girls in it." It creeps me out. I don't know if this is as rampant in Harry Potter fandom, but in LOTR it is freaky.

It would be interesting to write a story with an OC as a love interest for (insert cfandom character here) and write two identical versions, only one has a female and the other has a male. See how many praise the male version and how many complain about the female version. I bet the results would scare the hell out of people.

[ex-ms-katoni171.livejournal.com]

I agree 100%! As the creator of some OFCs, all of whom are dear to my heart, I have had the odd person call them Mary Sue. I have had many more say they're wonderful.

Maybe they're based on aspects of me. Maybe they're at least partly self-insertions and wish fulfilment. Maybe they take too much attention from the Trio. Maybe.

But they're far from shallow and two-dimensional, and in no way are they flawless. In no way could you call them perfect. And, shock! horror! people actually seem to like them!

About time someone pointed out that attractive OFC does not automatically mean Mary Sue.

[altairi.livejournal.com]

Well, if you really think of it, Hermione in the Potterverse is a good example for a Mary Sue. So what if she's bad at divinations? Everyone knows that Mary Sues have to be given at least one flaw so they don't seem that perfect.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I actually think that in the Potterverse (canon), it's Harry who's the Mary Sue. Hermione is the obvious candidate, perhaps the one JKR wanted to be the perfect girl. But JKR's true Mary Sue is Harry Potter, no doubt about it. Always forgiven, always victorious, tormented but loved, and doesn't even have to make much of an effort.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Usually, the male characters are just as pumped up perfect and moreso than the OFCs are, but no one calls them Mary Sues because they have a name you recognize and a penis.
*laughs*

I view this with a bit of outside detachment. You say that this kind of thing was rampant in lotr but it's not at all rampant in lotrps where it's mostly the pretty boys who tend to suck up all Mary-Sueishness. OFCs are very rare in lotrps but there are hundreds of girly Elijahs.

Also, you are totally right about the perfect-boy thing! Slash men are beautiful, perfectly groomed, cook divine meals, burst into tears at the slightest provocation... *giggles* Well, many of the lotrps one do, anyway. Hey, who cares -- can't get a man to cook for you irl? Invent one and stick him in a fic and make him fuck Orlando for afters.