A lot of authors write mary sues. Mary sues was a term which
first became popular in the fan fiction world. If you wanted to attend
Hogwarts, but knew that was impossible outside of a book, you could write a fan
fiction where a new student attends Hogwarts, and this character sounds a bit
like you, expect prettier, and attracts all the hot guys at Hogwarts without
lifting a finger. A lot of people have accused Stephanie Meyer’s “Bella” of
being a mary sue, and she probably is. Bella isn’t super attractive, or super
talented, or has anything really special about her. She is described, to a
painful extreme, as plain and clumsy. Yet, this perfect guy, Edward Cullen,
seems to be very attracted and in love with her. If that wasn’t enough, another
hot guy, Jacob, also seems to be totally in love with her. Heck, they start a
supernatural love triangle and war over her. It’s a perfect example of wish
fulfillment. What teenage girl wouldn’t want this to happen? I’m not talking
about the 18 and over set; I’m talking about the 14 and over set. However, I
don’t blame older women if they don’t kind of think it sounds kind of cool. If
grown men can look at magazines of beautiful women and think to themselves, if
only I had five minutes with Emma Watson, I could impress her, then women are
allowed to have a bit of fantasy too.
However,
the problem is writing whole novels and works around a mary sue can become a
bit much. People see right through that hot, young guy or girl with magical
powers who’s perfect, or that really plain guy or girl who happens to attract
the hottest guy or girl around. It might make for a bestseller, but people do
grow tired of people who write wish fulfillment. To an extent, all fantasy
novels are wish fulfillment. Harry Potter and Twilight are both wish
fulfillment, as are other countless clone books. However, how do you make sure
you aren’t writing just wish fulfillment, and are focusing on stories that are
good stories. Just because you wish it doesn’t equal a good story.
Mary sues aren’t
new. You can say they’ve been around for a long time. Scout from “To Kill A
Mockingbird” is obviously Harper Lee; Paul from Hunter S. Thompson’s novel, “The
Rum Dairy” is obviously Hunter S. Thompson. Kilgore Trout from Kurt Vonnegut’s
books is obviously Kurt Vonnegut. However, the thing that is a bit different
from today’s mary sues from mary sues of the past is that they aren’t just
autobiographical. They are close to perfect. They are a perfect version of the author
or the audience, and if they aren’t perfect, they sure as heck attract the
perfect guy or girl despite that.
There are
different kinds of mary sues. Sometimes the mary sues is the author and other
times it’s the audience. Penny, in “The Big Bang Theory” isn’t only the love
interest across the hall. She is the audience surrogate. She represents the
audience’s flustered reaction to the world of nerds and science she, along with
the audience, is encountering. On the
other hand, Leonard represents the nerdy people watching the Big Bang Theory,
making him a male Bella in a way. Despite him not automatically winning Penny,
he does over time win her over, representing a mary sue-ish fantasy for many
nerds in the audience. Last guys finish last, and it’s worth waiting for,
according the laws of the CBS sitcom, The Big Bang Theory. Harry Potter was a
big success because of his role as an audience surrogate. He’s every boy, and
is new to this wizading world he has never encountered before. He, along with the books audience, is
discovering and peeling away the secret world of wizards in training. Now, this
does start to fade with later books, as he becomes more used to that world, and
becomes less the audience and more his own character.
Early Harry
Potter has a lot in common with “every boy” Cory Matthews from “Boy Meets
World”. One of the reason the show has become a smash in syndication long after
it probably should of gone the way of many hit 90s sitcoms, and be remembered
by a select few but mostly forgotten. Creator Michael Jacobs was smart to make
Cory Matthews such an audience surrogate that we feel like we are Cory
Matthews. He isn’t a totally developed character, but the audience feels like
they are in his shoes.
However, if
we are looking for a character in the Harry Potter books that is a pure Mary
Sue, that character is obviously Hermione Granger, whom J.K. Rowling says
openly is based on herself as a little girl, except better. While not
breathtaking and beautiful in the books, like her movie counterpart is in Emma
Watson, the character is a brilliant person. She gets great grades, raising her
hand for everything. She’s sort of like Tracy Flick, from the novel and movie,
“Election” but she isn’t nuts. She is insecure, sure, but she’s also got what
it takes to be at the top of her class.
Being only a half-blood, she is half muggle. That gives her even more to
prove. J.K. Rowling is kind of a half blood herself, as you can argue as the
creator of the universe, she is half wizard. So, Hermione Granger really is
J.K. Rowling’s alter ego.
In a way,
the alter ego is mary sue. Mary sues have a shelf life, though. People started
to get sick of Bella as Twilight went on, as she never developed out of her mary sue shoes. People want to see their characters evolve from mary sues into
their own. Mary sues tend to work better on TV shows, because the format is 22
minutes and also they usually will stop around 200 plus episodes. People get
sick of reading thousands of pages of a character obviously fulfilling the
fantasies of the author. That’s why there is a rather big backlash after
everyone started to analyze Twilight.
Mary sues,
though, work better in young adult literature than in adult literature. Adults
are more likely to want to read a good piece of literature, or if not that,
simply a good page-turner. Kids want to step into the shoes of those
characters. That’s why an adult novel can be written about a kid but a kid
novel can never be written about an adult. With the exception of romance
literature, which is often mary sue central for the author and the reader. Ever
look at the back cover of a romance novel? Most romance novelists are nerdy
people who write great looking characters and want to be held in the arms of a
great looking guy. That also doubles as an audience surrogate. There are two kinds of mary sues in romance
literature. The kind that is a better looking heroin or hero getting together
or simply a person like the reader and the writer, a nerd who somehow wins the
heart of the supermodel.
Some rules
of mary sues are as follow. Mary sues have to be fiction. If you are going to
write a memoir, you need to be honest. No making up anything about yourself. Hugh
Grant, for example, has played mary sues of the screenwriter Richard Curtis.
“Notting Hill” is a great example of mary sue. The Hugh Grant character is
obviously the screenwriter, who imagines he scoring a movie star.
Mary sue is a new term but not a new idea. A lot of people
write for the sake of living in the shoes of someone with their qualities,
except a little better. A lot of fictional character resemble their creators
but they have something a bit better about them or they are exactly like their
creators but somehow score a perfect mate, than you are probably reading a mary sue character. Some ways of identifying a mary sue includes the book being in 1st
person. A lot of mary sues are at the movies, actually. A lot of screenwriters
are nerds typing away an action hero at their laptops, imaging themselves as
the heroes, and finally, if the book is titled “The Nerd and The Showgirl”, you
should probably know this romance paperback is a mary sue.
