Explaining The Cursed Mary Sue

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 1^st 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.