don't sue mary-sue

Begun November 2007 when procrastinating for NaNo, fleshed out July 2008
Yes, I am over eighteen and I fanfic (read/occasionally write). Don’t sue me.

I also think you shouldn’t sue the Mary-Sue writers either.

Firstly, in their defence, a lot of them haven’t reached their teens, and most are probably innocent children living out their harmless fantasies. What little girl didn’t dream she was a princess, a popstar, a mermaid, a model or all four? I suppose in the past decade, the fashions have changed – it’s trendy to be a vampire, black hair is more beautiful than blonde hair, Draco Malfoy is the new Prince Charming…they’re not trying to write Pulitzer-material, they’re just experimenting. And I would rather have my kids experimenting with words than intravenous drugs. No matter how rubbishy their writing is, it’s not likely to hurt them when they revisit it several years later and realise how awful it was (on the contrary, they’re likely to laugh, if they have any kind of maturity.)

My second point, I feel, is far more pressing.

Why are we so quick to look at a character and scream, “PERFECT HAIR! MARY-SUE!” when we will happily swoon over bronze-haired, pale-skinned Adonises like Edward Cullen? Or if he’s not your taste, Gellert Grindelwald, with his golden hair and “merry” face (a la Dorian Grey, methinks). Or, if the psychopathic boys don’t tickle your fancy (and because good things come in threes), just watch any movie featuring Hugh Grant and you’ll eventually find a male Mary-Sue equivalent.

I know there is a term for male Mary-Sues. The “Gary-Stu”. But how often do we use this? In the Harry Potter fandom, for example (which I mostly inhabit), every female canon character, from Ginny Weasley to Cho Chang to Fleur Delacour, has been dubbed a Sue at one point. The evidence people use – Ginny gets all the boys, Cho wallows in angst (“wangts”), Fleur is pretty – can best be described as dodgy. But in all my years of fandom, I have never heard someone cry “Gary-Stu” at any male canon character. Why?

I think it’s a reflection on who reads and comments and forms opinions on fanfiction. It’s the girls. The girls who have grown to love the male canon characters and would lay down their lives for them, or alternatively, who would sink their nails into the hearts of any romantic competition. I did this once – I fancied myself Cho’s Chang younger sister, so that when Cho and Harry went out and inevitably broke up, I would snatch him for my own evil designs. Many girls are going to hate poor Ginny’s guts simply because she married the man in the end. I have heard tirades about Astoria Greengrass, who never even appears in the books – “Waaah! Stupid JKR just pulled a name out of thin air!” Well – sorry to bust your self-righteous bubbles, but I suspect you’re just mad that JKR didn’t pull your name out of thin air.

Moreover, it’s a fact of life that girls are going to be slightly more critical of their own kind than of another species. Particularly at a time when boyfriends are the latest must-have status items. (I’m allowed to say this – sadly, I’ve been there, and done that.)

It’s an animal instinct, jealousy.

The main difference I discovered between boys and girls in high school was that the girls could get jealous, competitive and just plain bitchy. Boys seem to have shorter, less malicious, fuses, which has always made them incredibly endearing creatures to me (and still does, even if I identify as queer these days). Tall Poppy Syndrome is more rampant among girls, most of whom are trying desperately to fit in with some crowd or another (Posh Tottys, Chavs, Emos, Geeks, you name it, yes I have seen St Trinian’s…)

Being the medical student I am, I managed to boil it down to biological terms.

Once upon a time, in the animal kingdom, women realised that if they got pregnant, their life would be put on hold for several months. They could only bear one offspring at a time, whereas men could father several at once. In Darwinian terms, “survival of the fittest” means that both men and women are trying to mate and produce the best genetic outcome possible by combining with a favourable partner. Now men can just go around, depositing their germ cells in several women, and hope that at least one of them will provide a good genetic “other half”. But women get only one chance, which makes them bitchy and competitive and willing to fight other girls for the chance to exchange genetic material with a top-quality man.

Well, in my hypothetical-primordial brain it makes sense.

Now, where were we? Mary-Sues? Well now that I have proved that it’s just animal instinct that makes us attack these female original characters, you now have 2 options. Firstly, we can be mature, overcome our animal instincts (because we’re humans, after all, and we have the capacity to), and refrain from abusing young, female creators of self-inserts. Secondly, we can go for consistency, and extend our web of hatred to include beautified Draco Malfoys, impossible male OCs (especially those in slash fics) and EDWARD CULLEN.

Anti-Twillight rant coming soon.