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.

JKR is my god. Or not.

"I had always seen Dumbledore as gay, but in a sense that's not a big deal. The book wasn't about Dumbledore being gay. It was just that from the outset obviously I knew he had this big, hidden secret, and that he flirted with the idea of exactly what Voldemort goes on to do, he flirted with the idea of racial domination, that he was going to subjugate the Muggles. So that was Dumbledore's big secret.

Why did did he flirt with that?" she asks. "He's an innately good man, what would make him do that. I didnt even think it through that way, it just seemed to come to me, I thought 'I know why he did it, he fell in love.' And whether they physically consummated this infatuation or not is not the issue. The issue is love. It's not about sex. So that's what I knew about Dumbledore. And it's relevant only in so much as he fell in love and was made an utter fool of by love. He lost his moral compass completely when he fell in love and I think subsequently became very mistrusting of his own judgment in those matters so became quite asexual. He led a celibate and bookish life."

Clearly some people didn't see it that way. How does she react to those who disagree with a homosexual character in a children's novel? "So what?" she retorts immediately "It is a very interesting question because I think homophobia is a fear of people loving, more than it is of the sexual act. There seems to be an innate distaste for the love involved, which I find absolutely extraordinary. There were people who thought, well why haven't we seen Dumbledore's angst about being gay?" Rowling is clearly amused by this and rightly so. "Where was that going to come in? And then the other thing was-and I had letters saying this-that, as a gay man, he would never be safe to teach in a school."

An air of incredulity descends on the room as if Rowling herself still can not believe this statement. She continues: "He's a very old single man. You have to ask: why is it so interesting? People have to examine their own attitudes. It's a shade of character. Is it the most important thing about him? No, it's Dumbledore for God's sake. There are 20 things that are relavant to the story before his sexuality." Bottom line then: he isn't a gay character; he's a character that just happens to be gay. Rowling concurs wholeheartedly.

I belong to the camp that doesn't mind that JKR isn't disclosing everything under the sun. I'm sure there are plenty of things that she never set down in concrete besides whether ADGG was consummated or not. Just like I suspect she never delved deep into Grindelwald's background. But just being completely realistic about things - two months, two teenage boys - it's not likely that they're going to keep their hands to themselves. Even if Gellert is slutting it up to manipulate Albus, I'm sure he's also doing it to vent some frustration...maybe I read too much into it...

Anyway, that's the way I've always seen ADGG. In a way, it mirrors the pattern of other relationships in the Potterverse. Like Harry/Ginny. Ginny was in love with Harry (just as Albus was in love with Gellert), then there's a cooling-off period when Ginny gets over him, then Harry, through adversity, slowly comes to realise that he's liked Ginny all along (Gellert reflects and realises Albus was the one for him) except in their case there isn't a happy ending. Okay it's a vast oversimplification...but hopefully you kind of get what I'm getting at?

There will ALWAYS be people who are unhappy with the announcement that Dumbledore was celibate, just as many people are unhappy with the fact that George married his twin's ex. Or that Harry and Ginny didn't choose creative names for their offspring. Or that Luna married someone whose grandfather was born in the 19th century. This is just how JKR has arranged her universe. We're just guests in it. I don't think it's our place to go and bitch about what she chooses to do with it - would you tell your grandma to invest in air freshener and a new sofa? I don't like some things about my grandma's house. But I either tolerate them, or leave for my own place - it would be really rude if I told her that her place smells and her furniture is tacky. It would be invalidating her position as mistress of her house.

JKR is not God. She has imperfections and shortcomings like any other writer. There will be holes in her universe like any other fantasy universe. But most of all, just like any human being, she carries stereotypes and assumptions in her head. And on the Grindeldore debate, I'm sure her publicist has gone through the fact that she can't win no matter what she says. If she says one thing, bigoted morons like the one in the Sun Herald in Sydney a few months ago will have a field day. If she says the other, then people like us, who are fighting for LGBTQ rights, will be enraged. I understand why she's keeping her mouth shut and trying to suspend judgment on it, and why she's done some of the things she has. I don't think many other writers in history have been pulled up and judged in the same way she has.

Harry Harry Harry

Put your hand up if you think the book that influenced me the most is Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone?

Sorry to tell you, but you're all wrong. Today I have chosen to talk about none other than Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. "The best of us must sometimes eat our words."

If you know me, you will know that Harry Potter is a fundamental part of my life. If you don't know me, you will know that I'm a raving Harry Potter fanatic. The first book of the bestselling Harry Potter series that I picked up was in fact the second, as my brother was the first to get his paws on Philosopher's Stone. Nevertheless, it proceeded to bridge my transition from late childhood into early adolescence, allowing me to become a part of their world, fall in love with the characters and better understand life as a young person. And after Harry Potter, I turned from a noisy little girl into a noisy fangirl.

Part of the appeal of Harry Potter is the fact that even in our modern world, a glorious magical community like JKR's could still exist. Rowling uses a combination of mundane settings such as the Dursleys' house to enhance the realism of the story, then contrasts these with a dreamlike world. The grand centrepiece of this is Hogwarts, the boarding school at which he spends more than ¾ of his year at. Its stone walls are a symbol for magic's brute strength, but the its constantly changing structure (think moving staircases, walking suits of armour and a poltergeist), mazes and secret passages hint at complexities lost to the naked eye. Real geographical places such as King's Cross Station are mingled with make-believe sites, such as the town of Hogsmeade, allowing us to suspend our disbelief and imagine that we are being welcomed into Harry's world.

Harry is a highly likeable character, being the scrawny, orphaned underdog who emerges triumphant in the end. His courage and loyalty, black hair and green eyes, as well as the fact that he made vision correction fashionable, immediately endeared me to him. Ron also struggles to make his own way, the last boy in a family of nine. I even pitied Draco, as in this book we meet his Luciferous father Lucius, who has moulded him. Not surprisingly however, it was the snotty, thick-haired, workaholic haunter-of-the-library Hermione who was my favourite, and will continue to be. In fact, I was later christened "Hermione" by my Latin class due to similar circumstances. Rowling crafts a character for everyone to cherish.

Each character plays an integral role in conveying significant themes. One most obvious in Chamber of Secrets is racism. Firstly, Harry is discriminated against by his uncle, who labels him "abnormal", and after this he watches Hermione be called a "filthy little mudblood" due to her muggle heritage. "It's a disgusting thing to call someone," said Ron. " It's ridiculous. Most wizards these days are half-blood anyway. If we hadn't married Muggles we'd've died out" Hermione is top of her grade, yet in the prejudiced eyes of the "pure-blooded" wizards, she is inferior. Harry, our hero, chooses to befriend people based on personality and merit, while the Dark Lord discriminates against anyone he feels threatened by (eg Harry). Other themes include the cruelty of slavery – Dobby the House Elf, and celebrities being not quite what they seem – Gilderoy Lockhart being an example of Mrs Weasley's quote, " Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain." Mr Weasley plays a satirical role – making us laugh at muggle reliance on technology – "Really? Were there escapators? How exactly…"

Not least, there are issues of growing up. All young people, even magical ones, strive for acceptance. Hormones begin to fly – Ginny sends Harry a valentine (which I have parodied relentlessly), Ron becomes protective of Hermione to the point of bringing misfortune upon himself, Hermione receives a get-well card from her teacher Lockhart and begins to sleep with it under her pillow and even the ghost Moaning Myrtle grows "fond" of Harry, inviting him to share her toilet. What about school? Harry and Ron disregard the school rules to the point that Dumbledore "would have to expel them if they broke any more rules". Homework and Quidditch distract Harry from his quest of the Chamber of Secrets, but overall, school strengthens him and prepares him for adulthood. Headmaster Dumbledore acts like a mentor to Harry, leaving us with memorable quotes such as "It is our choices...that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities," apt for a time when our lives revolve around shining above the rest.

At a time which I felt like an isolated geek, books were my escape; Hogwarts was a particularly glorious one. And even though I found out that according to Nearly Headless Nick's 500^th deathday being 1492, I calculated that today, Harry Potter would be 24 it didn't stop me obsessing over Dan Radcliffe, the fifteen-year-old-boy who gave him a human face. I don't know how much wisdom JKR has managed to impart to me, but I think someone could vouch that I've matured.

I did spend my eleventh birthday sitting at my window waiting for an owl to come in with my letter to the Australian version. Although I have grown out of my childish faith, the Harry Potter culture is a vital part of me. Whenever a new book or movie comes out, I always get hold of it on the first day, and dress up as well. The reason I knitted was to produce Hogwarts scarves. On the internet, I am one of a group of over thirty thousand people who spend their lives on RadNet, a forum-shrine to Dan. As a tribute to my hero JKR, every year I read each of the five books again. And now, there's a sixth HP book for me to read – Harrius Potter et Philosophi Lapis. Not to mention Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, due mid 05.

If there are any of you sitting in the audience who have never set their hands on a copy of Harry Potter, be it because of living under a rock, having been on Mars, nurturing a potent hatred of reading or a desire to keep away from remnants of the childish realm for the past seven years, I hope I have changed your mind. Because every Harry Potter novel contains the same ingredients as the first one I read, the second book in the series. Each of the five currently released books, and I am sure the sixth and seventh will similarly follow, are bursting with fantastic worlds, beasts, people and tales to be heard. And I'll leave you with one more quote today, not directly from the book but the movie…

Lucius Malfoy: Let us hope that Mr Potter will always be around to save the day.

Harry : Don’t worry. I will be.