The Mary Sue Has Been Everywhere

[riverfox]

Was taking a short break from finishing off Trilogy 13 and decided to start up my research/web page saving for Trilogy 14. Found this website:

The Field Guide to PotC Sues -- the Officlal Fanfiction of the Caribbean

Within this page is Magic!Sue:

Magic!Sue (marisuis hocus pocus) Not only is she fiercely independent and hauntingly beautiful, she has magical powers. She can read minds, have premonitions of the future, see into men's souls, control the winds, divine the history of objects, heal, shapeshift, summon sea creatures, speak the language of birds, or do something so totally outrageous (i.e. instant teleportation anywhere, bringing back the dead, brainwashing people to be her loyal zombie slaves) that it leads one to question what the author has been inhaling. Regardless of plausibility, she uses her powers to help Jack/ Barbossa/Davy Jones and wins their respect, admiration, and love by committing feats of superhuman spiffiness. She often has a vague but supposedly significant destiny that unseen forces are guiding her towards. This destiny doesn’t generally get fleshed out, but is good for the occasional occult, suspenseful moment. Often the technical terms for the abilities she has are mixed up or incorrectly used.   Her weakness is collapsing and fainting, because using her powers requires so much exertion and strength that whenever she does something major she nearly dies and needs to be nursed back to health.

I found this interesting because of my writing up of the SG-1 universe's Tuatha de Danann.  Myth says they were magical and over time, they've become the Fay.  In Trilogy 13, they're who the Asgard mistakenly named Furling/Ferling.  So I took the magical aspect and ran wild with it.  The most powerful fay is Morrighan, who is Queen of the Tuatha de Danann (whom I've renamed as Lia Fail, since Tuatha is Gaelic and that language hadn't arrived in Ireland during the time of the Tuatha.)

I found this website amusing and intriguing.  I asked myself if my new OC is a Mary Sue.  Queen Morrighan is all powerful, has not been shown to have flaws or defects (so far, in this, their intro chapter of the trinity universe).  She is queen of the Lia Fail b/c of her immense powers.  Her culture is matriarchal with the leader of the people selected by heart, duty, loyalty, and most importantly, the most magical power.  My insistence on creating this all-powerful character is b/c I wanted magical fay and b/c I wanted all powerful beings who help the humans without going all Prime Directive on our asses.  I love my fantasy and the more fantasy, the better.

So again, I'm asking, is Morrighan a Mary Sue?  She's immensely tall at 6'6", has brown-auburn hair, rainbow eyes (yes, I know), is telekinetic, telepathic, teleportic, shape-shifting, all sorts of other good fantasy stuff.  She can kill someone with a thought, if she felt like doing so.  She doesn't have a problem with killing.  She has a bad temper.  She's also overly generous, highly curious, assertive, etc., etc.  I know she's over the top (as are her people), but I just love having a fantasy creature who kicks butt.  I don't *want* to call her a Mary Sue, and by the standards above in that paragraph for Magic!Sue, she isn't one.  BUT I've given her omnipotent status.  So... At what point does my OC become what others consider a Mary Sue?  When does anyone's?

Comments

[discodiva76]

I have very little experience of Mary Sue characters as they tend to not feature as much in the J/D stories that I read......I think when it comes to an alien life form and other worldly creature you can have a little leeway for "super dooper power"...and what you have described there is perfectly acceptable for a kick-ass OC as part of a continuing storyline....


The worst I have read recently - or rather skimmed through parts thanks to links and other readers of other ships in my fandom recc'ing - is a REALLY glaringly obvious MS OC in the SG1 fandom who is sooooo obviously a carbon copy of the writer herself living out her "happy ever after" fantasy of married & working life with DJ inc her tragic background & genius PhD, which is just unbelievable beyond words..well what I could read before having to give up.....


Trust me, what you have described above is nowhere near anything like that....

xoxoxoxo

[riverfox]

Thanks. (hugs)

Hmmm, now I have to play "guess the Mary Sue writer". LOL

[freyasboy]

Yes, me too!

Chris xx

[ivorygates]

I want to read that. [Unless I wrote it: that's always a possibility...]

[ivorygates]

A Mary Sue must SUFFER. This is required. She must be abused, misunderstood, maligned, and disparaged [also frequently deprived of food: I do not even begin to know what's going on in the zeitgeist there] before people discover they have been OH SO WRONG ABOUT HER WONDERFUL SELF and dissolve into large puddles of self-hating guilt. Whereupon she forgives them with her trademark noble humility and/or nurses them back to health. [This comes after her own tragic brush with death, in which everyone else gathers at her bedside to mourn the passing of such radiant perfectness and youth.]

It is also very important that she have ties to the canonical characters. Whether she's Spock's adoptive sister or Jack O'Neill's goddaughter or simply The Only Woman Who Could Ever Make Daniel Jackson Forget Sha're, she's tightly bonded into canon and interacts frequently with the canonical characters, all of whom either love her, are in love with her, or unworthily despise her. It goes without saying that she's a genius philanthropist prodigy with dark secrets, psionic powers, and sektrit ninja warfighting skillz. [She is often seen with a cute alien animal pet, or at least a wolf she's raised from a cub.]

Your OC doesn't have silver hair? I'm shocked and saddened.... ;)

[discodiva76]

*snerks*....."The Only Woman That Could Make Michael Shanks Daniel Jackson Happy".....oh yes ideedy ...seen a few of those...


Oh and a Genius Baby/Perfect Adopted Alien Child Prodigy helps too sometimes!!!


:P :P :P

[ivorygates]

Now I want an alien Mary Sue to knock up Daniel so they have hordes of perfect assbabies together...

*snerk*

[riverfox]

*laughs self sick*

[ivorygates]

*serene*

[riverfox]

*runs screaming*

[riverfox]

*gg* No, her husband does. *clears throat* But he's also chief healer, not warrior. ;)

From what you've just described, I think I'd have to spork myself if I ever wrote an OC like that. I have, on occasion, had my main OC do the self-pity thing, but it never lasts long because Jack and Daniel won't allow it.

I think my "sin" is in constantly creating (or wanting to create) "superheroes". All they lack are silly names. *facepalm peek*

[ivorygates]

And superheroic characters are FINE! After all, aren't all our boys (and girls) of the SGC smarter than the average bear? And that, IMHO, doesn't make a Sue. A Sue is a character who is obsessively the focus of a story and who allows the author by proxy to passively-aggressively extort the reader's attention and sympathy. No extortion, no Sue.

I think you're good, there, Sundance. And please point me toward this when you're done: I, er, may have a soft spot for SG1/Fae mashups...

[riverfox]

*whew* One of my OCs, who's in a relationship trio with J/D, may have had a little too much focus during the first series I'd written for him and Daniel, but I like to excuse it as character building. ;)

*beams* Here's hoping I don't disappoint you there, Cassidy. ;)

[ivorygates]

I excuse a lot of things by saying they're character building, me... ;)

I doubt you could write a disappointing fic. Honest.

[riverfox]

Aw shucks, ma'am. :)

Trilogy 13 Magick & Mayhem is now in beta testing. ;)

[ivorygates]

*GLEE!*