Mary Stu and Marty Sue

This is the latest in our ongoing roundtable on Mary Sues. So far Tom has written a kick-ass essay about Michael Corleone as a Mary Sue. And Miriam has an essay which I talk about below.
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In her effort to define Mary Sues Miriam argues that the point is not author insertion:

Mary Sues happen when the author becomes concerned with making her protagonist likable to readers. Symptoms include overcompetence, unearthly beauty, and other characters taking time out to admire the protagonist’s awesomeness. I don’t think a Mary Sue has to be the author’s self-insertion in the sense that Mary has anything in common with the author, and if the test is “created with likability too much in mind, to the point where the opposite results”, that covers Snapper Sues just as easily.

In other words, it’s not about putting yourself in the story so much as it is about overweening affection: “Don’t love your characters too much!” as Miriam quotes Leigh Dragoon as saying.

I think Mary Sue is often about love, in one way or another. A good example is Dorothy Sayres’ Lord Peter Wimsey. I mentioned him before as a possible Mary Sue; in various of his tedious adventures, he manifests an unlikely ability at cricket, at bell-ringing, and lord knows at what else. one Phil Jimenez Wonder Woman story, but it was about as Mary Sueish as it could be. The whole comic was, literally, a puff-piece feature story about how great Wonder Woman is. It’s a pretty lousy idea for a narrative, in my opinion …but part of what even makes it tolerable, I think, is the glee with which Jimenez, who is gay, plays with the idea of thinking of Wonder Woman as a gay man, or of himself as Wonder Woman, or of both at once. He dresses her up in fabulous clothes, for example; he makes her bitchy and funny; he has her actually banter (i.e. flirt) with other gay men. There’s a real love for the character there, and the gender slippage, the tension between loving her as an object of desire and loving her as an aspiration or ideal self, is part of what gives that love a texture and a weight. In short, there’s something singular, or queer about Jimenez’s Wonder Woman which makes her (within limits) enjoyable to read. (As opposed to the WW in League of One, who has no discernible personality except for her allegiance to her equally boring league comrades and her quest for self-purity via the-lasso-that-has-nothing-to-do-with-bondage.)

One more for instance might be Kyoko Okazaki’s manga, Helter Skelter. In our roundtable on the manga, I expressed a good deal of animosity towards the detective character, Asada, who gets to figure everything out and has some special and unearned connection with the main character Ririko. Thinking about it some more, it seems like Asada might be considered a Mary Sue; Okazaki seems to have a weird, overweening interest in his well-being. But what exactly is her investment in him? Is he supposed to be an object of desire? Of envy? And what would she envy him for, anyway?

One possible answer is…she might find him appealing because of his connection to Ririko — a connection which is, in various senses, perverse. Asada admires Ririko for the fact that her face doesn’t fit her bone structure; she’s fake. His recognition of her fakeness gives the two their unexplained and creepy connection; they seem to have been together in a past life, or to have shared feathers, or something. In my earlier posts I tended to interpret this as a stalking scenario…but thinking about it again, it seems like it could also be a metaphor, or a glance, at a gay relationship. Ririko — the out of control diva with a terrible secret involving the falsity of her appearance — could certainly scan as gay or transvestite — and the secret’s fascination for Asada, provoking a submerged connection, is suggestive as well. Okazaki does have explicit gay content in the manga; there’s a lesbian relationship which is treated with a combination of voyeuristic excitement and moralistic contempt. Given the gay themes, and the anxiety around them, it doesn’t seem impossible that part of Asada’s Marty Sue status, part of why he gets favorable treatment, is that he’s a fantasy means for lesbian and/or straight women to imagine themselves as gay men desiring a beautiful androgyne of indeterminate gender.

If that sounds far-fetched…well, it’s a fair thumbnail description of the gender dynamics of yaoi — or of slash-fiction, one of the Mary Sues’ natural habitat. For a particularly vivid example, you could try this fan fic by Vom Marlowe. It’s called “Girl Yoji” and it’s about a male assassin who turns into a girl and then has lots of sex with his male partner, who he has long loved. Did I mention that he’s pregnant with the other assassin’s child? It’s written by a woman, primarily for other women who enjoy a fun fetish story about imagining they’re men turning into women. The line between wanting to be someone and wanting to be with them is crossed, recrossed, blurred, and gleefully bounced upon; indeed, violating that line seems to be much of the point of the story.

And I think it may be part of the point of the Mary Sue as well. “Don’t love your characters too much!” sounds like good advice…but the persistence of Sues in canon and out, and their popularity with both authors and readers suggests that loving too much is one of the things we have fiction for. And, often, the “too much” is not just a quantitative excess, but a qualitative one. It’s a way to try on different patterns of desire — envy, lust, gay, straight — that you usually have to keep separate in real life. The appeal of Mary Sue, in other words, is that she is a love you can wear like drag.

Update: Kinukitty says leave me alone about the Mary Sues already; Bill concurs; but I won’t shut up about Mary Sue and loooooooove.

0 thoughts on “Mary Stu and Marty Sue

  1. Those are some interesting points there. I’m going to have to read this over again.

    As to the dragness of Ririko in Helter Skelter, there’s at least one line to support your opinion. When she goes on some youth tv show, the host says (not an exact quote, but close): “Normally only drag queens look this good!” Unlike a drag queen she’s a woman, but that’s about it for difference.

    HS is a bitchy work and an exercise in high style (when it’s not simply bizarre and mystifying), and normally terms like that get stuck on gay men. Take that for what it’s worth.

    Going by the one photo I’ve seen of Okazaki, the one that Bill posted, she has the most elaborately styled eyebrows of anyone I’ve ever seen, including Leonard Nimoy in costume. They’re blazingly strange and attention-grabbing; as far as I can tell, she built them up to offset her nose, which is long and a bit wick-like. I don’t know if the effort counts as camp, but it would seem to have a lot in common.

  2. I’d forgotten about that drag queen comment. Good memory.

    Do you have a link to that picture?

  3. When you define Mary Sue this way, it seems to be a near-universal aspect of fiction. You could argue that Homer’s Odysseus was a Mary Sue.

    I think one thing that can make a Mary Sue tolerable is having the snarky side-kick. This character’s main purpose is to mock the Mary Sue and bring them down a bit from their perfect pedestal. Batman’s Alfred, in his better incarnations, often played this role. One of the reasons that Superman often comes across as intolerably perfect is that he lacks this type of supporting character: both Jimmy and Lois are too in love with Superman to mock him.

  4. The pic’s in the first Okazaki post. I think it would be more flattering in color.

    For contrast, here’s a pic of her mom looking very self-satisfied while receiving her daughter’s award. Note the eyebrows, closer to what I'd expect from a Japanese beautician. (I was talking to a friend today who gets her tattooed on, which is neither here nor there.)

    Good call on the drag & the camp– HS is bitchy high style, but I never could bring myself to read it as camp. It seems to swing around tonally too much.

  5. I think Odysseus as Mary Sue (or Virgil as Mary Sue) both work pretty darn well, actually.

    Thanks for the link Bill; I must admit that I failed to study the eyebrows in that pic sufficiently closely….

  6. “I never could bring myself to read it as camp. It seems to swing around tonally too much.”

    Yeah, at first I thought it was going to be sort of All About Eve-ish, not the plot, just the backstage bitchiness, but after a while … well, we’ve all been over this ground.

    “(I was talking to a friend today who gets her tattooed on, which is neither here nor there.)”

    Is the friend Japanese? if so, maybe Okazaki isn’t as outre as I thought. On seeing her picture and reading HS, I thought her eyebrows were out to destabilize conventional notions of beauty, etc.

  7. I’m loving this series! Every post is stronger than the last. Good job, guys.

    I’m still not convinced that idealization = Mary Sue, especially in those cases where the creator adores the idealized. Take Twilight: the Mary Sue isn't the idealized hero Edward, it's the simpering heroine Bella. Bella's function is wish-fulfillment, & Edward is the author's wish.

    Similarly, in most fan-fic, the wish is to hang out with Cptn. Kirk (or whomever). And generally the plot arc is for Kirk to fall in love with (or, in het fiction, to admire as a peer) the Mary Sue. For Jiminez's story to have a Mary Sue, it would need WW's gay best friend.

    But authorial identification is only part of Mary Sues. In a work like The Odyssey, Homer focuses on Odysseus, sure, but he gives other characters POVs into account (Penelope, Telemachus, the swineherd). Authors create a Mary Sue when the other characters & the entire story only exists in relation to that protagonist. They over-identify with the protagonist, to the exclusion of other POVs.

    I really think that when we define Mary Sue so widely as to catch any idealized character, rather than as an intrusively obvious authorial surrogate, the critical term loses its meaning & power.

  8. I might argue with you…but your praise has disarmed me. Glad you’re enjoying the series!

  9. Oh, and it’s not Virgil as Mary Sue, but Aeneas. Duh.

    He said “Aeneas.” Huh huh.

  10. "when we define Mary Sue so widely as to catch any idealized character, rather than as an intrusively obvious authorial surrogate, the critical term loses its meaning & power."

    The "intrusively obvious" standard is a bit subjective. What's obvious to one reader might not be obvious to another, especially when it comes to guessing the author's intent. Not that I have anything against subjectivity in reading. I'm just firming up my position that Michael Corleone is a Mary Sue because he strikes me as being Mario Puzo's idealized dream self.

    Of course Noah is arguing in a different direction. I just wanted to butt in.

  11. I’m not sure I buy Orlando as Mary Sue…

    What about Dante in the Inferno. What a Mary Sue!

  12. I'm a critic in my day job (theater), so I'm usually subjective in my analysis. I also work with playwrights to shape & refine their plays, the way a comics editor does with writers & artists.

    So part of what I like about Mary Sue as a critical term is its pejorative application. I can say, “Homer, Telemachus is too much of a Mary Sue. It’s like you wish you were the hero’s son, helping Odysseus defeat the suitors! Can you give the character some depth?”

  13. You make a living as a critic? More power to you, sir. Who do you write for?

    I can see where the “Mary Sue” as simple pejorative would be useful in that case. On the other hand…I think it’s also true that shorthand insults like that can often in criticism elide sloppy thinking (“show don’t tell” for example, is much less universally applicable than people like to think.) Basically, you can have a Mary Sue that works for lots of different reasons. Which means that its worth thinking through what the character is and why she is used in a non-pejorative way.

  14. Aaron,

    It seems to me that Penelope and Telemakus function to adore Odysseus. It’s a more sophisticated adoration than some authors might do, but Penelope carefully undoes the work of her hands each night in order to save herself for her real husband because he is Just. That. Awesome. And Telemakus is the son every good father should have (from a certain cultural perspective).

    Noah,
    I think Mary Sues often get a bad rap. This was a fun essay.

  15. I write for Metromix New York, but I wouldn't call it a living. Lots of extra freelance assignments, plus a loving spouse with a law degree, helps put food in my mouth. I'll see where my career goes when we plan to have kids…

    The way I'd use "Mary Sue" would be as shorthand for a specific problem with the storytelling. Obviously I have to be respectful & delicate when talking with any writer. In this case, I'd use examples of why the character doesn't work (show, don't tell, right?) & offer suggestions on what might improve the character.

    Even in my reviewing, I try to be constructive. But the form is directed to a potential audience as well as the artists. So negative descriptors, like "Al Pacino chewed the scenery in Godfather 3" or "Telemachus is simply a Mary Sue character," can be useful. (VM: you're right, of course. I don't actually think Telemachus is a Mary Sue, I'm just picking on Homer & Pacino because they can take it.)

    I'm trying to avoid semantics, since we have different definitions. So in the spirit of friendly debate, I'll ask you, Noah, how is your definition of "Mary Sue" useful for a critic, as more than a label for a type of character?

  16. “Even in my reviewing, I try to be constructive.”

    Not me! Insult ’em all and let God sort ’em out, that’s my motto.

    I think this roundtable suggests some ways in which it can be a useful concept. It led Tom to write probably the best essay I’ve ever seen on the Godfather (not that I’ve read that many, but still,) and thinking about it helped me understand Helter Skelter and Wonder Woman and Girl Yoji in some ways I hadn’t thought about before, as well as make a bunch of other connections which I found entertaining and/or enlightening.

    Hey VM! It’s good to hear from you! Glad you liked the essay.

  17. Aaron Strange is not Aaron White, who sometimes goofs up and posts as Ann Loraine, his fiance.

  18. If Lord Peter Whimsey is a Mary Sue, it’s not really a problem, now is it? Lord Peter Whimsey sold pretty well back in the day and has been made into at least one TV series. It’s prbably true that the books are boring, but enough people find the character likeable to buy the stuff anyway.

    To each his own. Who cares about made-up people, anyway?

  19. “Who cares about made-up people, anyway?”

    …says the anonymous internet construct….