Mary Sue

One of the most popular criticisms levelled against fantasy as a genre, particularly when written for young adults, is that it only constitutes escapism, and not in a good way. By engaging in such wild, erratic fancies, says this argument, readers are not merely trying to augment their imagination, but instead are engaged in active persuit of an implausible ideal: a world which, by virtue of its unattainability, cannot help but do them more harm than good. Confronted with stories about humble kitchen-boys who become powerful, world-saving magicians or princesses who ignore their royal duties in favour of working with dragons, for instance, the complaint is levelled at the ability of otherwise unremarkable characters to escape their pre-ordained destinies for something greater. Focus on reality! is the cry: fairytales are all well and good for teaching simple morality to little children, but they have no place in grown-up lives; and when you consider that magic is what ultimately enables the rags-to-riches transition, then even the message of striving to improve oneself is lost.

Sidenote: The fact that the youthful protagonists of such supposedly unrealistic stories are frequently chided about their ambitious, escapist ways by disapproving adults is an irony of which their real-world counterparts are presumably unaware. I find this both maddening and hilarious.

Now, as regular readers of this column – or, come to that, anyone who’s ever met me in person – can attest, I am both willing and able to riff on the theme of Defending Fantasy From Its Persecutors at length. Often. You would therefore be forgiven for thinking that I’m planning to do so now. But fear not! Instead, I’m here to enlighten you about something which, at a casual glance, might seem more a case in point for the above argument than my own well-established opinions, no matter how interesting I find it. Viz: the Mary Sue phenomenon, which is situated squarely in the realm of fan fiction.

For those of you who’ve never been so moved by a book, TV show, comic, game or film that you’ve sat down and tried to write your own story featuring that setting and those characters, plus possibly one or two of your own, this is what fanfic is. As with all things geeky, these writings can fall into any one of a number of subcategories, crossover and slash being two of the most prominent. Arguably, Mary Sue writing is another such category, but unlike either of its aforementioned siblings, it is not one to which most authors aspire – not deliberately, anyway. In fan fiction, a Mary Sue character is a particularly hollow one, most commonly female, who exists as a creature of wish-fulfilment: a way for the writer to insert themselves into whatever world is the subject of their narrative. As such, they tend to be impossibly beautiful, possessed of impressive luck and astonishing lineage, and – most importantly, despite their hollowness – are described as being innately wonderful, talented and charismatic individuals, even when their actions do nothing whatsoever to merit the praise. They are, in short, an exemplification of the worst fears of anti-escapist fantasy critics: real-life examples of people who, through the medium of magic, do not believe that accolades should be earned.

It has been argued that there are many examples of Mary Sue-ism outside of fan fiction: girls who rise to beauty, power and fame from humble beginnings in a series of improbable Cinderella stories. How improbably and how Sueish depends on your point of view. But when a writer is working with their own setting and protagonists, rather than borrowing someone else’s, I would contend that the primary characteristic of a Mary Sue – wishful boasting – is automatically absent. In a story where the poor peasant girl marries the prince, there is a certain narrative dictum that expects her to do so: in terms of realistic human interactions, she is undoubtably being ambitious, but as a character, she is not, because the author has already weighed her in the balance. Insert the same girl into (for instance) The Lord of the Rings with the intention that she replace Arwen as the love of Aragon’s life, and there’s an undeniable element of presumption – not just on behalf of the writer, but on behalf of the character, who is automatically swimming against the current. And if we, the reader, are asked to take her marvellous qualities at face value, rather than being shown them, then the affront grows ever greater.

The end point of fanfiction is one I can sympathise with: it’s a lot of fun, and when a particular story or set of characters grips you, there’s sometimes nothing else to be done with all your dreams and schemes than to write your own paeans, and all the better if there’s a like-minded community to share them with. But to my mind, there’s something more sad than frustrating about Sue characters – a wistfulness and wanting that, in the end, is fundamentally misplaced, not because there’s anything wrong with daydreaming about a charmed life, but because it pays to be self-aware as to which of our desires are plausible; which are difficult to attaint, but not impossible; and which are just fun to imagine. As the very best fantasy stories make clear, magic is neither a social nor a narrative panacea: like technology, it has limitations and tends to create new problems even as it sets about solving old ones. Tongue-in-cheek Suishness is fine, and from time to time, we all have fantasies about being impossibly wonderful and woefully misunderstood in our daily lives. But whether you live in Earth or realities unknown, life is never simple, and if you want an exceptional existence, then it’s something you’ll have to work for. Because ultimately, fantasy should encourage us to be imaginative in our desire for a better life – not give us a sense of false entitlement.

Image credits 1, 2