Totally disagree. Frodo doesn't fail. The ring overtakes him. Gollum destroying the ring for Frodo is a perfect example of other characters doing all the work. But nobody celebrates Gollum in Elrond afterwards. Frodo can't even get himself home. He needs the Eagles to do it. The whole thing with Frodo leaving in the end felt more like an afterthought than anything of real consequence.
I agree a bit about the ending, but I think the book did that part of the story better than the movie. In the book, it was made clear that Frodo could find no rest in Middle Earth, and that the quest had taken away his ability to find peace. I think maybe we're seeing Mary Sues a bit differently from each other. I am not sure that a Mary Sue needs other people's help. In fact, they usually take on every necessary talent and skill without much effort and always win the day ...which is what can make them not believable. (Return to the original Mary Sue in Star Trek for that model.) I think what we give Frodo credit for is his effort, which was massive—and his success was never assured. Nothing came easily to him, which it usually does to a Mary Sue. Maybe we're working with differing definitions of Mary Sue-ness.
You know what 123, I think me and you could have a really great conversation about The Lord of the Rings -But not in this thread. In the future, I plan on doing a Blog series on Lord of the Rings in terms of Story Structure. I would love to converse and debate you on it when the time comes as I think it would be one of the best in-depth conversations I've had on the subject, but not in this thread. This thread is about Mary-Sues, and I don't to go too far off on a tangent.
Okay let me pose this question to you. What if the character is forced to rely on others in an incident and they don't like it but grit through it. Internally they are embarrassed, annoyed, feel inadequate? It makes for resistance and meets the obstacle requirement.
So with my comment on its usually women, I see getting this kind of hate. I kind of feel a little justified in my opinion earlier. No one ever want to really look at the offending male characters. And they always defend the. Like Doctor Who, Blatant Marty Stu but everyone dismisses it because it's a great and a well-written show and its silly in nature so everything can be forgiven. (Not knocking Doctor Who, recently added myself as a new fan )
You're damned if you depicted them average or above-average. Excuse the language but you're fucked as a writer in the first place and point I'd say just write the damn character and move on with the plot. Parden me :/ Anyway so I see how literary agents hate beautiful characters and love average characters and then I see people the shame average character. Sounds like the beauty standard in real life. Some people don't care about looks and well others won't look at a person unless they're attractive. Fanfiction.net has reader inserts go check them out. I had some friends post there when I was a kid. I love that series though. I have the entire set on my shelf. lol So to me it just sounds like normal hit and miss with reader marketing.
Wasn't George Lucas a self-insert in Star Wars as Luke Skywalker? Some of the best stuff out there that I have personally read has some kind of author insertion though. I bet all of my favorite fantasy novels where self-inserts from table top games. lol Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, those kinds of things. Jannert mentioned wish fulfillment. Isn't writing a type of wish fulfillment in the first place? The wish that we can share our idea's? If you look at my original post that definition would make my character an MS. I'm fulfilling a need to explain stuff in my life and understand them through my writing, while entertaining, teaching, and using fantasy, role-playing instances, or original idea's in my work. Drawing off of my life or friends for examples, because we write what we know best. ETA: What about god characters in your books? How do you tackle that? I'm using Gods as some of my characters.
Ahh, for me she had MS traits from the first book but didn't hit peak MS until three. All her struggles were superficial and largely in her head - she thought she was ugly but was actually stunningly beautiful (classic Mary Sue), and although she felt out of place at least three of the 'tribes' she met wanted to adopt her permanently. All the real conflict in her life was dealt with in books 1&2. Anybody who disliked her was a Bad Character who got their come-uppance. She single-handedly invented medical stitches; the sewing needle; the domestication of cats, dogs, and horses; making fire from flint, and probably a whole lot of other stuff - I didn't finish the whole series. She was the only human on the entire planet to have worked out that sex resulted in babies. Men constantly fell in love with her and women were jealous of her. She had no flaws to speak of. She was even the only one with a vagina deep enough to accommodate What's His Name's massive dong.
This is very interesting. Actually, I totally agree. I also still agree with my initial statements. I think in the context of the mankind vs Sauron conflict, Frodo is still a Mary Sue, for all the reasons I already gave. But you're totally right that an additional conflict exists in this story where Frodo is not a Mary Sue. I haven't read the books in quite a while, but I'm not sure how much his failure to control the ring is really played into the remainder of the story. As OJB argued, Frodo does sort of exile himself, so there's that...
My problem with that definition of Mary Sue is that it feels a little too subjective to me. One person can say, "that character is too perfect," and another could disagree because of such and such subjective trait, or some reason for the trait, etc. Also, a lot of those type of characters are really just poorly written. I define a Mary Sue as a character that has been preordained to succeed in something very important. Usually, these characters are "chosen ones" and almost always, other characters explain to them the situation, and then enable the Mary Sue to "complete" the task. Obviously there are multiple new definitions of Mary Sue, this is just mine.
Real people feel this way though. It has a lot to do with self-confidence and personal interactions. I see a lot of beautiful girls who think and feel this way. They get used for sex at parties and everything is superficial. They hate themselves inside and out from poor confidence/self-esteem. Some of these people or flat and have no personality, even stupid in some regards, others have a lot they don't share with people. They often wonder why men leave them when the men they hook up with are only interested in one thing a quick night. These people tend to feel damned for trying to find the "one" and crash through relationships if any. Yeah, I'm sorry Disney is doing this for me and my husband currently.
A mover would probably resist this and it would become part of the central conflict. This is why I think non Sues are fundamentally more interesting. Their flaws and weaknesses aren't just part of the costume, they have distinct effects on the entire story.
Have you ever read Dr. Who? TV & movies are an entirely different beast than books. No. LS is a western version of a Japanese kid, and very badly constructed at that.
How many of you. Insert yourself in all of your characters shoes and play them out by being a different person in order to get a different aspect of a pov? Kind of like Acting whether in your head or out loud?
I definitely have to side with this kind of definition of a Mary Sue. While a Sue doesn't have to be quite so utterly and universally skilled or successful to preclude the need for anyone else in the plot, they definitely have the tendency that way; the kind of character who the reader feels like could just solve everything themselves even if another character is doing it. I think the presumption of success is part of being a Sue too; or at least it characterizes the kind of fiction they are a part of. Not metatexual presumption of success either; just by being the protagonist of a book we pretty much presume they are going to win in the end or at least achieve something. You definitely can't say that any character who gets a happy ending is a Sue. But there definitely is a kind of fiction where it's there isn't really a sense of peril within the text, where it's all just "the super-cool stories of my sexy character that is super awesome you guys". And I really would say that a book needs to be quite that dire to really become a Sue. Like I said earlier; action heros are always going to win and we know that. But we still like those stories because it's about the journey and the spectacle. Obviously Arnie wins by dick-punching and one-liner. Sometimes I find it hard to talk to people who don't watch professional wrestling. There's a kind of fan who watches wrestling called 'smarks' (as in smart marks) who know that it's all a fiction and are into the backstage stuff and all kinds of weird meta stuff. But why would you watch it if you know it's all a con? Because you like seeing it done well. You want to get into it, you want to cheer, you want to be part of the crowd. And that's the same for almost all fiction. We know that the hero will almost certainly win. And that's ok. Because, most of the time, we are just there to see how the hero wins. We're there to see a book that's done well, that makes you believe that it'll take you somewhere else. And if a book does that; if it presents you with the sense that the story could go anywhere then I find it hard to believe that the character is a Sue. Because if there feels like there is a real sense of danger, a real sense that this character could fail, then how are they the perfect swiss army knife Sue? They might not be a good character, but they aren't a Sue if the text itself makes you believe they could fail. For me, every character is a part of me. Different parts with different emphasis but they all come from me. They are all author inserts because I'm always thinking how would I react to that, what feels real to me. That's all I can do with anything I write. That's the problem with accusations of 'author insert' characters. Because good characters need to share something with you. Even if no-one else does, you should see the you in every character. That's the only way to make good characters. They have to have the spark of life. I think a better term for what typically get's labelled 'author insert' would be 'wish fulfillment'. We should never be asking if the character is a bit too much like the author (although I will admit that can be a symptom of bad writing) I think we should be asking if the author is trying to act out a specific fantasy of themselves in their work. That's when a work stops being a book and starts being a pseudo-sexual fetish item for them and that's interesting psychologically but not good fiction.
To me, one of the best examples of self-indulgent author self-insertion Is Star Trek: The Next Generation's Wesley Crusher, created by Eugene Wesley Roddenberry.
I have heard Gene himself was a massive asshole. I think it's better to let his work speak for him. As for Wesley; if we let his work speak for him then we would merely find another way to get to the conclusion that he is a bubbling fondue of awful. There is nothing less charming than a precocious child.
Whenever I watch TNG, I always pretend Picard is nice to Wesley because he's not sure if Wesley is actually his child of not. Everyone else is nice to him because they don't want to piss off Picard. None of his relationships with the bridge crew actually make any sense, but everyone seems to like him. Even that one dude with a fanny on his forehead that only holds value in the exact opposite qualities that Wesley displays.
