Serious About Your Skills

I have to be grateful that until yesterday I had not come face to face with the worst type of Mary Sue—the OBVIOUS one. However, it was time to face it, when I offered to leave a review for a beginner’s story. What did I expect? Certainly not this! Okay, it was a double Mary Sue! They were twins! Imagine two peas of a soup, but totally different in personality. One went to Gryffindor with her angelic appearance; the other joined the Slytherins with her dangerously flashing red eyes. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, the ‘angel’ opened her mouth, and guess what came out of it! She told our mesmerized hero Harry that she was the Time Keeper that could manipulate time at will and her sister was the Soul Sucker, who could suck your soul with just one look! At this stage I was terrified, and so left the oddest review in my entire life. It went something like this: ‘Both of your original characters are Mary Sue-s, thus you need to stay away from clichés.’ This was indeed not an every day occurrence.

In my reading and reviewing career, I have been blessed to not encounter many characters of that same species. The only other time when I faced an OBVIOUS Mary Sue was when I wrote one. Fortunately, the story is not on HPFF, as it was my first story and went to mugglenet. And so, I wrote about something like a ‘fifth marauder’, who was misfortunate enough to cause chaos around her due to a curse or something. At the end of the first chapter, their five patronuces (hers was a Unicorn, mind you) were galloping together after some dementors in the train. Okay, I guess I did write that because I wanted real magic, and it seems that most starting writers make the same mistake—taking the magical effect too far and creating an unbelievable character. I still flinch at the memory of Crystal (that was her name).

Now that I had my daily dose of rant, tell me what YOUR worst encounters with Mary Sue-ism you have had in your days in the fan fiction world. It can’t be worse than my own. Or can it? :mellow:

My worst encounter with a Mary Sue was in a one-shot that I can't remember. They were twins, both beautiful, but one more of a flirt (she was coming on strong to Sirius) and the other more of the angelic type. I think they were sorted into Slytherin and Gryffindor, but I'm not sure. :unsure:

There's also the horrendous cases where the author goes into minute detail about the designer clothing that their character wears, but I'm not sure if that's considered Mary Sue-ish.

What I also consider to be a terrible Mary Sue is one of the characters I came up with for my first ever fanfic (now deleted, and will probably be re-written since I really like the ending I came up with). The girl was unnaturally beaitiful, half-Veela (she's Fleur's aunt), had her father killed by Lucius Malfoy's father, had a troubled family life with her mother and sister, was fluent in french, spoke perfect english (since her father was a brit), was extremely advanced in DADA (she did silent spells at 11, since her father was an important auror who trained her since she was 5), was going to end up with Sirius Black, was Lily's best friend, had the ability to partially transform into the other Veela form, and her name was Dorcas Meadows, a.k.a. Cassie (since Dorcas is a terrible name in my opinion).

So, yes, my worst encounter with a Mary Sue wasn't as bad as yours, but my own Mary Sue was far, far, worse. :lol:

If I find stories that have the obvious Mary-Sue, I run as fast as I can. However, the worst Mary-Sue I encountered was my own. I had three of them.

One had silver hair, star shaped pupils and was Dumbledore's daughter. Not grand-daughter, daughter; I'm still slightly creeped out over that one. The other two were the daughters of Sirius Black and Bellatrix Lestrange with long black hair, purple eyes and also star shaped pupils. All three were incredibly good at Quidditch, boys loved them and had better magic than Dumbledore. What was I thinking when I created this?!?

I had 10 chapters written of it*shudders*, but I sacked it after four and started work on A Darker Dream. I still have the big notebook to remind me of what I can accomplish and to remind myself the dangers of Mary-Sue.

The worst one I've encountered was my own when I was 12. I ditched her as soon as I found out what Mary-Sue meant.

The second worst one I've encountered was one that was a boy, a Gary-Stu. He had extremely good looks and almost every girl was swooning, and he had a bunch of the founder's powers, possibly even more power than them all. It bugged me to death. If only that person changed the character, it would have been a better story.

Lyn, I've read the story you're talking about. Like you, I was absolutely terrified. I read your review, too...just out of interest, have you read her response? I recommend you do :P

I don't know if this is the worst Mary Sue I've read but it's the first that comes to mind. She was beautiful, of course. Let's see, where to start...she was either Sirius' wife or partner, I'm not sure which. Either way, she was his one true love. But bother Snape and Remus were in love with her too. She was the granddaughter of Lord Voldemort, and the only member of her family spared when the Death Eaters came. She had special powers; she didn't need a wand ro do magic. She could have 'visions'; for example, she knew before anyone else the Lily and James were dead. She had other powers too, and I forget what they were exactly, but when she abandoned the wizarding world, they were all upset because without her powers, the wizarding world was lost. In her first year at Hogwarts, she got to take third year classes. I think there's more, but I'm too lazy to find it :P

OMG! They have deleted my review!!! :blink: It wasn't insulting or anything! Oh well, Cat what was the response? I just went there and read that Nevaeh is Heaven backwards (the name of the OC... Mary Sue I mean). Honestly, just when I thought it was original. And the worst part is I was just trying to help, not to offend her! I even found out that one of the stories I recently reviewed has been deleted. Am I THAT awful in my reviews? I swear, I am nice and I do find nice thing to say. Why do people take it so personally? :( I never get offended by CC. AND I DO NOT FLAME!!!

This post has been edited by Lyn on Jul 12 2006, 08:00 AM

Lyn, I read your review and I'm sure you didn't flame. Plus, almost all the reviews say it was Mary Sue. The response was

Thanks, Priss! I actually thought it would be worse. But it is deleted, right? I just sent a PM to the author asking why it was deleted. If she considered the review offensive, wait to see her reaction on the PM. I was not mean, just a little sharp. I just said the thing the way they are. Hope she won't hate me for that.

On the bright side, it turns out that the other story is still there, I just couldn't find it earlier. The response is positive. See? Not everyone take it personally, thank God! If I took the criticism personally, I'd be in a mad house right now. :P Well, the positive feedback helps. But that's off topic, really...

This post has been edited by Lyn on Jul 12 2006, 08:21 AM

I've only faced with Mary Sue once. It's the American transfer girl and everyone's in love with her kind of MS.

Lyn, I just finished reading the story. Her characters ARE MS. You weren't mean at all. I'd say the same thing.

Thanks, dear. I feel better now. ^_^

To not spam in here, here's another case of Mary Sue. Surprisingly, she was the main character in one of my most favourite stories on HPFF. I guess cliches can be interesting after all! It was not THAT bad, but it was quite obvious, though I really didn't notice then. I am not sure if I even knew what MS meant.

The story was about a girl that was very ill-tempered. She was very close to James. At first, they were dating, then remained friends. She was related to Sirius and in love with Remus. She was very good at Quidditch and was PureBlood. She was a bit scary at times. She could tame dragons and was always in the spotlight of the story. On top of that her name was MS-ish. However, the story had many reviews. I guess I liked it because it was so eventful and surprising. So, even though she was a MS, I still enjoyed the read. It was still obvious but not that disturbing. ;)

This post has been edited by Lyn on Jul 12 2006, 08:38 AM

The worst Mary Sue I read about wasn't that bad. I didn't read to far into the story. I remember reading that she could control wind, water, fire and earth without a wand and I didn't read on much further than that.

A terrible encounter with a Mary Sue was my own one. I started writing a fic about a Death Eater's daughter in late 2005. She had purple eyes because she was telekinetic and she was given a mission by Voldemort to seduce Harry and stop him going after the horcruxes (which Voldemort somehow found out about.) I stopped writing it fairly soon after I'd started it. Now it's in a folder on my computer called 'Untouchables'.

Lyn, I replied to your PM but it seems you've sorted it all out :lol:

I thought of another one, and this one is the dreaded -gasp- canon MS. It was Lily.

Ok, where to start? She was quiet, and in her public life she had no friends, but was the most popular girl at Hogwarts. Privately, she belonged to a band made up of the most rebellious girls, and when they went public and performed at a Yule Ball, they immediately rose to stardom. She was devastatingly gorgeous, of course. Now, here's where we get to the good part. She had special powers; she could read people's minds because of her eyes, she had visions of the future. She could tame the Whomping Willow without pressing the little knob, was sweet and kind and loving...you get the general idea. I was terrified.

FACT: I just realized that all of my favourite stories are either with Mary Sues or with Gary Stus as main characters! One I already shared about, and the other is my #1 HP fan fic on the Internet (thus the ad in signature). I never really thought about it but this is about CANON Gary Stus now. Imagine a fic where Sirius and Remus are Gary Stus, but still takes your breath away! Imagine a fic that you can read all night, a fic where there is everything there has to be in a story.

And you know what? It is based on the Gary Stus! Not to mention that Lily is a Mary Sue there, and James a Gary Stu to a certain extent. So... why do I like such stories SO much? Have it ever occured to you that there cannot be a REALLY good story without this annoying character? I mean, even Jo has Mary Sues and Gary Stus in her books! What do you think? Why does Mary Sue manage STILL to be so famous amongst writers? I don't mean the poorly written Mary Sues. I am talking about the kind that even though you know who she is, you still want to read more about her!

This post has been edited by Lyn on Jul 13 2006, 12:24 PM

OMG I feel so sorry for you Lyn!!! I would have been in utter shock!

The worst Mary Sue I have ever encountered wasn't actually that bad. She was a descendant of this Flower Goddess person, and the only person to be able to defeat the antagonist because of her powers. It goes on and on and the Mary Sue ends up having Draco, Harry AND Neville fall in love with her. She has a tragic past and all that too.

But the way the writer wrote it, it isn't much of a problem. I swear, it's crazy! The writing style is just sooo good.

The worst Mary Sues I have encountered have honestly been canon characters (mostly Hermione or Ginny), my own OCs, or worse, canon characters in my own stories. Well, I've spent some time on deleterius (on LJ) and heard my fair share of MS horror stories. None of mine quite compare to those.