prog: (Default)
prog ([personal profile] prog) wrote2009-04-14 09:33 am
Entry tags:

Anti Mary-Sue

What do you call the opposite of a Mary Sue character? That is, an intentional self-insertion who, rather than being the smartest girl in Starfleet Academy who will marry Draco Malfoy at the end, is instead a pathetic and unloved loser - who still manages to be the star of the show, mind you.

I want to call this class of character a "Kilgore Trout", but for the sake of symmetry, I think I prefer "Charlie Brown".

"Mary Sue" works too, but I don't think it works as well to mean any kind of character who is based on the author. To me the term strongly implies that the character is idealized and amateurishly written, as well, and that is certainly not universally the case.

[identity profile] prog.livejournal.com 2009-04-14 02:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Very good! This looks more like a listing of cubbyholes that student writing falls into, versus pro writing, but... it still resonates insofar as the one piece of IF I have ever published (and feel free to put scare-quotes around that word) was definitely a Grubby Apartment story. Alas.

[identity profile] novalis.livejournal.com 2009-04-14 02:51 pm (UTC)(link)
One would wish that pro writing wouldn't fall into these traps, but all too often it does.

[identity profile] prog.livejournal.com 2009-04-14 03:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Mais oui.