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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.
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.
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Though I should note an important difference between the Little Mermaid and the kids' characters you mention is that the Little Mermaid is clearly a celebration of the prose character (and her author, Hans Christian Andersen), as opposed to a visual icon.
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