Anti Mary-Sue

[prog]

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.

Comments

[radtea.livejournal.com]

Sue-Mary? Or Susan-Mary?

Given how dumb the reversed names sound it might be consistent with the sense you want.

Mary Sue does imply a highly idealized version of the author in badly-written fan-fic, so the negative version seems to want a different name.

[ahkond.livejournal.com]

Ignatius Reilly!

[novalis.livejournal.com]

The "Poor Me" story, is perhaps the term you're looking for.

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

TVTropes suggests the less-snappy Anti Sue but does mention Kilgore Trout as an example.

[dariusk.livejournal.com]

It'll always be a Benny Profane to me.

[cortezopossum.livejournal.com]

Roommate Aaron really likes the 'Charlie Brown' analogy and thinks more people will 'get it' than they would a 'Kilgore Trout' reference.

I kinda like 'Gregor Samsa' but that might be more fitting to a character who suddenly became pathetic and unloved yet is still the star.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The Rudy Rucker.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Adaptation sort of had both a Mary Sue and an Anti Sue.

Then there's Woody Allen, where even his most idealized self-stand-ins are still pretty pathetic.

[mr-choronzon.livejournal.com]

kilgore trout ftw

case closed.