Has Mary Sue really swelled to include ALL of this? Number 2 rather surprises me being brought under the term.
See, (keeping in mind I have only gotten into season 2? of SGA) I wouldn't consider Rodney a Marty Stu (you know, Wesley Crusher) because he has the traditional trappings of the go-to-geek (Sherlock Holmes, lots of show leads for 6 episode 'tests') who can save the day but that just about explains why he's not found dead somewhere.
The Peter Parkers etc, that's the Hero trope (ala Campbell) and identification with the hero is a 'standard' model for how boys/men watch/read. There are way more Hero stories than Heroine stories (see Little Man Tate), and there _is_ a problem that female lead characters often are tarred Mary Sue, when they are running right in the footsteps of male protagonists. (Mary Russell for the Laurie King reader.) Now, the Hero trope written poorly can result in a Mary Sue, but everything can be poorly written. Doesn't mean all literature is poor writing.
What is also troubling is how OFCs, and even Canon Female Characters (Sam Carter, anyone?) are 'easily' dismissed as Mary Sue, regardless of how they are handled.
Now, there is an early Star Trek novel, The Enterprise, which is so clearly published fanfic, that there is a flying horse. Seriously. That flying horse however is woven through the various strands of the story that it wouldn't work right without said horse. Is a flying horse wrong in science fiction, when the beast can't soar in 1G? Is it a valid metaphor for science _doing_ before asking whether it _should_ do? (Arch meta intentional.)
Rules get you only so far, after that you have to decide when to break them, which generally requires knowing them well, though naive pluck can work too. (Academy painting vs Impressionism and Cubism come to mind.)
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winterfish
no subject
Date: 2010-04-21 05:44 am (UTC)See, (keeping in mind I have only gotten into season 2? of SGA) I wouldn't consider Rodney a Marty Stu (you know, Wesley Crusher) because he has the traditional trappings of the go-to-geek (Sherlock Holmes, lots of show leads for 6 episode 'tests') who can save the day but that just about explains why he's not found dead somewhere.
The Peter Parkers etc, that's the Hero trope (ala Campbell) and identification with the hero is a 'standard' model for how boys/men watch/read. There are way more Hero stories than Heroine stories (see Little Man Tate), and there _is_ a problem that female lead characters often are tarred Mary Sue, when they are running right in the footsteps of male protagonists. (Mary Russell for the Laurie King reader.) Now, the Hero trope written poorly can result in a Mary Sue, but everything can be poorly written. Doesn't mean all literature is poor writing.
What is also troubling is how OFCs, and even Canon Female Characters (Sam Carter, anyone?) are 'easily' dismissed as Mary Sue, regardless of how they are handled.
Now, there is an early Star Trek novel, The Enterprise, which is so clearly published fanfic, that there is a flying horse. Seriously. That flying horse however is woven through the various strands of the story that it wouldn't work right without said horse. Is a flying horse wrong in science fiction, when the beast can't soar in 1G? Is it a valid metaphor for science _doing_ before asking whether it _should_ do? (Arch meta intentional.)
Rules get you only so far, after that you have to decide when to break them, which generally requires knowing them well, though naive pluck can work too. (Academy painting vs Impressionism and Cubism come to mind.)