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Date Posted: Sun, Apr 18 2004, 0:49:47
Author: Cactus Wren
Subject: Re: Question: What makes Mary Sue so annoying?
In reply to: Araniell 's message, "Re: Question: What makes Mary Sue so annoying?" on Sat, Apr 17 2004, 16:56:45

I mentioned something similar in a litmus test I wrote: "Does what we're told ABOUT your character differ radically from what we're shown OF your character?" Too often we're assured in description that the character is -- exempli gratia -- wonderfully sensitive and empathic and always knows just the right thing to say to make an unhappy person feel better. Of course we never see any examples of this ability in action.

And similarly, often writers -- especially very young writers -- find themselves caught between wanting to write a suffering emotional wreck of an Angsty Sue, and wanting to express themselves as a Smartass Sue whom no one ever verbally gets the better of. I'm thinking of one specific character who was clearly described in a character profile (an aside: teenaged writers just love to write profiles of their Sues, don't they?) as solitary and shy, an angsty little runaway, an abused child who hardly ever spoke except to her best friend. The same character was *portrayed* in the fic as a cute little wiseass, always ready with a quip or a blade, given to saying things like "One false move, honey, and you get slashed!", able to publicly humiliate the villain with childish pranks and inane knock-knock jokes.

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