Mary Sue, how to undo

It’s actually not necessarily wrong to have a Mary Sue. I actually did one before. The trick to not making a character a Mary Sue’s really hard and tough as it would necessitate having to have more life experiences and/or interests and the like to pull it off. Not to mention having to keep a safe distance from characters when necessary.

At other times, to make a character any less of a Mary Sue’s to make them go the logical route. But that would necessitate having to go where they ought/need to go. I think part of the reason why Kitty Pryde’s a Mary Sue’s not because she lacks flaws but because writers are afraid to take her to where she’d logically become and stick to it.

(I would actually be okay if she got reinvented as a wereleopard forever but with her original powers intact.)

Actually Kitty Pryde would be better off as X-Men’s Catwoman, if only they’re willing to stick to her having retractile claws (as felids do) it would be too befitting given her namesake and some intentions of making her feline. Again that would involve having to go where she’d logically go or become, even if it’s not so cool at first.

The inability to not go where the character would naturally go doesn’t necessarily make a Mary Sue but it does generally imply a writer’s unwillingness to actually do something about the character in their context and of their own tendencies and development. That’s secretly why I think Kitty doesn’t really work well as a cheery girly girl.

This was a one-off portrayal in the X-Men Evolution cartoon as subsequent productions come closer to her comics portrayal. I actually think Kitty would be less Mary Sue if they’re not only willing to allow her to be fallible but also go where she’d logically become and chances are she’d make both Psylocke and X-23 redundant.

The former’s a British woman who got turned into a Japanese ninja against her will and undid it on her own volition whilst the latter’s a female Wolverine even if Kitty sported the claws before. (The other problem may be how oddly blatant and too befitting this is as wolverines don’t have retractile claws whereas felids do.)

So I think the real problem with de-Mary Sueing some characters involves having to go where they’d naturally become but one that necessitates not only a change to one character but also eliminating a few others to make for less redundancy.

Mary Sue qualifications

I think when it comes to what constitutes as a Mary Sue, it should be something like a flawless audience surrogate in theory and to some extent, in practise too. However it’s also used to deride characters some readers dislike such as Carol Danvers. I actually/honestly don’t think Carol Danvers is really much of a Mary Sue. If she’s going to go bad but the fact that Mary Sues are supposed to be flawless, then technically Carol isn’t.

I don’t think Carol Danvers is ever created as an audience surrogate, which most fanfic Mary Sues tend to be, so she’s disqualified either way. I actually think the characters most in danger of becoming Mary Sues aren’t competent female characters (or even competent male characters or whatever) but rather audience surrogate characters.

(Author surrogates usually don’t much either but because it’s usual to depict stories and literature after authors’ own sentiments and experiences to whatever degree.)

Especially in things most aimed at nerds that there’s a good chance an audience surrogate would easily become a Mary Sue. Barry Allen’s something of a borderline Mary Sue in my definition. Not because he’s flawless but because he’s created to be an idealised audience surrogate even if it robs him of a personality beyond that.

(Not that he lacks a personality but because he lacks any personality beyond that role as I meant.)

There were some attempts to de-Sue him even if it’s met with resistance (I was part of that too). An even more egregious Mary Sue would be Tim Drake. It’s not that he’s flawless but rather almost all the characters around him are sometimes depicted as so flawed as to keep him on a pedestal. (Especially Stephanie Brown but I have a feeling it might not last if she does become a Red Lantern because Tim killed her pet.)

Perhaps a much more blatant one (especially if it’s almost dangerously close to one’s parody and initial identification) would be Kitty Pryde. Although she wasn’t initially conceived as such and some non-comics media do downplay this, but as what one blogger noted, she seems to pander very much to a narrow audience that to outsiders she’s definitely not a girl next door.

For starters, a lot of comics characters own dogs because lots of people own dogs. But the same can’t said of her, she owns a dragon on top of being a mutant hacker-martial artist who’s part of a franchise that’s largely and practically insulated from the rest of the Marvel universe. So much so that it proves her point right. Another one would be Felicity Smoak.

Of all the characters, for the longest period of time (in comics) she wasn’t created as an audience surrogate and was even somebody’s mum! By the time she appeared on Arrow, she was made entirely different from her comics counterpart that she’s barely recognisable. Some fans liked her so much that they demanded writers to increase her presence and make her romance with Oliver canon.

But it also bothered other fans that I think it’s more of a case where fans better be careful of what they wish for. Especially if Felicity Smoak turned out to be a victim of her own popularity. I still think when it comes to Canon Sues, the more they’re made in mind for a specific audience the likelier they are to be identified a lot to the detriment of gaining a proper personality.

Or in Kitty Pryde’s case, go where she’d logically become (something like in Age of Apocalypse). Though Mary Sues can be author surrogates, not all author surrogates are necessarily Mary Sues as it’s not uncommon for writers to base prose and stories after themselves and people they personally know to varying degrees. Of all the characters considered Mary Sue, only four qualify and come dangerously close to the fanfic Mary Sue.

As in they’re fan-surrogate characters stuck in a world that’s in the same setting as the franchise said fan likes. Felicity Smoak being a very damning example as she’s part of a franchise she wasn’t historically part of. (It would be more plausible with Tim Drake, that’s had Black Canary been outed as his biological aunt as she’s part of Birds of Prey and Justice League, which has Batman family members in both.)

Likewise Kitty, Tim and Barry are conceived as audience surrogate heroes in pre-existing franchises. Two of them are fans of pre-existing characters and one gets to be part of a pre-existing group permanently. Likewise Tim got adopted by Batman. These come dangerously close to the fanfiction Mary Sue where they’re adopted and/or tormented by tragedy.

None of these exactly mean a Mary Sue as much as I think these are half-arsed attempts at making them fallible. Not that Mary Sues can’t be flawed and some of them have flaws with consequences. But rather a better marker of Mary Sue to me would be the inability to go where the character would logically become. But that would involve having to let the character do what they need to do or become.

And on a closing note, I suspect if you were to make a character any less of a Mary Sue don’t make them too idealised.

Our Daisy Duck

I still sometimes think if Tim Drake were to be biologically related to his aunt Black Canary, that would make the Donald Duck comparisons/influences write themselves in a way the Buffy thing wouldn’t. Especially if Tim Drake’s Donald Duck, then Stephanie Brown’s Daisy Duck, Black Canary’s Grandma Duck and Oliver Queen’s Uncle Scoorge. (Quite parsimoniously, there needs an analogue to Huey, Dewey and Louie.)

I actually think rather than being Buffy Summers, Stephanie Brown would do even better as a Daisy Duck or Carol Danvers analogue. Buffy Summers, to my knowledge, wasn’t created to be a love interest and supporting character the way Daisy and Carol are. If Stephanie Brown were to become a Goth Red Lantern (oh the angst), that would make it analogous to Carol Danvers in how shocking this makeover is.

Likewise Daisy Duck isn’t just a love interest but also both she and Donald became superheroes together. It would be all the more precise if Stephanie Brown’s shown caring for nieces just as Daisy Duck probably does in her own comics (at least in the Netherlands and Brazil). Also if Stephanie, Daisy and Carol are all stated to have bad tempers, that would make it a more benefitting analogy really.

Maybe I haven’t watched enough Buffy but I think Stephanie Brown being more like Carol Danvers (that’s should she become a Red Lantern) or Daisy Duck fits more. With the latter, this would happen if Black Canary’s ever outed to be Tim’s aunt. Actually if it were to happen, it would’ve been much more organic than having Dana Winters be Tim’s stepmum but because there was a cover of her replacing Robin (well the other Robin).

That would also mean this is the connection almost nobody else thought of. Whilst not always the case, it’s something of an unsolved mystery why Black Canary’s yet to be outed as Tim’s aunt even if there are people whose mothers wear daisy dukes in public and some pop singers are mothers, sisters, aunts and daughters themselves. Likewise it would be alarming if Stephanie’s actually more aggressive/butch than Tim is.

But at any rate, if Black Canary’s outed as Tim’s blood aunt Stephanie would inevitably start to resemble Daisy Duck more. Consequently, Tim becomes Donald. (I’d go on saying that Donald Duck’s what Tim’s like if he wasn’t a Gary Stu.)

Not the coolest thing

I sometimes think part of the drawback of taking characters to where they’d logically go, especially if they’re reader surrogates, is that you’d have to forgo coolness for something practical but unflattering. Whilst it sounds cool for Black Canary to be related to Tim Drake, to make it work she’d replace both Dana Winters and Lady Shiva. It wouldn’t just lead to a massive reboot in Robin continuity but also become WB’s answer to the Donald Duck stories.

No seriously. You’ve got a mother figure who works with the land and characters named after their Charles Dickens counterparts. It would be parsimonious to think of Donald Duck as what Tim Drake would be like if he wasn’t such a Mary Sue. (Though that involves actually making him genuinely fallible or at least in the wrong like poisoning dogs to stop them from barking but he gets beaten up by Stephanie*.)

Also if Caitlin goes wolf on the Flash, Barry Allen would be Red Riding Hood. In fact there are some stories where RRH survives by conning the wolf to escape. Barry would do just that. But the problem’s that it makes the Flash less cool even if it makes much more sense for him to be an escape artist. Especially if super speed helps to escape being Caitlin’s prey.

With Kitty Pryde being a cutthroat assassin, that’s certainly done in Age of Apocalypse but in order to commit to it you’d have to forgo Kitty as ideal girlfriend and instead go all the way with murderous feline ninja. She’d essentially be X-Men’s Catwoman and would even make Feral and X-23 redundant should they let her be a furious clawed assassin.

Then again you’d have to forgo what’s cool for what’s logical and inevitable.

*Rao help if she becomes a Red Lantern because she got mad at Tim for killing her dogs.

The drawbacks of uniqueness

Maybe that’s not the best title for this blog post but if you take characters to where they’d logically go, especially if they are reader surrogates, you risk making them unrecognisable even if it’s the more organic direction. Imagine if Caitlin became a werewolf on the Flash that necessitates Barry Allen to become Red Riding Hood. As in some stories, Barry will survive the whole ordeal by conning Cait with the intention of escaping.

If you take Kitty Pryde to a logical conclusion, the best example’s in Age of Apocalypse where she’s a clawed ghost assassin. That’s actually the least Mary Sue she’s been and would’ve been a lot better than turning Psylocke into a ninja through body-swapping as Kitty had the training for it. The problem’s that most writers make her into their ideal girlfriend that having her be an assassin ruins it.

Even if it’s the more realistic or plausible route. As for Black Canary being Tim’s aunt, that necessitates her to replace both Dana Winters and Lady Shiva but also have Tim become the proper WB analogue to Donald Duck. His uncle’s rich and are named after Charles Dickens characters. The drawback’s that if presented as such, Tim wouldn’t be a mini-Batman anymore.

(Oddly and ironically, even the myriad attempts to have him go evil it’s if he’s created to be likable, surprisingly some may find it fishy.)

So it seems on one hand, it does make them more distinctive or at least more fleshed out characters. On the other hand, the logical direction’s not always the most flattering one even if it’s much more pragmatic to have Kitty become what Psylocke turned into. Because that necessitates much more thought.

Even if it’s not the coolest direction.

Not that it’s wrong but

I think my own problem with some wish-fulfillment fictions is that whilst it’s not necessarily wrong to enjoy and want wish fulfillment to whatever extent, I don’t feel comfortable reading stories that seem very blatantly aimed at a narrow audience. Maybe that’s how some feel around X-Men’s Kitty Pryde where they admit she’s very much aimed at X-Men readers first and foremost. Likewise with Barry and Tim, I could understand them somewhat.

But unless if they’re modified to resemble people or things I like more (honestly, I’d be happier with Barry Allen subbing for either Dante Alighieri or Red Riding Hood proper), I still feel like these characters come off as works in progress. But in the sense of lacking an actual personality beyond being idealised reader surrogates. Though that would involve fleshing them a lot more.

And possibly going for things that write themselves like Barry being Dante or RRH if Cait goes wolf. Though that involves possibly making them somewhat unrecognisable and more unpredictable to readers. Again not always the case but with reader surrogate characters, the fact that they don’t seem to have much of a personality or role beyond being idealised counterparts to audiences makes it harder to develop an actual personality.

Often at the expense of reader recognisability even when it’s needed like Cait going wolf should have Barry become her Red Riding Hood.

She’s not a Mary Sue, he is

I sometimes think some readers do use the word Mary Sue (highly idealised audience surrogate character) to disparage some characters they don’t like. I could be guilty of something similar. But let’s face it, a true Canon Sue would be pretty rare in the entire scheme of fiction because it’s not uncommon for writers to base characters after themselves and others they know to whatever extent. Same with the stories and plot.

A proper canon Sue might not even be a protagonist from the get go (as these are the characters said story’s supposed to focus on). Sometimes what makes a Mary Sue isn’t that they lack flaws but that writers don’t and won’t let them take the logical route. Something like Kitty Pryde being less Mary Sue if she was an anti-heroine assassin (from Age of Apocalypse).

She even got similar training, was even close to Wolverine and considering her own bad temper, she’d easily be the most cut-throat X-Woman. (The other problem’s that it would necessitate Kitty to render both X-23 and Psylocke redundant but that would also mean they’d have to make Kitty Pryde properly feline all the way and make Feral also redudant.) So the logical conclusion may sometimes necessitate them to be actually fallible.

I think one of the real reasons why I don’t think Supergirl’s a Mary Sue’s that in later stories she’s written to be actually fallible (more emotional, easily misled) but also willing to learn from it as usual. Despite her alien origins, she seems like a genuinely fallible human being as she sometimes screws up, sometimes loses her temper real badly. But still willing to learn from it.

Whilst that can be said of other characters to whatever extent, I actually think the characters most at risk of becoming a Mary Sue would be the reader surrogate types. In the sense that they’re never/rarely allowed to actually screw up or go whatever’s necessarily needed of them. That they have to be idealised audience surrogates makes sense if they cease being those, they won’t be liked anymore.

Even if that makes them less Mary Sue. They may not be Mary Sue in the proper sense of the word though it’s more like they toe a line as writers seem awkward to make them outgrow that idealisation role thing. It’s not that Tim Drake’s infallible but that to make him not Mary Sue is to observe what he could be if he were to go wrong (i.e. villain). The best one’s in DCAU where he becomes the Joker when under the influence.

I actually think he needn’t to be a villain to be less Mary Sue but be made into a character who’d do shady things to do what’s right. Something like poisoning dogs to stop them from barking (Rao help if he angers Stephanie Brown this way and have her go Red Lantern for it). If Stephanie gets really livid at him, that’s when he’s got flaws but in the sense that they have bad consequences for the people around them even if he’s well-intentioned.

(If Stephanie Brown becomes a Red Lantern, whilst it would be really shocking at first but if she got angry at Tim for poisoning her dog, that’s understandable.)

I think if Tim’s caught poisoning animals even with the intention of self-defence it would make him less Mary Sue in that even if he meant well, sometimes they don’t go as expected if his girlfriend were to get mad at him at all.

Undoing the Mary Sue

I suspect what makes Kitty Pryde a Mary Sue’s not because she lacks flaws but because writers are hesitant of making her go the logical direction had she been intended as a reader surrogate. But that necessitates allowing Kitty to become her own character and even replace Psylocke in all her entirety. Psylocke wasn’t introduced as an Asian to start with and only became so with the body swapping, along with the ninja skills.

Kitty got brainwashed against her will in becoming a ninja. But her replacing Psylocke for good would’ve been a much more organic or logical direction. I even think Age of Apocaylpse had her become an clawed assassin, maybe way too precise as cats do go through narrow spaces and have retractile claws. (Kitty was supposed to become a catwoman and did become one before.)

I think in order to have Kitty replace Psylocke for good, she should be the mutant version of Catwoman. In the sense of being feline-themed and stealthy, she was on her way really. But that necessitates actually having to go all the way with the cat/panther comparisons right down to the retractile claws. Basically AOA Kitty again but canonical.

Rather than Psylocke becoming a ninja through bodyswapping, Kitty would’ve become a ninja fulltime and perhaps developing a secondary mutation of sorts to become more feline/panther in appearance. Rather than Feral, we’d get werecat Kitty Pryde doing whatever Psylocke does but with the focused totality of her phasing powers and panther nature.

This would’ve been a much less Mary Sue Kitty but one where that necessitates her having to go past fan idealisation and become X-Men’s answer to Catwoman.

Self insert no more

I still think when it comes to characters intended as idealised audience surrogates, they’d have a higher chance of being Canon Sues than even those based on their authors if because it’s not uncommon for writers to base characters, stories and poetry from their own personal experiences and sentiments. It’s like if Barry Allen were to substitute for Dante Alighieri and if Caitlin goes wolf, it would be a modernised Divine Comedy really.

Likewise if Black Canary and Green Arrow were Tim’s biological relatives, there wouldn’t be any need for Dana Winters but they’d all act more like Elvira, Scoorge and Donald. No seriously, that could really happen. As for Kitty Pryde, what makes her Mary Sue’s that writers tend to hold her back from what she’d logically or organically become.

That too isn’t unique to other characters but they’re not intended as idealised reader surrogates to begin with. Though that necessitates a direction where Kitty wouldn’t just stick to being an assassin like she is in Age of Apocalypse but also become the character Psylocke ended up as. But because Psylocke wasn’t meant to be a ninja and she even yearned to return to her old self until recently.

Especially due to the body swap whilst Kitty Pryde would easily become that character without the body swap. That’s still saying in the sense of characterisation that it seems writers seem afraid that Kitty would easily be how Psylocke was mostly represented as. Even if she actually got ninja training first.

But again that necessitates having to free all three from being reader surrogates that this would be the only path against Suedom really.

Lives of their own

I still think when it comes to let’s say necessitating Kitty Pryde to be an anti-heroine for good or Barry Allen being Dante Alighieri had they been fanboy/fangirl inserts this would be the times when they become their own characters. Albeit going further away from their fannish origins in a way fans won’t immediately recognise. Even if that does make them seem less Mary Sueish.

I actually think in Kitty’s case, the real issue lies with not letting her go where she’d logically become. I even have a feeling that Kitty Pryde should’ve become the character Psylocke ended up as in that the former didn’t start out as a psychic ninja at all whilst the former had training even if it both happened against their will (Kitty through brainwashing, Betsy through body exchange).

Kitty Pryde becoming what Psylocke ended up as would’ve done way more favours and the best way to keep her badass whilst not making her Mary Sue. It would be the least Mary Sue she’s been ever since she was an assassin in Age of Apocalypse. But that necessitates having to do away the more ridiculous aspects and stick to where she’d naturally go and become.

(I still think it would’ve been better for Kitty Pryde to be a deadly ninja given Psylocke reverted to her old white self, as if the latter wasn’t meant to be that character for long whilst the former easily could.)

I would actually be fine if Kitty Pryde became an assassin full-time. Then again that necessitates following the more logical, organic path than what we’re usually shown. As for Barry Allen standing in for Dante Alighieri or Red Riding Hood should Caitlin Snow become a werewolf, the real issue isn’t that he lacks a personality in general. But rather he lacks a personality beyond being a fanboy surrogate.

Should Caitlin ever become a werewolf, that necesitates Barry to be Red Riding Hood. Oddly enough that would be much more relatable to a lot of people because they’ve heard of Red Riding Hood first. It’s basically when a child leaves home to greet their grandparent or relative but it doesn’t go as expected. Either they survive at will by conning their captor, survive by being rescued by others or die anyways.

(Barry would most likely escape from her in advance.)

Likewise if Barry Allen were Dante Alighieri and Caitlin Snow as a werewolf, it would be too easy especially for those familiar with both the writer and his work Divine Comedy. Perhaps a properly contemporary version of it complete with Pied Piper, Heatwave, Captain Cold, Weather Wizard and even Zatanna in hell. But that would mean Barry Allen would’ve outgrown the fanboy surrogate role either way.

Rather than being an idealised fanboy surrogate, he’s either a properly adult version of the Red Riding Hood (because he’s one himself) or a truly modernised Dante Alighieri in a way Dante Sparda and the like aren’t. On one hand, that does make Barry Allen into a proper update of a familiar folkloric or literary character. On the other hand, that would involve a much bigger change to the mythos.

Perhaps even drastically changing Barry’s personality in the sense of being no longer a glorified fanboy. The odd fact that both works predate the Flash should indicate that the Flash’s own trajectory lies not in Greek antiquity, but in medieval folklore and spirituality (weirdly enough, the Divine Comedy’s right up there with the been to hell testimonies and had Dante lived today, he’d be a Pentecostal).

A bigger change than say retconning his backstory as he actually becomes a proper update to either genre (as in different media). Maybe way too well but still.