I do miss Groo. Wonder what he's up to.

t copied from Angel since I lost track of where I was Another aspect to a Mary Sue that I don't think I've seen mentioned is the utter lack of character growth. Sure, maybe she learns that she really is beautiful, but with no flaws, there's no room or need to grow either.

It's funny how much more sensitive to this I've gotten since being immersed in fandom. I was rereading a book the other day that I've always really liked. Not great literature by any stretch but something I was fond of. I hadn't looked at it in a few years, but this time I couldn't get away from the extreme MarySueness of the female lead. I ended up basically skimming through all her scenes to get to the ones that featured other, more real characters. Kind of a bummer, actually. I don't know that I'll be picking that one up again.

Brenda, that's ruined so many books for me. Like, almost all of the romance novels in the basement.

Yes. Wrod, Fay.

that's ruined so many books for me.

I've had a hard time with many fantasy novels because of this one. I don't think I could read McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series ever again, because so many of the characters seem like MarySues, even in retrospect. Then again, I didn't really read those books for the characters--I was far more interested in the dragons and the world that McCaffrey created.

Mary Sues are more annoying in fanfic, IMO, because the authors who use them tend to show a great deal of disrespect to the characters and stories that we love. In original fiction, having a Mary Sue as the lead character isn't as annoying, especially if other elements of the story are interesting.

The popslash fandom is both scary and hilarious.

And google is a formidable tool.

SA, I suspect I don't want to know what you found.

Although- I do have a kind of morbid curiosity.

• delurking*

It's funny how much more sensitive to this I've gotten since being immersed in fandom. I was rereading a book the other day that I've always really liked. Not great literature by any stretch but something I was fond of. I hadn't looked at it in a few years, but this time I couldn't get away from the extreme MarySueness of the female lead. I ended up basically skimming through all her scenes to get to the ones that featured other, more real characters. Kind of a bummer, actually. I don't know that I'll be picking that one up again.

Yeah, that happened to me with the Alanna books by Tamara Pierce. I loved the first one when I was 14, but when I went back and re-read them a few years back, all I could think was, "Good God! This chick is *perfect!*"

that happened to me with the Alanna books by Tamara Pierce.

Also the series after that, with the next young girl who wants to become a knight, and the series about the bird-woman, and the other series with three Mary-Sues and a Marky-Sam in, and...

She's a good writer, don't get me wrong. But there are some cases of Mary-Sues there.

I think it's more acceptable to write Mary-Sues for the young adult market, who as an audience tend to be able to get more whole-heartedly into a protagonist who is perfect. I mean, I'm speaking from my own experience as a young reader here. :-)