Another strange essay.

[kippurbird]

Gender, Mary Sues, and Alec Troven


One of the best known facts about Mary Sues is that they are an authorial insert. A perfected authorial insert, that is the author's idealized self, powerful, beautiful, knowledgeable, loved by everyone and always gets her man where they live happily ever after. The problem with this is that such stories are highly unrealistic and neglect everything in favor the Sue. Their male counterparts, Gary Stus, are of the same ilk, though while they generally don't go for true love, their luck with women is highly unnatural. Not even James Bond is as lucky as they are. Which brings me to Alec.

I've had Alec since the early -mid nineties, which makes him about fourteen years old. Alec was, for lack of a better term, my Sue. I never thought of anything odd about having a male idealized self. And boy was he idealized. He had powers up the yin-yang. And he stole them from all over the place. He never had any romantic encounters though, while I was interested in some of the male characters I didn't really know about homosexuality. It just didn't exist in my world, so the idea of two males being romantically involved never even occurred to me. However in my own way I did create romantic attachments. Alec found himself the son or brother of people I was interested in. Perfectly normal relationships between two men, or so I thought.

As the years past and I found Fandom and Fan Fiction by other people (of which I had written heavily in notebooks which I shall never share with anyone, but will probably end up being published after I die) and read some. I still did not encounter Slash.

I first encountered slash in college, I think my junior year. I met a fan fiction writer who wrote Gundam Wing fan fiction. She wrote Heero and Duo slash and explained it all to me. It was an enlightening experience. For starters it allowed a story element that had been bothering me fall into place. But I digress.

I always considered Alec a part of me. My mom recently said, about this whole gender identity issue that it was because I wanted to be Alec. I said no, it wasn't. But I didn't say that he was me. Mostly because that's the sort of thing you don't say to your mother. But it made me think. Alec is a Mary Sue. Alec is my idealized self. (God only knows why he looks like Orlando Bloom... if you look at alec_troven's icons, you'll see what I mean.)

In all my imaginings of all my little Sue creatures that I've had through out the years, they've always been male. Some of them have even been furries, now that I think about it. But that's neither here nor there. The important point is that they have always been male. At no point have I ever thought about being female or having a female avatar. Now some people may this may have to do more with female empowerment.

That is, males are traditionally thought of as being more capable of doing things while females are the weaker gender who have to stay at home and have many babies. However that can be easily countered with the Warrior Mary Sue. This would be the Mary Sue who is a better fighter than any man, even those who have been training longer than the Sue has been alive. In the fandoms that I trawl in, she's most often found in the Lord of the Rings. There she proves her prowess with the sword or the bow by beating Boromir, Aragorn or Legolas. Sometimes all three. Boromir is usually placed as the Evil Bastard Against All Women Being Warrior that the Sue has to prove and put into place. Then he reluctantly accepts her and later tries to rape her. My point, here, is that if I really wanted a female avatar who could be just as good as the guys, I could have made one. But I haven't.

I've never identified with females. I've never thought of myself as female. Alec as a Mary Sue (or Gary Sue as I sometimes call him) is my idealized self. Over the years he has evolved and changed as I learned to go from Sue to actual character. But he's still always been me.

Now that I've discovered the fact that I'm 'genderqueer' or what have you, all of this makes sense. My idealized self, Alec, is a male because I too am a male. Interestingly enough there have been times in my 'fan fiction' where Alec has been changed into a female, but it has always felt wrong and I've quickly changed him back.

Alec has moved on from being 'me' to his own character but in some ways I still feel like he's me and I still want to be him.

Comments

[subieko.livejournal.com]

You know, that's really interesting. I mean, the whole idea of what the gender of one's authorial avatar (all right, call it a Mary Sue) says about one's own gender concept, etc. Also, it sounds like Alec has developed into a really cool character through his life...awesomeness.

As for me, my first character that I can really remember who was ME was...well, a girl. she looked a lot like me, but she had a better personality. She actually only developed cool powers after she STOPPED being me, because she took on a different role in the story. But, there was never any romantic aspect to her character at all. It didn't even occur to me to have such a thing in the story. Now, years later, looking back, it makes perfect sense--I'm asexual, and my very first Mary Sue was as well, because she was an idealized version of me. But I didn't know it then.

I have a lot to think about now...awesome post, man! ^_^

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! Glad it made you think!

Alec has developed into a really cool character, but I'm rather biased. :D

[emily-goddess.livejournal.com]

I wish I had an alter ego to make me aware of my subconscious reality! Some people have all the luck.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

Make a Mary Sue and see what you get!

[kellicat.livejournal.com]

I find this essay really interesting and it made me think my self-insert characters. The one thing they have in common is that they tend to be competent warriors. Perhaps that's because I hate feeling defenseless and value the ability to fight back.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

It could be. It does make sense. You value you the ability to fight back so the self insert reflects that.

[dryaunda.livejournal.com]

Hmm, something to talk about with you when you come visit my city. March 25th I believe?

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

It was going to be March 15th but due to unforeseen circumstances I had to drop that one. However I'm going to be in San Fran in May, I believe. I'm sure we could talk then!