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Oct. 9th, 2005 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kippurbirdComments on this paper, constructive critisim please. It's the Harry Potter Mary Sues Paper.
Warning, it's long. Thanks. ^_^
Harry Potter and the Sparkly Princess of Doom.
This paper has a two-fold function. The first part is to explore what is a Mary Sue and why is she considered an anathema to many fan fiction writers and yet to others a good character to write. The second part looks at some specific types of Harry Potter Mary Sues that are commonly found in Harry Potter fan fiction. This paper is not meant to be an exhaustive look at the Mary Sue, merely an introduction to what they are, why they are and why people don’t like them.
A Mary Sue is an original female character found through out the many different fandoms of fan fiction that warps the reality of the canon world. She has become a stereotype character in fan fiction much like the mustache twirling villains or damsels in distress in regular literature or movies. Many say that their characters are not Mary Sues, but in fact original female characters.
However there are big differences between a Mary Sue and an Original Female Character. The biggest is the original female character’s ability to blend into the Harry Potter world. Mary Sues stand out naturally. In many ways they are designed to draw attention to themselves. They flout conventions both in the eyes of the reader of the fan fic and in the eyes of canon characters that they interact with. Often times they also flout the rules of logic and established canon.
If you were to insert a story containing an original female character into the Harry Potter canon, chances are that there wouldn’t be much of a disturbance. It would be like dropping a stone in the river of canon. Ripples would be caused, but the overall story flow would be maintained. However inserting a Mary Sue story into the canon, the river is often like the building of the Hoover Dam. The entire ecology of the canon flow is changed in both directions.
If, then, a Mary Sue story is so disruptive to canon why then are they written?
In many cases girls who want to be apart of the Harry Potter world write them. And both in the story and in the real world the girl wishes to be noticed. With their rudimentary writing abilities (this does not always mean their ability grasp grammar- more often it’s their ability to construct a story with well developed characters and a plot.), they create a situation where Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Severus Snape or who ever else they are interested in can encounter their authorial insert. To make sure that they are noticed they create a fantastic nature for their character.
After all who would be more interesting to meet? Melinda Applegate who’s a bit on the chunky side with a terrible case of acne and frizzy brown hair who’s parents were just a pare of ordinary wizards or Malificent Sabrina Terriequin Moonlight with flawless skin, a body to die for, with long shimmering honey colored hair with red stripes, whose father was a Deatheater and whose mother was the princess of the faries and Voldemort wanted her for her special blood and because there was a prophecy which said that if she were to every meet her true love who was scared by death the Dark Lord would fall soon after.
While Melinda Applegate may end up being more interesting character at a quick glance the more interesting character is the fairy princess. Unfortunately most Mary Sues don’t make it past this first surface interest into depth that a more fully developed character may have. The trappings may be there, but it is often still a superficial roundness. Or they try to make the character have flaws but they are not real flaws. These flaws are things like, “She’s too nice” or “She thinks that everyone thinks she’s ugly” or “she has pointed ears”. These so called flaws rarely show up past the introduction of the character and are never seen again having no impact on the story at all. It is as if the writer knows that a character should have certain things but they don’t know how to create them. The Sue author grabs onto what they know is supposed to be good and ideal from television and the media.
The writer also, when creating the Mary Sue, is able to create an ideal self. A person who looks how they would like to look and have the friends and powers (magical or otherwise) and confidence they may not have or think they have in real life.
Unfortunately in their exuberance to create characters that they think are interesting or to fulfill their fantasies, they often disregard the most important part of the Harry Potter canon.
The Sue authors can’t seem to create a character that doesn’t have some trappings of muggle life that they have in their life: things like CD players, cell phones, computers. And despite the fact that muggle objects that run on electricity don’t work on Hogwarts grounds the Mary Sues’ items have no problem working. The Mary Sues also like the same bands that the authors like or think are cool, go shopping muggle stores like Hot Topic, even if a witch or wizard wouldn’t be aware of them or they don’t exist in that time (especially during the time of Padfoot, Prongs, Moony and Wormtail) or place. When the anachronisms or inaccuracies are pointed out to the authors in reviews, there comes an almost uniform response of “If you don’t like, don’t read and besides it’s only fan fiction, which means I can write what I want”.
While fan fiction isn’t the most professional forum for writing a good many fan fiction stories are of professional caliber. However this doesn’t seem to be present in about 90% of the Mary Sue stories, mainly for the above attitude. The Sue author seems to completely self centered in their desires for what they write and why they write. They only use the framework of the Harry Potter world as an easy stepping stone or framework for their own fantasies. The characters are all ready there, as are the fantastic elements, the authors just need to plug in their desired changes. And if those changes don’t fit in with the canon of the story or how a character would act then they just ignore it, claim that since it’s fan fiction, emphasis on ‘fiction’, they can write what they want. They seem to be eager to forget the fan part of the equation, which recalls the ideas that they are writing in someone else’s world. A world, which they are supposedly fans of and that, they like enough to explore in their own writings. Instead they choose to look at the fiction aspect as a way to fulfill their fantasies.
The Mary Sues that they have created, in an effort to cause the interaction with the canon characters, to fulfill their fantasy, have to send the canon characters out of character. This is rather like a large mass of matter that pulls objects into its orbit. The Mary Sue pulls the canon characters into her orbit and ideas. In her influence Draco Malfoy becomes kind and only hates muggles because his father made him. Voldemort becomes handsome Tom Riddle again, who’s dark heart is turned to gold, Harry becomes almost all powerful or evil depending on who the Sue favors. Poor Wormtail is all but forgotten and oft replaced with the Sue herself in an effort to get Remus or Sirius and Snape is just unhappy because no one loves him, leaving him open to for the Mary Sue charm him into her grip.
Since the main purpose of a Mary Sue is to indulge in the fantasy of meeting the character and gaining their approval and not to explore a piece of the Harry Potter mythology (whether it be what did Harry do for his fifth birthday or what if Neville became the boy that lived?) there seem to be only a limited amount stories that occur with rapid repetition. These stories can be classified by the type of Mary Sue that inhabits them. While there are infinite variations to the basic types, they still all seem to fall into several main categories. There is the ‘twin sister’, ‘American Transfer’, ‘Defense of the Dark Arts teacher’, the ‘Mysterious Student’ the ‘daughter of…’ and the ‘Pod Person’.
The twin sister Mary Sue is Harry Potter’s long misplaced twin sister. Where has she been hiding all these years, depends on the writer. In some cases Dumbledore himself took her to an orphanage, other times she was picked up by a kindly Muggle couple from the wreckage of Godric’s Hollow, sometimes Dumbledore even keeps her hidden away secretly training her. All she has is a mysterious scar (sometimes exactly like Harry’s) and the last name of Potter. No matter what the case she arrives at Platform 9 ¾ s (not always at her first year) just in time to run into the trio. Sparks fly as Harry realizes that he has a twin sister. When the question of why she wasn’t dumped at the Dursleys like Harry arrives (if ever) she has any number of excuses; She was thought dead, Dumbledore thought it was safer if she was some where else, she needed special training, she was taken before Sirius Black arrived. She tries to prove that she isn’t as goody-goody as her twin brother and acts much like the rebel. When it comes time for the Sorting she is sorted into Slytherin. There she meets Draco Malfoy and there is an instant attraction. Sex usually follows.
The biggest problem with this Mary Sue is the fact that Harry has no siblings. None. Whatsoever. This is an important part of his mythology. He is a poor orphaned boy with no family to speak of who finds himself family and place in the wizarding world and with his friends. By giving him a twin sister it removes this need he has to find an accepting family. And it also takes away his status as “the boy who lived”. It turns into the boy and his mysterious twin sister who lived, even though no one knew about her. Part of Harry’s mystique in the Wizarding world is that he is the only known survivor of the Killing curse and the defeater of Voldemort. He or Voldemort must die for the other to live. It is a tandem, an either or clause. There is no room for the twin sister in this pull between them. But this battle between good and evil is not what is important to the Twin Sister of Harry Potter. Instead it is the proving that she’s better than her brother and nothing like him so that Draco Malfoy will like her.
The American Transfer student Mary Sue is usually a witch from the States who’s father has to go to work at the British Ministry of Magic for some reason, or she’s the American cousin of the Weasleys or Hermione Granger who has to go to England for some reason. She appears most often in the third year or higher of Harry Potter’s time at Hogwarts. She is a ‘true’ American. She listens to all the popular bands on her CD player that magically works at Hogwarts and she doesn’t understand why she has to come to stuffy old Hogwarts with all the Brits who are obviously lower in stature than she is because she’s an American. Most of the time, the trio or Draco are in awe of her and her willingness to flaunt the dress codes of the school and to mouth off at Snape or McGonagall. When it comes to the sorting hat ceremony she is called up special from the first years. The hat has a difficult time placing her; she can easily fit in all of them. It’s always a tough call between Slytherin and Gryffindor. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw never get a Sue; those houses are not cool enough for her. Once sorted, she goes on to have a romance with either Draco or Harry, depending on which house she was put into. Sex usually follows.
The biggest problem with the American transfer Mary Sue is the fact that J.K. Rowling herself has said that there are none. While what J.K. Rowling says isn’t always a deterrent to what fan fictions writers (both good and bad) write, if it was there would be a noticeable absence of Draco and Herminone fan fiction, the American Transfer Mary Sues are rather prolific and rather bad. They seem to exist only to have sex with their person of choice and to prove how cool they are. Incidentals, like Sirius Black having escaped from Azkaban, the Tri-Wizard tournament, or Voldemort are left by the wayside in their pursuit of romance (unless they prove to be opportunities for rescue by their romantic interest). This doesn’t even get into the fact that Herminone, who is from a pure Muggle family, some how has a witch relative. That fact seems to be ignored, or forgotten.
The defense of the dark arts Mary Sue is a rarer breed than the others because as the books progress the position is always filled, by Moody, Umbrige and finally Snape. However in the early years of the fandom when books four, five and six had yet to be written, they were seen more often. There are two versions of this Sue. The first type is the older mysterious woman who has a past with Snape. She is exceptionally good at the job and is an immediate favorite with all the students, even more so than Remus Lupin was. Teaching however is a second priority to her as she works her way into Snape’s life and eventually into his bed, turning him into a rather nice person to be around. The second version this type is of a teacher who is of the students’ ages; usually around the age of sixteen. However, as Dumbledore says, “She is very gifted in the dark arts and has seen horrors that none of you have ever dreamed of.” Or something to that effect. So despite being a student at Hogwarts, she is also a teacher there. She is also as popular as her older counterpart and able to wow her fellow students into following her every word. Sometimes she has special lessons with Harry to help protect him, causing him to develop special powers that he didn’t know he had, like the ability to manipulate the elements or to do wandless magic.
As the series goes on, writers who wish to write this type of Mary Sue are forced into the Alternate Universe realms as the teaching positions fill up or they take up other positions, like the History of Magic or Muggle Studies. The biggest problem with the older version of this type of character is what they do to Snape. Which is to throw him completely out of character. He is no longer the snarky, bitter, student hating teacher that may or may not be evil, that is found in the books, but instead a poor misunderstood, sort of gothic, abused man who is really a closet romantic and for some reason acts like a teenage girl. The second version is more implausible than the first because there is no reason why Dumbledore would set a sixteen year old to teach his classes. And while it is possible for a sixteen year old to teach the class, Harry did do it for all intents and purposes, she wouldn’t be universally loved and admired.
The Mysterious Mary Sue is named so for two reasons, one is for her oft mysterious past and the second for her mysterious parentage. When I say mysterious parentage I don’t mean that she doesn’t know who her parents are so much as what they are. This type of Sue is half elf, half fairy, half pixie, half unicorn, half vampire, half angel, half demon, half veela, half dragon, half goddess. Sometimes they’re more than one half at the same time, while being a pure blooded witch. How she can do this is quite the mystery of genetics. Her past is equally as complicated and mysterious. She is the last of her line, a forgotten princess, a being from another reality, an elemental witch who can do wandless magic, someone that even Dumbledore and Voldemort won’t cross. She’s immortal, and beautiful. She’s seen more than any wizard or witch has a right to and knows more, and yet for some reason needs to come to Hogwarts for school. She’s Harry’s guardian angel. She has a mysterious prophecy that deals with her and Draco, or Harry, or Snape. In many ways she is a set of contradictions that just don’t make sense.
It should be rather obvious what is the problem with the mysterious Mary Sues. They just don’t fit into the world of Harry Potter. The elves in Harry Potter are small, big eared, not at all that sexy creatures, while the elves that the Mary Sues claim parentage from sound more like they are from the Lord of the Rings or traditional fantasy realms. The unicorns and dragons of Harry Potter are beasts and appear to be as intelligent as a horse or a very cranky mountain lion. The same goes for pixies and fairies. Which then begs the question, exactly how were these children created? Such things are never answered. Instead these important parts of canon are politely shoved into a closet and ignored. The Mary Sue then goes on to show her ability to be a multiple animagus, wandless magic user with a special prophecy that makes her the one that Voldemort really wants and not Harry.
These Mary Sues are the biggest violators of canon and are sheer fantasy fulfillment. Often times the story isn’t even recognizable as Harry Potter, except for the names of the characters being the same. They are written as an exercise for the Sue author to show how special and wonderful she is and to have the canon characters say how wonderful and special she is.
The daughter of… Mary Sue is the Mary Sue who’s the daughter of one of the adults in Harry Potter. Usually their parents are Snape, Sirius Black, Dumbledore, and Voldemort. She can either know, or not know who her parents are, depending on how the Sue author wants to try and gain the sympathy of the Trio or Draco. In the cases of Voldemort and Black she usually doesn’t know who her father is, having been raised an orphan. In the cases of Dumbledore and Snape she does know. She arrives at Hogwarts a late transfer into the school with much fanfare and mystery. Harry or Draco usually fall in love with her. And then angst is arrived when the discovery of who her parents are, which requires much love and attention from her love interest.
While it is not inconceivable for Snape or Black to have children, it is highly unlikely in both cases. Both are confirmed bachelors and neither seem to be the sort that would have the time to have children. Black, being in Azkaban, having even less of a chance than Snape; though it is conceivable that he could have had a child before being captured and imprisoned. Voldemort, on the other hand, is the least likely to have children. He has absolutely no interest in sex, sexuality, and what powers it could give him. It would require him to care about something other than himself. Which he doesn’t. Plus, as he is over fifty years old, any child of his from when he was Tom Riddle would be an adult, not a teenager. He was in the midst of his reign as Lord Voldemort, busy causing terror to Muggles and Wizards alike when it would be needed for him to create a daughter who would be a teenager when Harry goes to Hogwarts. It would be highly unlikely that he would want a daughter –or any child for that matter – at that point in time. He is not interested in creating an heir, but finding the secret to immortality. The same age problems follow Dumbledore around (although in many stories she is his niece or grand daughter).
The final type of Mary Sue is the pod person Mary Sue. They are called this because it is as if someone has taken a canon character, usually Herminone, and replaced them with a pod person. These stories have the phrase “Herminone changed over the summer…” in the beginning paragraphs of the story. In these stories Herminone has gone through a complete make over during the summer, both physically and mentally. She gains curves in all the right places, grows double d sized breasts and takes fashion lessons from the people who shop at Hot Topic. In the more extreme versions of these stories, we learn that Herminone has been terribly abused by her parents. Her father beats her and they neglect her. She resorts to cutting to release her self from the pain. Then a mysterious letter arrives and she learns that her parents, the evil dentists, are not really her parents at all! No, her real parents are the rulers of a small magical kingdom, or some of the richest pure blooded witches around that out do Malfoy’s family, or her father is really Voldemort and he wants his daughter to come home. From there she usually finds out that she is betrothed to Draco, and had been since she was a little girl. There is never a satisfactory explanation for why she was left with the Grangers. Once returning to Hogwarts she snubs her old friends, because they just don’t understand the pain that she has gone through, and is resorted into Slytherin, because for some reason the school needs to re-sort some people. Herminone takes to her new life with ease, leaving the trappings of her old life far behind. She sometimes even gains a new name, or prefers to go by ‘Mione or some variation there of.
The person just described is not Herminone Granger, as she is known in the books. She only takes the place of Herminone long enough to get alone with Draco. One of the things that makes Herminone special is that she’s the most talented witch of her age, and she’s Muggle born. Her purpose is to show that even brainy, book wormy people who aren’t that interested in their looks and don’t have best bloodlines in the world can still be someone important. The person that they have created are just about original characters except for the names that they bare. Which completely voids the point of writing about Herminone. If she doesn’t act like Herminone, and doesn’t look like Herminone and doesn’t have her background then it is not Herminone. And the same goes for Harry, Ginny and Draco.
Having looked at these different types of Mary Sues, it has been wondered, exactly what can be done to prevent and reform the authors of these stories. But there is some hope. Most of the Sue writers grow out of writing Mary Sues. They become better writers or they leave fan fiction all together. The problem is that with every fan fiction writer that leaves another takes her place. Constructive criticism can be offered, though it is often rebuffed as flames or the reviewer not knowing what the writer meant, or that it is fan fiction and they can write what they want. Some writers, however, have taken a unique spin on Mary Sues and how to get rid of them. Both of these ways started in the Lord of the Rings fandoms and involve the idea of meta fiction. The first is a series of stories written by various authors under the collective title of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum. These stories involve ‘agents’ who go into stories and kill the Mary Sues. The stories that they use are actual Mary Sue stories written by other people, the PPC authors insert their own agents into the stories by framing the Sue stories in the greater story of the Agents having to explore it. The second form of meta fiction takes the form of a university in a version of the Harry Potter verse in a story called, “Hogwarts Fan Fiction Academy”. There fan fiction writers learn the craft of writing good fan fiction from the canon characters and a staff of temperamental authors who are good fan fiction writers. The motto of the school is “Learning through Pain” and fan fiction writers who break the rules by chasing after canon characters are attacked by miniature aragogs who are named after the various misspellings of canon authors. Here the fan authors are actual writers who ask to be put into the story and not Sue authors themselves. Both the PPC stories and the Hogwarts Fan Fiction University look at the author and the Mary Sue as an amusing nuisance that can be great fun if used (or as the case may be, abused) properly. That is how, perhaps, the Mary Sue should be looked at, as a fantasy wish fulfillment for the young writer who is enthralled with the story and the canon characters, but ultimately something that must be put aside with the growth of becoming a better writer.
((X-posted))
Warning, it's long. Thanks. ^_^
Harry Potter and the Sparkly Princess of Doom.
This paper has a two-fold function. The first part is to explore what is a Mary Sue and why is she considered an anathema to many fan fiction writers and yet to others a good character to write. The second part looks at some specific types of Harry Potter Mary Sues that are commonly found in Harry Potter fan fiction. This paper is not meant to be an exhaustive look at the Mary Sue, merely an introduction to what they are, why they are and why people don’t like them.
A Mary Sue is an original female character found through out the many different fandoms of fan fiction that warps the reality of the canon world. She has become a stereotype character in fan fiction much like the mustache twirling villains or damsels in distress in regular literature or movies. Many say that their characters are not Mary Sues, but in fact original female characters.
However there are big differences between a Mary Sue and an Original Female Character. The biggest is the original female character’s ability to blend into the Harry Potter world. Mary Sues stand out naturally. In many ways they are designed to draw attention to themselves. They flout conventions both in the eyes of the reader of the fan fic and in the eyes of canon characters that they interact with. Often times they also flout the rules of logic and established canon.
If you were to insert a story containing an original female character into the Harry Potter canon, chances are that there wouldn’t be much of a disturbance. It would be like dropping a stone in the river of canon. Ripples would be caused, but the overall story flow would be maintained. However inserting a Mary Sue story into the canon, the river is often like the building of the Hoover Dam. The entire ecology of the canon flow is changed in both directions.
If, then, a Mary Sue story is so disruptive to canon why then are they written?
In many cases girls who want to be apart of the Harry Potter world write them. And both in the story and in the real world the girl wishes to be noticed. With their rudimentary writing abilities (this does not always mean their ability grasp grammar- more often it’s their ability to construct a story with well developed characters and a plot.), they create a situation where Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Severus Snape or who ever else they are interested in can encounter their authorial insert. To make sure that they are noticed they create a fantastic nature for their character.
After all who would be more interesting to meet? Melinda Applegate who’s a bit on the chunky side with a terrible case of acne and frizzy brown hair who’s parents were just a pare of ordinary wizards or Malificent Sabrina Terriequin Moonlight with flawless skin, a body to die for, with long shimmering honey colored hair with red stripes, whose father was a Deatheater and whose mother was the princess of the faries and Voldemort wanted her for her special blood and because there was a prophecy which said that if she were to every meet her true love who was scared by death the Dark Lord would fall soon after.
While Melinda Applegate may end up being more interesting character at a quick glance the more interesting character is the fairy princess. Unfortunately most Mary Sues don’t make it past this first surface interest into depth that a more fully developed character may have. The trappings may be there, but it is often still a superficial roundness. Or they try to make the character have flaws but they are not real flaws. These flaws are things like, “She’s too nice” or “She thinks that everyone thinks she’s ugly” or “she has pointed ears”. These so called flaws rarely show up past the introduction of the character and are never seen again having no impact on the story at all. It is as if the writer knows that a character should have certain things but they don’t know how to create them. The Sue author grabs onto what they know is supposed to be good and ideal from television and the media.
The writer also, when creating the Mary Sue, is able to create an ideal self. A person who looks how they would like to look and have the friends and powers (magical or otherwise) and confidence they may not have or think they have in real life.
Unfortunately in their exuberance to create characters that they think are interesting or to fulfill their fantasies, they often disregard the most important part of the Harry Potter canon.
The Sue authors can’t seem to create a character that doesn’t have some trappings of muggle life that they have in their life: things like CD players, cell phones, computers. And despite the fact that muggle objects that run on electricity don’t work on Hogwarts grounds the Mary Sues’ items have no problem working. The Mary Sues also like the same bands that the authors like or think are cool, go shopping muggle stores like Hot Topic, even if a witch or wizard wouldn’t be aware of them or they don’t exist in that time (especially during the time of Padfoot, Prongs, Moony and Wormtail) or place. When the anachronisms or inaccuracies are pointed out to the authors in reviews, there comes an almost uniform response of “If you don’t like, don’t read and besides it’s only fan fiction, which means I can write what I want”.
While fan fiction isn’t the most professional forum for writing a good many fan fiction stories are of professional caliber. However this doesn’t seem to be present in about 90% of the Mary Sue stories, mainly for the above attitude. The Sue author seems to completely self centered in their desires for what they write and why they write. They only use the framework of the Harry Potter world as an easy stepping stone or framework for their own fantasies. The characters are all ready there, as are the fantastic elements, the authors just need to plug in their desired changes. And if those changes don’t fit in with the canon of the story or how a character would act then they just ignore it, claim that since it’s fan fiction, emphasis on ‘fiction’, they can write what they want. They seem to be eager to forget the fan part of the equation, which recalls the ideas that they are writing in someone else’s world. A world, which they are supposedly fans of and that, they like enough to explore in their own writings. Instead they choose to look at the fiction aspect as a way to fulfill their fantasies.
The Mary Sues that they have created, in an effort to cause the interaction with the canon characters, to fulfill their fantasy, have to send the canon characters out of character. This is rather like a large mass of matter that pulls objects into its orbit. The Mary Sue pulls the canon characters into her orbit and ideas. In her influence Draco Malfoy becomes kind and only hates muggles because his father made him. Voldemort becomes handsome Tom Riddle again, who’s dark heart is turned to gold, Harry becomes almost all powerful or evil depending on who the Sue favors. Poor Wormtail is all but forgotten and oft replaced with the Sue herself in an effort to get Remus or Sirius and Snape is just unhappy because no one loves him, leaving him open to for the Mary Sue charm him into her grip.
Since the main purpose of a Mary Sue is to indulge in the fantasy of meeting the character and gaining their approval and not to explore a piece of the Harry Potter mythology (whether it be what did Harry do for his fifth birthday or what if Neville became the boy that lived?) there seem to be only a limited amount stories that occur with rapid repetition. These stories can be classified by the type of Mary Sue that inhabits them. While there are infinite variations to the basic types, they still all seem to fall into several main categories. There is the ‘twin sister’, ‘American Transfer’, ‘Defense of the Dark Arts teacher’, the ‘Mysterious Student’ the ‘daughter of…’ and the ‘Pod Person’.
The twin sister Mary Sue is Harry Potter’s long misplaced twin sister. Where has she been hiding all these years, depends on the writer. In some cases Dumbledore himself took her to an orphanage, other times she was picked up by a kindly Muggle couple from the wreckage of Godric’s Hollow, sometimes Dumbledore even keeps her hidden away secretly training her. All she has is a mysterious scar (sometimes exactly like Harry’s) and the last name of Potter. No matter what the case she arrives at Platform 9 ¾ s (not always at her first year) just in time to run into the trio. Sparks fly as Harry realizes that he has a twin sister. When the question of why she wasn’t dumped at the Dursleys like Harry arrives (if ever) she has any number of excuses; She was thought dead, Dumbledore thought it was safer if she was some where else, she needed special training, she was taken before Sirius Black arrived. She tries to prove that she isn’t as goody-goody as her twin brother and acts much like the rebel. When it comes time for the Sorting she is sorted into Slytherin. There she meets Draco Malfoy and there is an instant attraction. Sex usually follows.
The biggest problem with this Mary Sue is the fact that Harry has no siblings. None. Whatsoever. This is an important part of his mythology. He is a poor orphaned boy with no family to speak of who finds himself family and place in the wizarding world and with his friends. By giving him a twin sister it removes this need he has to find an accepting family. And it also takes away his status as “the boy who lived”. It turns into the boy and his mysterious twin sister who lived, even though no one knew about her. Part of Harry’s mystique in the Wizarding world is that he is the only known survivor of the Killing curse and the defeater of Voldemort. He or Voldemort must die for the other to live. It is a tandem, an either or clause. There is no room for the twin sister in this pull between them. But this battle between good and evil is not what is important to the Twin Sister of Harry Potter. Instead it is the proving that she’s better than her brother and nothing like him so that Draco Malfoy will like her.
The American Transfer student Mary Sue is usually a witch from the States who’s father has to go to work at the British Ministry of Magic for some reason, or she’s the American cousin of the Weasleys or Hermione Granger who has to go to England for some reason. She appears most often in the third year or higher of Harry Potter’s time at Hogwarts. She is a ‘true’ American. She listens to all the popular bands on her CD player that magically works at Hogwarts and she doesn’t understand why she has to come to stuffy old Hogwarts with all the Brits who are obviously lower in stature than she is because she’s an American. Most of the time, the trio or Draco are in awe of her and her willingness to flaunt the dress codes of the school and to mouth off at Snape or McGonagall. When it comes to the sorting hat ceremony she is called up special from the first years. The hat has a difficult time placing her; she can easily fit in all of them. It’s always a tough call between Slytherin and Gryffindor. Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw never get a Sue; those houses are not cool enough for her. Once sorted, she goes on to have a romance with either Draco or Harry, depending on which house she was put into. Sex usually follows.
The biggest problem with the American transfer Mary Sue is the fact that J.K. Rowling herself has said that there are none. While what J.K. Rowling says isn’t always a deterrent to what fan fictions writers (both good and bad) write, if it was there would be a noticeable absence of Draco and Herminone fan fiction, the American Transfer Mary Sues are rather prolific and rather bad. They seem to exist only to have sex with their person of choice and to prove how cool they are. Incidentals, like Sirius Black having escaped from Azkaban, the Tri-Wizard tournament, or Voldemort are left by the wayside in their pursuit of romance (unless they prove to be opportunities for rescue by their romantic interest). This doesn’t even get into the fact that Herminone, who is from a pure Muggle family, some how has a witch relative. That fact seems to be ignored, or forgotten.
The defense of the dark arts Mary Sue is a rarer breed than the others because as the books progress the position is always filled, by Moody, Umbrige and finally Snape. However in the early years of the fandom when books four, five and six had yet to be written, they were seen more often. There are two versions of this Sue. The first type is the older mysterious woman who has a past with Snape. She is exceptionally good at the job and is an immediate favorite with all the students, even more so than Remus Lupin was. Teaching however is a second priority to her as she works her way into Snape’s life and eventually into his bed, turning him into a rather nice person to be around. The second version this type is of a teacher who is of the students’ ages; usually around the age of sixteen. However, as Dumbledore says, “She is very gifted in the dark arts and has seen horrors that none of you have ever dreamed of.” Or something to that effect. So despite being a student at Hogwarts, she is also a teacher there. She is also as popular as her older counterpart and able to wow her fellow students into following her every word. Sometimes she has special lessons with Harry to help protect him, causing him to develop special powers that he didn’t know he had, like the ability to manipulate the elements or to do wandless magic.
As the series goes on, writers who wish to write this type of Mary Sue are forced into the Alternate Universe realms as the teaching positions fill up or they take up other positions, like the History of Magic or Muggle Studies. The biggest problem with the older version of this type of character is what they do to Snape. Which is to throw him completely out of character. He is no longer the snarky, bitter, student hating teacher that may or may not be evil, that is found in the books, but instead a poor misunderstood, sort of gothic, abused man who is really a closet romantic and for some reason acts like a teenage girl. The second version is more implausible than the first because there is no reason why Dumbledore would set a sixteen year old to teach his classes. And while it is possible for a sixteen year old to teach the class, Harry did do it for all intents and purposes, she wouldn’t be universally loved and admired.
The Mysterious Mary Sue is named so for two reasons, one is for her oft mysterious past and the second for her mysterious parentage. When I say mysterious parentage I don’t mean that she doesn’t know who her parents are so much as what they are. This type of Sue is half elf, half fairy, half pixie, half unicorn, half vampire, half angel, half demon, half veela, half dragon, half goddess. Sometimes they’re more than one half at the same time, while being a pure blooded witch. How she can do this is quite the mystery of genetics. Her past is equally as complicated and mysterious. She is the last of her line, a forgotten princess, a being from another reality, an elemental witch who can do wandless magic, someone that even Dumbledore and Voldemort won’t cross. She’s immortal, and beautiful. She’s seen more than any wizard or witch has a right to and knows more, and yet for some reason needs to come to Hogwarts for school. She’s Harry’s guardian angel. She has a mysterious prophecy that deals with her and Draco, or Harry, or Snape. In many ways she is a set of contradictions that just don’t make sense.
It should be rather obvious what is the problem with the mysterious Mary Sues. They just don’t fit into the world of Harry Potter. The elves in Harry Potter are small, big eared, not at all that sexy creatures, while the elves that the Mary Sues claim parentage from sound more like they are from the Lord of the Rings or traditional fantasy realms. The unicorns and dragons of Harry Potter are beasts and appear to be as intelligent as a horse or a very cranky mountain lion. The same goes for pixies and fairies. Which then begs the question, exactly how were these children created? Such things are never answered. Instead these important parts of canon are politely shoved into a closet and ignored. The Mary Sue then goes on to show her ability to be a multiple animagus, wandless magic user with a special prophecy that makes her the one that Voldemort really wants and not Harry.
These Mary Sues are the biggest violators of canon and are sheer fantasy fulfillment. Often times the story isn’t even recognizable as Harry Potter, except for the names of the characters being the same. They are written as an exercise for the Sue author to show how special and wonderful she is and to have the canon characters say how wonderful and special she is.
The daughter of… Mary Sue is the Mary Sue who’s the daughter of one of the adults in Harry Potter. Usually their parents are Snape, Sirius Black, Dumbledore, and Voldemort. She can either know, or not know who her parents are, depending on how the Sue author wants to try and gain the sympathy of the Trio or Draco. In the cases of Voldemort and Black she usually doesn’t know who her father is, having been raised an orphan. In the cases of Dumbledore and Snape she does know. She arrives at Hogwarts a late transfer into the school with much fanfare and mystery. Harry or Draco usually fall in love with her. And then angst is arrived when the discovery of who her parents are, which requires much love and attention from her love interest.
While it is not inconceivable for Snape or Black to have children, it is highly unlikely in both cases. Both are confirmed bachelors and neither seem to be the sort that would have the time to have children. Black, being in Azkaban, having even less of a chance than Snape; though it is conceivable that he could have had a child before being captured and imprisoned. Voldemort, on the other hand, is the least likely to have children. He has absolutely no interest in sex, sexuality, and what powers it could give him. It would require him to care about something other than himself. Which he doesn’t. Plus, as he is over fifty years old, any child of his from when he was Tom Riddle would be an adult, not a teenager. He was in the midst of his reign as Lord Voldemort, busy causing terror to Muggles and Wizards alike when it would be needed for him to create a daughter who would be a teenager when Harry goes to Hogwarts. It would be highly unlikely that he would want a daughter –or any child for that matter – at that point in time. He is not interested in creating an heir, but finding the secret to immortality. The same age problems follow Dumbledore around (although in many stories she is his niece or grand daughter).
The final type of Mary Sue is the pod person Mary Sue. They are called this because it is as if someone has taken a canon character, usually Herminone, and replaced them with a pod person. These stories have the phrase “Herminone changed over the summer…” in the beginning paragraphs of the story. In these stories Herminone has gone through a complete make over during the summer, both physically and mentally. She gains curves in all the right places, grows double d sized breasts and takes fashion lessons from the people who shop at Hot Topic. In the more extreme versions of these stories, we learn that Herminone has been terribly abused by her parents. Her father beats her and they neglect her. She resorts to cutting to release her self from the pain. Then a mysterious letter arrives and she learns that her parents, the evil dentists, are not really her parents at all! No, her real parents are the rulers of a small magical kingdom, or some of the richest pure blooded witches around that out do Malfoy’s family, or her father is really Voldemort and he wants his daughter to come home. From there she usually finds out that she is betrothed to Draco, and had been since she was a little girl. There is never a satisfactory explanation for why she was left with the Grangers. Once returning to Hogwarts she snubs her old friends, because they just don’t understand the pain that she has gone through, and is resorted into Slytherin, because for some reason the school needs to re-sort some people. Herminone takes to her new life with ease, leaving the trappings of her old life far behind. She sometimes even gains a new name, or prefers to go by ‘Mione or some variation there of.
The person just described is not Herminone Granger, as she is known in the books. She only takes the place of Herminone long enough to get alone with Draco. One of the things that makes Herminone special is that she’s the most talented witch of her age, and she’s Muggle born. Her purpose is to show that even brainy, book wormy people who aren’t that interested in their looks and don’t have best bloodlines in the world can still be someone important. The person that they have created are just about original characters except for the names that they bare. Which completely voids the point of writing about Herminone. If she doesn’t act like Herminone, and doesn’t look like Herminone and doesn’t have her background then it is not Herminone. And the same goes for Harry, Ginny and Draco.
Having looked at these different types of Mary Sues, it has been wondered, exactly what can be done to prevent and reform the authors of these stories. But there is some hope. Most of the Sue writers grow out of writing Mary Sues. They become better writers or they leave fan fiction all together. The problem is that with every fan fiction writer that leaves another takes her place. Constructive criticism can be offered, though it is often rebuffed as flames or the reviewer not knowing what the writer meant, or that it is fan fiction and they can write what they want. Some writers, however, have taken a unique spin on Mary Sues and how to get rid of them. Both of these ways started in the Lord of the Rings fandoms and involve the idea of meta fiction. The first is a series of stories written by various authors under the collective title of the Protectors of the Plot Continuum. These stories involve ‘agents’ who go into stories and kill the Mary Sues. The stories that they use are actual Mary Sue stories written by other people, the PPC authors insert their own agents into the stories by framing the Sue stories in the greater story of the Agents having to explore it. The second form of meta fiction takes the form of a university in a version of the Harry Potter verse in a story called, “Hogwarts Fan Fiction Academy”. There fan fiction writers learn the craft of writing good fan fiction from the canon characters and a staff of temperamental authors who are good fan fiction writers. The motto of the school is “Learning through Pain” and fan fiction writers who break the rules by chasing after canon characters are attacked by miniature aragogs who are named after the various misspellings of canon authors. Here the fan authors are actual writers who ask to be put into the story and not Sue authors themselves. Both the PPC stories and the Hogwarts Fan Fiction University look at the author and the Mary Sue as an amusing nuisance that can be great fun if used (or as the case may be, abused) properly. That is how, perhaps, the Mary Sue should be looked at, as a fantasy wish fulfillment for the young writer who is enthralled with the story and the canon characters, but ultimately something that must be put aside with the growth of becoming a better writer.
((X-posted))
