Is Mary Sue Incongruous with Slash? or Mary Sue's Sexual Identity

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Title:	Is Mary Sue Incongruous with Slash? or Mary Sue's Sexual Identity
Creator:	Vywren
Date(s):	September 4, 2003
Medium:	online
Fandom:
Topic:	Fanfiction, Slash, Mary Sue
External Links:	Is Mary Sue Incongruous with Slash? or Mary Sue's Sexual Identity, Archived version
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Is Mary Sue Incongruous with Slash? or Mary Sue's Sexual Identity is an essay by Vywren.

It is part of the Fanfic Symposium series.

The Essay

1. Look, Mommy, she's a woman!

Yes, Mary Sue is a woman and she repels us. But does she have to be a woman? Whenever her silken hair obliterates the Coruscant sunshine, or her hips sway seductively while running to save the world, instant recognition of this pinnacle of femininity is ensured.

Generally speaking, yes, she is a woman. Of course, Gary Stu appears once in a while, but overall, the typical Mary Sue has a set of XX chromosomes. Women seem to either insert a female original character in a het story, the main source of Mary Sues, or write slash, identifying themselves (or not) with one of the guys/girls.

2. Het. Your word for today.

Hypothesis: Typical Mary Sues are females and appear in het fiction. Duh!

Proof: original characters bordering on Mary Sue-ism appear because of the wish of the author of being that fiery, perfect girl who proves to be the niece of Qui-Gon and with whom Obi-Wan falls madly in love. Or Legolas’ first love, that beautiful elf maiden haunting the poor archer’s dreams. Therefore, Mary Sue being a woman in order to seduce the hot Jedi/sensual Elf, we have an m/f story, a.k.a het. Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

I'm not saying that all original characters in het fiction are Mary Sues – I don't have the right to say it and, anyway, it is not true. What I mean is that Mary Sues have this penchant of showing their wild, red-haired heads on the het playgrounds of fandom; I have yet to find that m/m/f threesome with a believable emphasis on the m/m relation.

3. Women can't write, women can't paint.

And women have no place in a slash story. Except being a (beta)reader or writer. Or even betawriter(!).

Anyway, there are no original characters or Mary Sues in a slash story, because, in slash, relations are fixed on the gender axis, and a woman revolving around a slash relationship sounds like a hellish crossover. And I don’t mean the above-mentioned threesome formula, I mean a real slash relationship with a woman as an original character in a central position. Although male characters involved in a slash relationship are often depicted as being bisexual, this inclination seems to obey the “one gender at a time” rule.

It's just not yummy, because a het reader will say "Ewww...slash!", and the slasher will try to stay oblivious to the womanly leg of the kinky tripod. And the fear of Mary Sue is paroxysmal in slash fiction, it is almost a phobia, to the extent that original characters have become a rara avis. Slashers simply aren't good at handling women.

4. Toys make the slasher.

So why does the slasher not simply insert a male Mary Sue?

This is the core of the problem. And only God and Freud can answer the question, but we can make suppositions.

The slasher is a slasher because she sees the subtext. She is there because of a strong belief that Qui-Gon has feelings for Obi-Wan, not because she saw in the movie that Obi-Wan is gay and needs an original gay character to satisfy his sexual needs. A slasher becomes a slasher in the moment of the revelation: "Did you see how X touches Y’s shoulder? Aha!" *knowing grin*.

And this whole slash thing is more about feelings than about sex. Also, slashers being – the vast majority – females, perhaps they just feel uncomfortable "self-inserting" themselves as a male character, because, well, "write what you know".

Slashers are the modest children of fandom, adapting to their old, canon puppets. But if slash is playing with a given set of toys, het is wanting yet another toy, yes, that nice one I saw yesterday in the store, and whining to daddy in hopes of making him buy it. This toy is the original character and the only one with a Mary Sue potential.

The slasher doesn't generally need an original character, because that would mean the disturbing of the pre-existing m/m relation, which is the slasher's raison d’etre. And if there's no original character, there cannot be a Mary Sue.

But whatever the reason may be, in my opinion the original male character that will break up a fanon-established pairing and work convincingly, not only as a side plot device, still has to be borne.

5. Mary Sue – now you see her, now you don’t.

So how does the slasher insert her generously lubed self into the well-stretched slash story? Carefully, tenderly and not just ramming in. Subtlety there must be, and no perfection. Because perfection is a trade mark of Mary Sue, Inc., and good characterization needs the struggles, weaknesses and insecurities of the character to be transmitted to the reader.

Only out of characterness is a way of making a male canon character more similar to the writer's perceptions, allowing certain features to be adapted to the right Mary Sueish state. But he is canon, and therefore not a real Mary Sue; and out of characterness is another mine field of relative interpretations.

The forum is open and Mary Sue's existence in slash, either as a male or as a female, is intersected at this point by the evergreen debate on why we read and write slash.

Slashers may be scared of Mary Sue. And yet, these two entities are not so dichotomous as it may seem, because, if we consider slash to be the quintessential Freudian Mary Sue, then slashers are the ultimate self-insertionists of fandom.

Reactions and Reviews

Online discussion has convinced me that a number of slashwriters have some degree of masculine identification, or at least are curious about what it would be like to be a handsome, dashing, well-hung police lieutenant, privateer, Enterprise crewmember, etc. There's also a recognized "Yenta Sue" MS role in making those two Big Lugs admit that they love each other (possibly as they break down in tears at the funeral after MS sacrifices herself for the greater good. Another possible MS pathway is an ensemble story--let's say it's a hospital show, and a third-person story not only depicts studly radiologist Tom/studly orthopod Diego, but also gorgeous cardiologist MS/studly brain surgeon Rick.

Sometime when I'm less doped up on cold meds, I'm going to write a long response to this column, but in brief: I thought it needed much better development, that it was full of poorly-informed opinion presented as fact, and I think it missed perhaps the classic form of the slash Mary Sue: The Beautiful Perfect Mary Sue Who Gets the Guys Together (there are others, of course, but that one is so obvious and common that I'm very surprised at its omission).

And...damn.

Well.

First, I think it's poorly thought-out and presents far too much opinion as fact (so much that I wondered if it were trollish). Secondly, it misses one of the commonest forms of slash Mary Sue, the matchmaking MS, which makes me wonder just what the author of the column has been reading - that form is the Oldest Established Permanent Floating Nonsexual Mary Sue around, near as I can tell.

Generally, I find the column poorly developed and rather stuffed with misconceptions and devoid of logical flow. I'm quite a fan of Mary Sues, actually - to make fun of, to parody, to talk about, to theorize about - and I had pretty high hopes for this when I saw the title: is Mary Sue incongruous with slash fiction?

I don't think it's her femininity (if she's female, which she needn't be); it isn't that she has the potential to interrupt the dynamics of the m/m characters (although she may). I think she's *generally* incongruous with in-character behavior of the canon characters, but is she *specifically* more problematic in slashfiction somehow?

To my mind, there are two qualities a Mary Sue must have to be a Mary Sue: (a) She must be an authorial insert. (b) She must deform the plot and other characters by her very existence.

She does not have to sleep with anyone - nonsensical theories about het notwithstanding:

> Hypothesis: Typical Mary Sues are females and appear in het > fiction. Duh! > > Proof: original characters bordering on Mary Sue-ism > appear because of the wish of the author of being that fiery, perfect > girl who proves to be the niece of Qui-Gon and with whom Obi-Wan falls > madly in love....

That's not a proof, that's an unfounded assertion masquerading as proof. At best, it ought to live in the hypothesis section. There's a one-sentence dismissal of m/m/f fiction where a Mary Sue is involved:

> I have yet to find that m/m/f threesome with a believable emphasis on the > m/m relation.

They exist - but probably NOT with Mary Sues. MSes, because they deform the original characters, make it very hard to construct the believable m/m relationship in the first place, sex or no sex. Non-MS female characters, though, can and do show up in threesomes; there's some nice Methos/Duncan/Amanda out there, for example.

A bit later in the column:

> Anyway, there are no original characters or Mary > Sues in a slash story, because, in slash, relations are fixed on the > gender axis, and a woman revolving around a slash relationship sounds > like a hellish crossover. And I don’t mean the above-mentioned threesome > formula, I mean a real slash relationship with a woman as an original > character in a central position.

I find it difficult to react to that in a sensible fashion: there are MANY original characters, some of them MSes, in slash. (Some of them not even female, which point I will get to in just a minute.) After all, why shouldn't there be? An original character can be the nexus about which a story turns, if there is reason for him or her to be - I'm thinking here of stories such as Lanning Cook's "Call Him a Dog".

The real problem is when the OC around whom the story turns is a MS, with the attendant annoyance and out-of-character behavior.

Again, this raises a question for me of whether this is somehow worse in slash than it is for gen or het. It's possible that it is: one of the aspects of slash that I find most interesting is the relationship between the two characters being slashed, and MS can deform that relationship to such an extent that the very qualities that make it interesting are absent.

Of course, that could just be general bad writing. It's often hard to tell - and it can surely happen in gen or het fiction as well. ("I have seen it in stories!")

I think it's poorly thought-out and presents far too much opinion as fact

Beginner's error, I must admit.

which makes me wonder just what the author of the column has been reading See above -- compared to most people around, I have been involved in fan fiction for a relatively short period.

I don't think it's her femininity (if she's female, which she needn't be); it isn't that she has the potential to interrupt the dynamics of the m/m characters (although she may). I think she's *generally* incongruous with in-character behavior of the canon characters, but is she *specifically* more problematic in slashfiction somehow? If she's a female, she will play the matchmaker role, as you pointed out, but if she intervenes in the slash relation there won't be slash anymore, at least not *pure slash*, imho.

She does not have to sleep with anyone No, she doesn't. But she can direct the story towards either slash or het with her actions.

They exist - but probably NOT with Mary Sues. MSes, because they deform the original characters, make it very hard to construct the believable m/m relationship in the first place, sex or no sex. Non-MS female characters, though, can and do show up in threesomes; there's some nice Methos/Duncan/Amanda out there, for example. I agree, but that's entirely another thing, and as you said it yourself, that's not about Mary Sues.

I find it difficult to react to that in a sensible fashion But thanks for the sensible fashion of the reaction, though :)

Again, this raises a question for me of whether this is somehow worse in slash than it is for gen or het. It's possible that it is: one of the aspects of slash that I find most interesting is the relationship between the two characters being slashed, and MS can deform that relationship to such an extent that the very qualities that make it interesting are absent. Exactly my point.

Of course, that could just be general bad writing. It's often hard to tell - and it can surely happen in gen or het fiction as well.

Obviously this might be the case, too.

I replied to Laura's post on the FCA-L list after reading your essay, but after reading your replies to people here, I begin to see a bit more of the problem. Namely, the terms you use are too broad for the concepts you mean. You say slash, but you mean m/m slash. You say Mary Sue, but you mean romantic interest female Mary Sue. You briefly mention femmeslash, Marty Stu, and matchmaker Mary Sue, only to dismiss each without any real explanation. This weakens your argument, as the message it imparts is that you discount these items only because they do not support your hypothesis. Considering that these items are very common in the slash genre, I think it's safe to say that any hypothesis that cannot account for them is flawed.

It has been mentioned that your assertion that slashers can't write women/are afraid to write women is incorrect, with examples given of writers (like myself) who write slash, gen, and het, as well as a reminder of the entire subgenre of femmeslash. Along with these examples, I would also point out the number of m/m slash stories featuring canon female characters in prominent, non-"bitch" roles, as well as original female characters in similar roles. I am thinking of HP slash stories which make good use of Hermione, Ginny, McGonagall, Lily, and Pansy; SV slash stories wherein Martha, Chloe, Lana, and sometimes Helen make a good showing; HL slash stories giving us a well-done Amanda, as part of a threesome or not. The list goes on. While I have little doubt there may indeed be m/m slash writers who are afraid to write women, and while I have read stories that left me with the strong impression the author couldn't write women (a common problem outside of the slash genre, as well), the number of m/m slash stories featuring well-drawn women and the number of m/m slash writers who have made statements indicating they enjoy writing women makes any generalized assertions such as the ones you made in your essay absurd. Making any pronouncement about slash writers as a whole is problematic. Making a pronouncement which directly contradicts the evidence to hand only undermines any legitimate point you may have been trying to make. Which brings me to my own biggest problem with your column.

I have read your essay several times, and I'm still not certain what the main thrust of it was supposed to be. Were you trying to point out the underlying misogyny of slash using the lack of romantic interest Mary Sue as your evidence? Were you trying to say slash writers don't need romantic interest Mary Sue, because they themselves become the "perfect female" by dictating every action, thought, and word of their BSOs? Were you trying to say a romantic interest Mary Sue is less likely to show up in a slash story because it's slash and therefore there's not a ready-made slot for her? Whether it was one of these or something else entirely, your essay left at least this reader confused.

*shrug* It still didn't work for me, but hey, it's your article.

*g* My reality is not your reality, you know how they say.

I don't mean I am right -- only that everybody has a relative view. I really appreciated your comments -- it's exquisite to have a powerful partner in a logical duel :)

Thank you.

--Vyrwen.