Ben - a Gary Stu?

[Ashleg]

I had to. I'm about 150 pages in and it's all he rubs me as. Does Ben get less Sue-ish? Do you think of him as a Sue?

Yeah, I get it this dude has lived a heckuvva time, but he acts like nothing is concerning to him. He takes out the bad guys with barely any effort and is imminently liked by every (hero) he meets.

Plus immortality, which I don't know why the Angel didn't just reverse the curse because he would in reality probably be very depressed right now but, PLOT, I guess.

I liked Neb, though. Neb felt real.

[DelenatheWanderer]

I finished it in two days (because I am that person) and the short answer is - no. At least it's balanced out a bit by Ned's personality; humor and common sense. That's how I feel, at least.

[Ashleg]

Dang it.

Well, I do like Ned. It's hard to hate a dog.

[Captain Tammo]

I guess Ben has some qualities about him that makes him stand out as good at.... lots of things? I don't really think he's a Stu, though. There are quite a few near-death experiences for him in the series. He lives forever and speaks every language, but he still has limits!

I know in one of the books someone tries punching him and he sidesteps it really well and keeps a cool. Maybe he picked up some tips from a boxer or something in his travels?

[Ashleg]

Stus can definitely have near-death experiences.

I don't know how long it's been since you've read it, but his Stuness is really sticking out to me, more so than Rose and Triss and Mariel or Martin or Tiria.

You can assume he's picked things up, and it can be expected that he's not mentally a child since he's hundreds of years old, but if this is not shown or even told in the book it's not doing much to help his case.

Every character is literally taken back by the mysteriousness of his eyes, multiple times, he sees every clue before any of the rest of the cast but decides to simply let them have it so they can feel better...

I'm going to read it out and hope it gets better. I'm already halfway through. But if the first book is an indication of the rest of the series, Castaways may not be for me. It's well-written, but I feel that Ben's (what I mentioned above) "impact" has already gotten stale and if the pirate stuff is downplayed now I'll have a hard time getting in to it.

Ain't much fun when your main character is a literal unphasable know-it-all.

[Maudie]

You see him a lot more vulnerable in the third book especially, and kind of the second book. Those books are actually set before the village part of the first book, so he doesn't know quite as much. He's also thrust into situations where he had less control.

But overall he does remain about as confident and unphasable as humanly possible throughout the series. Not completely so all the time, but still more than your average joe. He may be a Gary Stu, but he's less ridiculously so in the next books of the series.

[Ashleg]

That's good.

My bookstore has them for ridiculously cheap so I may try them if I take your word on it.

Does book 3 have more pirates?

[Maudie]

They both have pirates. In fact, book two is basically just pirates.

[Ashleg]

Great.

[Captain Tammo]

hm.. maybe its time i revisit these books and take another, closer look at things. It didn't seem quite so obvious to me when I first read them.