Mary-Sues

[Wylder Treejumper]

@Tamleo:

Here is a useful Mary Sue test for characters, OC, fanfiction or otherwise.


As to Mary-Sues in the books, I'd like to offer up Songbreeze Swifteye from Marlfox. She's another "beautiful singer" who charms the heart out of gruff male characters like Dippler, who can also hold her own and thinks quick on her feet. Who's the one who wields the sacred weapon of the water vole tribe? Song. Who's the one out of the four main protagonists who hasn't messed up prior to the break-in by Marlfoxes of the Abbey during the attack our on the path? Songbreeze.

Yiss yiss.

I'll have to disagree with you there. I never thought Song was a sue. Sure she gets a sacred water-vole staff thingy, but it's not as though she ever fights all that well with it. Indeed, she's rather a failure as a fighter. For example, see the event where she is on sentry duty.

[Ashleg]

She just seemed like a "too perfect" and bland character to me. I actually forgot about her until I read Taggerung.

[Hickory]

@Tamleo:

Here is a useful Mary Sue test for characters, OC, fanfiction or otherwise.


As to Mary-Sues in the books, I'd like to offer up Songbreeze Swifteye from Marlfox. She's another "beautiful singer" who charms the heart out of gruff male characters like Dippler, who can also hold her own and thinks quick on her feet. Who's the one who wields the sacred weapon of the water vole tribe? Song. Who's the one out of the four main protagonists who hasn't messed up prior to the break-in by Marlfoxes of the Abbey during the attack our on the path? Songbreeze.

Yiss yiss.

I'll have to disagree with you there. I never thought Song was a sue. Sure she gets a sacred water-vole staff thingy, but it's not as though she ever fights all that well with it. Indeed, she's rather a failure as a fighter. For example, see the event where she is on sentry duty.

In Great Hall, when the Marlfoxes broke in, used Nutwing as a living shield, stopping her from attacking? I'm too lazy to pick up Marlfox from the shelf, but maybe the wiki has some information. Check for edits.

EDIT: Just checked. It doesn't say anything about her fighting skills. When was the last time you read Marlfox?

[Groddil]

I just started Triss, so I read Marlfox in January.

[LT Sandpaw]

 

Song's Fighting skills

I'm pretty sure she fought a total of twice, once when they were ambushed by the Marlfoxes and Water rats in the great hall, and again when her and Dan rush a gang of ferrets. I have to assume she is pretty good at fighting because the second time she fights, her and Dan charge a gang of twelve ferrets I believe. While Dan beats up the leader she fights the other eleven off. (Though the book doesn't go into the specifics.) so yeah.

While it does mention the most of the ferrets were somehow terrified of two slingers, (Which I can tell you from experience slings takes some time to load and shoot) but there was still eleven of them, so I must assume she did some fighting with her staff.

That being said Song did get clonked in the great hall pretty easily. But the situation was bad, she did get a dead owl got shoved in her face, and her friend just got smashed in the head by an axe, so it is understandable she didn't see the spear haft in time to block it.

[close]

[Groddil]

I groaned in pain when I started reading Taggerung and Cregga began to go on and on about "The beautiful, wonderful, perfect Abbess Songbreeze." At least Mhera had no idea how to solve that _ITAGALL thing.

[Captain Tammo]

@Tamleo:

Here is a useful Mary Sue test for characters, OC, fanfiction or otherwise.

Just took the quiz. Got a score of 29 for Leonardo (my fanfic's main character) - so he's not quite a sue but the site says any worse and he would be. 29 is still in the safe-ish region though, so at least that's a plus!

I have a question: do you guys think Ublaz Madeyes was sue-like at all? What about Martin II (I think he was pretty sue-esque)

[Delthion]

The worst Mary-Sue that I have ever encountered was in the Peleg Chronicles and her name was Suzy. Very evil child, one wanted to boil her in oil.

[Ashleg]

...Sounds like the same Suzy from Phineas and Ferb.
Dang, I feel for anyone with the name 'Suzy'. They get a bad rep. x"D

[belle]

Technically, judging by the standards of the quizzes and articles found on the Internet, almost all Redwall heroes are Mary Sues. They often have skills that are rarely ever realistic, or gain skills or positions of power at unrealistically young ages and / or in unrealistically short amounts of time, and have either no flaws or have flaws that they get over very quickly and that dont cause them real problems.
I think characters tend to be labeled Mary Sues if the reader doesnt like them.
BTW, I like Rose and not Mariel, too. I'm just saying.

[belle]

I'm really not one to complain about a character being a Mary Sue if its a Redwall character. I prefer Redwall books and movies with "squeaky clean" characters and good morals to alot of other trashy books with annoying, cliched "dark" characters who try to seem flawed. Of course, when the writer knows how to create a balance between good characteristics and flaws that are actually interesting and meaningful, that's cool, too.
I tend to think more in terms of whether I liked the character or not. The Taggerung was the second Redwall book I read as a kid, so the fact that Deyna was an otter amongst vermin wasn't a big deal to me the way it was when I read Outcast many books later. I did enjoy Taggerung very much, it was my first glimpse of Redwall Abbey (the first book I'd read was Lord Brocktree, which was set in Salamandastron), but looking back, I can see how it faltered, not because of having a near to perfect hero, but because, if they were going to do that, I cant see the point in having him be an otter raised among vermin anyway. There was no real conflict from what I saw, there were no bumps he had to go over on his way to deciding to be good. Also, even in reading Taggerung the first time, I didn't like his attitude when he was with the vermin; something about it irked me, and i wanted to see him taken down a peg or two in a way I didn't with mist other Redwall heroes.
As for Tiria - I dont dwell on her as a Mary Sue, but, God, I hate her name. I also wasn't crazy about the book when compared to other Redwall books and didn't find her terribly interesting, but don't hate her, either. I guess not all Redwall books can be like Mossflower or Pearls of Lutra.
As for Salixia, she's more of a portrait of perfection and angelic beauty than a real character, and I used to make jokes about how pointless the Tabura character was, but nothing surprises me in Redwall, lol. At least one of my favorite Redwall songs was sung by Salixia. Or was it Salixa? God, can't remember.

[belle]

Double post.

[Delthion]

Belle, just a word of advise, the Mods/Admins/Tyrants of the forum. Don't like us double-posting, use the shiny modify button in the top right corner.

* Delthion is so happy that he can finally say this again.

[Groddil]

Or triple-posting. :p

[Wylder Treejumper]

In truth, I must agree with Belle here. It's so easy to point and say: That character is unrealistic and has unrealistic luck, abilities, and situations! At the same time though, Redwall is, if we come down to it, escapist fantasy, and a fine piece of escapist fantasy it is. Nothing wrong with the genre. If the characters were normal, led normal lives and had normal circumstances, it would get pretty boring. A Redwall book that was solely normal life in Camp Tussock would get pretty boring after a while. Part of the point of the main characters being main characters is that they are unusual! These are legends, and you don't get to be a legend by being average.

Instead of focusing solely over whether a character is unrealistic or not- because face it, the great majority of them are, from our perspective, but they are not terribly unusual in the Redwall universe- we should focus on identifying character depth. Beasts like Scarum are entirely one-dimensional, and as such are more caricatures than characters, but Hon Rosie is more dimensional than she appears.

In any case, some of my favorite characters happen to be sues, and I think we denigrate a bit unfairly on this subject. You can have a good character that is a sue, if she is well-executed.