Mary Sue:

The Bane of Fanfiction?

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One of the biggest taboos in the HPverse is Mary-Sue. Mary-Sue (and Marty-Stu) represent a broad scope of many things in fanfiction: self-insertion by the author, original characters, idealized characters, orginial romantic interests for the already existing characters, and so on. I don't think that all of these things are necessarily bad, as they are so often perceived.
First of all, EVERY writer uses some form of self-insertion to create characters. Even the canon authors. JK Rowling has admitted that Hermione is an idealized version of herself. Not to mention that she used several people she knew in real life as the basis for almost every other character in the series. The best way to create a character is to look at people you know, and who should be at the top of that list? Yourself. (I should hope! How can you expect to write about people if you don't really know the one with whom you spend the most time?)
Personally, I use fanfiction as a sort of training ground and springboard to original fiction. Because, yes, I do write orginial stuff too. I am a fan, true, but I am first and foremost a writer.
And nothing ticks me off more than taking canon characters and making them do things they wouldn't do. Hermione isn't going to go buck wild and start shagging every professor in sight. Harry isn't going to turn into Slyvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenegger. Ron isn't either. Draco isn't going to buddy up to the Dream Team and become a nice guy. Neville is probably never going to stand up to Professor Snape. Lucius is never going to like the Weasleys. Snape isn't going to shag his students. ANY of them. Face it, everyone: he despises children. ALL children. And he hates Harry, Ron, and Hermione in particular.
This little digressive tirade is a short explination of one of my reasons why original characters are necessary. Original characters can do many things that canon characters would not. And let's face it, Ms. Rowling, great though she may be, hasn't written in nearly enough female leads. Granted, the ones that she has given us are wonderful, (McGonagall and Hermione are perfect examples! Though, perhaps not Fluer and Ginny. ACK!) but their numbers are small. She has stated that the faculty at Hogwarts is divided fairly equally, but we know very few of the professors; and the few we have met, we know next to nothing about.
So, if we want to know some of the other classes at Hogwarts, then we're going to have to create some new teachers for them. And the DADA job MUST be filled every year since it is still an important class for the students, but it seems to be a cursed position. Quirrell and Lockhart are hardly capable of returning. Lupin can't return since his secret was revealed. And I doubt the REAL Moody would want to take the job after his latest experience at Hogwarts. The faculty is ripe with opportunities to create new and interesting characters for the canon characters to interact with.
On another tangent, if we want to know about McGonagall's, Flitwick's, Snape's, (and so on and so on's) home lives, (i.e. the life they have outside of Hogwarts, and contrary to popular belief, teachers' lives do NOT revolve around their classrooms) we're going to have to create a family, or at the very least, some house-elves for them to interact with at home.
There is always a place for a well written new character in any fandom, and any writer who says they didn't put any of themselves or someone they know into their characters, is flat-out lying to you.
I write fan fiction because I'm a fan of the canon work. That means I love the canon as it is. I do not want to write something that wouldn't fit in context with said canon. I don't like taking the canon characters out of their universe and putting them in a new one. I hate it when the canon characters are in a fan-fic acting completely out of their nature as set down in canon. I play in the Wizarding World, and as such, I am limited by the rules Ms. Rowling has set down for it. I love the characters as they are, but I want to explore the open possiblities of all the unsaid aspects of their lives and who they are.


Ashavah over at fanfiction.net has written a great article on this topic this month. All I can say in response to it is: "Hear! Hear!" For those who are interested, here's the link: S.P.I.W.



A/N: Some of the above references are firmly tongue-in-cheek, because I'm not perfect and I admit that some of my fics probably have at least a few of those mistakes in them. I'm not perfect, you know.
And NONE of those refrences refer to humor or parody fics because, come on, those things are fun to read! It can be very entertaining to see various HP characters singing and dancing through the halls of Hogwarts and so on! The examples only tick me off when the author is masquerading them as "serious" fics.

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