Is U16 Bra a Mary Sue? (Round 2)
Jul 12, 2021 0:08:24 GMT
Post by mbg on Jul 12, 2021 0:08:24 GMT
I mean, if we want to talk about the definition of a Mary Sue, you should probably look at the original source, which is this.
The thing about Mary Sue, which the original creator described, was not quite her nature as a self-insert, but more the warping effect that she has on the story. Every single character in the story is in love with her, often right upon meeting her. Many of her feats do not make sense, such as somehow being able to fill the jobs of four other people (which would require her to be in two places at once, as Scotty doesn't work on the bridge), or springing the lock of a 23rd-century prison with a hairpin. Even things like McCoy diagnosing a disease (which is, you know, his job) require Mary Sue's help, and despite her ridiculous feats, she still manages to be praised beyond her abilities (Spock referring to a statement of fact as "flawlessly logical"). She steals the traits of other characters, such as Spock's half-Vulcan nature, without really doing anything with them; they just exist to make her more unique. And events coincide to make her as amazing as possible; she is conveniently not affected by the "jumping cold robbies" so that she can get the bit where she does everyone else's job, but then it becomes fatal for only her when the time comes for her to get her tragic death and be fawned upon one more time. Moreover, very little of how any of this works is explained, so we don't even get the satisfaction of seeing her solve the problem; she just does. And nobody else really does anything; this may feature Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty, but none of the events of the story rely on them, and the only act of agency in the story (Kirk's confession of love) gets immediately shut down with no issues. (Also: Kirk just proposed to a fifteen-year-old, what?)
There are certainly self-insert traits to her: she is female and teenaged, just like the majority of people who were writing Star Trek fanfiction in those days and lacked any identifying main character apart from Uhura. But the more relevant part is the power fantasy involved. The story is just a big playground for this character, and the other characters are just hollow shells that serve to compliment her or look inferior to her.
So let's break down the common traits from here:
- Is an original character, usually one unprecedented in canon. May possess traits that are impossible or at least extremely rare, with little explanation.
- Is blessed by the narrative: everything keeps bending itself to make it go their way, even if it doesn't make sense. Other characters go out-of-character to make them look better.
- Possesses abilities that are unusually beyond other characters, and can outdo other characters in their apparent specialties, even without apparent origin. When a challenge comes along, they tend to display new abilities to allow them to resolve it.
- Has no significant flaws; what flaws do exist are told rather than shown, do not impede them, or serve to make the character more beloved and important.
- Forges strong relationships with no real grounding. Everyone loves and admires them, regardless of what they say or do, and often within minutes.
Really, part of the reason the term is so contentious is that a lot of these elements are essentially just synonymous with "poor writing." Telling instead of showing, introducing new elements without prior setup, characters that serve no purpose, lack of tension, truncated and unbelievable development, a world that lacks internal consistency, shallow relationship writing... what distinguishes the Mary Sue is that all these elements surround them and appear to their benefit, because they are the result of an inexpert writer trying to do a power fantasy. There's nothing especially wrong with power fantasy, conceptually; characters like James Bond or Batman, or even Goku himself, are power fantasies, but a decent story involving those characters can give them enough texture that the story as a whole stands up. A good power fantasy is one where you don't just see that the character is strong, but you get why they're strong, and you watch the rest of the world react accordingly.
And I'd say that last bit is where the Mary-Sue accusations surrounding Bra come from; the way the world behaves and reacts whenever she's involved seems... weird. Canon characters drool over how strong and noble she is, when there are much stronger characters and she hasn't done anything particularly noble. When she pursues tactics that most would call dishonorable, other characters treat them as tactical brilliance. It makes sense for members of her family to care about her, but it doesn't make sense for the novelization to have characters who have known each other for less than a day speak of her as if she's a great hero.
To give the most notorious example, in the fight against Ginyu, what happens is that Bra accepts a pathetically blatant ploy to get a challenge, toys with her opponent for an unnecessarily long time despite having techniques that could end the fight in ten seconds, risks her life despite being the last person in her universe, uses a senzu, nullifying the entire point of the fight being a self-imposed challenge in the first place since she didn't actually best her opponent with her own strength, and ends up caught in a trap that, while definitely hard to predict, was initiated by an opponent on death's door. All these things are fine in a vacuum; they make sense for a character who's meant to be a self-centered jerk whose only priority is "win, preferably while looking cool". But instead of telling her off for showboating and risking herself unnecessarily, the other characters praise her for "novel techniques" and making use of unique abilities that they'd never even imagined before, and nobody tells her off for nearly killing herself or suggests, say, banning senzu beans in matches. In a sane world, characters would call Bra out or at least show a clear spectrum of reactions, but this would make her look bad, so they don't. By any reasonable measure, Bra lost to Ginyu, and she arguably lost twice. Yet it's treated as a hard-fought victory, even though it was her fight to lose.
Another example is what happened with the Majinizing. It's declared by the characters that Bra was not culpable for her actions under Majinization, because it was mind control. But, the audience has to point out, when Vegeta went Majin, he was able to break free of his own will and clearly displayed a sense of morality--so why didn't Bra? Well, the comic reveals, Bra's Majinizing was unwilling, and Vegeta's was something he accepted, so Babidi had stronger control over her... never minding, of course, that this is pretty much exactly the opposite of what one would assume. Why would someone who was trying to resist the control to begin with end up less able to fight it? And what's more, didn't Cell also break free from the Majinizing, despite the fact that he was clearly fighting it, and he's ten times eviler than Vegeta or Bra ever were? Did he submit offscreen for no obvious reason? This happens because there are two possibilities: either the Majin spell works in the way you'd logically expect, and Bra was culpable for all her crimes, or it works in a way that makes far less sense, and Bra was innocent. And Bra has to be innocent, and so the rules of the spell are warped around her to give her a get-out-of-jail-free card.
The short version of it is: I do see the story warp around Bra. The character is serviceable in a vacuum, but the world around her is showing unmistakable stretch marks. I dunno if that makes her a Mary Sue, but it's definitely a problem.
"Gee, golly, gosh, gloriosky," thought Mary Sue as she stepped on the bridge of the Enterprise. "Here I am, the youngest lieutenant in the fleet - only fifteen and a half years old." Captain Kirk came up to her.
"Oh, Lieutenant, I love you madly. Will you come to bed with me?"
"Captain! I am not that kind of girl!"
"You're right, and I respect you for it. Here, take over the ship for a minute while I go get some coffee for us."
Mr. Spock came onto the bridge. "What are you doing in the command seat, Lieutenant?"
"The Captain told me to."
"Flawlessly logical. I admire your mind."
Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy and Mr. Scott beamed down with Lt. Mary Sue to Rigel XXXVII. They were attacked by green androids and thrown into prison. In a moment of weakness Lt. Mary Sue revealed to Mr. Spock that she too was half Vulcan. Recovering quickly, she sprung the lock with her hairpin and they all got away back to the ship.
But back on board, Dr. McCoy and Lt. Mary Sue found out that the men who had beamed down were seriously stricken by the jumping cold robbies, Mary Sue less so. While the four officers languished in Sick Bay, Lt. Mary Sue ran the ship, and ran it so well she received the Nobel Peace Prize, the Vulcan Order of Gallantry and the Tralfamadorian Order of Good Guyhood.
However the disease finally got to her and she fell fatally ill. In the Sick Bay as she breathed her last, she was surrounded by Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Scott, all weeping unashamedly at the loss of her beautiful youth and youthful beauty, intelligence, capability and all around niceness. Even to this day her birthday is a national holiday of the Enterprise.
"Oh, Lieutenant, I love you madly. Will you come to bed with me?"
"Captain! I am not that kind of girl!"
"You're right, and I respect you for it. Here, take over the ship for a minute while I go get some coffee for us."
Mr. Spock came onto the bridge. "What are you doing in the command seat, Lieutenant?"
"The Captain told me to."
"Flawlessly logical. I admire your mind."
Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy and Mr. Scott beamed down with Lt. Mary Sue to Rigel XXXVII. They were attacked by green androids and thrown into prison. In a moment of weakness Lt. Mary Sue revealed to Mr. Spock that she too was half Vulcan. Recovering quickly, she sprung the lock with her hairpin and they all got away back to the ship.
But back on board, Dr. McCoy and Lt. Mary Sue found out that the men who had beamed down were seriously stricken by the jumping cold robbies, Mary Sue less so. While the four officers languished in Sick Bay, Lt. Mary Sue ran the ship, and ran it so well she received the Nobel Peace Prize, the Vulcan Order of Gallantry and the Tralfamadorian Order of Good Guyhood.
However the disease finally got to her and she fell fatally ill. In the Sick Bay as she breathed her last, she was surrounded by Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Scott, all weeping unashamedly at the loss of her beautiful youth and youthful beauty, intelligence, capability and all around niceness. Even to this day her birthday is a national holiday of the Enterprise.
There are certainly self-insert traits to her: she is female and teenaged, just like the majority of people who were writing Star Trek fanfiction in those days and lacked any identifying main character apart from Uhura. But the more relevant part is the power fantasy involved. The story is just a big playground for this character, and the other characters are just hollow shells that serve to compliment her or look inferior to her.
So let's break down the common traits from here:
- Is an original character, usually one unprecedented in canon. May possess traits that are impossible or at least extremely rare, with little explanation.
- Is blessed by the narrative: everything keeps bending itself to make it go their way, even if it doesn't make sense. Other characters go out-of-character to make them look better.
- Possesses abilities that are unusually beyond other characters, and can outdo other characters in their apparent specialties, even without apparent origin. When a challenge comes along, they tend to display new abilities to allow them to resolve it.
- Has no significant flaws; what flaws do exist are told rather than shown, do not impede them, or serve to make the character more beloved and important.
- Forges strong relationships with no real grounding. Everyone loves and admires them, regardless of what they say or do, and often within minutes.
Really, part of the reason the term is so contentious is that a lot of these elements are essentially just synonymous with "poor writing." Telling instead of showing, introducing new elements without prior setup, characters that serve no purpose, lack of tension, truncated and unbelievable development, a world that lacks internal consistency, shallow relationship writing... what distinguishes the Mary Sue is that all these elements surround them and appear to their benefit, because they are the result of an inexpert writer trying to do a power fantasy. There's nothing especially wrong with power fantasy, conceptually; characters like James Bond or Batman, or even Goku himself, are power fantasies, but a decent story involving those characters can give them enough texture that the story as a whole stands up. A good power fantasy is one where you don't just see that the character is strong, but you get why they're strong, and you watch the rest of the world react accordingly.
And I'd say that last bit is where the Mary-Sue accusations surrounding Bra come from; the way the world behaves and reacts whenever she's involved seems... weird. Canon characters drool over how strong and noble she is, when there are much stronger characters and she hasn't done anything particularly noble. When she pursues tactics that most would call dishonorable, other characters treat them as tactical brilliance. It makes sense for members of her family to care about her, but it doesn't make sense for the novelization to have characters who have known each other for less than a day speak of her as if she's a great hero.
To give the most notorious example, in the fight against Ginyu, what happens is that Bra accepts a pathetically blatant ploy to get a challenge, toys with her opponent for an unnecessarily long time despite having techniques that could end the fight in ten seconds, risks her life despite being the last person in her universe, uses a senzu, nullifying the entire point of the fight being a self-imposed challenge in the first place since she didn't actually best her opponent with her own strength, and ends up caught in a trap that, while definitely hard to predict, was initiated by an opponent on death's door. All these things are fine in a vacuum; they make sense for a character who's meant to be a self-centered jerk whose only priority is "win, preferably while looking cool". But instead of telling her off for showboating and risking herself unnecessarily, the other characters praise her for "novel techniques" and making use of unique abilities that they'd never even imagined before, and nobody tells her off for nearly killing herself or suggests, say, banning senzu beans in matches. In a sane world, characters would call Bra out or at least show a clear spectrum of reactions, but this would make her look bad, so they don't. By any reasonable measure, Bra lost to Ginyu, and she arguably lost twice. Yet it's treated as a hard-fought victory, even though it was her fight to lose.
Another example is what happened with the Majinizing. It's declared by the characters that Bra was not culpable for her actions under Majinization, because it was mind control. But, the audience has to point out, when Vegeta went Majin, he was able to break free of his own will and clearly displayed a sense of morality--so why didn't Bra? Well, the comic reveals, Bra's Majinizing was unwilling, and Vegeta's was something he accepted, so Babidi had stronger control over her... never minding, of course, that this is pretty much exactly the opposite of what one would assume. Why would someone who was trying to resist the control to begin with end up less able to fight it? And what's more, didn't Cell also break free from the Majinizing, despite the fact that he was clearly fighting it, and he's ten times eviler than Vegeta or Bra ever were? Did he submit offscreen for no obvious reason? This happens because there are two possibilities: either the Majin spell works in the way you'd logically expect, and Bra was culpable for all her crimes, or it works in a way that makes far less sense, and Bra was innocent. And Bra has to be innocent, and so the rules of the spell are warped around her to give her a get-out-of-jail-free card.
The short version of it is: I do see the story warp around Bra. The character is serviceable in a vacuum, but the world around her is showing unmistakable stretch marks. I dunno if that makes her a Mary Sue, but it's definitely a problem.