Mary-Sue again

[kerravonsen]

Came across this article about Self Insertion and Mary-Sue-ism which had a few interesting things to add to the subject; notably, that one reason why write Mary-Sues is that they want a character that everyone will like, wheras what a reader wants is a character that they can identify with. A Mary-Sue is generally a wish-fulfillment fantasy, yes, but how much fun does a reader get out of watching someone else's wishes come true? Good point.

As one can also figure from the title of the article, the author does consider that self-insertion and Mary-Sue are not identical, though they often overlap, and I agree. One can write (with care) a self-insertion story that isn't a Mary-Sue (and can be fun to read), and one can also apply the bane of Mary-Sue to canon characters (without having any self-insertion associated with it at all).

Though I suspect discussion of Mary-Sue has been done to death, I just thought I'd mention this one because it had some things to add that I hadn't seen before.