In Defense of Original Characters (Well, At Least Some of Them)
By Lady Sanzennine
Disclaimer: Sephiroth and any other FF7 character I happen to mention are the property of Squaresoft Inc.
We all know who Mary Sue is. And most of us really dislike her (hate is a strong word that I don’t like to use). There’s nothing wrong with that because the simple fact of the matter is that Mary Sues are far too numerous and basically identical, therefore a boring character, and you really can’t relate to her at all.
Now, the unfortunate and overwhelming presence of Mary Sues has accomplished something that I am very bitter about. They’ve managed to turn off so many people from original characters in fanfics simply because people assume that just because she’s a new, author invented character, she’s automatically a Mary Sue. Hell, even I’m starting to become extremely wary of new characters.
However, it is not true that all original characters are Mary Sues! I have to admit though that a heartbreakingly high number of fics feature poorly developed original characters. It’s sad really. And unfortunately, authors will continue to write themselves into a story and end up creating a “perfect” character which will cause them to get flamed.
Let me state right now that I have no problem if an author creates a character based on herself that ends up falling in love with a cannon character from a series. (From now on I’m going to use Sephiroth as the example so I don’t have to keep writing “cannon character”) That is, I have no problem as long as it’s done right. For example, this is bad: “I love you Sephy!” “I love you too Mary! You’re so beautiful and smart and caring. Marry me?”
While most fics aren’t quite that simple, many of them are even worse in the sense of bad grammar and character mutilation. But that’s another essay.
Okay, for those few people who actually don’t know who Mary Sue is, I think it only fair that I should explain. She is usually the character that beginner authors come up with and create to be the love interest of said author’s favorite cannon character. It happens all the time. She’s usually supposed to be the representation of the authoress herself, but often the writer just can’t help but add lots of special talents to her character and things like that. The product is Mary Sue. She is perfect in every way. She is beautiful, talented, many times ridiculously powerful, and everyone in the story loves her.
Most people in real life however, don’t.
So we’ve established that Mary Sue’s are very common among OC (original character) fanfics and that people don’t like her. That’s okay.
What’s less okay is the fact that so many people view all OCs negatively because of dear Mary. News flash! Original novels feature totally new characters each time. Does that mean that nobody should read novels because the characters are probably bad?
Personally, I find OCs interesting, because it means that there’s something new to explore in a fanfic that I’ve never seen before. The trouble comes when you try to find an OC that does not fall into the writer’s trap of Ms. Sue.
Shameless Plug: Go check out my FFVII fic “The Paths We Walk.” I guarantee you that you won’t find Mary lurking in there.
Sorry about that. I couldn’t resist.
Anyways, the one thing I find extremely unrealistic is the tendency of authors to pair all the cannon characters up in their heads (or on paper). Apparently everyone has to fall in love with someone else so that no one’s left out.
Riiight…cuz you know how often that happens in real life. If you take a bunch of people that are thrown together by some quirk in fate, chances are that none of them will pair up. Sure, they might develop fleeting crushes on each other, but it’s very unlikely that it will last.
That’s why I support OCs. Truth be told, I think it’s far more likely that say, Vincent and Yuffie will end up falling in love with new characters than falling for each other. Please don’t flame me for that comment.
And besides, when characters are horribly mutilated, they’re essentially OCs with the name and appearance of an established character. This, by the way, is probably worse because fans of that character will likely get angry since the character has been totally destroyed. Not cool.
I also support self-inserts, as long as she doesn’t become Ms. Sue. Think about it. If it’s a true SI, then the chances are the character will be interesting and multi-faceted because people in real life are generally deep and complicated. So what if the author is writing it so that she can get with, say, Sephiroth? Does it really matter as long as the character is a good one? Would you prefer a half assed Aeri/Seph to a well written seph/SI? Just to make it clear, I love Aeri/Sephs and am in no way dissing them.
What’s the difference between pairing up, for example, Rufus/Elena and Rufus/OC? We see so little of Elena in the game anyway. All we know about her is that she’s blonde and has a big mouth. Practically any characterization of Elena would be original, so, if you were to write a Rufus/OC and then change the name of the lead female to Elena, no one would know the difference.
Another thing that readers sometimes get annoyed with is when some events and characterizations are based on the author’s real life experiences. What, I ask, is so wrong with that? Do people realize that professional authors write things that have their foundations rooted in real life? It just works so much better that way because then events and characters are more real, more believable.
Oh dear, I’ve went off on a tangent and I don’t know if I’m making any sense to someone other than myself.
The bottom line is, while many OCs are Mary Sues, some aren’t. And those characters should be given a chance to shine. Aeris, Tifa, and Yuffie have been described and developed by so many authors already. It’s hard now to come up with a story about one of those characters and manage to make her original, but still acceptable to her fans. With an OC, it’s all new. There’s a lot to explore.
So give original characters a chance. Go ahead and tell Mary Sue authors to “get their heads out of the clouds,” because the sooner they realize that characters like that are not wanted, the better. But don’t turn down a fic just because one of the main characters is invented by the author.
You might be missing quite a gem of a story.
A/N: As always, please leave a review. I love to know who has been so kind as to read my writing.
~LS~