A Question

[laleia]

Before I ask my question, I should probably make two things clear:

1.) I've never read Twilight.
2.) I believe that Mary Sue should be defined as any original character written in a fanfic; as such, I do not believe that female characters in the original source canon should ever be referred to as Mary Sues because quite often, these accusations are actually the result of underlying (internalized or otherwise) misogyny.

Obviously, a lot of people disagree with me about #2. In fact, people often accuse major and minor female characters of being Mary Sues. One recurring example that comes up is Bella Swann from Twilight. I've never actually read Twilight (and I never really plan on doing so, unless it's for a specific purpose; it doesn't sound like the kind of thing I would enjoy for fun), so I've never been able to defend Bella, as it were.

It has recently come to me to wonder, however:

Why is that people always refer to Bella Swann as Mary Sue but I've yet to see anyone refer to Edward Cullen as a Mary Sue (or a Gary Stu)?

I mean, is there an actual canonical reason? Does Edward Cullen in the books simply have more explicit flaws or something? He's less perfect?

Comments

[laleia.livejournal.com]

I knew that a lot of Stephenie Meyer's comments indicated that Bella Swann is a huge self-insert, but if you're going by the definition of a Mary Sue as a character based on the author's wishful self-insertion into a fictional world and ignoring how well-written and/or flawed/flawless the character is, there are an awful lot of male self-inserts in other books that never get labeled "Gary Stu." One example might be the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy which is written by a Swedish journalist and is about a Swedish journalist who solves crimes and saves the day. I've seen his self-insertion name-checked on occasion, but I don't really see his main character accused of being a Mary Sue as often as Bella is. Granted, his books are an entirely different ballpark from Twilight but the self-insertion at the very least doesn't seem to bother people much at all.

As for Edward being self-loathing, I gather from other people's comments that Bella also has a habit of saying or thinking disparaging things about herself and/or thinking poorly of herself when the canon contradicts it, making it more of a false modesty. Edward may be self-loathing, but since he is viewed as so perfect (by Bella, at least, and presumably the general population finds him a heartthrob as well), wouldn't that be false modesty as well?

[Once again, I haven't actually read the series, so it's very possible that the self-loathing is a huge flaw different/separate from Bella's low self-esteem. I haven't actually seen it come up as much in the Twilight sporkings I've bothered to read, so I don't know much about it.]

That being said, I was unaware that Stephenie Meyer intended Twilight to be fanfiction of the general vampire genre (although that makes a lot of sense), and I can see how that intention can make Bella into more of a Mary Sue.

My assumption in #2 is less an assumption and more my personal definition of Mary Sue. I choose not to assign original characters in source canon the label Mary Sue and choose to assign all original characters the label Mary Sue simply because the distinction between a well-written original character and a poorly-written Mary Sue is often up to each reader's personal preference. (For example, when scrolling through summaries of stories up on fanfiction.net, I frequently come across summaries like "Original Character X has a secret, and must do ______ and ends up making friends with our favorite characters" which have plenty of reviews from people who enjoy it and don't consider it a Mary Sue, whereas I am instantly put off because of the summary.)

This is especially true in original canons, when people will often have widely different opinions about whether a character is a Mary Sue or not, and a character can be considered very well-written by one fan and one-dimensional and Mary Sue-ish to another fan. That's why I ascribe to my personal definition, but I recognize this is not the definition the majority of people on the Internet use. I should probably also have clarified that as a result of my definition, I don't think a Mary Sue is always a bad thing, and that well-written Mary Sues can be good comfort reading when you're in the right mood. For example, Penny/Pen-ii is a character in a LotR fanfic "Don't Panic" that I read a long time ago that I consider a Mary Sue (she's a person from our world who was transported to Middle-Earth) but that I consider well-written and quite addicting in terms of plot. However, other people will generally not consider her a Mary Sue because the character/plot is well-written despite the premise.

In other words, I know that my definition of a Mary Sue is not everyone else's, and the reason I mentioned it was to give context as to the way I view characters in general.

Anyways, thanks for the comment! :)