I weary of seeing the terms "Mary Sue" literally everywhere - applying to all sorts of work, whether they be books, short stories, fan fiction, film, television series, et al. There's also the equally annoying term "Gary Stu" for the male version.
It's time to come up with something more original as to character critique - as these terms have now become ridiculously overused (and tedious), and are outdated (and as you say - sexist). Meh.
That said - I agree that the guy you were talking to was definitely not interested in reading about (or empathizing) with any female character. How can a woman character be "over competent"? Should we be writing about just incompetent women? I think not. Certainly, I can think of hundreds of heroic male characters this critique could perfectly well apply to. But I guess that's where "Gary Stu" comes in - which while I do see this term crop up - it's never as much as the annoying "Mary Sue" rears its head.
As for competent characters of any sort - It's up to the writer to give their characters challenges or other obstacles to overcome that require them to really work towards a successful plot and character resolution - and not just use whatever skills or talents have been assigned to them to overcome things too easily (that would make for pretty boring reading, in my opinion).
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Date: 2016-01-21 10:32 pm (UTC)It's time to come up with something more original as to character critique - as these terms have now become ridiculously overused (and tedious), and are outdated (and as you say - sexist). Meh.
That said - I agree that the guy you were talking to was definitely not interested in reading about (or empathizing) with any female character. How can a woman character be "over competent"? Should we be writing about just incompetent women? I think not. Certainly, I can think of hundreds of heroic male characters this critique could perfectly well apply to. But I guess that's where "Gary Stu" comes in - which while I do see this term crop up - it's never as much as the annoying "Mary Sue" rears its head.
As for competent characters of any sort - It's up to the writer to give their characters challenges or other obstacles to overcome that require them to really work towards a successful plot and character resolution - and not just use whatever skills or talents have been assigned to them to overcome things too easily (that would make for pretty boring reading, in my opinion).