Taking the Mary-Sue Litmus test... confusing questions

[capri0mni]

A few days ago, scarfman posted this link to the Mary-Sue Litmus Test (scores like golf: lower = better). All-in-all, I think it's pretty good (too long, and too weighted toward teenagers, but other than that...). But there are a few questions I can't figure out how to answer.

And here they are:

1. Does the character have a physical handicap that does not hinder her/him significantly? [6 points] [Subtract 4 points if the character is significantly physically handicapped.]
   

   Well... Not that you could tell by just looking at him as he walks down the street, but he does have a physical condition that requires him to drink blood on a regular basis. This does not hinder him at all, usually. But if circumstances prevent him from getting his daily dose, he cannot eat or drink without becoming violently ill (even water is difficult -- and yes, there is at least one unpleasant and embarrassing scene where he "Drops to his knees before the porcelain goddess").
   
   So -- do I add 6 points, or subtract 4?



2. [Subtract 2 points if the character is a protagonist but ever freely, willingly, and knowingly worked for the villain/evil regime.]
   

   Um... my story doesn't have any villain or evil regime, per se (this test is also heavily weighted toward high fantasy stories). But as a teenager, when my protag first discovered his need for blood, he does briefly join a self-styled "vampire gang," of kids in his school, who goad each other into violent acts, because within that gang they are willing to let him drink their blood... And also, prior to that, he joins a prayer group of Christainist teens, in the hopes that he can find a way to "cure" himself. Later, when he's an adult, people in this particular Christianist cult become his antagonists.
   
   Do either of those things count as "working for the villain?"


And finally, there's the biggie:


3. Is the character a vampire? [5 points]
   

   Well, he does need blood to live, and this need pushes him to the edges of society (at least in his own mind). But he's also mortal, is human and has normal human strength, and is starting to get creakier in the joints, now that he's entering his 40s, and he will either die of old age or die of something else -- more likely something like falling down the cellar stairs or getting hit by a bus rather than a stake through the heart.
   
   So okay, the parenthetical instructions here say this section only counts if he's immortal, or a species other than human. So following the letter of the rules, I may ignore this altogether -- but I have given him a 'Vampire Mystique,' and this is the very first "species" listed as a Mary-Sue type (I wonder if the test was compiled around the time when "Buffy" was at its height). So should I add a little something, in the spirit of the thing --2 points, instead of the full five? 3, maybe?

What do you think?

Comments

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

Mary Sue tests are bunk. The things they ask about are devices that writers commonly use when building pure vicarious-fantasy characters.

Physical disability or chronic illness: in a Mary Sue situation, the author only really uses it as a gimmick (i.e. to occasionally have the character cared for by an attractive nurse or doctor). Readers might get suspicious if you only bring it into the story when it's emotionally convenient. There's nothing wrong with writing a story about a character with a disability, of course.

Characters that used to work for the bad guy: this one is often used to get the character feeling sorry for himself or having crippling regret over things he did in the past. It's only Sue-ish if the author is really obviously piling ridiculous amounts of angst on a character. It's entirely possible to write a good character with this kind of background.

Vampires -- there are good vampire stories, and then there are stories with vampire protagonists just because the author was a fan of Buffy or Anne Rice but doesn't really have anything unique or interesting to say about vampires.

Ignore the litmus tests. They were written by people who don't know where Mary Sue came from originally, and what makes her an annoyance. Mary Sue was a character in a 1970s Star Trek fanfic parody, which was sending up a fandom trend of original female characters who were strong, smart, beautiful, humble, had tragic pasts, and were capable of charming the pants off any male officer on the Enterprise.

It was pretty obvious that they were just the authors' ideas of perfect selves, embodying feminine sexuality as well as being competent and able to save the day. These days, and in other fandoms, other types of perfect self or fantasy self are in vogue -- for example, an ugly, angsty, socially awkward heroine who manages to find love or make friends in spite of her imperfections.

The reason why the litmus tests are crap is that they just list traits, and any trait can be used as a part of an author fantasy or as part of a well-built character that other people like to read about. The real spirit of Mary Sue is that the author only wants a character to live out her own personal desires, and assumes that readers will be interested.

(Side note: there's nothing wrong with writing out vicarious fantasy for one's own personal use -- but it's perhaps unreasonable to expect that it will make a good story for other readers besides oneself.)

Three things:

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

First: I both agree and disagree with you that litmus tests are bunk. Taken alone, and used as a sole criterion in judging a character, they certainly are bunk. But I also think they're a bit like I.Q. tests (which are also bunk, in their own ways); studies have shown that people with higher I.Q.s get higher scores on any test, regardless of how carefully that test was written, or by whom, than people with lower I.Q.s. I figure the same is probably true for characters, too, and if I'm given an oportunity to examine my character in detail, by answering questions I hadn't considered, I'm going to take it. Even if I disagree with a test's results, just being confronted with the question forces me to consider why I disagree. And that leads to a deeper understanding of my character as a fully developed person.

Second: You may have missed it, but anyway: this post is actually a follow-up to the one I posted here (http://capriuni.livejournal.com/315733.html), in a continued kvetching against the horribleness that is Horatio Caine. I was inspired by a mathematical equation my high school math teacher gave us, for determining the level of satisfaction we will derive for any given event, and this was the equation:

where S = "satisfation," R = "reality," and E = "expectation."

In thinking about the recent episode C.S.I.: Miami I had watched (after scrubbing my brain clean), I started fantasizing about handing the writers of that show a similiar formula to the writers, whereby they could judge their character success (somewhat in jest); scarfman posted a link to this test in reply, with the idea that it may help me come up with such a mathematical formula, since the test assigns a numerical value to each character trait.

(and, as an aside, I think a simple, straight-forward equation like the one above would be more useful rule of thumb than an umpteen-question "quiz," and would be more pleasing to look at as a humorous, decorative poster on the wall -- I'm thinking along the lines of one of those inspirational motivation posters with a little bit of periodic table mixed in).

I decided to "plug in" my nano protagonist into the test, as one might substitute number values for variables in a mathematical formula, mostly because he's the closest O.C. I have at hand at the moment (name is Johnathon Kaihill, btw).

Third: for the maker of this particular litmus test, disability and working for the enemy makes a character less of a Mary-Sue, not more of one. Presumably, this is because it reduces the level of "perfection" in a character.