A Guide To Redwall Mary Sue
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This chapter was inspired by Psycho
Violinist of Silentwood. See, I do give credit where it's due. Thanks to you,
Psycho Violinist, for helping this chapter see the light of day.
Victims of Mary Sue
~Martin and Dandin~
Victims of: Canon Sue, Mary Sue Classic, Warrior Sue, sometimes a
non-romantic (we hope) "Adoptive Little Sister" Human Sue.
The favoured victims of the Canon Sue. Rose Sues and Mariel Sues abound within
their vicinity, but on top of that there are also the occasional Martin's
Daughter or Mariel's Daughter Sues, and one or two that replace Rose, thus
committing gross breach of canon and removing the whole point of that story.
It's amazing poor Martin hasn't been reduced to a gibbering wreck. Maybe that's
the real reason he's so admired - nothing to do with the Kotir war. It's because
he copes with all those Mary Sues! Perhaps it's time Suethors remembered there
are characters other than Martin in the fandom. (Gasp! You mean there are
OTHERS!? Well, yeah, BJ only filled up a dozen or so novels with them. . .) The
Sues would not be any less evil, but it would give poor Martin a break. He's
getting fed up of Ghost!Rose Sues, Rose Replacement!Sues and mysteriously
appearing Daughter!Sues. Poor critter.
As for Dandin, he usually ends up being used as a handkerchief by
AngstMachine!Mariel Sues. Thus confusing him a lot, because the real Mariel
doesn't act like that at all, and creating one heck of a lot of work for the
Protectors of the Plot Continuum. (With greetings to all the agents from the
Mossflower Division.)
~Random warriors~
Victims of: Mary Sue Classic, Warrior Sue, sometimes an interspecies
romance with a Reformed Vermin Sue. Occasionally an ALS!Human Sue (see previous
section).
On her quest, Mary Sue meets a male warrior. First they get into a
misunderstanding which results in a fight, but neither gets very badly hurt. One
will get a minor wound, then the other realises they shouldn't have been
fighting all along and heals them. Over the course of the conversation it is
discovered that both Mary Sue and the male have sworn to kill the same evil
warlord, so they join together on their quest. Sounds very much like a cheap
superhero comic. Mary Sue of course helps her new sidekick with his swordplay,
for she is a better fighter than he will ever be. Even if he is twice her size
and has had more training. As their love begins to blossom (oh help, I'm using
purple prose) both will angst privately, not realising that their feelings are
reciprocated. Don't worry - or maybe DO worry - one of the scenarioes from
Chapter Four will solve this. The pair forget completely that they're on a quest
and waste a chapter doing things I won't describe here, as I want to keep both
the rating and my lunch down.
~Reformed vermin~
Victims of: Reformed Vermin Sue. Duh.
Rarely is Mary Sue's hapless "boyfriend" a non-reformed vermin, but it has
happened - mostly with the Evil Sues. However, that is not the purpose of this
section, so I'll skip it for now. Normally VerminSpecies!Mary Sue is reformed,
of course. So why don't her authors just write about "good" species, like
otters, instead of having a good weasel and no explanation as to why she isn't
evil? Are they just lazy weaselophiliacs or something? There is, in fact,
nothing wrong with a good vermin character SO LONG AS YOU EXPLAIN WHY THEY ARE
GOOD. Vermin do not reform on a whim.
Anyway, Mary Sue is good, and makes her victim reform as well through blackmail
and bribery - oh, I'm sorry, I slipped out of Suedom there. I was thinking of
what *canonical* vermin would do. Mary Sue makes her victim reform through being
the lovely, perfect, angelic, annoying little monster she is. Yuck yuck yuck.
She wouldn't last five minutes among real vermin. Okay, time to move on
before I start a species integrity rant.
~Human boys~
Victims of: Human Sue, duh again. Very, very occasionally another breed
if the boy was turned into an animal upon arrival.
Human Sue is sucked into Mossflower - sound familiar? But this time, her
boyfriend comes along for the ride. Cute. He may or may not be a Human Stu -
sometimes only the girl is evil. Or sometimes, the girl is a well-thought-out,
original, interesting character paired with a Stu. This is rare though- normally
they're as bad as each other. Anyway, the kids turn up at Redwall, have weird
adventures, save Mossflower, vanish back home - the usual. These fics tend to be
written by Narnia-obsessed ten-year-olds (yay, they've soiled TWO popular book
series!) who want to have "fun and adventures" with their friends but won't
write their little couples and gangs into original fiction. The upside to these
fics is there is a lot less smut and sap than in other Mary Sue fics, thus
saving our eyes from the burning caused by terrible "romantic" purple prose and
awful lemons. It usually says once in the intro that the boy is dating Mary Sue
and leaves it at that, or sometimes just implies. The downside is that the
characters are even more unrealistic than normal, the storyline is always
pathetic and. . . well, bring back the awful lemons, says I.
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Well, that wasn't so traumatic. The next chapter might be, though - it features that rare breed, the Evil!Redwall Mary Sue. Hold onto your Gullwhackers, it's gonna be a bumpy ride.
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Questions? Comments? Email me at wordsmith101NOSPAM@btopenworld.com (don't forget to delete the NOSPAM first).