A Guide To Redwall Mary Sue
~~~
Deaths of Mary Sue
(yippee!)
~Battle death~
The battle is nearly over and Mary Sue's side is winning. She waves her sword
dramatically, screams her battle cry and . . . OUCH. She has been stabbed. We
don't actually see who did it, it's just enough that Sue is mortally wounded
(mmm, savour that sentence). Pity - I'd love to meet a creature who can stab in
such a way that the wound is lethal yet invisible. They'd make a fortune as an
assassin. But what am I thinking? Wounds never, ever show up on Mary Sue's
perfect skin. Although occasionally there will be a tiny drop of blood, as a
useless attempt to be tastefully dramatic. The attempt doesn't work, but you
can't blame a maiden for trying.
Anyway, she will die theatrically yet painlessly, possibly with her friends
crying over her body. Her boyfriend hugs her and begs her not to die, but he
can't help her, so she dies anyway. The author also loads it with Urple prose
(like purple prose but much worse, according to Camilla Sandman) and uses
phrases like "untimely end" and "breathed her last". Most of the readers cringe.
~Illness death~
Mary Sue catches a deadly but not disgusting disease. One which causes delicate
coughs and possibly a fever, but never one which causes horrible oozing boils or
frothing at the mouth. Or apparently any pain. Strange. Maybe it's the same
principle as the star characters in an opera - they always die of something
which doesn't prevent them from singing about it for hours on end. Argh, no,
operatic Mary Sue! The horror! Ahem, sorry. Similar ending to the above section.
Oddly enough, her boyfriend doesn't catch whatever it is she had when cuddling
the corpse. Eurgh, nononono, don't go there brain. Alright, this section is
making us all feel very ill and frightened, so let's move on quickly.
~Suicide death~
Oh gods, angst-o-rama. Normally written into a darkfic where Mary Sue spends her
whole time angsting to apparently nobeast. We know it's directed at us, the
readers, but do the characters know we're there? If not, why is Mary Sue talking
to herself? Judging by the abuse she has supposedly suffered over the course of
the fic, she might be mentally disturbed, which would explain a lot. . . but I
digress. Usually Mary Sue's friends save her at the last minute, turning the
story to happy fluff because "I have such wonderful friends! They love me!"
Sometimes they don't, though. Then we all cheer because Mary Sue is a small red
patch at the bottom of the belltower, or travelling through the guts of several
pike - oh wait, no she isn't. Throwing oneself into a lake of pike is far too
unsophisticated for Mary Sue. As for the belltower, she does not splat. She
always leaves a beautiful corpse, even when she should by rights be laminated
across the courtyard. As we can see, she kills the laws of physics as well as
canon and logic.
~Self-sacrifice death~
Similar to battle death. Mary Sue leaps heroically into a fight with ridiculous
odds, saving her friends though it costs her own life. Generic weepy ending. If
this happens anywhere other than the very end of a story, the character she
saves is always another Mary Sue who becomes the heroine for the rest of the
fic. Multiple Sues are rare but they do happen, usually when the author is
trying to write both herself and her friends into the fic. But anyway, this kind
of death is normally just a thinly disguised attempt at stealing Felldoh's
spotlight. Truly annoying, mostly because A) copying canon characters directly
does not a goodfic make and B) Felldoh didn't make such a huge great fuss about
it. Actually, nor did any other self-sacrificing canon characters (there's more
of them then you'd think). But of course, Mary Sue is special. Arrgh.
~Sue Slayers death~
Sadly, this is never written into an actual Suefic. Shame.
~~~
Yes, that was the last chapter of the Guide *screeching violins, wailing banshees etc*. Oh, don't look at me like that, it had to happen sometime. I may even do special chapters sometime in the future. Don't forget to read some of the fics inspired by this guide, and others written by their authors. Thanks to all my loyal fans, and goodbye for now!
~~~
~~~
Questions? Comments? Email me at wordsmith101NOSPAM@btopenworld.com (don't forget to delete the NOSPAM first).