A Guide To Redwall Mary Sue
~~~
Appearance of Mary Sue
This chapter is intended to give you a detailed
mental picture of a Mary Sue, so you can "know your enemy". You can usually spot
one from the description, if you know what to look for. Simply take this
chapter, remove the cynical comments, jokes and sarcasm I have included for your
amusement, and mix in an awful lot of badly misspelled purple - or at least
mauve - prose.
~First things first - Species~
Note: By no means are original characters of these species ALWAYS Mary Sues.
Mary Sues are USUALLY of these species. If you have written a character of one
of these species, I am not attacking you or the character personally.
OK, I've already pointed out the most likely species for each breed of Mary Sue,
but there are always exceptions to the rule. Most of the Sues I've seen,
however, have been weasels or similar, otters, hares or foxes, with a sprinkling
of mice and squirrels. Occasionally a hybrid (my own long-deleted Sue was a
weasel/stoat crossbreed - I don't know what I was thinking, but I WAS only
twelve at the time) or a non-canon species will pop up. Never ever moles,
shrews, badgers or hedgehogs, and very rarely rats. There were one or two rat
OCs I saw, but they were mostly too well written and basically too darned
entertaining to be true Mary Sues. I suppose you could call them Sarah Lou -
almost Mary Sue, but not quite. I'm not entirely sure why this species imbalance
is. Any ideas?
~Long to stroke her fur. . .~
Mary Sue's fur colour range is very wide - a squirrel Sue may have "coppery red"
or "glistening silver" fur, an otter "chestnut brown". Oddly enough, it's never
the dusty or muddy brown most real animals' fur is. I guess Mary Sue doesn't
need to worry about camouflage. Sometimes it may be a more unusual colour, like
Sunflash's yellow stripe but more "sophisticated". (Sorry Sunflash. Yes, I like
your stripe. What are you doing with that mace?) The author apparently never
thinks that a platinum-blonde- or flame-red-furred hare or stoat would look just
a tiny bit odd. Some of them try to avoid this by giving them separately
coloured "headfur", like the avatars on Furcadia, but I personally think that
would look equally odd, not to mention being genetically difficult. Whatever
colour it is, it always gleams like a shampoo advert's "After" picture, and not
one hair on her whole body is ever out of place. Even after a horrific battle,
her fur is never ruffled or stained with blood or dirt or anything else, and
when she cries (which Mary Sue Classics and Reformed Vermin Sues do often) her
facial fur never gets wet and matted. This irritates us NORMAL NON-MUTATED
females, because WE have to WASH our fur/hair to keep it looking good, and. . .
OK, teenybopper rant over. Still, I wonder if Mary Sue has her own brand of
shampoo.
~Melt into her eyes. . .~
Again, Mary Sue's eyes can be any one of a wide range of colours. Often,
however, they will be forest green, vivid blue, jet black, piercing amber or
shining brown. Sometimes an unnatural colour, like violet, will turn up.
Sometimes each eye will be a different colour - one green eye and one blue, for
example. Other times, they may be an indeterminate colour, like bluish-green.
Mary Sue's eyes are always disproportionately large, and always sparkle and
shine like flashlights. Makes her sound like something off Star Trek, doesn't
it? Oddly enough, the other creatures find this attractive. Her eyes are never
described as simply "brown" or "blue", but always as "gleaming dark brown" or
"blue as a summer sky." They also have very long lashes, and often produce
cascades of tears, but never go puffy and red from crying or lack of sleep.
There isn't much more to say about Mary Sue's eyes, except that males have a
habit of drowning in them. Even otters. You'd think they could swim.
~Envy everything else. . .~
Most other aspects of Redwall Mary Sue vary so much it's impossible to summarise
them. However, she is always, always beautiful, at least by the author's
standards and those of the characters. Most Mary Sues are simply a furry version
of how the author looks, or rather would like to look. This sounds harmless, but
it gets annoying.
Species apparently is not a defence against Mary Sue's charms. Fine in the case
of mouse/rat or weasel/stoat, but mouse/weasel and otter/squirrel is a little on
the squicky side. (Also rather worrying in the case of the Human Sues. . . oh,
wait, I've already mentioned that.)
~~~
Hope you enjoyed this chapter. Next chapter will be about Mary Sue's seduction techniques. Hey, it's not a real Mary Sue if she doesn't snog at least one creature. Or at least, it's not a real Mary Sue if she doesn't WANT to snog at least one creature.
~~~
~~~
Questions? Comments? Email me at wordsmith101NOSPAM@btopenworld.com (don't forget to delete the NOSPAM first).