(no subject)

[tsubaki-ny.livejournal.com]

First post. I'm not well-read in the Anitaverse at all (read one, skimmed others, read the comic, seen lots of excerpts and reviews), and so I've hesitated joining the com, or saying anything too mean (I'll probably continue hesitating on that one), based on, well, my scanty qualifications.

Still, I read something today that was rather like a lightning strike, and I wanted to share. (I've Googled to see if it's shown up in this community before, and I can't find it.) It's an old blog entry by Kit Whitfield (an author I first heard of in this com) on a permutation of the Mary Sue -- the "Snappy Sue."

The fit is so apt it's kinda scary, I think.

Writes Whitfield (naming no names):

"A variant of Mary Sue becoming increasingly common in female-written and -marketed fantasy fiction. Snappy Sue is an empowered chick, generally urban and frequently in her twenties or older, who's respected/admired/worshipped for being a Strong Woman. Unfortunately, the author continually asserts her strength by giving her a tendency to take her temper out on all around her. This, oddly, makes people admire her more."

[....]

"Though she owes much to the rise of feminism, Snappy Sue fundamentally doesn't like women. She tends to be surrounded by men and have few female allies - female heroism is in short supply here, and Snappy gets all of it. ..."

Full blog entry:
http://www.kitwhitfield.com/2006/09/mary-sue-gets-mean.html

It's really fascinating.

(The preceding entry is also pretty fun: Mary Sue in the time of George Eliot)