Harry Potter gets to be the protagonist, and "the boy who lived" and have a tragic backstory and be some kind of Quiddich prodigy and defeat Voldemort multiple times despite being a goddamn child. Is he a bad character? Should critics have panned the books because of Harry's unrealistic Mary Sue qualities?
Harry Potter is definitely not a sue either. He's not actually very bright, he struggles and gets hit crap kicked in many times throughout the books. Most of Harry's successes are the result of teamwork, luck, or the planning of older and wiser wizards. He just barely scrapes by for most of it.
While I won't condone Campbell's essentialism, he was a Freudian after all, the whole point is that there can be no female monomyth. To be a woman is inherently to fail, to fail to be a complete person, to fail to be the hero in your own story and to reconciling yourself to being a character in someone else's story instead.
To a certain extent he had a point, look at traditional fiction aimed at or written by women and you will overwhelmingly find this theme of finding your place in society (often explicitly through finding a man). Sometimes very young women are allowed to be tomboys and effectively live out a male story, but this is only socially acceptable when they are young. Ultimately, in traditional culture and in traditional story structure, women have to grow up and growing up means accepting your place as a woman.
Traditional story structures have never been kind to women, and thus I don't think it's particularly surprising that the first steps into writing "strong female characters" (I hate that term so much) have been fumbling. It's still a meme (and a meme with a lot of basis in reality) that straight men literally can't write female characters without having them constantly be aware of their own tits, so, you know, baby steps. We'll get there. In the meantime, I think the deeper question is why these "bad female characters" with "unrealistic" abilities and competence evoke such a strong and consistent reaction.. I mean, a lot of characters are "bad" in this sense right? Harry Potter gets to be the protagonist, and "the boy who lived" and have a tragic backstory and be some kind of Quiddich prodigy and defeat Voldemort multiple times despite being a goddamn child. Is he a bad character? Should critics have panned the books because of Harry's unrealistic Mary Sue qualities?
No, because it's an escapist fantasy for kids about a school for wizards.
Except you also have to remember that women have been written as primary, secondary, and tertiary protagonists by men very well. The Eddings' stuff, WoT, SoT, pretty much anything written by Steve Vance has good female characters, etc(and most of this was over 20 years ago and big enough most people have at least heard of them). And to act like it's something that's only been attempted over the last decade or so is complete ignorance, whether real or feigned.
My sentence talking about the female monomyth was simply to give an equivalent to the heroic idea of the male monomyth you were talking about not coming about without criticism being taken as criticism and not as sexism. That if YA novels like Katniss, Bella, the Grey what's-her-name, are going to be put forth as strong female characters written by strong female writers, it's never going to happen.
And the reason they evoke those reactions? Because they're presented as wholly realistic and amazing characters. That is literally the extent of it. Like I said, stop praising mediocrity. Find something worthwhile in them and praise that, but stop acting like it's all good when it objectively and narratively isn't.
Harry Potter is a slightly different thing because it basically came out at the right time for two generations to get involved with it and was written and released over like 15 years, meaning that people grew up with it and nostalgia grabbed them with it. Everything you just listed about him with the exception of the Quidditch thing is the same, everyone else's fuckups and abilities are what enabled all of it, very little comes from Harry beyond being the guy that everyone draws courage from. And it's praised as a fun kid's book with decent world-building and enjoyable adolescent characters, but not as a great male character or even filled with great story arcs. Hunger Games is not praised as a series with decent worldbuilding or innovative setting so much as how great of a character Katniss is and how well-handled a "rebellion" is in terms of psychology.
And yes, because it's an escapist fantasy, because it is presented as modern fantasy, something else which Hunger Games is not, as it is sci-fi and arguably future fantasy(both of which are less forgiving to inconsistencies). Unless you also fantasize about living in a dystopian world where starvation is a real threat and cake-making translates to knowing how to camouflage yourself perfectly.
Harry Potter gets to be the protagonist, and "the boy who lived" and have a tragic backstory and be some kind of Quiddich prodigy and defeat Voldemort multiple times despite being a goddamn child. Is he a bad character? Should critics have panned the books because of Harry's unrealistic Mary Sue qualities?
-Harry's "the boy who lived," but that he lived was down to his mother, not him. This is called out within the novels themselves, that there isn't anything special about Harry there.
-"Defeat Voldemort multiple times" is kind of a stretch. Book 1, Voldemort is incredibly weak, and it's Quirrel who suffers. Book 4, Harry survives Voldemort, but it's only because Voldemort is overconfident, and caught off guard by the Expecto Patronum effect. Book 5, Dumbledore steps in, and they're at a stalemate. Book 7, Harry finally beats Voldemort, but only because of destroying his horcruxes, and only because of the Elder Wand not recognising Voldemort as its master. It might be better to say that Harry "survives" Voldemort multiple times, and a lot of the time it's down to luck and/or allies.
-Yes, he's a quidditch prodigy, but he still needs to spend a lot of time training for it. Even when he's off the team in book 5/6 (forget which), his team still wins because Gryffindor still has skilled players.
Redryhno said:
I think the point where I realised it wasn't working for me was actually in the first movie, because it made a problem incredibly obvious for me. Katniss and Rue meet and there's a whole scene where they just smile at each other a lot and it's supposed to be really sweet, and in the back of my mind I'm just thinking "you know, if you both survive you're going to have to kill her".
I realized that as well, but I don't think it's an issue. Of course it's the end game if they both survive, but there's nothing to stop tributes from allying. It does have a tragic undertone, but it doesn't need to be stated.
Redryhno said:
Except you also have to remember that women have been written as primary, secondary, and tertiary protagonists by men very well. The Eddings' stuff, WoT,
There she is up a tree and up the creek. Dudes fighting eachother below BF might die. Look slightly to the right: the perfect weapon. The whole thing gets explained as an aside - not because katnis doesn't know what they are but because we in the audience have no idea what they are because it has never yet come up or been established. She does the thing. Everybody dies. Except her BF. Nice
You certainly need to watch the movie or read the book again.
1. Dudes were hunting her and they pursued her up to a tree.
2. Her "BF" was allied with the dudes.
3. They decided to camp below and to wait until she climbs down to kill her or dies of thirst.
4. After she noticed the nest, the opportunity to drop the wasps didn't happen until several hours later.
5. Only one in the group died.
6. It wasn't perfect.
You seem to forget the parts where she has agency. In several parts she is told to not to do something, and she does it anyways (like not to go to the Cornucopia, twice).
0. No argument but I have limited discretionary time.
1. Doesn't really matter relative to agency. They put her in the tree. She didn't lead them to the right tree, or make any other decision aside from climb the tree, which they pushed her towards.
2. Also doesn't matter. He was 'the love interest'. I know he was because you recognized who I meant without me even having to look up a name.
3. That plan is just stupid enough to give her a tremendous opportunity to take a planned reactive action. She had like 2 days to come up with something. While they waited in a stationary location in an area swarming with other people who need to kill them.
4. So the question of agency here is actually pretty easy to demonstrate. If I went back in time, knocked out the author and wrote in "and then Katnis found a hand grenade with a love note addressed to her attached to it" would it have made any difference. I'm actually being serious there - the form of the problem doesn't matter, just the critical points. If the thought of there being a grenade waiting there for her sounds stupid to you, ask yourself why it is any more reasonable for a nest of hyperwasps (that have not detected her near their nest and/or chosen not to murder her, which is not how bees/wasps/anything work)to be waiting for her exactly where she needed it to be. Its easy to say random chance, but this isn't real life, its written. Nothing is random, it was all put there by the author, and she decided that instead of having katniss ACT by leading them into a trap, or to a tree where she knew pre-established ultrawasps would be, or off a damn cliff, she would have katnis REACT by climbing up a random tree and finding a random perfect weapon after her adversaries made a random stupid decision that facilitated her random weapon. Katnis didn't do anything to effect an outcome, she just moved forward along the only path available and stuff happened.
5. Doesn't really matter. I thought they both got at least maimed but meh.
6. It was far more perfect that could reasonably be expected in a situation where she should have died.
While I agree that the term "Mary Sue" is widely misunderstood both by critics and the people that scorn the term (like Daisy Ridley the actress for Rey called the term sexist and said that there wasn't an equivalent term for male characters), I would not be so eager to dismiss it with regards to Katniss's character.
Okay, so a common defense people have when it comes to characters that are labeled Mary Sue is that their abilities and skills (which are conveniently and perfectly suited to overcome the obstacles they face in their journey) are explained and don't just come from nowhere. Katniss is an expert archer because...she spent the majority of her life hunting for her family. Rey can pilot the Millennium Falcon and fix problems with the ship by means that baffle even the original lifelong owner because...she spent the majority of her life scavenging parts and selling various machinery.
But that's exactly it though, that doesn't disprove their Mary Sue status, if anything it reinforces it. Mary Sues aren't labeled such *just* because they are unnaturally talented and obsessed over, they are Mary Sues because they are unnaturally talented and obsessed over but are treated as flawed, realistic character in the story. In other words, Mary Sues are pretenders, gods/goddesses dressed up as mortals.
To the one person in the thread that thinks Katniss is being criticized because she isn't a blood soaked mass murderer in the Hunger Games, she's criticized because she's a character that is never required to make decisions or exercise any kind of agency. Oh no, she's a participant in the Hunger Games and now she's in a harrowing scenario forcing her to kill people that are just as scared and desperate to survive as she is! Wait no, the less than handful of people that she actually kills during the Hunger Games are completely irrelevant and are of no consequence. Oh no, she befriended the handsome good guy and ultimately they'll have to kill each other in order to determine the victor! Wait no, they both survive and become friends/ on-off lovers. All throughout the story Katniss experiences adversity and tragedy without having to be involved or responsible for any of it, only serving to make her look even more sympathetic and admirable by the end.
To the one person in the thread that thinks Katniss is being criticized because she isn't a blood soaked mass murderer in the Hunger Games, she's criticized because she's a character that is never required to make decisions or exercise any kind of agency. Oh no, she's a participant in the Hunger Games
You misunderstand. When we say Mary Sue we mean an author wish fulfillment without flaws.
When they say Mary Sue they mean a female character who is good at things.
Except you also have to remember that women have been written as primary, secondary, and tertiary protagonists by men very well. The Eddings' stuff, WoT,
Book 3 I think is the weak point of the first third, originally he was only going to get 3 books published and so went with it, 4th you start interacting with the Irish Arabs and that's about where it starts actually opening up.
But if you aren't interested in any of it by book 3, chances are you're not going to get anymore interested, or you just didn't read them.
Souplex said:
You misunderstand. When we say Mary Sue we mean an author wish fulfillment without flaws.
When they say Mary Sue they mean a female character who is good at things.
No...when we say Mary Sue we mean a character that just happens to have all the skills necessary to survive and/or win something with barely any real proactivity on their end. Whether it is author wishfulfillment or not, it is a specific type of shitty character in lazy writing. They're overpowered while the author and the world around them acts like they aren't. The author self-insert is not needed to get the idea across to people.
Katniss is on that cusp of Mary Sueness to me, instead of just a lazy character, and that's why I think she gets mislabeled, but I fully understand why.
It's a useful term in identifying a specific type of shitty character in lazy writing, that's it. The only one that wants it to be about hating girls being good at things is you. Because if it were true, then there would be more of an uproar about alot more characters in fiction than there are. And you have to be smart enough to know that.
While I agree that the term "Mary Sue" is widely misunderstood both by critics and the people that scorn the term (like Daisy Ridley the actress for Rey called the term sexist and said that there wasn't an equivalent term for male characters), I would not be so eager to dismiss it with regards to Katniss's character.
Okay, so a common defense people have when it comes to characters that are labeled Mary Sue is that their abilities and skills (which are conveniently and perfectly suited to overcome the obstacles they face in their journey) are explained and don't just come from nowhere. Katniss is an expert archer because...she spent the majority of her life hunting for her family. Rey can pilot the Millennium Falcon and fix problems with the ship by means that baffle even the original lifelong owner because...she spent the majority of her life scavenging parts and selling various machinery.
Yeah, that's a comparable example. Katniss being an expert archer because she spent the majority of her life doing archery is just like Rey being a better pilot than Han because she spent her life scavenging parts (not piloting ships).
And yeah, it sure is convenient that knowing how to use a bow came in handy in a game about killing people, what a massive coincidence!
the_technique19 said:
But that's exactly it though, that doesn't disprove their Mary Sue status, if anything it reinforces it. Mary Sues aren't labeled such *just* because they are unnaturally talented and obsessed over, they are Mary Sues because they are unnaturally talented and obsessed over but are treated as flawed, realistic character in the story. In other words, Mary Sues are pretenders, gods/goddesses dressed up as mortals.
Katniss isn't even unnaturally talented though. And she's not just treated as flawed, she is flawed. How anybody could ever think Katniss is too perfect is beyond me. She is consistently shown not to be a good person, that she consistently puts her own survival above everything else (another contrived trait for someone who would go on to win a competition about survival). In the first book when it's down to just her and Peeta and the Capitol revokes it's previous statement that two tributes from the same district would be able to survive, Peeta reaches for his knife and she immediately aims an arrow at his heart, but Peeta was already throwing his knife into the lake before she finishes aiming. She was already set to kill Peeta before she realized he had no intention of fighting. That's not exactly something an admirable character would do.
the_technique19 said:
To the one person in the thread that thinks Katniss is being criticized because she isn't a blood soaked mass murderer in the Hunger Games, she's criticized because she's a character that is never required to make decisions or exercise any kind of agency. Oh no, she's a participant in the Hunger Games and now she's in a harrowing scenario forcing her to kill people that are just as scared and desperate to survive as she is! Wait no, the less than handful of people that she actually kills during the Hunger Games are completely irrelevant and are of no consequence. Oh no, she befriended the handsome good guy and ultimately they'll have to kill each other in order to determine the victor! Wait no, they both survive and become friends/ on-off lovers. All throughout the story Katniss experiences adversity and tragedy without having to be involved or responsible for any of it, only serving to make her look even more sympathetic and admirable by the end.
How were the people she killed any more irrelevant than anyone else? They are in a game where only one person can live, none of them actually matter. Should she have gone out of her way to kill her friends? None of your points make any sense with what I read.
I have to ask if you read the book or if you only watched the movie. If it's the movie then it makes sense, because movie adaptations of books are almost universally garbage. I'm willing to accept that movie Katniss is a massive Mary Sue, who only has abilities that come out of nowhere and surface flaws that are never explored or justified, but not book Katniss.
-"Defeat Voldemort multiple times" is kind of a stretch. Book 1, Voldemort is incredibly weak, and it's Quirrel who suffers. Book 4, Harry survives Voldemort, but it's only because Voldemort is overconfident, and caught off guard by the Expecto Patronum effect. Book 5, Dumbledore steps in, and they're at a stalemate. Book 7, Harry finally beats Voldemort, but only because of destroying his horcruxes, and only because of the Elder Wand not recognising Voldemort as its master. It might be better to say that Harry "survives" Voldemort multiple times, and a lot of the time it's down to luck and/or allies.
And being saved by the Elder Wand was probably the most Sue-ish thing Harry ever did. There's nothing more Sue than beating the big bad with a MASSIVE deus-ex machina.
Redryhno said:
The only one that wants it to be about hating girls being good at things is you.
And being saved by the Elder Wand was probably the most Sue-ish thing Harry ever did. There's nothing more Sue than beating the big bad with a MASSIVE deus-ex machina.
The Elder Wand is hardly DEM. It's set up in book 6, explained in book 7, and works because of rules set up well ahead of time. A DEM comes out of nowhere to move the plot along. Also, DEM's are antithical to Stus/Sues because the mechanism for their success is coming from an external factor rather than an internal trait.
Drathnoxis said:
I have to ask if you read the book or if you only watched the movie. If it's the movie then it makes sense, because movie adaptations of books are almost universally garbage. I'm willing to accept that movie Katniss is a massive Mary Sue, who only has abilities that come out of nowhere and surface flaws that are never explored or justified, but not book Katniss.
TBH, I think the movies are better than the books. Many reasons why, but one of them is that they spend time with characters other than Katniss, who by design, isn't that compelling a protagonist. Unfortunately, we're stuck with her in first person for the books.
And being saved by the Elder Wand was probably the most Sue-ish thing Harry ever did. There's nothing more Sue than beating the big bad with a MASSIVE deus-ex machina.
Redryhno said:
The only one that wants it to be about hating girls being good at things is you.
True, but to be fair, it's all the same type of people, just wanna bash someone with a cudgel, no matter how crude or unwieldy.
Also it's not exactly Sue-ish. The rules were laid out long before it came about, they never said anything about having to kill someone to get the wand, just that the holder of the wand had to be defeated, it's just that the history of it made everyone assume it meant the previous owner had to be dead. And she'd already shown how their twin wands reacted, as well as various other things they share throughout the series. It's not that far off from any of the other stuff that'd happened.
Especially when you factor in that the main themes of the series was pretty much always that hate loses. Honestly if you want to point out a Sue-bit, Harry being a Horcrux and coming back to life is a much better example simply because there was alot of opportunity for the rest of the cast to have their Neville moment ruined by it all.
It's just poor writing that these things popped up in the last book more than anything.
Frankly I just kinda shake my head at the idea of Katniss being a sue. I have to wonder if the people who call her a Sue have issues with Luke Skywalker, because he pulls off a hell of a lot more bullshit than she does, outshouting soldiers that are supposed to be highly trained, being a pilot with zero combat experience that goes up against trained military, secretly being the son of someone super special, has gadgets that weren't explained before that appeared out of nowhere to get him out of a bad situation (why WAS he carrying that wire that he used to swing across that pit with Leia?) gets a unique and special weapon, is the one to save the day in the end, beating out all the other more experienced rebel pilots (including using space magic to make a shot another pilot said was impossible and chiding an experienced rebel pilot for claiming the shot was impossible because he made shots like that all the time), ties with kills with the more experienced Han when escaping the Death Star, stars to master the Force right away after a minute of training-do you get my point?
Frankly I just kinda shake my head at the idea of Katniss being a sue. I have to wonder if the people who call her a Sue have issues with Luke Skywalker, because he pulls off a hell of a lot more bullshit than she does, outshouting soldiers that are supposed to be highly trained, being a pilot with zero combat experience that goes up against trained military, secretly being the son of someone super special, has gadgets that weren't explained before that appeared out of nowhere to get him out of a bad situation (why WAS he carrying that wire that he used to swing across that pit with Leia?) gets a unique and special weapon, is the one to save the day in the end, beating out all the other more experienced rebel pilots (including using space magic to make a shot another pilot said was impossible and chiding an experienced rebel pilot for claiming the shot was impossible because he made shots like that all the time), ties with kills with the more experienced Han when escaping the Death Star, stars to master the Force right away after a minute of training-do you get my point?
When was it ever said that Stormtroopers were highly trained? As well as this is something that can be waved with the simple explanation of "He's a part of the hero party", certain things you have to accept. Because otherwise you've got Han literally chasing down a half-dozen troopers and not being shot to pieces that you've gotta explain. As well as Leia not being killed after the destruction of Alderaan.
And you do remember that pretty much every other pilot actually protected and outshot him at the end right with the exception of the final shot right?
The son of someone super special? Sorta, but also sorta not considering you go through most of the story before it's revealed. And it then becomes a major plot point and character trait that Luke is quite forgiving when he believes it to be possible(something else that is reinforced in RotJ when he approaches Jabba's palace).
The wire is on his belt he got from the trooper...they show him fumbling around for it like three different times before he pulls it out...While the troopers behind him are still trapped by the door by the time they swing across. I'm really starting to think you're just pulling out examples from you (or someone else's) ass to make your opinion look like it holds water.
The magic bullet shot, really not all that out there. He had practice shooting it, and he felt he could do it and that it wasn't that hard. You can take it as him being a Sue, or you can take it as him having experience shooting things that large(and 2 meters is like 7 feet, very large rats) but not factoring in all the other things he'd need to do while piloting and bombing and not just on a speeder. And you have to have seen numerous works of fiction where the country bumpkin is actually capable of something the semi-experts claim is impossible. This is just that in a future fantasy setting. Not to mention it was presented as just Zen Archery, something associated with the ideal of the Samurai, which is what Lucas originally wanted the Jedi to be partial analogues of. Hell, the guy that misses almost gets the angle with the computer targeting, proving that it wasn't as impossible as they thought to begin with.
Also worth mentioning is that I think he says early on that he was going to be accepted to the Imperial Pilot Academy but his Aunt and Uncle told him no and he stormed off because they need him water farming, which is where we get that iconic scene with the two suns. He has some experience piloting and shooting, enough to be considered.
And no, I don't particularly get your point. You wanna pull out Sueisms, then you need to actually do your own homework and think your own things. Go watch New Hope and take a drink every time Luke has to be saved from him being a country bumpkin or because others are more capable, I count six before Obi-Wan dies just off the top of my head.
And being saved by the Elder Wand was probably the most Sue-ish thing Harry ever did. There's nothing more Sue than beating the big bad with a MASSIVE deus-ex machina.
The Elder Wand is hardly DEM. It's set up in book 6, explained in book 7, and works because of rules set up well ahead of time. A DEM comes out of nowhere to move the plot along. Also, DEM's are antithical to Stus/Sues because the mechanism for their success is coming from an external factor rather than an internal trait.
DEM's are absolutely part of being a sue. Having an unearned victory is very sue. Part of being a Sue is that the universe contorts itself around them. Other characters will become stupid to make the sue look smart, established rules will be forgotten when they get in the way of what the sue needs to do, previously impossible tasks are trivial when the sue attempts them, etc.
I want to reiterate that I don't think Harry was actually a Mary Sue, though.
The wand rules are completely ridiculous and make no sense in context of the rest of the series. Read this. It takes the wand rules, as laid out in Deathly Hallows, and applies them to every use of Expelliarmus in the series. It's really an interesting read.
To make it worse we've never seen a wand rebound a spell because it was used against it's owner (except for Lockheart, but that was because Ron's wand was broken). The Deathly Hallows served no purpose. They were introduced at the last minute to give an excuse of how Harry could kill Voldemort without needing to actually kill Voldemort, but it doesn't actually work as justification. Harry is the owner of the Elder wand because he disarmed Malfoy of a DIFFERENT wand, and that somehow makes the killing curse rebound and kill Voldemort because it hit Harry's disarming charm. It's so dumb. Harry is so confident that it will work that he brags to Voldemort about it, but it doesn't make any sense that it DOES work! Voldemort only lost because he forgot to bone up the insane wand ownership laws. He lost on a technicality! The only way the story could have a worse ending is if the Ministry of Magic had shown up and arrested Voldemort for tax evasion for all the years he was "dead".
These rules weren't established until two thirds of the way through the last book (in a 7 part series that counts as 'last minute'), don't gel with how we've previously seen wands behave, and are the only reason that Harry is able to win. If that doesn't count as a Deus Ex Machina, nothing does.
Frankly, I could go on for pages about how terrible the last book was and how it could have been handled far better, but I don't really have enough time right now. Instead I'll just repost a thread I made a couple years ago.
In case you never noticed, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was a complete and utter mess as the end of an epic wizarding saga. I used to be a huge, huge Harry Potter fan and Deathly Hallows was like a knife in my fragile fanboy heart. Well, that wound has been festering for 8 years and it's finally going to burst and spew it's sickly fluid all over The Escapist. I'm going to go through and explain exactly what's wrong with the book and how to fix it.
First of all, the Deathly Hallows never should have been introduced. As much as it was a cool title for the book, as a plot point they went nowhere. I mean, what does it matter that these three items which we knew about all along were actually revealed to be hallows? What does it add? Harry's invisibility cloak still acted the way it always did, so what difference did it make that it was actually now the Legendary Deathly Hallow Cloak -- and how come nobody comments on how it's special until the last book? Then once Harry, through fantastical contrivance, was master of all the hallows, what did he do with it? Nothing. He was already convinced to throw himself into Voldemort's green laser before he got the resurrection stone, so talking to all the boring dead people only served to lessen his sacrifice. It's like Harry was born on Chosen Two For One Day, and when he was destined to become the one to defeat You-Know-Who they threw in Master Of Death for no extra charge. I know what you are going to say, "But the Elder Wand was the whole reason that Harry triumphed over He Who Must Not Be Named!" And I would say that's all the more reason to ditch the whole concept.
The entire wand ownership malarkey was so convoluted and absurd and absolutely not an acceptable way to end a seven book fantasy epic. I can't believe JK Rowling thought it would be a good idea to have Voldy kick the bucket as a result of wand ownership disputes. Like all because he forgot to sign form B and push Malfoy over and give him a wedgie or something the Elder Wand decides that not only is it not going to obey him as its master but it's going to kill him too. What? How does that even work? People have been running around grabbing each other's wands the entire series and not once have they backfired when used against their master. Well... except that once with Lockhart. So yes, Lord Voldemort, one of the most brilliant wizards in a century met his end in the same way as Gilderoy Bloody Lockhart, and Voldemort's wand wasn't even broken! The whole ownership rules seemed so tacked on and are absolutely ridiculous if even scrutinised for a moment. I mean, almost nobody in the series would have owned their own wand by the 7th book. As proof here is an analysis that someone made of every wand ownership change throughout the series.
Okay, so the Deathly Hallows are nixed, what are we going to spend all our pages focusing on now? Well, how about the thing that we were supposed to be focusing on the whole time? The thing that was hyped up for the entirety of Half-blood Prince? The Horcruxes! We still had the Goblet, and the Diadem to find as well as needing to destroy them Nagini, the locket (and Harry). How about instead of meandering about in the woods for half the book we are delivered the epic seek and destroy quest we were promised? It would have made an epic book for Team Potter to use what Dumbledore taught them about Tom Riddle and gather information and find the Horcruxes on their own, instead of waiting around for Voldemort to inexplicably give up Occlumency in order to give Harry a revolving door into his thoughts. The Order of the Pheonix probably could have helped here too. Personally I thought the fake locket that Harry and Dumbledore retrieved should have been the actual Horcrux. Harry had enough on his plate, what with finding the goblet and diadem, that he didn't need to mess about acquiring the locket again. Not to mention how ridiculous it is that the most heavily protected Horcrux was the one that was stolen.
That's another thing, the book really needed to follow through with the quality of traps surrounding the Horcruxes. Let's count the number of defenses/enchantments on the 3 hidden Horcruxes.
Locket: Cave in the middle of nowhere, indistinguishable hidden doorway, blood sacrifice entry, moat, sunken boat, goblet full of poison requiring to be drunk, corpses that attack if water is drunk, no apparition or Accio enchantments (8)
Goblet: Regular Gringotts protection like maze, enchantment cancelling waterfall, vault, and dragon plus one measly duplicating enchantment (5 - but a 1 on originality for Voldy)
Diadem: Room of Requirement... that's it. (0.5)
So it's obvious there is a huge discrepancy between the level of protection afforded to the various soul items and equally obvious where in the series Voldemort's trademark caution and paranoia was swapped out for bumbling arrogance. Personally, I can't see how Lord Voldemort would ever have trusted the Goblet containing his precious soul to an underling to be stashed away with all the rest of the common wizard's junk, and with hardly a spell of his own defending it. The man who is known for not trusting anyone relies on both Gringotts and Bellatrix to protect his immortality. And it's not like Tom Riddle even had any special connection to Gringotts, it's just a bank. It's hardly even worth discussing how poorly the Diadem was protected. Just shoved on a shelf in a semi-secret room. It's not even cursed; I'm pretty sure Harry just puts it on and nothing happens. It's not like it would have been difficult to come up with interesting traps to protect the Horcruxes, this guy was a wizard greater than nearly any other! There were infinite possibilities to what Voldemort could have done, but instead he did nothing.
Here are just a couple ideas off the top of my head. He could have used some dimensional distorting like Hermione's bag and made a complex 3D maze, like that M.C. Escher picture or the temple of the ancients from FF7; he could have used riddle(lol) based locks with answers relating to personal information of his childhood; he could have chosen from any number of magical creatures or plants as defenses; or (to go with the needle in a haystack style of the Room of Requirment) he could have filled a room with near copies of the Horcrux with the real one hidden among them Last Crusade style. With how high the bar was set for the locket, the others should have had at least as much security.
M.C. Escher picture
Temple of Ancients from FF7
Once the Horcruxes had been collected the matter of destroying them should have been much more difficult, rather than being glossed over like a mere formality. It would have made for a great mini-climax for each to need to be engaged like the locket was. It would be like a battle with Voldemort's soul before each Horcrux could be destroyed. Each Horcrux could have had a different aspect of his soul contained like jealously (with the locket), paranoia, malice and all that jazz . That would have been a good way to show Harry and Co.'s strength of character and heart to overcome Voldemort on an emotional level.
Finally, there is the final confrontation with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and The-Boy-Who-Lived. Harry won on a technicality. One (non-lethal) spell from Harry and -- whoops, wand admin privileges denied, spell rebound! How climactic is that? It seems JK Rowling just couldn't figure out how to have dumb old Harry Potter win against the most brilliant wizard of a generation, but the solution is so simple. If Horcruxes are central to the plot: simply have Voldemort weaken (magically, if not physically also) when each Horcrux is destroyed until finally, when the last is gone, Voldemort is on a level that Harry can challenge. Tell me if this doesn't make sense that the man should be having some pretty serious side effects from being knocked down to 1/8th of his soul. From here Harry could have an epic showdown showing off his proficiency at Defence Against the Dark Arts, or after the last Horcrux Voldemort could be reduced to a wheezing husk of a man for Harry to basically mercy kill or cart off to Azkaban. This would make the final demise of the Dark Lord to be a direct result of Harry's actions rather than being the equivalent of Voldemort tripping and falling down the stairs.
That's about it for the main plotline, but I've also got some miscellaneous gripes that I'll tack on here.
I think it goes without saying that Ron should never, EVER, speak parseltongue. Doing so would make him a linguistic genius even without parseltongue being a MAGICAL language. Not to mention Ron never being too bright. I don't think I know a single person who would be able to hear someone speak a word that they are never told of a foreign language they don't understand during a time of high stress and excitement and be able to reproduce the word perfectly months later.
Snape character was really decimated in this book. So he's been pining for 40 years after the popular girl in school who never really liked him anyway, and that's why he went double agent? Come on, get over it you pathetic loser. How about instead, he just got all pissy 'cause Voldemort told him to wash his greasy hair for a change.
Slytherin house really needed a redeeming moment. During that final battle not a single Slytherin showed up to defend their school from the Lord of Darkness. Why do they not send these kids straight to Azkaban as soon as they are sorted?
Wormtail needed to actually repay his life debt. I don't think not choking someone as hard as you could choke them counts as payment.
The epilogue. Nineteen years later. Really? Nothing before that was important at all? I don't know about you, but I wasn't waiting with bated breath to find out who married who and how many offspring they spawned. I wanted to know what happened more immediately after the battle. Who survived? There were still a lot of people unaccounted for. How did the wizarding world adjust to the death of Voldemort? What will all the characters we've gotten to know over 7 books do now that they've accomplished their goal and graduated school. Give us something other than the names of a couple brats we never cared about. Also, I always found it odd how it sounded like Teddy wasn't living with Harry. Harry is Teddy's godfather, that means that since Lupin and Tonks idiotically got themselves blown up Harry will be the child's legal guardian since he has no other living relatives. But that doesn't seem to have happened, it's weird.
In conclusion, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows should have been the book where all the plot threads came together and were neatly tied up, but it wasn't. For some bizarre reason JK Rowling wasted the majority of the book introducing a bunch of new plot points and changing the laws of the universe to better suit her idiot hero. The only reason Harry triumphed is because Voldemort was holding the idiot ball the entire book.
If you made it this far congratulations, let me know what you think. Did you feel the series ended well? What do you think of my improvements?
Well, Katniss is a lousily written character. And the films were insufferable to watch. But I wouldn't have gone that far.
erttheking said:
Frankly I just kinda shake my head at the idea of Katniss being a sue. I have to wonder if the people who call her a Sue have issues with Luke Skywalker
Well, yes. The whole Star Wars world is full of them. But at least they generally have the decency to go "err, because magic". And it tends to be people competing in asymmetric means, rather than blaster to blaster, say. I very much doubt your average stormtrooper would have ever dealt with a lightsaber before, even in training, while some of the competitors in the Hunger Games were supposed to have been trained for years. The examples you mentioned I'd put down to a combination of plot armour and cinematics, though.
My issues with Star Wars more revolve around the whole "chosen one" ethos, though, particularly when it's because of who Luke's Dad is, or how many good bacteria Anakin has inside him...
DEM's are absolutely part of being a sue. Having an unearned victory is very sue. Part of being a Sue is that the universe contorts itself around them. Other characters will become stupid to make the sue look smart, established rules will be forgotten when they get in the way of what the sue needs to do, previously impossible tasks are trivial when the sue attempts them, etc.
They were introduced at the last minute to give an excuse of how Harry could kill Voldemort without needing to actually kill Voldemort, but it doesn't actually work as justification. Harry is the owner of the Elder wand because he disarmed Malfoy of a DIFFERENT wand, and that somehow makes the killing curse rebound and kill Voldemort because it hit Harry's disarming charm. It's so dumb. Harry is so confident that it will work that he brags to Voldemort about it, but it doesn't make any sense that it DOES work! Voldemort only lost because he forgot to bone up the insane wand ownership laws. He lost on a technicality! The only way the story could have a worse ending is if the Ministry of Magic had shown up and arrested Voldemort for tax evasion for all the years he was "dead".
-While the Hallows aren't named until book 7, the groundwork for them was laid in book 6 with the Resurrection Stone.
-The point of the Hallows isn't to kill Voldemort. The entire point of them is to subvert that expectation - Dumbledore flat lays out to Harry that he hoped Hermione would steer him away from the Hallows to have him focus on the Horcruxes. While the Hallows play a role in Voldemort's defeat, they're not the be all and end all of it. The Hallows represent more of a temptation to the characters than as a tool, and as a means of character examination (where Harry, Hermione, and Ron each name what Hallow they would choose).
-It's more that the wand's allegiance is to Harry than the rebounding that kills Voldemort. And as for the laws, again, the Elder Wand is written as an extremely powerful wand with unique magic.
These rules weren't established until two thirds of the way through the last book (in a 7 part series that counts as 'last minute'), don't gel with how we've previously seen wands behave,
It would be a DEM if it explicitly dropped into Harry's hands with the explicit purpose of being used for a single function. Which it isn't. The groundwork for the wand is laid out well in advance before its use in killing Voldemort.
Almost as annoying as people calling everyone a Mary Sue nowadays are the people who deny any discussion by blabbering misogyny and muh nurds, hi IQ.
Rey is a Mary Sue, Ripley isn't. Arnold Schwarzenegger almost always is a Gary Stue, Luke Skywalker barely isn't (really close to one, I think they nailed it with him to go as far as one can). Jesus is one, Hercule isn't (he's fucking stupid). Samus is one if you're sane and therefore don't take Other M into consideration, Lara Croft isn't anymore since at Least The Last Revelation.
So is the protagonist capable of everything without almost no on-screen training/honing of any skills, has no flaws like fear, anger, etc, and does almost no mistakes, gets everything handed to them and if there seems to be a mistake made by the protagonist, then it works out better for the goal in the end as to if the protagonist hadn't done a mistake? -> Mary Sue/Gary Stue.
It has zero to do with gender. Fuck off.
So does Katniss fulfill *all* these criterias above? I don't know, haven't read/seen Hunger Games. You can pretty much answer that question yourself.
The real problem is that "mary sue" has become a coded argument. It had a meaning, sure. The word "thug" HAD a meaning too. But now we understand that "thug" is a code word. Now we know what someone means when they say the saw a bunch of thugs hanging out somewhere and they wanted someone to keep an eye on them. And the problem is, when you call them out for their racism... they can argue "thug didn't used to mean that, I meant thug in the classic sense."
And mary sue is exactly the same thing. It is a coded argument. "Oh, it doesn't have anything to do with gender," well sorry. Maybe that used to be true, but it is a: an inherently gendered term in itself. And b: the excuse "I'm using it as a legimate literary term," is the boilerplate shield excuse. I understand some people genuinely think they are just having a literary discussion... but really I don't see that many that cry "mary sue" that don't have a problem with a character or writers gender, and those that really don't are legitimizing the shield that the majority are hiding behind.
And so maybe it's not always mra neckbeards and their sympathetic counterparts using the term. But I will continue assume it is, because usually it is, and even the times that it legitimately isn't benefits their shield argument anyway.
Besides, is a pretty stupid argument anyway. Male or female aside, what is wrong with liking an overpowered character? The bog standard "chosen one" fantasy trope gives a selected protagonist bulletproof plot armor and usually cosmically fantastic latent powers. Does that mean I can't enjoy reading the Belgariad? So fuck it, maybe I like reading a story with a mary sue character... what you think about that I could give 2 shits about anyway.
Well, Katniss is a lousily written character. And the films were insufferable to watch. But I wouldn't have gone that far.
erttheking said:
Frankly I just kinda shake my head at the idea of Katniss being a sue. I have to wonder if the people who call her a Sue have issues with Luke Skywalker
Well, yes. The whole Star Wars world is full of them. But at least they generally have the decency to go "err, because magic". And it tends to be people competing in asymmetric means, rather than blaster to blaster, say. I very much doubt your average stormtrooper would have ever dealt with a lightsaber before, even in training, while some of the competitors in the Hunger Games were supposed to have been trained for years. The examples you mentioned I'd put down to a combination of plot armour and cinematics, though.
My issues with Star Wars more revolve around the whole "chosen one" ethos, though, particularly when it's because of who Luke's Dad is, or how many good bacteria Anakin has inside him...
To be fair there really wasn't any chosen one or "bringing balance to the force" malarkey before the prequels came along. OT was pretty much just a big homage to classic adventure serials, a space opera with space nazis and a typical hero's journey...set in space.
erttheking said:
Frankly I just kinda shake my head at the idea of Katniss being a sue. I have to wonder if the people who call her a Sue have issues with Luke Skywalker, because he pulls off a hell of a lot more bullshit than she does, outshouting soldiers that are supposed to be highly trained, being a pilot with zero combat experience that goes up against trained military, secretly being the son of someone super special, has gadgets that weren't explained before that appeared out of nowhere to get him out of a bad situation (why WAS he carrying that wire that he used to swing across that pit with Leia?) gets a unique and special weapon, is the one to save the day in the end, beating out all the other more experienced rebel pilots (including using space magic to make a shot another pilot said was impossible and chiding an experienced rebel pilot for claiming the shot was impossible because he made shots like that all the time), ties with kills with the more experienced Han when escaping the Death Star, stars to master the Force right away after a minute of training-do you get my point?
Alright alright... so this kind of defense shows up again.... I'll grant that Katniss isn't a full on Sue, but calling Luke one? Hoo boy.
Yes, Luke performs many impressive feats in the trilogy. This does *not* make him a Mary Sue, the archetype he cleanly falls into is an Every-man, an avatar for the viewer to learn about the world through his/her eyes. Before I go on, let's actually put into words what a Mary Sue actually is, and you can decide for yourself if Luke really is one.
Mary Sues are generally characters that are universally adored and/or obsessed over by all of the established characters in the story. They typically don't have particularly vivid or colorful personalities and they're mainly characterized by their unambiguous moral goodness and possessing talent that puts many of the established characters to shame. And though this isn't inherent to Mary Sues, they typically have little in the way of motivation and tangible goals to achieve. With that in mind, lets get started on Luke.
Luke from the beginning of the first movie was a whiny kid that only wanted to ditch the farm and go on an adventure. From his introduction to the start of his journey, all of the following happens to him:
-R2 rebels against Luke and C3PO in order to seek out Obi-wan, forcing them to search for R2
-Luke scouts out sand people while wielding a rifle (indicating his experience with laser weaponry) but gets ambushed and knocked out, needing rescue from Obi Wan.
-Luke refuses the call to action, not only out of obligation to his guardians but feeling too small and unprepared for what laid ahead
-Parents get fried, with nowhere left to go Luke declares that he will "learn the ways of the Jedi like his father before him"
-Pulled over by imperials, requiring Obi Wan's power to get them out of trouble
-Gets tossed around like a ragdoll in the cantina bar, needing rescue from Obi Wan once again
-Sassed by Han and treated like a child, slapping Luke's hand away while examining the cockpit.
Now as you can see from *just* the beginning of Luke's journey, he's a character with a variety of skills and abilities but he also starts off as a insignificant player in the story. In other words, Luke was a character that had room for growth and maturity. He routinely got into situations that were beyond his expertise, needing rescue from more competent characters, as well as being treated with little reverence from the strangers that he met throughout. C3PO liked Luke from the start, but he's also a timid and accommodating character by nature, so its to be expected. If you aren't convinced, I could elaborate even further...
Kyrian007 said:
The real problem is that "mary sue" has become a coded argument. It had a meaning, sure. The word "thug" HAD a meaning too. But now we understand that "thug" is a code word. Now we know what someone means when they say the saw a bunch of thugs hanging out somewhere and they wanted someone to keep an eye on them. And the problem is, when you call them out for their racism... they can argue "thug didn't used to mean that, I meant thug in the classic sense."
And mary sue is exactly the same thing. It is a coded argument. "Oh, it doesn't have anything to do with gender," well sorry. Maybe that used to be true, but it is a: an inherently gendered term in itself. And b: the excuse "I'm using it as a legimate literary term," is the boilerplate shield excuse. I understand some people genuinely think they are just having a literary discussion... but really I don't see that many that cry "mary sue" that don't have a problem with a character or writers gender, and those that really don't are legitimizing the shield that the majority are hiding behind.
And so maybe it's not always mra neckbeards and their sympathetic counterparts using the term. But I will continue assume it is, because usually it is, and even the times that it legitimately isn't benefits their shield argument anyway.
...what? You are aware that the male equivalent term "Gary Stu" exists, right? And they're just as prevalent in similar YA novels, and *especially* when it comes to LN Isekai stories, an embarrassing amount of which keep getting adapted into anime. (mind boggling considering that beyond a handful of them, Sword Art Online king among them, the large majority of them sell like garbage. who knows why they keep making more)
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