Marty Sue?

[ithildin]

So George Lucas based Luke on himself, and Gene Roddenberry based Wesley on himself, and those are just two are off the top of my head, and now, I discover that one of the creators of How I Met Your Mother based Ted on himself and the other creator, Marshall. Yet I never see the screams of 'MARY SUE!' that I'm sure would exist if these guys were women.

Just an observation.


Ted was originally modeled on you, and Marshall on Craig. How far have those characters evolved from that? Do you ever sit around and say, "I wouldn't do that" or "We wouldn't do that to each other"?

Ted certainly isn't me anymore. I haven't been engaged, or had a lot of the other experiences he's had. It's more the characters have become themselves .We definitely do try to ask ourselves, "Would this happen to us? Would this happen to someone we know?" for all the characters. We try to keep them personal and real, but there's more overlap now. I relate to Marshall as much as I do to Ted.


Full text here, but it is spoilerish for the last ep of the season.

Comments

[pat-t.livejournal.com]

Unless....

You're writing Alexa. Ahhh, dear Alexa. Long blonde hair. Big blue eyes. Tiny, sweet little thing with such an engaging smile and tangy personality that Methos fell madly, passionately in love with her within 3 minutes of them meeting.

So in love that he was willing to throw in the Watchers, Duncan and buy two airline tickets to Paris so he could sweep her away and show her the world. Even if it meant he would have to come out of hiding.

Even her name is beautiful, Methos sighed as he became instantly obsessed and Gobsmacked with her perfection.

And, of course, she wasn't *just* a waitress. She had to be a *special* waitress that Joe cared about and watched over.

Those two (Amanda and Alexa were the ultimate *meets the definition word by word) of all Mary Sues.

There was one female character on Highlander who does *not* meet that definition. She was gorgeous, but she wasn't perfect. Other men didn't necessarily fall over themselves when they saw her. She was interesting and flawed and sometimes just a bit obnoxious. Duncan loved her, but you knew it was true love in spite of her faults. Not the *sees just so cute and makes me laugh* so I can't see her faults like Amanda.

I'm talking about Tessa. She was a spitfire. She got jealous. She didn't take any shit from our guy. She stayed up and worried about him when he didn't come home. And she had no problem being a snippy bitch when she was in a bad mood. She was real!

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

I love Amanda and Alexa, but yeah, I can see what you're getting at :)

[conjured-1.livejournal.com]

*cough*sputter*choke* Alexa is none other than Gillian Horvath personified into the perfect Mary Sue. Horvath had/has the hots for Methos (not Peter, but Methos) and thus Alexa was born. Getting paid to write what is essentially fan fic is cake, man. And for that, Horvath is one smart cookie!

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

Don't get me started on her! She's one of the few people I've ever gotten confrontational with at a con. This was related to Forever Knight, not Highlander, and we were at the same party. Lord, that woman ticks me off.

And since this isn't a locked post, I probably should shut up at this point!

[conjured-1.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm not saying I like her,or find anything redeeming about her (and I worked with her), what I'm saying is that she was smart enough to be able to write her fantasies and get paid for it. It happens a lot for men, not so much for women, so on that score she did well.

But then again, that was the whole point of the thread wasn't it... ;D

[ithildyn.livejournal.com]

No, I didn't think you meant that [g] Otherwise, I would have been more tactful! Because I can be tactful. Honest.

And yes, that's exactly what the thread is about :)So by that count, you're right, she got away with something usually only men do.

[pat-t.livejournal.com]

I love Amanda too. I liked Alexa, but we never got much of an opportunity to know her very well. She had the potential of being a great character.

But if people are going to throw around the definition of "Mary Sue" and use such things as long hair and perfect bodies and our guys just falling all over themselves, yadda yadda - they fit the definition completely.

All Amanda had to do is rub up next to Richie and he was close to coming in his pants. He told her everything he knew. Joe was better off, but not by much. She had Duncan eating out of her hand even though she almost got him killed more than once. She could just do no wrong. Even when he was berating her it was more a *chuckle* gosh darn Amanda. Come here and let me love you - type of thing.

She was so perfect and pretty and special that another woman wanted to be *just like her*.

Yet, because of Liz's characterization, I adored the character. But by fandom's definition she is a Mary Sue.