To paraphrase myself from some of my other comments, I don't think that the Mary Sue concept should necessarily be thrown out totally, because I do think it can be useful in some contexts. On the other hand, one thing these posts have totally sold me on is the idea that open and vocal hate of Mary Sues is having a chilling effect on new and young authors - there's plenty of anecdata to support it, anyway.
Mary Sue itself(as well as Gary Stus, who usually are worse), if taken to what it actually means, is a bad thing. It is indeed something we SHOULD absolutely advise people from refraining to write. But not by saying "YOu are awful for writing this", but by pointing out what the problems are, that many of the traitss ACTUAL Sues have are actually sexist, that the writing doesn't need to be this way. In other words, by helping these writers, not by judging them.
Okay, here I'm going to disagree with you halfway. I agree that gently helping a new writer who wants to learn to write better, rather than mocking and shaming her, is definitely good! But ... okay, I'm gonna copy-paste from my comment to xparrot above, because she made a similar point to yours (that the basic Sue is a sexist trope), and I said:
I think that a lot of fans who write that kind of Mary Sue will probably realize this for themselves eventually (or else make peace with the problematic aspects of it and continue enjoying it), but I don't think that having other fans come in from the outside, telling them that they're oppressing themselves, is going to help. Or that it's anyone else's business, really. It's like ... I dunno, telling someone who enjoys noncon fantasies that she's contributing to rape culture. She'll probably say "stop telling me what to fantasize about!" ... and she'd be right.
Actually, I think that's probably what was the most valuable for me about reading the posts in this meta-round - to begin to see the Mary Sue as a legitimate fantasy, that a lot of people have and enjoy, rather than a form of poor writing that "proper" writers grow out of!
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Mary Sue itself(as well as Gary Stus, who usually are worse), if taken to what it actually means, is a bad thing. It is indeed something we SHOULD absolutely advise people from refraining to write. But not by saying "YOu are awful for writing this", but by pointing out what the problems are, that many of the traitss ACTUAL Sues have are actually sexist, that the writing doesn't need to be this way. In other words, by helping these writers, not by judging them.
Okay, here I'm going to disagree with you halfway. I agree that gently helping a new writer who wants to learn to write better, rather than mocking and shaming her, is definitely good! But ... okay, I'm gonna copy-paste from my comment to
I think that a lot of fans who write that kind of Mary Sue will probably realize this for themselves eventually (or else make peace with the problematic aspects of it and continue enjoying it), but I don't think that having other fans come in from the outside, telling them that they're oppressing themselves, is going to help. Or that it's anyone else's business, really. It's like ... I dunno, telling someone who enjoys noncon fantasies that she's contributing to rape culture. She'll probably say "stop telling me what to fantasize about!" ... and she'd be right.
Actually, I think that's probably what was the most valuable for me about reading the posts in this meta-round - to begin to see the Mary Sue as a legitimate fantasy, that a lot of people have and enjoy, rather than a form of poor writing that "proper" writers grow out of!