Anti-Author Terminology

[LordStoneheart]

I love this OP. TvTropes has made people into such arrogant literary critics when using those terms basically signifies the opposite.

[Errant Bard]

A word of warning: Don't ever go to tvtropes, OP, you would likely choke to death or have some sort of righteous rage-induced stroke.

[Pod The Impaler]

I am cautious about using the terms in the OP. Really, the plot is just the plot, and it goes where the author intends. Sometimes it may be vexing to think about a character essentially not deserving what happens to them (good or bad), but concepts like implausibility and outright wankery are pretty subjective.

For example: to me Balon Greyjoy invading the North was as close to "plot armour" as it gets - a totally senseless act, that had no benefit at all for Balon, but saved the Lannisters' asses. I may not believe that a person with even 2 brain cells to rub together would do what Balon did, but that is the nature of the character - Balon Greyjoy: hypocritical dumbass.

I suppose I should accuse Tywin of having plot armour, but then of course he died 1 book later, so that means what ... GRRM snapped his fingers and used an armour piercing plot twist on Tywin?

That was not some arbitrary death either - Tywin absolutely had it coming, and it was well founded. So... we're back to "the plot is the plot".

In any case, these are not characters in some roleplaying game, where things must be "fair" and "consistent with the rules".

A word of warning: Don't ever go to tvtropes, OP, you would likely choke to death or have some sort of righteous rage-induced stroke.

More like waste half the day reading articles.

Anyway, from that link:

Tropes are devices and conventions that a writer can reasonably rely on as being present in the audience members' minds and expectations. On the whole, tropes are not clichés. The word clichéd means "stereotyped and trite." In other words, dull and uninteresting. We are not looking for dull and uninteresting entries. We are here to recognize tropes and play with them, not to make fun of them. The wiki is called "TV Tropes" because TV is where we started. Over the course of a few years, our scope has crept out to include other media. Tropes transcend television. They reflect life. Since a lot of art, especially the popular arts, do their best to reflect life, tropes are likely to show up everywhere. ... We are also not a wiki for bashing things. Once again, we're about celebrating fiction, not showing off how snide and sarcastic we can be.

[David Selig]

I never said they were created by this forum. But the bolded part is hogwash. Those terms are way too vague for serious literary criticism. Try dropping one of those terms, uncritically, into a paper in an upper-level-undergrad or graduate-level literature paper and I hope you like the color red.

We aren't here to write papers or serious literary criticism (except a few topics for the latter). This is a fan forum, not a English literature graduate course.

[Hodor's Dragon]

Good thing we aren't here to write papers or serious literary criticism (except a few topics for the latter). This is a fan forum, not a English literature graduate course.

And your point is . . . ? Does it not matter whether we understand each other when we converse because this is an online forum?

[David Selig]

I understand perfectly what people mean by plot armor and plot gift. If you don't want to use these terms, don't do it. I am not a fan of "Mary Sue" since it has become such a vague term it is useless IMO.

[Hodor's Dragon]

I understand perfectly what people mean by plot armor and plot gift. If you don't want to use these terms, don't do it. I am not a fan of "Mary Sue" since it has become such a vague term it is useless IMO.

Do you now. Well I'm curious. What does everybody mean by them?

[SeanF]

Plot armour exists in real life. Think how often Hitler escaped assassination attempts, by the merest chance.

[Jaime4Brienne]

Those terms were not created by this forum. I believe the term "Mary Sue" is older than this forum, actually. Like "dues ex machina" and "jump the shark", those terms have now found a place in criticism. Don't try to write them off because some people use them inappropriately.

I first saw the term "Mary Sue" on the Harry Potter forums at least eight (maybe even longer) years ago.

[Ran]

A look at Google Books shows many uncritical references to Mary Sue, including books on critical media studies and Oxford's Dictionary of Science Fiction. They all seem to have pretty congruent definitions: character believed to be a "self-insert", a wish-fulfillment device.

Simple enough. I don't buy the idea that there's vastly different understandings of the concept, which seems to be the only argument for why it shouldn't be used.

[Mithras]

My personal take:

If we cannot find a plausible reason why a certain thing happened the way it happened in a story other than "this is how narrative works", then that book is flawed and that event becomes a low quality fiction. People know the rules of a good narrative but the writer is obliged to tell us why the events in the story obeyed the rules of the good narratives by supplying legitimate reasons within the story itself.

For example, take Dany's arrival at Westeros. Even without needing George's confirmation, the basics of a good narrative dictate that Dany and her dragons have to come to Westeros as a result of the plot in the past five books. George can kill her in Essos but that would not be a good narrative.

So, George's duty here is to supply good reasons within the story about why Dany stayed in Essos up to the moment she stayed in Essos and why/how she came to Westeros to make a good narrative. If he pushes the limits of plausibility too far, the quality drops and some readers start to complain (call it plot gift, plot armor or whatever).

[The Marquis de Leech]

Terms like plot armour and Mary Sue aren't utilised in highbrow literary analysis, correct. That doesn't mean they don't have meaning, and doesn't mean they can't be used in the (much more informal) context of an internet forum. I'd also point out that there is little (conscious) highbrow literary analysis of fanfiction. That doesn't mean there is no such thing as fanfiction.

Regarding Mary Sue, the term first arose in some early 1970s Star Trek fic - a parody fic at that. It means an unrealistic character who bends the plot, world, and other characters around them. It's not that they're perfect, it's that they're perfect in a way that distorts the very fabric of the narrative, and undermines the willing suspension of disbelief.

[Andrew Gilfellon]

There is a difference between this is the story I have written and I plan for this character to survive as it is important to the story, and I really like this character so I am going to put him into situations that would kill this other character, but because I like him he won't die.

Plot armour can be considered bad writing in some aspects. I mean, could Richard from the Sword of Truth be considered a mary sue with plot armour? I mean, he's a pretty much asshole kind of guy who kicks the teeth in of little girls and kills innocent people but is called for heroic for doing so and we're told it is heroic that he does so by the author. I admit to maybe being wrong here, this is second hand knowledge to me.

To me, a Mary Sue is an author insert for example Eragon, who is also a psychopath with no empathy except for rabbits. Don't read that series. The villain is a tax collector and taxes are evil....

These terms exist for a reason, but they are also generalisation of things as sometimes things need more explanation than, oh Jon Snow has plot armour.

[MinDonner]

I recall we had a similar argument some years ago about the term "antihero", because people were using it in some rather different ways (Arthur Dent vs Logan Ninefingers?). Should we stop using that word as well now? Well, no, we fucking shouldn't; if you are unclear exactly what meaning a person is ascribing to this term, and it's not obvious from context, then ask for clarification, don't try and ban the entire phrase ffs. :rolleyes:

[The Marquis de Leech]

To me, a Mary Sue is an author insert for example Eragon, who is also a psychopath with no empathy except for rabbits. Don't read that series. The villain is a tax collector and taxes are evil....

Author inserts are not necessarily Mary Sues. They certainly can be, especially if the character is an idealised version of themselves, but there isn't a one-to-one link. You even have some post-modern stuff whether the characters interact directly with the author.

[LordStoneheart]

Meaningless isn't the word OP is looking for. The word muggle has meaning that I'm sure we all know, but it 'made up.'

What I think the OP is really trying to get at is that these terms are basically useless when critiquing this series and many others. Sure, some badly written books (Twilight, Mortal Instruments come to mind..) will make a very liberal use of "plot gifts, armor, sues, stus, whatever. But when people use it on here, it really is "I don't like x so it's just [insert TVTrope term]"

Example: "Dany is such a mary sue."

A certain poster that I won't name is a broken record with this. But it's completely baseless, a biased and skewered simplification of Dany's character to name her this. Same with Jon as the Chosen One, the obvious reason being that we don't have the f**king last books out to call that, no matter how obvious it may seem now.

So I don't find those four terms meaningless. I find them to be vapid, lazy, and useless ways of criticizing something one does not like.

[The Marquis de Leech]

the obvious reason being that we don't have the f**king last books out to call that, no matter how obvious it may seem now.

That's irrelevant. The judgements are based on the words we have in front of us, and If Martin were to say tomorrow, "sorry guys, but I'm giving up on this story", all we'd ever have would be those existing texts.

I happen to think Jon Snow is a Gary Stu, and have spent many hours and many words over the years discussing that. I resent it being called lazy criticism, considering that I know exactly why I am criticising him.

[Night's_King]

I've always disliked the term 'plot armor'. Most main characters seem to have plot armor. Plot armor means that a character should have died, but the author still needed him, so he lived through luck, right? But there are so many prime examples in history where people should have died, but didn't.

'Plot gift' is something else, but still nothing that bad. Why has everything that could help our hero mentioned before? It does happen that armys show up without anyone knowing beforehand (Hitlers Ghost Division), and it's possible to find 'artifacts of great power' through accident. It isn't lazy or bad writing per se.

[MisterOJ]

Who let the wildlings south of the wall?!?

[polishgenius]

I don't know what 'plot gift' is supposed to mean, but 'Mary Sue' and 'plot armour' are both perfectly legitimate criticisms and commonplace phrases with a very clear meaning. So you kicking off like this about them mostly just makes me think you're a fan of an author who often gets accused of such things.

Who let the wildlings south of the wall?!?

I'm guessing the topic got moved because it fits the tone of this forum more.

In fairness, we need this sort of spillage occasionally- we might get a decent user or two venture outside of the topic and stick around in the forum proper.

Eta: I like TVtropes in general, but I wish people would stop referring to terms that existed long before it did as if TVtropes spawned them. Mary Sue being the primary one in this topic.