Anti-Author Terminology

[Darth Richard II]

GRRM even likes Bakker's work, and he knows Bakker personally. So he clearly doesn't have a problem with writing a more-than-human-ninja-genius after yourself.

News to me. Unless you mean a different Baker, like Richard or Keith or Kate..Kage..that other one.

[emberling]

I see what you're getting at, but without things like that there's no story. Or at least there won't be any main characters. In any epic fantasy you have to expect to follow at least a couple throughout the whole thing, and that's goingnto require some things to work out in their favor, especually if you want any excitement. Plus, Jon might really be dead ( but I'd bet against it).

I think this is reflected in other choices GRRM has made. one example is that pretty much all the POV characters are highborn, not just some random schmucks (prilogues and epilogues excepted). Davos isn't, and neither are Mel or Hotah , but they have pretty limited screentime as POVs.

To me this suggests that the story is being told in the.most dramatic and fantastic way possible, through the eyes of those in the most extraoridinary places at the most extraordinary times. By design, you have to suspend your disbelief.

Yes, yes, yes. The PoV characters are PoVs for a reason. We aren't following random people, we're following the people who did matter, and that means they're going to be exceptional in one or more of skill, luck, privilege, serendipity, destiny, super magic powers, etc. That's why 'Mary Sue' so often comes across as '(female) character I don't like' - because what we really mean by Mary Sue is 'character who broke my suspension of disbelief' and once the illusion is broken, all of those things look like gifts from the author, when most stories in...ever...actually have the authors handing out gifts left and right to all the characters.

[Diziet]

News to me. Unless you mean a different Baker, like Richard or Keith or Kate..Kage..that other one.

http://grrm.livejournal.com/262170.html?thread=15328538#t15328538

Scott Bakker was at Semana Negra in Spain with me a few years back. I introduced him before his presentation, interviewed him, and spent a good part of that week with him and his charming wife. I've probably spent more time with Bakker than with Rothfuss, Abercrombie, and Grossman put together. And I have read and admired his first trilogy... though, admittedly, not his more recent books. (So many books, so little time)

I think there is a short video from the panel on youtube, but not the whole thing.

[Galactus]

"Mary Sue" comes from a Star Trek parody fanfiction.

I don't know how old "Plot armour" is, but it's certainly relatively old: Heard it since at least the early 90's. (usually when discussing how Stormtroopers can't hit anything except when dramatically convenient)

Never heard "plot gift"

"Gary Stu/Marty Stu" are just the male equivalents of "Mary Sue".

[Mark Lawrence]

The term 'plot armour' (which I've discovered today) seems a strange one to me...

Sure, in any made up world in question there are lots of people who get into a dangerous situation and ... die. Just like there are lots of people in our world who enter the national lottery and ... lose. But the author (like the newspaper) opts to write about the more interesting tale of the person who survives against the odds (wins the lottery).

When a bomb goes off, building collapses, bandits close in etc ... most people die. The story tends to lie with (or at least continue with) the tiny minority who don't. So yes, you can probably bet that Frodo won't get caught by those black riders on page 100, or that Kvothe "just happens" to be the _only_ member of his caravan who isn't there when the big bad happens on page 98 ... do we need a word for it? Is it an accusation? Even worthy of observation?

Dunno. It's certainly not a concept that would impact the way I write.

[The Reckoner]

I always thought "Gary Stu" and "Mary Sue" were strictly relegated to the realms of fan fiction.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Mark,

Thank you. That's the point. Boring people make boring stories. A novel that follows me over the course of a day is not one anyone wants to read.

As Scot drove towards Pickens he realized he was hungry. He saw a Hardees up ahead. He pulled into the drive thru lane and with a minimum of fuss was back on the road. The Sausage, egg, cheese, and biscuit did their magic in his stomach and Scot was no longer hungry. He could see the Blue Ridge Mountains in the distance and knew he was getting close.

Add magical powers and some daring escapes to my ordinary day and it might turn me into a "Gary Stu" but it also makes my really boring day something others might be interested in reading.

[Slick Mongoose]

If the term "Mary Sue" isn't limited to fanfic then it should be. Authors should be free to write about legends of their time without being accused of Mary Sue-ism.

If the likes of Lymond, Kvothe, Jon Snow, Edmond Dantes etc. count as Mary Sues then the term loses all meaning for me.

I have read actual Mary Sue fanfics, mind, and the above characters are really not like that.

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

I first saw plot shields or plot armor in a very nerdy who would kick who's ass context. Like, "There's no way a class b inquisitor should have been able to defeat a boodthirster. I call shenanigans!"

I don't think it's that big a deal, but authors should still pay attention to the internal logic of the universes they created and try to maintain some plausibility, otherwise you end up with a legion of the emperor's finest storm troopers losing to a bunch of teddy bears.

[Ran]

The whole point of Kvothe is that he absolutely is a Gary Stu as described. It's deliberate. Doesn't make it fun for me to read. I can go and read about extraordinary characters in extraordinary times from other writers -- say, Guy Gavriel Kay's Ammar ibn Khairan and Rodrigo Belmonte, Le Guin's Ged, Dunnet's Lymond, Zelazny's Sam -- without feeling like I'm being asked to wallow in inane wish-fulfillment.

The most interesting stuff in The Name of the Wind was the framing story, but that's a very small part of the novel. The origin story of the greatest-everything-ever guy is the main part, however, and Kvothe-as-described is clearly Kvothe-the-narrator's wish-fulfillment device. All the girls are always prettier and more wonderful than they really were, right? And it leaves me as cold as any other bad fiction that I've read. Like that ridiculous episode where he somehow manages to win a big music contest with a broken lute, because he's just so fricking amazing that he can manage a perfect rendition of a complex composition with half the strings broken? Ugh. Or the way he's deliberately kept in penury by constantly losing his savings so that you can sympathize with him as down-on-his-luck guy just scraping by despite his being perfect at everything he turns his hand to. It's transparent. And again, I'm pretty certain it's deliberate, part of some grand narrative plan. That the concept that would have been terrific in a novella is obvious to me -- have a character present an amazing, impossible-to-believe history and then at the end subvert it all by explaining it in some clever way.

Stretched to a 4 book series, where you probably have to wait until the final book before the veil is pulled back, it doesn't work for me because much too mich time is being devoted to Kvothe Stu. Shame, too, as the prose is quite good.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Ran,

Kvothe is so clearly an unreliable narrator, his closest friend explicitly accuses him of spouting bullshit in the frame story, I don't see how his Stuness can be anything but a narrative device. I really enjoy the KKC. I'm looking forward to the next book.

[Ran]

But 80% of the novel is that bullshit Gary Stu. It's a great con to offer people a shitty wish-fulfillment character and keep them waiting for the turn where it'll actually become good.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Ran,

Then you and I disagree. I've enjoyed the story but recognized it as puffery. The Edema Ruh are storytellers.

[Darth Richard II]

It's four books now?

[SerArthurHeath]

I disagree with Ran too. The unreliable narrator vibe is pretty clear to me, and the prose is lovely yet unique for both Kvothe's narrative and the 3rd person omnipresent

[White Walker Texas Ranger]

Just because Kvothe wants to go on for hundreds of pages about his sexual conquests and how awesome he is even though he's poor and oppressed doesn't mean that Rothfuss has to write it all down.

[sologdin]

maybe he could just do faerie erotica. 1,000 pages of dude porking the evil tree, or something.

[Errant Bard]

I think what Ran is saying is that knowing a story is bullshit does not actually make the story better to read. You know when a random drunk at the bar describes how he killed seven bears with one strike, barehanded, while leering into the cleavage of the woman he sat next to? That's Kvothe. Some people are known to prefer not suffer through those stories.

As for Mary Sues, there is a difference between good and too good to believe. Some real historical people would be unbelievable? That's a common problem with fiction, and why reality is always stranger than fiction: because reality is unbelievable and not put in fiction books. Just like you have the one steve limit.

[Sci-2]

Anti-author is more like when I laugh at the idea that Bakker's works are too good to be appreciated by the hoi polloi.

Or note that Wise Man's Fear would've been better written by a GPS AI.

[1918me]

Anti-author is more like when I laugh at the idea that Bakker's works are too good to be appreciated by the hoi polloi.

Or note that Wise Man's Fear would've been better written by a GPS AI.

Didn't Rothfuss say at one point that he'd already finished the book years before publication, and was just editing it since then? Because I have a hard time believing that tWMF was edited by anyone for any length of time.

On topic, although it's been stated ad nauseam at this point, I have to agree that the terms listed in the OP (with the possible exception of "plot gift," which I'd never heard until this thread), are legitimate terms to use in literary criticism, which I always believed had reasonably widely-accepted usage among communities of fans and critics alike.