Mary-Sue Harrington

Norseman · Post by **Norseman** » 2006-11-24 01:05pm

Synopsis:

Mary-Sue Harrington is actually Honor Harringtons cleverer and prettier sister, who constantly shows up Honor during their childhood. This makes Honor Harrington very angry, and during a space journey (which Mary-Sue Harrington won, and finally agreed to let Honor come along after that she, Honor that is, whined and begged forever) she sabotaged Mary-Sue's shuttle!

Mary Sue was stranded on a primitive world, with no supplies, and no technology. She was captured by the soldiers of a Kingdom, and raped by all of them! Then she was taken to a horrible dungeon and tortured for months!

She escaped and found out that it was Honor that had secretly arranged it, since she, Honor, was so totally jealous of Mary-Sue!

Then defeat the Royal Champion of a small Kingdom, and made herself Queen, before conquering the whole of the world with her beloved Prince. Then there was a huge battle in space above them, and a beam came and killed the Prince.

Mary-Sue covered her face in white powder, and wore only black make-up and black clothes since then. The whole country mourned, because everyone was so sad for Mary-Sue, who was the most fantastic person in the world!

So she built a Super-Dreadnaught out of radio component, crackerboxes, and a tin of corned beef, at times she powered the ship by the Power of Love and Emotional Suffering!

She easily defeated the Havenite Forces, then she went out to defeat Honor, but Honor tried to run away! But Mary-Sue hunted Honor down and challenged her to a due, which Mary-Sue won easily, even though Honor cheated and tried to use marines and her big cat!

Then Honor begged for mercy! Which Mary-Sue granted, since she was still so very forgiving! Honor tried to steal the Super-Dreadnaught! But she was unable to power it, since she didn't have the Awesome Power of Love and Emotional Suffering that Mary-Sue did! Then they fought again, and Honor fell into a reactor.

When she returned to Manticore everyone decided that she was to be Queen instead of the Boring Royal Family, and she was crowned in a huge ceremony!

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2006-11-24 01:19pm

I say you've got a real future on FFnet

. That's a more believeable protagonist than many I've seen. It's deep.

Norseman · Post by **Norseman** » 2006-11-24 05:57pm

Pick wrote:I say you've got a real future on FFnet . That's a more believeable protagonist than many I've seen. It's deep.

Heh no, Webber said he's against fanfic, or rather that he doesn't want any, and I'll respect that

However I've been told that my parody synopsis is actually eerily similar to the real series. Not that I would know since I've never actually read anything by Webber.

Post by **fgalkin** » 2006-11-24 07:48pm

Well, I wouldn't call it similar, but it does have moments of similarity. Mostly the defeating the Champion, the space battle, the True Love getting killed, everyone mourning, and becoming Queen (well, Duchess and Steadholder. Close enough). Hey, now that I thought about it, they do have a point....

Besides, it's not like the main series is actually good (it stopped being so some time ago). It's the side stories where it's all at.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Darth Raptor · Post by **Darth Raptor** » 2006-11-25 02:19am

You've got a serious dillemma here. On one hand, you want your self-insertions to be happy. There's a real temptation to have her marry an even better prince that's totally superior to the old one in every way. Of course, do that and her Angst Level might fall so low the Super Dreadnought will be dead in space.

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2006-11-26 12:26am

Was the poor grammar, e.g., confusing "due" with "duel", also meant to parody the average fan fic writer's reluctance to proofread their own work before posting?

fgalkin wrote:Well, I wouldn't call it similar, but it does have moments of similarity. Mostly the defeating the Champion, the space battle, the True Love getting killed, everyone mourning, and becoming Queen (well, Duchess and Steadholder. Close enough). Hey, now that I thought about it, they do have a point....

I remember glancing through a copy of a Honor Harrington book at the Pasadena City Library once, wary the possibility that the "People's Republic of Haven" was a parody of China and disappointed at the designs of the ships and fighters. I read the first three pages of the book, then lost interest. It seems my lack of interest is justified if the actual books are as bad as you say.

Post by **fgalkin** » 2006-11-26 01:12am

The People's Republic is actually Revolutionary France (ruled by the Committee for Public Safety led by (I am not kidding) Rob S. Pierre and Oscar Saint-Just), hence the "Citizen" titles with Stalinist undertones (Commissars and purges ahoy). Which is done by an organization commonly referred to as the SS. Yeah, it's like that.

The politics and space battles are fine (especially now that Flint made Weber abandon his "hurrr dumb liberals, hurrr corrupt paleocons" routine). It's the character of Honor Harrington herself that's the worst offender. That and treecats. I do not want to hear about the things again, and if I ever meet one in real life, it will DIE, horribly.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2006-11-26 01:40am

How bad is the treecat wank one might ask? Around book three or four it became too much for me (and I love cats) and I'm sure its only gotten worse.

Sidewinder · Post by **Sidewinder** » 2006-11-26 01:49am

I just looked up some stuff on the Honorverse in Wikipedia. DAMN. And people complain about the Mary Sue I created.

Is Honor Harrington comparable to Kathryn Janeway in terms of her sickening sense of self-righteousness? Or does the series have some redeeming qualities, specifically, entertainment value worthy of my time?

Post by **fgalkin** » 2006-11-26 02:06am

Imperial Overlord wrote:How bad is the treecat wank one might ask? Around book three or four it became too much for me (and I love cats) and I'm sure its only gotten worse.

Let's just put it this way, they're as smart as humans, but they never let it show until Honor came along. Now, they have sign language and actively communicate with people.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Post by **fgalkin** » 2006-11-26 02:10am

Sidewinder wrote:I just looked up some stuff on the Honorverse in Wikipedia. DAMN. And people complain about the Mary Sue I created.

Is Honor Harrington comparable to Kathryn Janeway in terms of her sickening sense of self-righteousness? Or does the series have some redeeming qualities, specifically, entertainment value worthy of my time?

Well, she's not self-righteous persay. Quite the opposite, she is always doubting herself. Of course, since it is made absolutely obvious that her course of action is the correct one, it becomes almost as annoying.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Zor · Post by **Zor** » 2006-11-26 02:16am

Imperial Overlord wrote:How bad is the treecat wank one might ask? Around book three or four it became too much for me (and I love cats) and I'm sure its only gotten worse.

Personally, i just don't think that people like hearing too much about them, the idea is that they are a Telepathic species of partially sapient (possibly fully sapient) cat sized telepathic arboreal predatory creatures from a heavy gravity world and more than capable of killing a person by going for the neck.

Is Honor Harrington comparable to Kathryn Janeway in terms of her sickening sense of self-righteousness? Or does the series have some redeeming qualities, specifically, entertainment value worthy of my time?

On the matters of morals, not really (see the Honor of the Queen with the Masadan commander). She does have a strong sence of morals but is not on that level in my opinion (and i have gotten to book seven). The battles however are good, as is the depth of the universe and the Politics (save for Neo-Conservative stuff thrown in, but thats besides the point).

Zor

Zor

Norseman · Post by **Norseman** » 2006-11-26 07:30am

Sidewinder wrote:Was the poor grammar, e.g., confusing "due" with "duel", also meant to parody the average fan fic writer's reluctance to proofread their own work before posting?

You tell me

Seriously though I think my grammar is a little better that these nutters, but if you doubt it you can always check out some of my fics by clicking that link on the bottom of this post. People tend to like the DrakaFics if they know what the Draka are.

So yeah, the excessive ! the wonky verbiage, the repetition, and the ridiculous events described was meant to replicate a roughly 14-16 year old Mary-Sue writer.

Sidewinder wrote:
fgalkin wrote:Well, I wouldn't call it similar, but it does have moments of similarity. Mostly the defeating the Champion, the space battle, the True Love getting killed, everyone mourning, and becoming Queen (well, Duchess and Steadholder. Close enough). Hey, now that I thought about it, they do have a point....
I remember glancing through a copy of a Honor Harrington book at the Pasadena City Library once, wary the possibility that the "People's Republic of Haven" was a parody of China and disappointed at the designs of the ships and fighters. I read the first three pages of the book, then lost interest. It seems my lack of interest is justified if the actual books are as bad as you say.

Well I've never read the books, and all I know about it is the jokes that I hear about Dildonaughts with 105% missile load, and Harrisons Stupidity Rays which lowers Havenite IQs with 50 points.

In short I basically wrote this while being completely ignorant of the franchise, and pretending that my IQ was not in three digits; you know like most Mary Sue writers.

Feil · Post by **Feil** » 2006-11-26 10:40am

As far as the ship design goes, idiots will continue to ascribe phallic nature to anything remotely cylindrical. However, given the technology in the Honorverse, the ships make complete sence, which, as far as I am concerned, makes them immune to criticism.

There also aren't any Harisson Stupidity Rays. She's written as a military genious, and written well as one, although Weber grants her an ungodly quantity of luck.

Most of Harrington's marysuism is unrelated to war. We know, from the first book, that Harrington is an exceptional commander in all respects: she posesses excellent tactical acumen, a knack for creating a crew that will follow her into the fire, a sence for detail while keeping track of the big picture, and the force of will to lead people into crazy situations in the pursuit of victory.

These are unusual characteristics, but they're hardly marysuistic.

The trouble comes, not in that she is good at military matters (and military matters are all that redeems the majority of Weber's stories in the Honorverse) but in that she, over the course of the books, becomes good at everything else. Not only is she a superb commander, but she is also an expert swordsman, a karate god, a marksman par excellence, a statesman and politician of considerable skill, a natural business expert, an engineer and creator of revolutionary warship design methods, and a flawless human being who's never does anything for which she has to seek forgiveness.

Then there's the whole business with that damned cat, which I don't even want to get into right now...

Master of Cards · Post by **Master of Cards** » 2006-11-26 11:28pm

Feil wrote: a natural business expert, an engineer

Her business is run by others and where is she an engineer? ( other points very good, but her shotting I can see)

Post by **fgalkin** » 2006-11-27 02:27am

Master of Cards wrote:
Feil wrote: a natural business expert, an engineer
Her business is run by others and where is she an engineer? ( other points very good, but her shotting I can see)

Still, she picked the people to run it, and it is now doing unrealistically well. As for engineering, well, she was the one who made the SKM start building podnoughts.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2006-11-27 08:25am

She made them start making Podnoughts but did she design them? As I recall Grayson was all impressed by the purposed effectiveness of the podnoughts and things snowballed from there as far as building went.

Aside from that however, as a decorated military commander she has a legitimate ability to tell a good weapons platform from a bad(what with her regularly getting them blow apart from under her)

I could buy the military genius fine, I could buy the gunfighter thing(Good reflexes combined with an excellent number from the gene lotto mean's she's and excellent shot) fine I can deal with that. The sword fighting thing? Starting to push it there, the business thing... she did have a ton of help there so I am up in the air on that issue.... but Politics? No, no it's Mary-sueism when a blunt spoken military commander suddenly becomes Emperor Papaltine just because TWO political crises arose, one she muked her way through, the other one she had a serious assload of help and bam suddenly she's the second coming of Ceaser or some crap.

Covenant · Post by **Covenant** » 2006-11-27 07:15pm

I've never read the books, but I researched the character extensively after being given some in-depth discussions about her and her activities. What made me feel that she was a MarySue wasn't the military stuff though, but the personality traits. Some people are militarily gifted with high marks in other areas. Patton, for example, was renowned not only in Generaling but also for being a fucking amazing shot and a swordsman so skilled he not only competed for both of those events as a pentathelete but also was the only one to out-fence the French epee master.

Oh, and he was also an outspoken advocate of the Tank early on--demonstrating that 'early genius for a type of weapon' thing AND, to add just a little more GaryStu to Patton's stars, he designed the M1913 Cavalry Saber while also improving on the US Cavalary's techniques as a student.

WTF?

Now, Patton remains not a MarySue, but an actual person. And as an actual person his own private Genuises are driven by a great deal of emotional and personal problems, as well as some physical ones. Honor doesn't NEED to be a MarySue, if they'd only stop bending the fates of the Universe to fit her every whim. Some minor failings, a few major injuries, and self doubt do not make you 'realistic', it makes you sympathetic. Real people should have as many unsympathetic failings as they do points of genius. Eh. But whatever. I just wanted to bring that up, because it shouldn't be completely out of line for someone to write about a heroic character who is indeed quite an amazing person, but that the MarySue often comes in from the way everyone else responds to them.