Random thought about the mary-sue-ism of Anita Blake

[firecat]

This was sort of inspired by some comments in an entry in elisem's journal. But talking about Anita Blake was entirely my idea and she bears no responsibility!

I think that Anita Blake, the "vampire hunter" character serialized by Laurell K. Hamilton, is something of a Mary Sue. She does not lack flaws, but she is idealized to the point where she does function as a wish-fulfillment fantasy in a very obvious way.

(I will note that Mary Sue is a sexist term for an excessively idealized character. The male counterpart is commonly called Marty Stu, but I think he should be called James Bond.)

There are two related reasons Anita is a Mary Sue. One, after the first few books in the series she keeps collecting more and more lovers, one or two per book at least. Two, and related, she has a wider variety of supernatural powers than anyone else in the series (with the possible exception of a sort of vampire goddess figure whom we haven't really met yet), and in each book she collects one or more new supernatural powers.

So Elise's post was about how disabilities affect her work, and people in the comments were talking about all the ways they have to work around mental and physical disabilities and how as they age they can no longer take certain abilities for granted and so on.

So I thought, Aging causes people's bodies and minds to lose one ability after another.

Anita, on the other hand, gains one ability after another.

Anita is a wish-fulfillment-fantasy antidote for aging.

It makes more sense to me now why I keep reading the series even though there are parts of it that really annoy me.

Comments

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

Anita Blake is the biggest Mary Sue that ever did Mary Sue. In the first 9 books or so, I didn't mind because I don't mind a Mary Sue who kicks butt and takes names. And then she started collecting loves and magic powers like they were Pokemons and--and this is the important part--the quality of the writing got worse. They were never great literature, but they were entertaining and the pieces of worldbuilding pretty much fit together. Now it's like whatever LKH wants to stick in the books goes, whether or not it actually makes sense. I don't mind Mary Sue wish-fulfillment fiction (Hi, I loved the new Valdemar book even though it was 100% cheese), but I do mine badly written Mary Sue wish-fulfillment fiction.

[firecat]

Great icon!

I agree.

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

I used to live on that street. :)

[sistercoyote.livejournal.com]

When I lived in a nowhere town in SoCal, I always wanted to find a house for rent on Gaybar street.

[sistercoyote.livejournal.com]

I think we should have a Sue-off between Anita and Bella.

[firecat]

who is bella?

[whumpdotcom.livejournal.com]

Bella is the protagonist in the Twilight novels that have cause no little dust up as of late.

[sistercoyote.livejournal.com]

Bella Swan from Twilight

[firecat]

Ah. Should I read it?

[sistercoyote.livejournal.com]

Pretty much no. I understand the writing is pretty bad. Read these (http://cleoland.pbwiki.com/Twilight#Bookdiscussionentries) instead and decide if you want to actually want to brave Twilight for yourself.

It spawned the phrase "creepy stalker boyfriend no."

[nolly.livejournal.com]

I would say no. I read the first one when a friend left it in my car. It was bad. Really bad. The only reason I don't regret having read it is I didn't spend money on it and I'm no longer curious about them, only boggled by the to-do.

[caprine.livejournal.com]

This.