GIME: All Mary Sues?

[Tobira]

Here's an interesting debate that I've had with a friend of mine and thought it was about time to bring it to your opinions.

We all know about the girls that fall into Middle Earth somehow. We all know that there's enough of them that Legolas must have his own private brothel by now and canon has been torn to shreds because of it.

What I want to know: Is it possible to have a fanfic in which there is a girl that falls into Middle Earth and not have it fall into any cliches, any plot-breaking situations, etc.? Or is the idea just not possible period?  

[Feline Anachronism]

Personally, I think that any time you drop in a new character, it's a plot-breaker, at least to some extent. After all, they were not involved in the original plot, and that in and of itself is something of a break.

As far as cliches...they don't have to be used. I've read a couple of (non-lotr) fanfics that were not cliche, but those are few and far between.

In short, I feel that plot-breaking will always happen, but fanfics don't have to be filled with cliches.  

[Galad Aglaron]

There's a rather awesome fic called Don't Panic! in which a normal girl falls into Middle-earth. Since the point of the fic is realism, she drops in without speaking Westron or Sindarin; she meets Halbarad of the Dunedain, thinks he's a reenactor or a LARPer, accidentally name-drops Aragorn Elessar and Arwen Undomiel, and gets taken to Imladris. She reacts just as you'd expect a Tolkien fan to react if they went to sleep and woke up a few miles west of Bree: with shock, hysteria, disbelief, and wanting to cry when she realises she's entering Rivendell. She goes out of her way to make sure she doesn't change the plot, terrified of accidentally making things go wrong, and does all sorts of things. My favourite bit is when she accidentally stumbles upon a few elves bathing in the river. "Tolloth ellyn! Tolloth!"  

[Fuin Elda]

I have written a few stories... none of which are considered your normal mary-sues (character does not randomly drop into middle earth but is born there among other things) however there are original female characters interacting with canon characters. HOWEVER I've found an amazing way of going around the issue of plot breaking. Don't write it in the known plot.

The biggest MS I have that involves Legolas humorously enough.... is based in the late 4th age thanks to the return of a shadow and the elves have had to return because this shadow is valar based again unlike sauron which was maiar based....


Which is technically a break in cannon, since earth was suppose to form from Middle earth by several accounts.... however in the end of HoME 12 there is note of a new shadow which was written by Tolkien but abandoned and taken up again by someone in Russia I do believe

I have another MS that involve Haldir but I have a big AU stamped across it and the Ring thing... never happened and the Valar never marched on Morgoth so it's REALLY AU.



Also have read Don't Panic. Loved it.

I personally don't mind mary-sues as long as they don't try to call it anything but a MS. I hate MS's where they do what I do but it's so blatantly MS that you want to smack them for calling it otherwise.  

[Galad Aglaron]

I like Don't Panic precisely because the main character isn't a Mary Sue. She thinks that if this was a fanfic, she'd end up joining the Fellowship, boinking Legolas and saving Boromir, but instead, it takes her the entire War of the Ring to learn Sindarin with Erestor, isn't really good at anything until the sequel, and her temper often gets her into serious trouble. Oh, and she gets food poisoning.

Why are there never any boys in Middle-earth?  

[Fuin Elda]

Because who would they go after? Arwen the obnoxious twit that doesn't even belong in the movies (And most guys think adding her was dumb and an attempt to make it more chick friendly by having 'romance' in there) Or Galadriel??? A 10K + year old married woman???

Or Eowyn who is married at the end of the story.

Boys just aren't as desperate for adventure as girls are and lets face it as the movies portrayed the girls most guys DON'T want chicks like that so why bother writing fan fic for it?

That and I have seen on Gary-stu. However it was a yaio gary-stu. It was disturbing when I think back on it.