There's a lot of confusing back and forth about what makes a Mary Sue a Mary Sue. I've been afraid that I would be accused of the same - my fanfic is sprinkled with OC's, one of them a redeemed Mary-Stu. But I've only ever been asked once if a character was me, and that was a character who is so not me.... I think everyone looks at OC's with that jaded MS finger pointing these days, especially with marysues around.
I've read your blog/journal and chatted with you enough that I can say Maud is not RJ. Even if I didn't know you, I'd doubt Maud's MSness. She's more of an everygeek than an MS -- if you want to say she's an MS then you'll have to abandon the definition of "MS is everything perfect and good and pretty, the author's perfection delusion personified" and redefine MS as "pretty much like every poor soul who's been picked on and lonely." To me the hallmark of MSness is unreality, a radical departure from anything resembling a real person, and Maud's not that. Maud doesn't single-handedly save the world; she just wants to and gets a reality check. She's part of the team in the end, and her suffering has none of the superficiality of the typical MS setup. Maud makes her choices and endures the consequences; Mary Sue is the saintly sort upon whom untold cliched woes are visited, and usually through none of her doing.
It's obvious that the reviewer has not actually read the trilogy, and if ze has, not paid a lot of attention. Ze has obviously been taking flack for it, too - the review is now a protected entry.
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I've read your blog/journal and chatted with you enough that I can say Maud is not RJ. Even if I didn't know you, I'd doubt Maud's MSness. She's more of an everygeek than an MS -- if you want to say she's an MS then you'll have to abandon the definition of "MS is everything perfect and good and pretty, the author's perfection delusion personified" and redefine MS as "pretty much like every poor soul who's been picked on and lonely." To me the hallmark of MSness is unreality, a radical departure from anything resembling a real person, and Maud's not that. Maud doesn't single-handedly save the world; she just wants to and gets a reality check. She's part of the team in the end, and her suffering has none of the superficiality of the typical MS setup. Maud makes her choices and endures the consequences; Mary Sue is the saintly sort upon whom untold cliched woes are visited, and usually through none of her doing.
It's obvious that the reviewer has not actually read the trilogy, and if ze has, not paid a lot of attention. Ze has obviously been taking flack for it, too - the review is now a protected entry.