All shall love me and despair...

[rj_anderson]

This is an interesting review of my HP fic(s). lizbee has already made a couple of comments on one remark she felt was misleading; but it was another part of the review that particularly baffled me.

Here's the remark in question:

I was really hoping that Maud would redeem her MS qualities or something... but no-- she's the tortured girl that everyone can't help but love.

This is the second negative LJ review to make this accusation, and I am sincerely perplexed by it. "Everyone" loves Maud? I stated quite plainly in the story that she had few friends at Durmstrang and even fewer at Hogwarts, and the only students who even attempt to befriend her are the Weasley twins. Her roommate Muriel beats her up and her other roommates spread malicious gossip about her. Draco regards her with supercilious contempt. Even in the later fics, Maud's dealings with other students are merely civil at best (as when she meets Hermione in the library in PR), and at worst downright adversarial. She doesn't acquire a single friend apart from George Weasley until she leaves Hogwarts. So who is this mysterious "everyone"?

Maybe the reviewer really means that all the adults in the fic love Maud. Well, there are only four of those in TPMA. Mad-Eye raised Maud and she's his niece, so I guess he has to like her. (I should mention, for those thinking of writing fic, that heaven forbid your OC should be related to any canon character, even a lesser canon character; that automatically makes her Special, and therefore a Mary Sue. And here I just thought it would be a good excuse for having lots of Mad-Eye Moody in the story.)

Moody's got a reasonable excuse, that leaves Snape, Dumbledore and McGonagall. I think my logic behind having Snape treat Maud with considerably more decency and respect than he does Harry & co. is explained in the fic. Obviously the reviewer doesn't agree that Snape could or would treat anyone with civility or respect, much less love or be loved by anyone, so that aspect of the trilogy doesn't work for her. Fine, I can live with that. Personally I don't think even JKR takes that extreme a view of Snape's character, for all that she enjoys playing up his negative qualities through Harry's eyes. But I guess only time and canon will tell.

So back to the supposed Maud Moody love-in. McGonagall, for her part, does nothing but politely guide Maud to a meeting with the Headmaster. Unless that counts as "love" in some strange subtextual way, we're left with only Dumbledore. Who, as we know from canon, is kind and generous and benignly meddling with all his students, so... where is this "loved by all" stuff coming from again?

I don't mind having my work reviewed critically. Some of my favorite reviewers have been quite direct in pointing out flaws, as well as being honest about things they personally don't like to see in stories (Oi! for instance, never gave a fig for Snape and didn't particularly warm to Maud either, and I still loved her reviews). I can even think of some pretty severe criticisms myself (for the record, those include wobbly characterization of Maud in the first story; a number of embarrassing continuity gaffes involving numbers, dates, and architectural layouts; a really cringe-worthy bit of dialogue in the first chapter of IWS; and too much schmoop in Snape's letters, among others).

But I do object to the reviewer misrepresenting the content of my fics and disparaging faults of which they are not in fact guilty. As lizbee pointed out, that's not a valid form of criticism.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Good grief! Where to people *get* this stuff? We still keep coming back to the "every female OC is a Mary Sue" syndrome. Maud never, *ever*, struck me as an MS. Good grief, *Harry* is more of a Gary Stu than Maud is-even in canon!

I'd really like to see what HP fics this person does enjoy. I can think of quite a few HP fics where Hermione is turned into a Mary Sue to be perfect for Super!Harry, for instance. I mean, if D&L can't pass the MS test, *what can*?

I don't think I'll ever understand.

[lizbee.livejournal.com]

Unless that counts as "love" in some strange subtextual way...

::keeps mouth shut very tight indeed::

As for the review, the more I think about it, the less I like it. The reviewer clearly entered the affair with a bias against OCs -- if she's so determined to hate them, then she should specify that OC-based fics shouldn't be offered for review.

[ymfaery]

Obviously these people don't know how to read. /snark

I wondered for a bit if Maud would be considered a Mary Sue by other people, but I never thought she was one. She doesn't have super-duper skills, she makes mistakes, and she mostly stays to the side of the main events--she knows her limits and is willing to stay within them. People tend to like her once they get to know her, but until IWS she doesn't really let people get close enough to know her besides George and Snape. And Dumbledore too, I suppose.

What's really interesting is that these Mary Sue accusations came out *long* after you finished the initial trilogy. Are the reviewers just trying to find more things to stick the Mary Sue label on?

[shellebelle93.livejournal.com]

By the way, I *love* the title of this post!


Summary:

Reviewer: Ewwwww...and I didn't even read the rest of the story, but this must happen, and I'm tired of people liking stories where Snape falls in love...grrr!

Me: I'm sorry, are you being helped?



I think *someone's* on a Mary-Sue "witch hunt" (pun not intended). And the reviewer really didn't make any constructive criticism. They went into it hating the "Snape/Anyone" ship, and it seemed that was the whole point: trying to make *every* story that features Snape falling in love (and having it reciprocated) look like something ridiculous.

[drmm.livejournal.com]

I suspect that what the reviewer means is that all the readers should love Maud. I wouldn't say I love Maud but I liked her a lot more than I did certain canon characters (Hermione, Harry).

Hermione, especially fanfic Hermione, makes me want to scream Mary Sue at the top of my lungs. Considering JKR has actually said she based Hermione on herself, I would think that this is a big hint.

[(Anonymous)]

I also like the subject line. Perhaps you should just rewrite D&L with Maud as Jadis. Oh, wait -- that's the Margot fic. Never mind. :)

As far as the review goes... certainly, the story can't be for everybody. But people who write reviews that go beyond "Squeee!" or "Gross me out!" ought to take the time to read deeply and completely, avoiding preconceptions and assumptions.

And even if it is the reader who's supposed to love Maud (I'm not sure it is, being that having every character fall in love with her is a typical Mary Sue ploy), is there supposed to be something wrong with creating characters who are appealing to the reader? Or whom somebody in the story likes?

Oh well.
E.H.S.

[zakhad.livejournal.com]

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.

[(Anonymous)]

I loved the D&L, and I will happily recommend it to all and sundry in some future fandom that has grown too large and unwieldy! Quality, you know, doesn't diminish over time. ;)

When I entered this fandom I, in my sponge-like way, took on the idea of the Mary Sue and the attendant desire to loathe her in her many forms. What I dislike most of all, is an undeveloped character, waltzing along with 'love-interest' stamped across his or her forehead, without any explanation or justification.

I loved Maud, and I don't have anything against her, as a character, as a heroine, as a relative of a canon character, or anything. However, as the trilogy progressed I began to get a little annoyed with her, as she seemed to drift into a more vague 'love-interest' role. By the end of If We Survive, it seemed to me that she'd lost a little of whatever it was that made her interesting in the first place. In the beginning, she was, dare I say it, spunky, independent, very real and unMarySueish. Later on, she didn't seem to let this character shine through as much, she just waited around wistfully to be reunited with Snape. Sure, she helped with the potions, uncovered Death Eater plots, consoled friends, etc, but she seemed to be so increasingly defined by her relationship with Snape. I sat there wondering. We know that Snape is lonely and angsty, and therefore he loves Maud. Why does she love him? (I know this seems like a mindlessly stupid question - I read the trilogy a while ago, so I'm sorry if my arguments sound inane). We know why she loved him, it was built up in TPMA and Personal Risks. But what does she get out of it, really? Why doesn't she ever think, If only I had a boyfriend who wasn't an absent undercover evil agent? When Snape is depressed, she goes and comforts him. Whenever she is depressed, she just has to deal with it and accept it's too hard for him to see her. She constantly gives him support and reassurance and boosts his self-esteem....what does he do for her? Tell her that he loves her dramatically? All very good, but rather distant. She stands steadfastly by and is a good and perfect and faithful girlfriend for chapters on end. It's...just a little bit annoying. I wanted TPMA Maud back, preSnape, and vibrant.

I'm not trying to Mercilessly Critique here, I'm just thinking of the ways in which Maud could be Mary Suelike, though she is unpopular and doesn't save the day or anything of the sort, and that would be the way that stands out most to me(and a little whinging along the way).

it's me, same as before

[(Anonymous)]

Well, that is indeed interesting! It reassured me to know that you intended it to be that way, and it wasn't just an unobserved shift.

It's interesting, because, it seems like, to you(with a handy little segue back on topic), Maud was more MarySueish when she was being the action heroine, whereas I was bothered by the self-effacing Maud. I felt that as she became more 'normal', she became an easier vessel for reader self-insertion. (Because we readers, of course, love Snape, despite him being useless and sour and not holding up his half of the relationship) ;D . Of course, just my opinion.

Believe it or not, I do know what you mean about the characters telling you things. It's a great feeling, when you know that you've given your characters enough life that they start wanting to do things on their own, and don't care what you have to say about it. ;D

Since I'm here, I'll take the moment to ask if you'd mind if I did a more comprehensive review - I thought I'd ask first, because maybe you don't want such a thing at this point in your life, a long ramble about an oldish story you're happy to let be. :)

And, to scuttle radically out of relevance, I am reminded for no reason of the Snape/Lily argument that was going on a few posts back. Somethings, I think, you can just predict from canon. Before I was halfway through PS/SS I announced to myself that Ron and Hermione would get together in some way eventually - by the Law of Sidekicks. ;) Snape, in canon, has a role - 'annoying and irrational teacher who foils and irritates students whilst being essential on the side of good'. He's the embodiment of the unfair and unlikeable teacher. Such a character does not have previous romantic relationships with the hero's mother. They just...don't. This is the slightly sketchy logic I use to reassure myself...and, now, others! :)

Right, I'll stop filling up your LJ space, and even put a name on my post this time.

~Chresimos