For a while now, a number of friends of mine have been going 'round and 'round amongst themselves regarding the widespread fandom hatred of Mary Sues. I believe it's been mostly in locked posts, so I won't link to them here. Rather, I'll let the posters identify themselves as/should they wish. (Also, I am being too lazy to bother to check if any of said posts are unlocked.)

Anyway, I was talking with ithiliana about Mary Sues not too long ago, and something clicked during our conversation. Yes, that's right, I have a theory about why MSes are so reviled. *pauses for inevitable 'ooOOOOoooohhh's* ^_~

Let me start off with a couple quick disclaimers. I'm primarily talking about slash fandom, since I don't swim in het and gen waters enough to speak from any sort of position of authority, and I believe most of what I say here can just as easily be applied to mailing lists, bulletin boards, RL fan gatherings, etc. I'm phrasing it more in terms of LJ communication because that's what has most recently drawn all of this to my attention, and because my examples are coming from those same LJ encounters.

So this particular epiphany came to me over the course of a number of weeks as I noticed the "Mary Sueing" increasing exponentially in some of the _daily (picture) comms I follow. Reading various original posters' commentaries and comments following posts has become a teeth-grinding affair.

Pic comms, if I understand them correctly, operate in a way similar to fic comms. The OP offers up pictures of a shared object of affection for the community to look at, and the commentary that results from the offering mainly runs towards a collective expression of desire. Commenters will compliment the OP on her taste, ask where she found certain pictures, or commiserate on how desirable actor X is. It is a communal activity with space for each member's/viewer's thoughts and impressions, provided certain unwritten rules of conduct are followed.

The Mary Sue problem comes into effect in these pics comms with the same destructive force as an unwanted MS in a fic comm. The OP will post pictures with commentary that runs along the lines of "this is actor X leaving my home," "this is what X looks like after we're together," "this is X thinking of me," etc. The trend will continue in the comments, with the same or similar claims being made on the shared object of affection. These captions/comments, along with a disturbing tendency to come attached to usernames such as mrs_actorX, actorXsluvr, etc., initially seem cute and entertaining, but as with anything that stakes a claim, rapidly lose their shine.

The reason this shine is lost so quickly, I believe, is because the MS interrupts the ebb and flow of the comm -- she takes away that voyeuristic, erotic appeal by shoving not only a woman, but one of our own (because we can't begrudge real people their girlfriends/wives/lovers/daughters/etc.) in between the rest of the community and the shared object of our affection. The MS artificially elevates that particular person so that we're forced to watch her fantasy play out instead of indulge in our own.

And that, essentially, is the key to the revulsion a lot of us feel. The MS is claiming ownership of what should be a shared fantasy. She's grabbing at something that is understood to have space for readers/viewers to insert themselves and as a result she destroys both that shared space and the possibility for the audience to, in effect, play out their own self-inserts/MSes. In a "proper" interaction between poster and audience, each individual reader/viewer can insert herself into the presented text (story, picture, etc.) in whatever way she chooses in an invisible way -- her interaction with the text remains her own while maintaining space for the reader who is halfway across the world and simultaneously partaking of the same post to insert herself.

So much of the discussion surrounding MSes centres on the characteristics of MSes and equates these characteristics with bad writing. Sure, I absolutely agree that MSes go hand in hand with bad writing, but bad writing is bad writing, whether it's simply horrible netspeak or features a girl with hair the colour of midnight, eyes that sparkle like purple amethysts, and the ability to capture Aragorn's heart with no more than a flutter of her long lashes and this nifty sword-swallowing trick she picked up on the Isle of Balar. Calling MSes out as examples of bad writing that pollutes the [good and pure] pool of fanfic could be considered a noble pursuit, but as I'm trying to illustrate here, I honestly don't think the level of revulsion that is directed at MSes comes from anywhere so noble. (Oh, would that it did! *sigh*)

Essentially what is happening is that the MS writer/poster isn't sharing, isn't opening up a space for each new reader to privately live out her own version of the presented fantasy. The audience then becomes angry/resentful/etc. with the public MS for taking away our private MSes, as the public MS sets up a competition, an issue of possession, rather than maintaining the shared community.

Extending this to fanfic, fic, at the base, is about sharing with others. The fan writer offers a fantastic space for the audience to play in, and in turn the reader gives feedback, and the cycle goes around. The MS shortcircuts this sharing, since it is impossible for the reader to participate in the fic or even reach our favourite shared characters, because there is a wall in the form of a MS standing in the way. This is exacerbated by the fact that the MS is an idealized character that is always better than the rest of us, and always becomes the focal point of the story rather than the characters we're there to read about.

So those are my still slightly-rough thoughts on the matter. I am truly coming to believe that hatred of the Mary Sue stems not from what makes a MS a MS, but from the fact that she occupies and hoards space that is understood to belong to the community itself.