Comments on: Mary Russell: If Sherlock Holmes Was A Woman, And A Feminist…

By: Marisa Wright

Marisa Wright — Mon, 12 May 2014 02:59:37 +0000

I haven’t read the early books yet, but yes the relationship feels creepy to me – even more so now I know they first met when she was only fifteen! How hard would it have been to make Mary Russell just a few years older?

By: Auga

Auga — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 21:34:28 +0000

There is the term Gary Stu or Marty Stu as well for male “Sues”. But I don’t think the reason for the prevalence of the Mary Sue critique is down to sexism – it’s more likely because in fanfiction, most writers tend to be female, and more often than not teenage girls who are too young to recognize what they’re doing. When I was reading fanfic (Harry Potter), I think it was something like 90% of original characters were female and created by girls (often with the author’s name).

Holmes himself has Gary Stu-ish aspects, but I don’t think it’s the male vs female debate that’s relevant there, it’s the fanfiction vs canon problem. There are canon protagonists out there which have suspicious traits in line with being fantasy versions of the author, but they’re more likely to get away with it. Possibly because published works tend to be of a good story-telling quality that compensates for the Sueishness, whereas most Sue/Stu fanfics tend to be a poorly disguised personal fantasy being shared.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 10:22:41 +0000

Their marriage didn’t make me that uncomfortable because of their ages – what did irk me massively was that their friendship was developed so slowly and intricately, and then suddenly at the end of the second book – without any preamble – they just…suddenly elope. Surprise! It felt very rushed and quite bad epilogue-y.

In a way I think my issue with it is the very opposite to yours, actually: the problem I have with it is that I think as characters they had a lot more potential for sexual tension…just not quite as things were played out in the books, because it would have made the father figure sense of the first book way creepier. If they’d been closer in age that might’ve nullified the father figure thing, or if they’d met when Mary was older, but either way I think ignoring any sexual relationship between them at all actually doesn’t do justice to how interesting a pairing it could be. Even if the point is that they don’t have a sexual relationship – you still need to mention it at all to get that across.

In general I think if Mary had actually shown more of a sexual side that it might have rounded her character out a lot more. She comes across as a bit hypocritical sometimes when it comes to feminism and emotion – which can be an awesome point that King explores, or it can leave her a bit wanting as a character, and I think it tends to the latter more often than the former.