SPOILERS Unseen Academicals ***SPOILERS***

[Archaeologist]

For that he needs to get character to begin with. Instead of just glorious traits.

I can see that, yes. His character isn't much more than suffering from severe lack of confidence and a constant search for 'worth' which is overcome by revealing how...awesome...he is. But I would argue that his lack of confidence in the face of his awesomeness makes him flawed enough to not be a Gary Stu - isn't that the kind of character which the author/everyone in the story would just love to be? But, perhaps, it does make him just very annoying. :

I say he has room for development because he might discover some serious flaws. I can imagine him turning very arrogant, or so self-confident that he runs very close to it. That would be fun.

 

[Anonymous]

If you wanna waste a few minutes of your life try to take this:
http://www.springhole.net/quizzes/marysue.htm
for the orc

 

[Archaeologist]

That's an awesome quiz, both in content and in size. I pretended I was Pratchett (difficult) and completed it with Nutt in mind. Oh dear, I might have to start eating my words.

"Fanfiction authors beware - Mary's on the loose. There's still a chance you can save this character with some TLC, though. Role-players and original fiction characters, you should also strongly consider giving your character a workover."

If I did it right, Nutt's definitely a Sue...according to this quiz, anyway.

Thanks for the link.

 

[Prolekult]

I enjoyed this one. It could have done with a bit of pruning, and the book nearly went out of the window at the 796th mention of Trev's - ing dear old mum, but I thought Vetinari was very good in this one, with Terry clearly trying to show some of his hidden personality, which worked well I think, especially the drunk scene.

The scene where Pepe hold's up Trev with a knife seemed a bit weird and unnecessary, they were on perfectly amicable terms as Trev himself pointed out, I guess Terry was settting up Pepe's dark side for the later scene with Andy but it didn't really work for me. Also it would have been nice if the Academical's victory had been a bit more legitimate, I think riots would have been the likely outcome the way it went. But there were a lot of fun parts to the book and I get the impression Terry enjoyed writing this one.

 

[raptornx01]

Re:

I bet Stephen Briggs cursed Terry when he had to read all that for the audiobook.

I am half convinced it was put in just for Stephen

i think he does that alot. See: Not-as-big-as-medium-sized-jock-but-bigger-then-wee-jock-jock as proof.

what's the difference between character development and out-of-character?

Character Development: What the author writes.

Out-Of-Character: what the fans throw around to berate an author for what he/she writes.

Mary-sue is also something fans like to throw around assuming its an insult.

 

[Prolekult]

I have to ask, who is Mary-sue & what did she do to deserve such treatment?

 

[raptornx01]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary-sue

Smith quotes editor Joanna Cantor[9] as identifying "Mary Sue" paranoia as one of the sources for the lack of "believable, competent, and identifiable-with female characters." In this article, Cantor interviews her sister Edith, also an amateur editor, who says she receives stories with cover letters apologizing for the tale as "a Mary Sue", even when the author admits she does not know what a "Mary Sue" is. According to Edith Cantor, while Paula Smith's original "Trekkie's Tale" was only ten paragraphs long, "in terms of their impact on those whom they affect, those words [Mary Sue] have got to rank right up there with the Selective Service Act."[10] At Clippercon 1987 (a Star Trek fan convention held yearly in Baltimore, Maryland), Smith interviewed a panel of female authors who say they do not include female characters in their stories at all. She quoted one as saying "Every time I've tried to put a woman in any story I've ever written, everyone immediately says, this is a Mary Sue." Smith also pointed out that "Participants in a panel discussion in January 1990 noted with growing dismay that any female character created within the community is damned with the term Mary Sue."

Its comes a point where fear stifles creativity. I've encountered the same thing. i've been trying to write a novel since i was a teenager. but i've always wanted it to be as completely original as possible. to the point where regardless of how far in i may be if i see something similar i abandon the project.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, Mary Sue, used as term to describe a character, IS an insult, as it refers to a character that shows the author was not capable of making a character work with a believable number of abilities in a logical strenght, give a character believable flaws or was plain lazy.

A character can have made a number of achievements without being a 'sue'. but now imagine you'd open a book and read about a very young character who has accomplished more in a number of fields than old masters of that field ever accomplish, is always best at whatever s/he tries and even failures turn out to be in their favour.
All the while the character is played completely straight as in we, the reader, are to take him/her serious.

And it is a common misconception that authors could never write their characters Out-of-character.
If as an author you use the same character/setting several times, there has to be a certain personality/set of rules to the setting.
If, let's say, your character does not believe in anything supernatural and throughout the books nothing happened to change this view, you just CAN'T have him suddenly talk about ghosts and curses as if that is the greatest thing in life in a new book.
Or, if you have a setting were you need a certain genetic mutation to be able to learn how to fly (without machinery) and the training takes years. Then you can't go and have a character without that mutation start flying without any training and have no one wonder about it. not the other characters, not the narrative.

Characterdevelopement is thus:
See the character mentioned above. The one who doesn't believe in the supernatural. If you have a story/stories where he experiences something supernatural and there is no scientific explanation to what he saw, then you can have him consider that there might be ghosts behind the newest probleme, but he won't wipe away the possibility the there might be a scientific solution

 

[raptornx01]

You can't have character development without change. and you can't have change without there being a point at which the character acts so-called "out of character".

 

[Anonymous]

No, you can have character and therefore change development without having the character go out of character.
Have you read what I wrote? A character is Out Of Character the moment he does something uncharacteristical without any explanation.
You are talking about characters without any personality, characters that are less than tool. That isn't how you write a good character.

 

[raisindot]

No, you can have character and therefore change development without having the character go out of character.
Have you read what I wrote? A character is Out Of Character the moment he does something uncharacteristical without any explanation.
You are talking about characters without any personality, characters that are less than tool. That isn't how you write a good character.

I tend to agree with this in general. Take Sam Vimes, for example. If you first read "Guards! Guards!" and then read "Thud!" without reading any of the intervening books, you might say that the Vimes of the latter book was "out of character" since the calculating, street-smart, in-control, powerful Vimes of "Thud!" bears almost no resemblance to the drunken, stupid, powerless Vimes of Guards! But the evolution of Vimes occurred over the course of the series (I'll opine that the first "modern" street-smart, class-aware, copper's-copper Vimes emerged in 'Feet of Clay'). A great author like Pterry logically adds depth to a character who starts off as a stock character by using the plot and adding expositional elements that make the character's transformation believable and satisfactory to readers--in other words, a 'good' out of character experience.

But, in his last two books, Pterry has made characters whose personas were firmly solidified act in ways that are very out of character. Vetinari is the best example of this. In both Unseen Academicals and Snuff he acted and spoke in ways that were totally out of character for someone from whom control is everything. The Vetinari of earlier books spoke sparingly, acted without emotion, chose his words carefully, and revealed as little about himself and his motivations as possible. The Vetinari of UA and Snuff is sentimental, highly emotional, easily distracted by trivial matters (the crossword puzzle lady? Reall?), verbose, and often incoherent in his speech. This, for some of us, is a 'bad' out of character experience.

But of course this is completely subjective. If you like the 'new' Vetinari, then it's a good transition for you.

 

[Prolekult]

yea, I thought it worked ok for Vetinari in this one, it seemed fairly typical of him that if he got drunk, he would just get more talkative and take 8 seconds longer to finish the crossword I haven't read Snuff yet though so can't comment on that one (no spoilers here please!). I think it could be argued though that leaving himself vulnerable to the outcome of the football game was a rather un-Vetinari like decision.

We know what happens when a character is too perfect, you end up with Captain Carrot - nice but too predictable. I think Terry was just trying to ensure that this doesn't happen to Vetinari.

 

[Anonymous]

The thing with Vetinari in UA (as mentioned before) is that if he would have acted as he did in, for example, Jingo, Nightwatch or Going Postal, there would have been no (framing) plot. He would have known people would still be as obsessed with football and would keep playing in alleys etc.
The Vetinari of old would have rather went and said that everything concerning the game is forbidden unless someone comes up with less brutal rules. Or something along those lines.
But apparently there was the craze with whoever wrote the story that it is forbidden for brutality,but the watch looks away, and there this urn yadda yadda.
It's never a good sign if an author goes and adjust the characters to go with a craze. Especially not if the author in question is Sir Terry, who understood it like only few authors nowadays to have characters with personality face stories with this personality instead of having them become sereotypes that constantley do plotconvenient things.
With Snuff it was similar (I gave up by now. Got too bored around page 150 ).
Vetinari and Vimes behave like they would in bad fanfiction, but not like the characters that became fanfavourites.

 

[Prolekult]

I have to disagree with you there. Vetinari is well aware that prohibition doesn't work, that's why he is a liberal. The same goes for Vimes, both of them are too savvy not to realise that pissing into the wind is not a good strategy.

 

[Anonymous]

But the Vetinari in UA DID forbid football. Which led to the wizards having to come groveling to him for permission.
One COULD argue that the prohibition was to gain more control over the wizards, but THAT only works if they stop behaving like in the books before.
Ridcully of old would have said that he's the law on the campus and if he wants to play football on university grounds he shall bloody well do so.
And the Vetinari of old would have been fully aware that Ridcully would think like that.
Not to mention this:
(might have said it before, I lost track)
The Vetinari of old was amazing for he knew exactly what he needed to know about someone to pull the right strings. He wasn't as hyper-informed as he comes across in UA and co. In UA he seemingly has been given premonition skills. How else could he have known those new rules would pop up just in time?
Not to mention UA contradicst information from older books on a scale that never happened before. AND this is after the timeline got fixed.

 

[high eight]

How else could he have known those new rules would pop up just in time?

Because he arranged for them to 'pop up'. Possibly even wrote them himself - I thought that was pretty obviously implied in the book.

 

[Tonyblack]

How else could he have known those new rules would pop up just in time?

Because he arranged for them to 'pop up'. Possibly even wrote them himself - I thought that was pretty obviously implied in the book.

That's the way I read it.

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah, sure....alongside an effing goddess that is more powerful than Fate and The Lady despite no one having worshipped, left alone KNOWN her for centuries.

h8, if it is SOOOOOOOO obvious, go ahead and show the lines in question. Same to you, Tony. And then you go and explain all the events caused by Pedestrina, all the things she did to people's behaviour, the floating at the field etc. Go ahead. Tell me how Vets did that.

 

[Prolekult]

But the Vetinari in UA DID forbid football.

Sorry, I can't find any mention of this in the book, I may be missing something but the first mention I can find is Ponder saying Vetinari doesn't like it, but the Watch turn a blind eye if it's kept to back streets & outside the city centre (p44 paperback). Next, when Vetinari meets Ridcully (p74) he says, "People do not onderstand the limits of tyranny...they think because I can do what I like I can do what I like", and then "I am intending to give my blessing to the game of football, in the hope that its excesses can be more carefully controlled" - a typical anti-prohibitonist's argument.

edit...maybe you're referring to football being banned in the city centre, in which case we're arguing about different things.

 

[Tonyblack]

Yeah, sure....alongside an effing goddess that is more powerful than Fate and The Lady despite no one having worshipped, left alone KNOWN her for centuries.

h8, if it is SOOOOOOOO obvious, go ahead and show the lines in question. Same to you, Tony. And then you go and explain all the events caused by Pedestrina, all the things she did to people's behaviour, the floating at the field etc. Go ahead. Tell me how Vets did that.

Three things:
1. Terry rarely writes things that are 'that' clear. As I stated, "That's the way I read it." That's the feeling I got from reading the whole book. I'm not saying I'm right, but that how I read it.

2. I'm not reading UA at the moment and don't have the time or inclination to trawl through it looking for passages to satisfy you. I have my interpretation of the book, you have yours.

3. From past experience, I know that even if I did find passages or even quotes to prove my feelings on this matter, it would be pointless as you tend to ignore anything that doesn't agree with your view. I'm not being nasty here - I've just been down this road so many times before with you and can't be bothered to do it again.