Estrid: Good, Bad or Mary-Sue

[Estelore]

How to put this so it is clear... ah, right!


I hate her so much that I have no choice but to love her.

Seriously, the character is so absolutely rotten to the core by the end of her brief appearance, and so much development and fleshing-out of her personality and history occurred in so brief a time, so well, that while I absolutely loathed her as a sentient being, I ADORE her as a character. Every time I read her, I send K.A. and Michael and any ghostwriter(s) associated with her story arc a mental kudos for succeeding in writing a character so efficient at making me dislike her.

[Seventhsage]

I actually like the idea of her, but not the way it turned out.  For one, she is skilled in multiple ways, but insecure.  She really likes tail-fighting, and is really good at it (Ax says so himself near the beginning of the book, when they fight together) and she's an estreen.  On top of that, she's a freaking genius, but without the normal arrogance that most andalites carry around with them.  On the other hand, she's a woman in a man's world.  Everyone she spends time with treats her like a princess except the humans and Ax.  Ax falls for her (understandable, he's been so alone for so long, his brother is dead, and she's one hell of a catch) and she just turns her back on the one living creature that treated her as an equal (the tail fight is something I'm betting the others hadn't done with her) to help do what she thought was right.  (sounds a lot like Cassie, to me).

[clockwork_atom]

The way you say that, she sounds exactly like a mary sue, but somehow she manages to work.  Some mary sues happen to work very well.  But maybe her insecurities and cowardice help to balance that out?  Plus it was told in first person, and a view point who was quite taken by her, so her character might've been skewed slightly.  With first person one should always distrust them.  Without Arbat she was treated like a joke.

[Seventhsage]

yeah, I'll agree to that, but the fact that she drops Ax in three moves is no skew, he fights with that tail every day and someone who's never even been in the academy (granted, she was trained by a master) takes him down with a textbook three move combo.  It almost makes me angry that she's so wishy-washy, she has no reason to be.  A little of that andalite arrogance could do her some good, since she, unlike 90% of the race, deserves it.

[Kotetsu1442]

I think there was enough 'Andalite arrogance' in her psychotic outburst shortly after Ax discovers her labwork. If you overlooked it and need a quick review, it's on page 122, where she gleefully exclaims that her creation isn't just about defeating the Yeerks, but gives the Andalites absolute power to destroy any who oppose the Andalites and all 'enemies of decency and goodness.'

She then is told that she's been going to be killed after the mission to keep the details of the mission secret, which somehow leads her to the conclusion that sacrificing humanity isn't worth it to destroying the Yeerks... wait, how are those thoughts connected? Anyways, she gets wishy-washy over "Go against one of my own, or save the human race" in the Yeerk pool, and in the end decides to stick with her new moral outlook: It isn't worth defeating the enemy if the cost is the human race, because the humans are good and decent... but she never repents of the idea of wiping out everyone who opposes them.

I'm going to vote 'Badly Written' but only because of the "Well, risking other intelligent species is OK if it is necessary to stop the enemy, I'll see the mission through... wait, I'm going to die? Then in that case it isn't worth risking the species." It isn't even cowardly, because she isn't planning on opposing Arbat to save herself, it is that somehow ending the mission by killing her made her realize that wiping out humans is 'foolishly, criminally wrong.' What?

I wouldn't consider her Mary-Sue, because she's got flaws and strengths, but maybe it would have been better if she wasn't a super-talented tail-fighter since it wasn't strictly necessary to gain Ax's respect and admiration and then she really would be just a prodigy, gifted but not Mary-Sue.

[clockwork_atom]

Argh.  I have to repost what I said.  It was profound and I can't remember how I fraised it.  *Says many foul sounding words*

Anywho.

I dunno, if your butt was on the line like that, I think you would rethink a lot of things as well.  Things would suddenly seem so crystal clear when being at the other end of a barrel.  About 90% of sentient beings wouldn't die like that because life is a once in a... well lifetime thing.  And you want to keep it for as long as possible.  She was a slap in the face to the reader (and Ax as well, though for a different reason) because of that.  The reader wants to believe that they are like one of the Animorphs because they can relate to at least one of them, not anyone like Estrid.  It's something to be ashamed of when facing your ego.  It makes us angry (and ashamed, I think).

Estrid was a normal civilian and acted accordingly (despite all of her gifts).  Because of her of her genius syndrome she was doubly weak.  She's not a Mary Sue because of that.  I think if KA and her hubby had more time, maybe they would have spent more time fleshing out her character.  Maybe.  We were exposed to five different characters and their backgrounds in a space of about 25.000 words.  But then that could be a plus because she's a well fleshed out character in that small span.  She did what she was supposed to.  Make Ax realize that he, in a way, doesn't fit in with the Andalite world.  He cries.  Andalites don't do that.

I love to hate her because she acted like any other sentient being, and got the love of someone who was the hero every single day.  While Gonrod, the other coward was the one we laughed at because he wasn't challenging the hero.  He was the fool.  While Estrid had a face that we looked into because Ax did.

[yunyun]

It's super sad that I saw that and thought of Kat and was really confused as to why a thread had been made about her.....


I think she was a good character. She had some Mary Sue-like qualities, but her genius was not only her asset, it was her downfall. She also suffered from a pretty healthy dose of cowardice. These things, I think, took away her Sueness.

what does mary-sue mean?

[esplin]

It's super sad that I saw that and thought of Kat and was really confused as to why a thread had been made about her.....


I think she was a good character. She had some Mary Sue-like qualities, but her genius was not only her asset, it was her downfall. She also suffered from a pretty healthy dose of cowardice. These things, I think, took away her Sueness.

Sometimes I'm reading a thread and someone has already said it best. 

I will state that I didn't really like the character and I thought Dak Hamee could have done better.. But thats just me.

[Chad32]

A Mary Sue is an annoyingly perfect character archetype that can never do wrong and whose actions are always somehow justified.

[warren_bearclaw]

Call me ignorant, but what is a 'Mary Sue'.
I'm all confused...

[Chad32]

A Mary Sue is an annoyingly perfect character archetype that can never do wrong and whose actions are always somehow justified.