She’s brave, principled, intelligent, loyal to her friends, courageous against her opponents. She’s skilled at music and mathematics, she loves science, she frees her slave and respects her decisions.

From a feminist perspective? She’s admirable even though she’s all that and a woman too. From a feminist perspective, you don’t decry women just because they’re not being treated as inferior to men.

I just finished “The Moon and the Sun”, and I have to say, when I put down the book all I could think was “Mary Sue”. The problem for me wasn’t that she had too much. Her curiosity and creativity(in music, math, and natural philosophy) were the best parts of her character. She is smart and really gifted.

But when you combine all those natural gifts with her overwhelming innocence, beauty, purity of heart, genuine humility, inexperience, and definite “Beloved By All” factor..it was just disheartening. I thought it was a let down for a female character written by a female author. Mary-Joseph has so many naturally given skills, but doesn’t USE them (partly due to the restrictions of her time period, given). She was so intelligent, yet misses so many social cues(which every other character is aware of). And to top it off Marie-Jospeh even has her own “telepathic creature companion”, which as Angie pointed out above is such a cliche for Mary Sues! Why is Marie-Joseph the only one who can magically speak mermish?!?

I read a lot of fanfiction too, but I can see that my own definition for a Mary Sue doesn’t match some of yours. Like Dan said above, it may be better to simply say I didn’t like Marie-Joseph, rather than call her a Mary Sue.

Yonmei, from a feminist perspective, what makes Marie-Joseph an admirable character?

Interesting difference in focus from Huxley’s utopian “Island.”