3 posts tagged “sasha”
I spen today in a sunny spot in the library, knitting and reading by turns. At about four o'clock I had to go home and put the roast on.
I was just opening the door when I felt something touch my leg. Something very like a curious doggy nose. I was absolutly convinced that nagari had run out to greet me before I realised that I hadn't opened the door yet.
I turned around and was almost bowled over by a very enthusiastic puppy. She was red (a kelpie cross I think) between 6 months and a year old with that puppy look about her and very, very friendly. I said hello and she wagged her tail, tried to lick my face and then started nosing the door. I finished opening it, so I could put my bag inside and when I did she tried to squeese past, wagging her tail. I stuck my leg in the way, threw the bags in and closed it again, about to try and read her tag.
She had disapeared. This dog was apparently very sneaky. I hadn't even notised her until I got to the door and she had very politly said hello. Or not so politly. Anyway... I found her behind my car, she ran into the neighbors front yard. I walked round the front, trying to see her through the undergrowth. A second later she was bolting onto the road. And a car is speading towards her.
You can imagine that by now I've reached heart attack point. I did the only thing I could think of and yelled "PUPPY PUPPY PUPPY!" at the top of my lungs and crouched down arms open wide, while hoping to god that I wasn't about to see this beautiful dog killed by some stupid driver.
She turned a nose length from the cars bumper and ran strait into my arms. I wrapped my arms around her, and hung on while she tried to lick my face and I tried to calm down. I got a look at her collar. Her name was Sasha, and there was a phone number on her tag, and a adress with a suburb I didn't recognise. I hooked my hand into her collar and lead her back to our steps.Then I see an Asian man walking along the street. I call out to him "Is this dog yours?" he nods smiles and says "Yes" with a very heavy accent. I then pointed at Sasha, pointed at him and asked again. He repeats the smile the nod and the answer. I smiled and very stupidly let go of Sasha. She ran strait past the man and onto the road and he kept walking, completely ignoring the dog. Stupid asians giving the answer they think you want. I called Sasha by her name this time and she came running back. Before she reached me another voice calls "SASHA! Sasha!" and she runs over to a man I don't know coming out of one of our neighbors houses. I yelled hello and he didn't even wave. DUDE your dog almost got killed by a car!
Sigh. I retuned home, opened the door again and greeted our dogs and got greeted by them, with about twenty miniutes of vacuming.
After my post about Petrador Marie and I started talking about the characteristics of Mary Sue, and I decided to do a Mary Sue test on Sasha. Reading the criteria, I started to think that maybe, just maybe Mary Sue isn't that bad. Or at least she is misunderstood.
Part of the reason for this was Marie's comment in the post "Jess, you realise that "sexual humour, insinuation, a fair deal of swearing" *are* Mary Sue qualities?" I found this comment rather hilarious. So I decided to whip out the Mary Sue test again as a bit of an experiment.
As I thought. Marie, despite not being a book character scores 47 on the mary sue test. I must point out that Sasha only scored 43. Marie, real, living breathing marie. Marie who "...at this point...[is] likely to provoke eye-rolling and exclaimations of "yeah, right!" from your readers." Sounds about right doesn't it? I also have to point out that if she had scored just three more points on the test I would have been obliged to "Kill it dead." Ok, so I was being a bit tough on her, but the majority of the test answers where 100% true. Why don't you try it yourself? I used Elise, Skye or Mrs Gramaticus as the Villain just for reference.
Whats my point? If characters didn't have at least some of these characteristics they just wouldn't intresting enough to make a story about. That, or they wouldn't survive past the second chapter. There is a reason why authors make characters royalty, it leads to pollitical intruige. There is a reason they are good with either a sword or magic, it's because if they wern't the dark lord would just blast them to smitherenes. The problem with both Marie and Sasha is that alot of their faults happen to be seen as Mary Sue qualities themselves, and I think here, it realy depende on how the Author uses them. If their anger, foul mouths and sexual insinuations are seen as something to be admired, we are crossing into Mary Sue territory. If they get the character into trouble, make people in the story world not like them, and they fit the character then not so much.
I also tend to think that a character like Auraya, and to a lesser extent Sonea is more of a Mary Sue than Sasha. They don't have any faults and they are rediculusly powerfull. They don't even have Mary Sueish faults unless you count falling in love with the 'bad guy'. It doesn't mean I love them any less though. On the opposite scale, Emma from Kylie Chan's books is, in personality at least rather a lot less of a Mary Sue (That whole, I can't work it out thing) and yet she spends at least half of her time driving me absolutly nuts. I also think that in Sasha's case, it's not necersarily being a Mary Sue that makes her cliched but a rather serious case of rebellious princess syndrome, and the thing is, I don't necersarily mind. The author has used a character that is a fantasy classic and put her in a setting where she would usualy be out of place, then created a pretty damn good plot around her. What's wrong with that?
What am I saying here? Well, basicly, Mary Sue shouldn't be applied to orriginal fantasy. It's a term that came from fanfic where adolecent girls suddenly introduce a non cannon character that then goes and fulfills their fantasys while defying the rules of the story universe. In original fantasy, well pretty much any main character is going to be a Mary Sue to some extent. It just makes things so much more intresting.
Well I'm done, I'm going to start work on my bomb shelter now, and just so that you don't think you can kill me before I finish, I've hired a few Mary Sues from various fan fics, and you know, they are more than able to defend me.
Got this a couple of days ago and wow. I have to say, yet another aussie fantasy book that I can add to my awesomeness list. I know their are a couple of series I realy love from brittish and american authors, but seriously, Australian Fantasy writers have their own spiecial flare. I am so glad I am Australian. (Isn't it funny? Books make me more patriotic than gold medals.)
WOW this book is good. I don't think I could compare it to Trudi Canavan, just because it is so amazingly different, but I think I could safely say I liked it better than Kylie Chan books, it has many of the same elements (A romance, something that Sasha was missing) and better writing. Don't get me wrong though, Kylie Chan still rocks my romance world. He he... gods.
Petrador has the amazing detail that I loved Sasha for, not the iritatingly detailed descriptions of Allison Croggon (they are good, but seriously I skip most of it) but the beautiful tactical believable descriptions of battles and fights that bring the action alive. It has the added bonus that Sasha loses some of her Mary Sue qualities, adding sexual humor, insinuation, a fair deal of swearing (She particularly likes to use Cock and Fuck) and her angry, bitchy arrogance to her previously bland personality. It was always their, it just didn't get enough screen time. Their is also another weakness that I liked the use of. Trust.
Ahh Joel Shepherd. I admire you. When you can write a serious, philisophical debate, with one person seriously ingured, humiliated and at the other persons mercy, battle is raging around them and still center the whole thing around cheese, you have won my heart. When you can use a sex scene to reveal a major plot point without making the thing seem forced, you have shown rather ingenoius ways of giving the thing a purpous (For reference, his sex scene description surparces Kylie Chans in detail by rather a lot. It might even come close to his battle descriptions, yet it's not pornographic at all, I don't feel embaresed reading it, which I think deserves extra kudos. It also involves a LOT of talking (as I said, plot points) which is probably the reason it works.)
It is a realy good read. Better than Sasha, and you can proabably get away with reading Petrodor without the first book, although I realy did enjoy Sasha, and some of the stuff about Serrin the meaning of certain Sallshen words and the interrelation of Nazi Keth, Verathain and Goren Yai might be lost on you. Yeah. read them. If you can't read Sasha at least give Petrodor a try. If you can't read Petrodor, well Page 421 is a good starting point if you want to get to the cheese bit. But then again, you won't get the start of the chapter... maybe 402? I don't know. Just read the whole book. It's realy good.
CHEESE!
