Mary Sue Keller

[wickedwords]

Unlike the rest of the world, I was not happy about the shrine in that it does push the McKay/Keller romance. I am still working on the idea that John is incredibly in love with Rodney, and Rodney doesn't notice. He dumped Katie, and a couple of weeks later, he'd moved on to Keller; he is determined to marry straight. While I can get a good story out of that for fanfic purposes, in canon, it makes me very unhappy. *gah* I can only see this getting worse as the season progresses, given how the production team pushed Sam/Jack in SG-1. I can't even stick to just the 'old crew Atlantis' episodes as M&M put their stamps on everything.

But it's more than that. They've taken Keller and tried to turn her into a Mary Sue, the 'geek girl' that we are supposed to identify with. Think about it. She's supposed to be smart, sweet, not self-confident, the wallflower of Atlantis. She even calls herself nerdy. She has these amazing adventures, and turns out to be super!competent under pressure, pulling off brain surgery with nothing more than a cordless power drill and a jury-rigged scanner. It's no wonder that all the men fall in love with her.

But to be a true Mary Sue, she has to marry one of the heroes and die in a beautiful and tragic matter. Consumption would be best.

Which...you know, she kinda did. And it looks like she's going to be doing that in the future, too.

Which is where I really burnout on this, as it just digs under my skin, irritating in a way nothing else is because of what it implies about how TPTB see us. While it's clear that Rodney is the Mary Sue of one part of the staff, several others can't help but use him as a punching bag because of their internalized geekophobia issue--which basically ends up balancing McKay out and making him a pretty complex character, for all the talk about how 'superficial' he is. But there is no balancing force for Keller; no one seems to want to write anything for her other than her single perfect flaw: her tendency to babble in a cute but self-depreciating way. So she gets no complexity, and she is given 'the geek hero' for her releationship, the guy all geek!girls are supposed to want. A cute-and-perfect het relationship, where she is smart and determined to be brave, while not really being all that self-confident.

But that's not me. That's not my view of myself. That's not who I am, and I resent being handed that definition of who I should want to be on a platter, with some guy smiling and nodding and congratulating himself on how great he is at portraying the 'perfect' me. I want to shout: She's not a reflection of who I am or what I want in life, and I reject being told that she is my perfect viewpoint into Atlantis.

I'm much rather say that I am Rodney McKay: petty, arrogant, and bad with people. Anything's better than being in the stereotypical smart!girl role. She is not my Mary Sue.

Comments

[em_kellesvig]

And considering that Rodney spent the entire time he was ill calling for John when Keller was right there -- and that this is canon -- what does that say about the writers' mindset as they're trying to push McKay/Keller?

As for Keller's girl!geek persona, I liked it better when she was sweaty and sweet on Firefly. She was certainly better written.

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

We actually don't know that he spent the whole time calling to John. We have the trip to the pier, which, YAY! But we also have the 'I love you' to Keller, which I can't speedbump the way others can. I get to 'he's desperate, he's searching for help, and they have the medical version of the Stockholm syndrome going between them, where he falls in love with his doctor and she falls in love with her patient because of the weird situation they are in' but I can't get past the fact that in canon, he says 'I love you' to her when the writers have spent no time dealing with his old relationship and moving him on to the new one.

Just. Arrgh. With the crazy.

I loved the actress on Firefly, and I really don't like the character on Atlantis she's been given to portray. I feel sorry for her.

[lydiabell.livejournal.com]

The only way I can make sense of it from a Watsonian perspective is that Rodney is being portrayed as somebody who's never really been in a successful adult romantic relationship, and is still stuck in a very teenage mindset that "being in love" with someone means you're very attracted to them and you get butterflies in your stomach when you talk to them. I can buy the first part of that, but the second is just a little too juvenile for a 40-year-old man.

ETA: or that, y'know, he's fooling himself about the whole falling in love with a woman thing. Again, not all that attractive in someone his age; I'd like to see a little more self-awareness.

[lydiabell.livejournal.com]

what does that say about the writers' mindset as they're trying to push McKay/Keller?

That they think "being in love" isn't particularly related to being close to someone, knowing them well, and them being an important part of your life?

[hth-the-first.livejournal.com]

And, not unrelated to that, that girls aren't good for very much when it comes down to the crunch? It really reminds me of that very in-vogue Judd Apatow school of "romantic" comedy, which is basically just a dressed-up buddy show with a token, vaguely characterized yet generally marvelous girl because, well, sometimes a person wants to get laid. And the pursuit of getting laid can sometimes interfere with the emotionally satisfying Boyworld utopia of guy comrades.

See, this is why I have trouble seeing Rodney as canonically queer. He's such a *stereotype* of the dorky straight guy, lifted directly out of the version of dumb sexism that's au courant right now.

[lydiabell.livejournal.com]

I don't see a lot of movies, and this description makes me very happy about that.

And, not unrelated to that, that girls aren't good for very much when it comes down to the crunch?

Yeah, that too.

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

See, this is why I have trouble seeing Rodney as canonically queer. He's such a *stereotype* of the dorky straight guy, lifted directly out of the version of dumb sexism that's au courant right now.

Yes! I have problems with that too. Season One Rodney, it was easier to see him as canonically gay, but by now, he's stored up a history of the dorky straight guy. Makes me sad.

[indybaggins.livejournal.com]

WORD.

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[blueraccoon.livejournal.com]

Total word. We discussed a lot of this over dinner :)

Speaking of, meet up this week? Next week?

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

This week I can do something Monday or Thursday, but the week of the 15th is totally open. Pick a day, and I will be there.

[blueraccoon.livejournal.com]

This Thursday should work, or any day next week. Next week might be better for you, from the sound of it?

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

Next week would be great. What day works for you?

[blueraccoon.livejournal.com]

Hmm...how's Tuesday for you?

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

Sounds great! I will put it on my calendar. 6:30 at CJ's, right?

[blueraccoon.livejournal.com]

That does seem to be our standard :) Unless you'd rather go someplace else? I can eat real food now!

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

Nope, CJs is great! I will see you then.

[isagel.livejournal.com]

Total agreement. I have never much liked Keller - she's nice enough, but I don't find anything she does interesting or compelling. And that they're setting Rodney up with her without actually laying any more (or, now I think about it, almost even less) groundwork for it than they did for his ultimately utterly wrong relationship with Katie Brown is insulting to both characters. It's almost as if they're writing the love affair in reverse: because we know from what hologram!Rodney told John in the future that Rodney and Jennifer had happiness together there, we're supposed to automatically infer that they're falling in love in the present and will be a great match for each other in this timeline, too, without the writers having to spend any time on building the relationship. It's shoddy work. Also, I can't get past the fact they somehow completely forgot that they spent a whole episode setting Jennifer up with Ronon, without ever indicating what happened with that.

And, of course, the "I love you" to Jennifer felt very pasted on in an episode that was otherwise pushing the envelope on Rodney's deeply intimate relationships with his team members in ways that were entirely organic to years of well-written, well-acted and believable character development. Seriously, if there'd been a romantic declaration between Rodney and Ronon in that ep, it would have felt more real than the Keller thing. (And, you know, being fond of OT4, I'm happy to read some of Ronon's comments as exactly that.)

I am still working on the idea that John is incredibly in love with Rodney, and Rodney doesn't notice.

This is the only way I know how to read John in canon. It was there so much in The Shrine that it actually hurt. And damn, I love the concept of it, because it's beautiful and painful and sad and OMG JOHN, but sometimes the reality of it is almost too much on the painful side.

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

because we know from what hologram!Rodney told John in the future that Rodney and Jennifer had happiness together there, we're supposed to automatically infer that they're falling in love in the present and will be a great match for each other in this timeline, too, without the writers having to spend any time on building the relationship.

Exactly. it is very shoddy work, and I don't believe it because I don't see the pieces that put it together. I'm not accepting their insistence on the relationship as no facts have been show for one. It's the telling vs. showing problem, not to mention an intimacy issue--they tell us something but don't show anything behind it.

[sobelle.livejournal.com]

Seriously? sometimes I get so annoyed with the writers that I just have to turn the sound off and ~hear~ my own script... helpfully pre-primed by fic already written by my favorite LJ writers... and wearing my John!Rodney colored sunglasses.

Otherwise? I'd lose it and break my laptop, considering I usually have to watch a download... which also means that I usually know what rank asshattery is coming...

(altho even with the sound off? this ep was seriously annoying)

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

I imagine that if I vid in this fandom, I will have to skim it with the sound off, but man, I agree that it will still be annoying.

[chandri.livejournal.com]

Hmm. My reading on Rodney/Keller is that she feels much more deeply for Rodney than he does for her (this I get from the sort of hopeless expression she wears as she replays the "I love you" over and over) - and that Rodney has this well-documented tendency to over-react and grasp wildly when anyone smart and pretty seems to like him. So perhaps he thinks he's in love with her, but probably he wouldn't, let's face it, know it for what it was, if he was. (Which I don't think he is.) Personally I have trouble getting too worked up over the Rodney/Keller pushing from TPTB, as I have firmly-entrenched slashgoggles that will not be moved. Doublethink is useful. ;)

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

I'm really hoping that other people can get me to a place where I can just roll with it, but I can't seem to get there on my own. Maybe if I started writing again, it would help...

[mirabile-dictu.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for posting this. I've read it, and the comments, several times and find it comforting to know I'm not alone in my struggle to accept Keller. She's written so horribly, so inconsistently . . . Plus for me, her very presence with Rodney violates my understanding of who he is as a person, and what the rest of the team means to him, especially in The Shrine, but also in that one where he, Keller, and Carter are in the collapsed building.

It's nice to know that others share my irritation. Thank you again.

[wickedwords.livejournal.com]

Plus for me, her very presence with Rodney violates my understanding of who he is as a person, and what the rest of the team means to him, especially in The Shrine, but also in that one where he, Keller, and Carter are in the collapsed building.

It makes me insane with how it screws with the balance that we had among the characters, and I just can't process it in a Watsonian/Internal Universe way. I keep stubbing my toes on the heavy inprints left by the production team, and falling over, unable to pick myself up. I hope at the end of this season, we'll have enough information to fanwank this whole ill-conceived relationship, but at the moment, I doubt it.

Deliver me from sf 'guns and actions sequences' guys trying to write romance. It never works out.