Is she still considered a Mary Sue

[Izzy]

My character was a typical Mary Sue, but I realized my mistakes and edited her a bit. I want to see if she's still considered a bad Mary Sue. The story starts with her point-of-view of Order of the Phoenix and will continue to Deathly Hallows. I only have two chapters posted but everything else is mapped out in my head and I already have a rough draft written.

Fandom: Harry Potter world.

Titled: Tom Riddle's Redemption

Name of character: Honey Sheridan. She's a Ravenclaw.

Race of character: human, pureblood witch

Age of character: 17

Height of character: 4' 11

Weight of character: Starting off 103, really bony and small in the beginning of the story. Towards the end she'll be in a healthy weight

Brief background of character: When Honey was 10 she found one of Voldemort's horcuxes, the diadem. Diadem Tom does what he's suppose to do: gain Honey's trust, feed off her life and emotions, get his own body, etc... After he drained enough of her life force, he tried to kill her by crushing her body with large crystal sculptures, beating her with broken glass piece, and putting glass shards down her throat. She survived by hitting him on the back with a small crystal ball, trapping him inside it. She was hospitalized for six years. The first few months she was in a coma, then when she woke up she could not move her body anymore, paralyzed, a vegetable, for the next five years. She ate food through a hole cut in her throat, where a tube was put in and was home schooled by her parents. She forgot about diadem Tom 'cause she was so traumatized by the experience.

Diadem Tom comes back in her life before she goes to Hogwarts for her first year in school as a fifth year. After she was released from the hospital, her family threw her a party and gave her presents. One of her uncles' gave her a crystal necklace that diadem Tom was trapped in. Tom befriends her again, tricks her into going into the Chamber of Secrets and attempts to drain her life and make his body corporeal. Honey's pet snake bits his face and hand before he could leave the Chamber. He spends a week in the hospital wing. No one recognized him because his face was really swollen. When he goes back to get the diadem from her body, he found that she was alive. She survived the second time because the unicorn hair in her wand sacrificed itself, taking her place in death. While she was in the hospital her wand was always by her side and they develop a magical bond. It loved her enough to give its life up for her. She remembers Tom and tortures him in the same manner of which he did to her. She chains him to a bed and makes him see what she had to endure while she was hospitalize.

Character's position or job: Student

Strengths/Skills: She's a human encyclopedia. Being hospitalized for six years and unable to move all she could do was read books and have books read to her. She read to get her mind out of her situation until the contents in the books are all she could think about.

She can proficiently use wandless and nonverble magic because she could not move her body or talk (Tom put glass down her throat) and her magic adapted to her circumstance.

She's a Parselmouth but doesn't know it. She thinks its all in her head that she created the different voices. She constantly dreams she's a snake and slithers around her bed. This is due to her previous connections with Tom. Her pet snake is named William. She is fond of snakes since they remind her of when she was paralyzed. She had limps, yet couldn't use them. Snakes have noappendages, yet they can move around to wherever they wanted. She finds that fascinating.

Weaknesses/Bad habits: She can't really use a wand, only simple spells, and is secretly ashamed of herself for how her magic got the way it did and fears not having a wand. In their magical community, having a wand is a privilege, meaning that they are part of their world. Her wand is like a security blanket that she has but it doesn't fully cover her.

She also has body issues. After Tom tortured her, her entire body was scared, and from being in the hospital for so long, her weight was less than 100 pounds and she can't have children. She was mostly skin and bones. Her parents enchanted everything not to reflect her image so she wouldn't see how bad she looked. But one day she saw herself and develops a fear of mirrors. Even though the scars are all gone now she still can't bring herself to look at her own reflection. Her Boggart would be a full length mirror.

Being isolated from others, with the exception of her mother, father, and two uncles, Honey doesn't know how to act around other people, except be extremely polite. She made three friends in Hogwarts, but keeps to herself. An OC, Evie, Honey's roommate is terrified of Honey because Honey jerks and twists in her sleep in a snakelike manner. Becky and Meredith (both OC) are Honey's other friends. The two genuinely like Honey but Honey feels like an extra or a spare because the two mostly stick together, and somethings without realizing it, they exclude her from their conversations if they get caught up in the moment.

Her experience with Tom caused her to mistrust others. When she was little, Tom would whisper lies in her ear while she slept. For example, he'd tell her that no one really likes her. They're nice to her because of her parents' money. He convinced her he's her only friend. No one cares for her but him. Tom doesn't want her to have friends or else she'll be less depended on him. He wants her to view him as the air she breathes and make her think that if he's gone she'll have no one. With all that he put her through, she develops low self-esteem.

Distinctive features: She's unattractive. She's got blonde hair and blue eyes. She's really skinny, looks sickly and pale from not being in the sunlight for so long. She's physically weak from not using her muscles in years. I plan on her appearance and physical strength improving as the story progresses.

Connections to canon characters: Honey's personality would start off shy, cold, and a bit anti-social, but the wall she built around herself would melt as she meets each of the canon characters.

I plan on her befriending Fred and George first before she meets any of the other canon characters. The twins were trying to sell her some of their products and they start talking about their inventions. She thinks their inventions are cool and give them suggestions. Her having so much book knowledge helps them improve their inventions and help them solve why some of their products aren't working. The twins include her in their circle completely and noticed that she rarely smiles. They have a contest to see who can make her smile the biggest. No one in her family ever jokes like that with her because of her condition, so she thinks F&G are making fun of her and stops talking to them. The twins feel bad at seeing how they hurt her feelings and redeemed themselves. They talked her into lightened up and tell her outrageous and embarrassing stories about other students. They purposely encourage her to go up to the person, loudly recount the story, and ask them if it was true.

Honey develops a close friendship with the twins. Harry doesn't notice her because during book 5 he's stressed out from all that's happening. Ron and Hermione are nice and feel sorry for her because they think F&G are pulling a mean prank on the new girl by making her do the above. But Ron and Hermione soon realize that F&G are really trying to help her break the ice and make new friends. Umbridge is nice to her since her parents donate a lot of money to the ministry of magic to ensure she's comfortable. Dumbledore and the teachers treate her as they would any other student. Her and Tom has a love/hate thing going. He hated her for being weak and innocent.

Throughout the story she'll be undergoing struggles of finding herself, knowing where she stands in the world, meeting new people, and deciding if she's with the Order or Death Eaters.

Tell me your thoughts on her character so far.

Edited June 1, 2012 by Izzy

[Ajwf]

I think you have enough background... It's still a rather depressing background... But I would like to see more ideas on her personality. Walls don't have personality, and so "Putting up walls" does not attribute to what she feels. Is she paranoid, scared, cold, completely anti-social?

The good character will have their personality be a component that is directly related to their enviornment. That personality changes how they react with everyone around them.

And, by the way: First rule of third person narration is you can't make judgements... So even here, using signal phrases as "unattractive", "has body issues", these all allow the reader to make unfair judgments before. If you want to say she's unattractive, either say it through how she appears, or in a story, have some character describe her as that way. That's a little fault to fall in, if you call her unattractive, you'd probably end up having someone like her for who she was anyways, thus making that point quite invalid. If the readers start to grow on her, to keep that air of unattractiveness, you'd have to purposefully work very hard. It's easier to give her strange habits, like gnawing on the knuckle of a finger or something. Gets the point across the same way.

[Izzy]

Thank you for your reply.

This is one of the first stories I ever wrote back when I was a teenager. Having looked at it over, there are some areas of the story I am still debating over...If I want to keep this and that or not. I wanted a second opinion before I move forward with this story.

You make very good points. Her personality is something I am working on. Honey's character is a complete 180 from the original that I had created. She's supposed to be all bubbly and happy all the time, but I got rid of that. So I really am starting her from scratch.

Here's what I have so far, a couple of ideas I'm looking over but have not committed to. I'm a big fan of mystery and psychological thrillers, so I want to try writing them.

In the beginning of the story, Honey is timid, laid back, has a very calm demeanor because of her previous circumstance. She was paralyzed for many years, all she could do was sit back and observe her surroundings. So that's what she's doing, sitting back and observing, watching the plot unfold. But she will realize that she is able to interact with her surroundings and manipulate it. She is generally a friendly, kind person, but after she remembers what Tom did to her she becomes more guarded. I want to show how the years in the hospital effected her and molded her personality into what it is. I can't just write it off and say she's perfectly fine and moves on.

She starts seeing strange visions that are unconnected and believe she is losing her mind. Paranoia takes over and she can't separate reality from fantasy. She thinks everyone is trying to hurt her and isolate herself.

As for her being unattractive... I wanted to say she is beautiful no matter what, but I was told that it was too Mary Sueish. Which I understand. If she was in a hospital for that long and discharged only a few months before the story begins, I think she should be thin and weak. Let's just say she's plain looking for now and becomes attractive looking to the other characters as she develops better health later on.

[Izzy]

Luna's my favorite character too. I always wanted Honey and Luna and all the playful characters as her friends first. It's for her to light up a bit before the war with the Death Eaters starts and everything turns upside down for her.

I'm in the middle of writing the third chapter. I have certain ideas for it already, but I have this thing where, while I'm writing I develop new ideas and situations and the story ends up different than what I previous planned. So I'll come back here when that happens and ask for help again if that's okay with you?

[Lisbet_Adair]

Can I just take a moment to point out that what you describe of Honey's throat damage is not realistic anatomically. Whilst magic will influence some of her care whilst she is hospitalised, this just wouldn't make sense because anatomically, it makes more sense to do either nasal tube feeding or direct PEG feeding. I'd suggest that you take a look at experiences of patients who have been paralysed and their recovery to understand a bit about their emotional experience of gradually regaining control over their body and what the standard of care normally is to work out how magic could influence this or how a magical equivalent would have developed. Even if you're not describing her experience directly as part of the story, her disabilities will surely influence how she interacts with others around her.

Also, I seem to remember that the canon for this is that a student Tom hides the diadem in the Room of Requirement and it remains unfound until Harry finds it again. In which case, how is Honey finding it when she is ten and how is the aspect of Tom hiding in the diadem ending up in the crystal necklace? I'm not against deviation from canon, but I think you should make it clear how this incident occurs within the story so that it's obvious that you're not following it for the purpose of the story.

Thinking about it, I raise the question whether or not the Tom in the necklace is or should be, real (that is to say, an aspect of him inhabits it) or whether or not he should be a representation of a pyschosis of Honey's? The HP universe never really dealt with mental illness in the magical world at all, so it's sort of interesting that way. I guess the other suggestion would be that perhaps part of the diadem becomes lodged in Honey during her battle with Tom and cannot be removed, and reactivates later?

[Izzy]

I have done my research, but I took some liberties since this is a fic and in a magical world.

As for how she found the horcruxes. I'm actually in the middle of writing that part right now. I have my own theory for the reason why Voldemort gave them to certain Death Eaters and put them in particular places.

Diary: With Voldemort being as intelligent and perspective as he is, I think that he knew about Lucius' character enough that made him cautious of him. He might've gave him the diary to make him think that he was special. But really he gave it to him because he was hoping Lucius would become curious enough to open it and diary Tom would steal his life energy and kill him. Or maybe Narcissa or Draco? It being a present from Voldemort, he knew that Lucius wouldn't just throw it away or damage it for fear that it was something dangerous, but slip it to some poor unsuspecting person (like what he did to Ginny). Either way, Voldemort was planning on diary Tom killing someone and becoming corporal.

I got the base for my story from Chamber of Secrets. I want to show details of what Ginny went through, but with my own twist. So I created Honey. Honey found the diadem in Diagon Alley because someone (a Death Eater) slipped it to her. The Death Eater had been watching her for a while and noticed that she didn't have friends was very quiet, etc...Someone small and weak Tom could easily overpower and kill. As for him getting trapped in the crystal. There's a folklore about how you can trap a ghost inside a crystal or a jar and bury it or throw it away to get rid of the ghost. I like folklore so I added that in there.

As for Tom being real. He is and using his magic to drive her crazy. This story is about him undergoing change and finding love. In the end he has to decide if he's good or evil.

[Lisbet_Adair]

So I created Honey. Honey found the diadem in Diagon Alley because someone (a Death Eater) slipped it to her. The Death Eater had been watching her for a while and noticed that she didn't have friends was very quiet, etc...Someone small and weak Tom could easily overpower and kill. As for him getting trapped in the crystal. There's a folklore about how you can trap a ghost inside a crystal or a jar and bury it or throw it away to get rid of the ghost. I like folklore so I added that in there.

Still raising the question of how the aspect of Tom trapped in the diadem ends up in the necklace. All the horcruxes in the book are accounted for, so is this an additional horcrux in the necklace that's an addition of your own?

[Izzy]

The necklace is not a horcrux. It's a magical item that one can trap spirits in. The part of Tom that's in the diadem is a fragment of Voldemort's soul. The first time he tried to kill Honey he drained enough of her life to come out of the diadem, but she hits him with the crystal trapping him inside before he could fully become solid. Since he had a kind of spirit-like form he got sucked in. He's unable to use his magic while in the crystal, but found out he's able to speak with her while she wears the nacklace. Honey uses it like a worry stone. Whenever she gets stressed about something she would rub the crystal. Tom realizes that everything she rubs it he gets stronger because she is transfering her emotionals and worries into the crystal. When he received enough of her he comes out and attempts to finish her off again.

[Lisbet_Adair]

Well, they never said anything about whether or not you could split a horcrux once it's created, so that makes sense.