Percy Jackson and the Olympians: the Lightening thief

[liliaeth]

I'm starting to despair.

I kinda liked the Percy Jackson movie. It's not a classic, but it's decent enough. So I figured since someone said the books were better, that I'd try and read those to see if they were right or not.

Turns out, yes, the books are better and there's tons of scenes in them, that would have improved on the movie, but that were unfortunately left out.

So what's the despairing about, you might ask...

I figured, since I liked the characters, I'd do what I usually do, when I'm getting into something new. I'd look for fanfic at ff.net.

I really should have known better.

I've never seen this big an amount of Mary Sues in one corner of the pit. Never!

It's like every single fic summary sounded like a warning yelling "Here be Mary Sues" Even the crossover section wasn't safe of them.

I mean, I love Harry Potter and you'd think that a PJ/HP crossover could be good right?

Wrong.

Why would anyone who does a crossover between these two series, both with a well built universe and strong characterization want to ruin it, by going "So what if Harry was the son of Zeus, Poseidon and Hades, and oh yes, his mom wasn't Lilly either, it's Sally Jackson, Percy's mom...

In ergo, turning Harry into the worst Gary Stu that ever Stued. Why do people do this? Please tell me there's an archive for Percy Jackson and the Olympians fic that's somewhat pickier about what they allow. Pretty please..

Comments

[lusciousxander.livejournal.com]

Urgh! Reminds me of those "Xander's Real Father" fics, which I've always hated. I'm not much of a crossover person, I've read a couple that I enjoyed, but most crossovers are badly written for the reasons you stated.

[liliaeth]

Thing is, I can see 'Xander's real father' fics, if done well. The problem being that most of them just aren't, done well that is, and seem to serve only one purpose, aka to make Xander 'cool', ignoring that the thing that makes Xander cool, is that he's normal and still stands as a hero alongside Buffy and the others.

I mean, Xander's canonical father isn't an important char in canon, he's not a well established char, so shunting him to the side is actually easy enough to do.

With Harry though, well, not only does everyone keep mentioning how much Harry looks like his dad, but James Potter is actually an important part of the HP mythology and taking him out removes a huge part of who Harry is and what connections he has to several other major chars in the books. Which is why I'll much easier start reading a fic about Xander finding out he was adopted, or that he was the result of a fling or stuff like that, than I would accept any such thing with Harry.

[jerusha]

I haven't seen the movie, but I just downloaded the first book to listen to during workouts. I really enjoyed the first couple of chapters, so I'm looking forward to the rest.

As for the fanfic, though... Yeah. I'm guessing the folks writing it don't know how to do anything else. I did essentially the same when I was a young teen.

[liliaeth]

oh they're definitely good. I'm currently at the fourth book and really liking how the characters develop. :-)

And yes, I know what it's like when you first start writing fanfic, my first fics all centered around a few of my own oc's that looking back, were way too sueish for anyone's good.

But the thing is, you'll find Sues in just about any fandom, but usually, you can find at least one or two gems. You know good stories, focused on the actual main chars, or at least on minor supporting chars fleshed out...

But here I went through two pages of fanfics and I still found nothing but Sues.*grumble*

[avidrosette.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I read the books to my son when he was 11, and I think many of the people writing Lightning Thief fanfic are around that age - pre-high schoolers. So, it's probably reasonable to read with a different set of expectations than for some of the adult fandoms, like SPN and AtS.

Good to hear the movie is good! I'm hoping to see it soon. :-)