A Brief Marvel Avengers Movie-Verse Rant

[megpie71]

I swear, Darcy Lewis' middle names must be "Mary" and "Sue".

That is all.

(This rant brought to you courtesy of a lot of Avengers Movie-verse fanfic, from various different authors, where Darcy Lewis gets to be a sorta-sidekick-in-training for just about everyone on the Avengers team, and apparently has the super-secret superpower of superhero wrangling. I keep meaning to watch the Thor movie just to find out whether her apparent ability to be a useful plot device under all circumstances is canon or not).

(Cross-posted to fanficrants. Apologies for any duplications on reading lists.)

Comments

[clanwilliam]

Oh god, yes.

I liked the character in Thor and some people are writing her very well (she's a useful external view), but the Mary Sue aspect is driving me bonkers.

I note it's now gone to the next stage which is "Jane starts bitching about her and everyone starts to hate Jane as a result", so soon we'll see the "the Avengers take over the world and kill everyone who does not bow down and adore Darcy" stage.

I think Loki's tried it already.

[megpie71]

So far I've seen her paired up with every single one of the available male Avengers except Thor and Tony Stark. I'm expecting to see the Darcy/Tony pairing any day now.

As far as I can tell, she's generally being inducted into SHIELD as a result of being too close to the action during the events of "Thor", and then stuck in a lab with Jane, even though from everything I've read, she's not a science major and never was. At which point I start thinking "ah, wishful thinking on the part of the author" - because quite frankly, she's more likely, if she is picked up by SHIELD at all, to be shuffled into the back corners of the administrative side, and be given a very boring job shuffling paper until they can be absolutely sure she's trustworthy.

[clanwilliam]

Oh, I've seen Darcy/Tony, but it's more usual that she's his kid. Either that or she's Coulson's kid.

Oh god, the one where she's Tony's child *and* a genius who built her own AI... never, ever click on that one.

There's a couple where she appears because she's been shuffled into the back corners of SHIELD for exactly that reason - also, she's a political science major, so SHIELD might well have an interest in her anyway.

[salmastryon]

She a character that is ideal for associating yourself. She's plucky, snarky and has been drawn into this cool adventure just because she happened to be there. She doesn't have to be rich, a scientist, special or have super powers. Despite all that, she can and does say all those things people think about saying later in a situation or wish they had thought of. She isn't intimidated about all these strange events, but takes them in stride and to a certain extent takes what fun she can from them.

I'd be surprised if she didn't become some sort of self inserted character in many fanfictions. I'll even admit to enjoying quite a few of them. She's a wonderful character which non of the depth or background has been filled in on, so as an author you can do a lot with her. Of course how well my suspension of disbelief on it all works depends on the author.

We don't know if she'll be in the next Thor movie yet or not. She's only mentioned as rumored for the cast last I knew. Hopefully if she's in the next one we'll learn a bit more about her.

[megpie71]

Like I said, I'm wanting to watch the Thor movie so I can figure out whether she's actually been given any of the superhero-wrangling abilities she's inherited in so many fanfics in the actual canon.

I can understand the temptation to create a sidekick character who's able to see everything from the author's POV and all the rest - heck, that's what Nesa Conway would be if I let her[1]. And yeah, Darcy Lewis does seem to be ideal for the purpose, appearing to be a canon blueprint for the sort of character one wants. But given she only showed up in the Thor movie, and that she wasn't even hinted at in the Avengers movie (which is the only one of the set I've seen so far) I would argue that her ubiquity in Avengers-verse fics is a bit of wishful thinking on the parts of various fanfiction authors.

[1] That's why the OG canon is most definitely NOT appearing in the Nesa-verse - her stuff stops shortly after the Nibelheim incident, and doesn't pick up again until after Advent Children, where her main contacts with the OG crew are via the Turks.