Misuse/More than one definition: Author Avatar

Looking at the article, an Author Avatar is "a fictionalized version of an author who appears as a character in the events of the story". However, there is either some misuse or I'm misreading and there's more than one definition. I see this treated as:

• The author themself literally appears. Mostly in webcomics and the like.
• The author bases something about the character on themself.
• The more subjective version seen mostly when referring to Fan Fic, a self-gloryfying Mary Sue. E.g. Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way in My Immortal.

It was originally split into two tropes: Author Self-Insert for one (A character that's a stand-in for the author but is an actual character rather than merely a fictional representation of the author appears), and Author Avatar for the other (where the actual author literally appears, usually for comedic reasons), but it was merged because no-one ever used the first one.

Self-glorifying Mary Sue was never a proper use of either original trope, though.

edited 1st Sep '11 11:48:56 AM by Nezumi

No, but it is, rightly or wrongly, seen as a common characteristic of the Author Self-Insert, so it comes out as more or less the same thing.

If it's intended to be both self-insert and avatar (in the common meaning of that term), then the description needs some serious work.

I'm somewhere between neutral and mildly-pro on a re-split. I suspect I could easily find several examples of the avatar version (Word of God says Calvin from Calvin And Hobbes was one), but if it struggled before, it may well struggle again. But the current description is definitely misleading.

"Author literally appearing as a character in the work", like Stephan Pastis being a character in Pearls Before Swine with the other characters knowing and recognizing him as the author (e.g. every time he has the characters do an Incredibly Lame Pun, Rat goes over to his desk and smacks him for being a bad writer), is probably a trope, and a subtrope of Medium Awareness.

"Author basing a character on him/herself", like Philip Jose Farmer's "Peter Jairus Frigate" in Riverworld (a sci-fi writer whose initials are not a coincidence), is probably a trope as well, and a separate one.

"Author using the characters as a mouthpiece" is a trope as well, and covered by Author Filibuster, I believe.

I'm not sure where a Captain Ersatz of the author would fit in (where the author is included as a character who is meant to literally represent the author No Celebrities Were Harmed-style, but with a different name).

The Mary Sue version is probably not tropable.

edited 18th Sep '11 4:42:09 PM by troacctid

Isn't the Mary Sue version basically Mary Sue?

If we were still doing sue tropes I could see Self Insert Sue.

I agree.

edited 19th Sep '11 6:52:35 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

Yeah. A Mary Sue isn't necessarily supposed to represent the author, it might just be the case of the author liking that character more than the others.

Author Self Insert can cover tropes where the author themselves is a character, while this trope can cover instances where a character represents the author but isn't supposed to actually be them.

"Author basing a character on him/herself" is Write Who You Know, no?

Good catch.

Mary Sue originally meant an idealised Author Avatar. It seems to have suffered Trope Decay to the point where the character no longer has to be based on the author.

As for Write Who You Know, I mostly see that used when authors are basing characters on their circle of friends, not just themselves. (I know the second is covered by the article, but I don't think I've seen it used for that on the wiki.)

Nobody actually knows what the term Mary Sue means, or rather everyone knows but none of the definitions seem to match. That's why I think Mary Sue is best off left as a Fan Speak page while stuff like God-Mode Sue carries all the examples.

Write Who You Know has Author Based Character as a redirect, which is relevant to this discussion.

I definitely see "Author is the basis for a normal character, just as a friend or anyone else might be the basis for a normal character" as distinct from other tropes, such as the author appearing to comment on events of the story. For example, Lanark has the latter, due to a bit of inter-dimensional travel that causes the main character to have an encounter with the author, who discusses his own story before it's even ended.

I've always seen Write Who You Know as being about friends and others known by the author rather than the author themselves, but the article and its redirect do indicate that both are applicable.

Is this thread dead?