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<blockquote data-quote="Deset Gled" data-source="post: 7738975" data-attributes="member: 7808">I think you're close to the answer here, just a little off at the end.&nbsp; Ready Player One is a total Mary Sue story.&nbsp; Possibly the ultimate one.&nbsp; And any true Mary Sue is idealized to a point of ridiculous perfection.But that creates a problem.&nbsp; An author who creates a character that's the world's best poet is in trouble when forced to write examples of that poetry.&nbsp; A TV show about the world's best singer eventually has to show the singing, and it's supposed to be Grammy worthy.&nbsp; Ernest Cline is undoubtedly a fan of the 80s culture he writes about, but he's not the ultimate Mary Sue level fan he writes about.&nbsp; So the depiction falters a bit.&nbsp; The end result is that his representation of the ultimate Mary Sue is portrayed by the sheer volume of references and obscure-ness of trivia rather than emotional depth.&nbsp; That may come off as a little shallow (and/or possibly somewhere on the autism spectrum), but it works for me.&nbsp; It's like listening to Heart of Rock and Roll by Huey Lewis or I've Been Everywhere by Hank Snow in a bar so you can shout then name of your home town when it comes up.&nbsp; I am unashamed of my smile when RPO made minor references to TMBG or Krull just because I like those things, not because they got the same love I have for them.To that end, I'm okay if the D+D references in an 80s tribute movie gets the water-down treatment to make it palatable to general audiences.&nbsp; What I'm not okay with is an 80s tribute movie that gets dominated by a robot from 1999.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Deset Gled, post: 7738975, member: 7808"] I think you're close to the answer here, just a little off at the end. Ready Player One is a total Mary Sue story. Possibly the ultimate one. And any true Mary Sue is idealized to a point of ridiculous perfection. But that creates a problem. An author who creates a character that's the world's best poet is in trouble when forced to write examples of that poetry. A TV show about the world's best singer eventually has to show the singing, and it's supposed to be Grammy worthy. Ernest Cline is undoubtedly [I]a[/I] fan of the 80s culture he writes about, but he's not the ultimate Mary Sue level fan he writes about. So the depiction falters a bit. The end result is that his representation of the ultimate Mary Sue is portrayed by the sheer volume of references and obscure-ness of trivia rather than emotional depth. That may come off as a little shallow (and/or possibly somewhere on the autism spectrum), but it works for me. It's like listening to Heart of Rock and Roll by Huey Lewis or I've Been Everywhere by Hank Snow in a bar so you can shout then name of your home town when it comes up. I am unashamed of my smile when RPO made minor references to TMBG or Krull just because I like those things, not because they got the same love I have for them. To that end, I'm okay if the D+D references in an 80s tribute movie gets the water-down treatment to make it palatable to general audiences. What I'm not okay with is an 80s tribute movie that gets dominated by a robot from 1999. [/QUOTE]

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