Looking for a word

[radiantfracture]

I feel like there is a technical term for the kind of protagonist who is more or less a blank so that the readers/viewers can project themselves into that character without getting snagged on some startling individuality, but what is it?

If there isn't one I might plump for "void protagonist" but I'm open to more established terminology.

Comments

[jasmine_r_s]

Maybe audience surrogate or stand-in, everyman/everywoman, Mary Sue, hero, wounded healer, or a kind of self-insertion?

[radiantfracture]

Ha, it's for our video that I ask -- we talk about it quite a bit.

[jasmine_r_s]

Aha! I'm excited to listen to our convo through the lens of the perfect word!!:-)

[elusis]

Yeah, Mary Sue/Gary Stu and self-insertion were the terms I thought of, though self-insert is about the author's projection really. But MS/GS are I think meant to also be the reader self-insert.

[jasmine_r_s]

"Gary Stu" is new to me, and I love it!

Question of usage

[ng_moonmoth]

My understanding of Mary Sue/Gary Stu (I've also seen "Marty Stu" in that gender) is that it involves a good-sized helping of deus ex machina, in that the character has concealed exactly the capabilities necessary to resolve the plot jam the author has backed themself into, despite nothing in their stated background that would lead the reader to expect that.

Deploying an MS is regarded by a significant number of folks as a plot hack, often indicating authorial laziness or lack of skill. I can't place one right now, but recall having enjoyed a couple of works where the author has subverted the trope to well-done comic effect.

[radiantfracture]

What I want is something that focusses on the blankness of the entity itself, as much as the action of the reader.

I feel like a MS/GS is often kind of an idealized self -- that's what it's criticized for -- someone who has the perfect tragic backstory and is called "not pretty" but yet described in a way that only an extremely beautiful person could be -- that sort of thing.

Whereas the blanktagonist (as I am temporarily calling it) is bland and has even fewer features than the MS/GS. In the video, you talk about Carrie from Sex and the City, and that seems like a great example to me -- you note that she does lots of things, often iddily-dramatic ones, but she doesn't seem to have any specific point of view.