DIE MARY-SUE DIE. NOW.

Okay, now Kat. The main topic of discussion for her is why she is an annoying Mary-Sue.

(Feel free to defend her, anyone.)

Reasons why she is a Sue:

- Replaced Sam as Mark's girlfriend.

- Her bad attitude at the beginning of series 2 got Mark interested rather than repulsing him.

- Despite her alleged misery at the move, it lasted just long enough to attract Mark's attention, and she still participated in Conestoga Hills life by joining the basketball team. Contradiction!

- Is never 'wrong'. EVER. (Unless she has wrong information or is mistreated by others, which doesn't count.)

- Heather is a year young for her grade, presumably the second most popular girl at middle school, talented at martial arts, and physically fit. Kat outdoes her as a newspaper editor (getting the carnival story) and in basketball.

- Heather turns into a complete bitch in what appears to be a deliberate contrast with Kat. End character-raping now.

- Finds out the Carnival's secret. In only thirteen episodes.

- Her name's KAT. That's reason enough in itself.

- Bonds with Sparx. Poor innocent Sparx. She doesn't realise the evils of a Mary-Sue.

Edited, thanks to LightningFlash: the 'Hair o' Worms'.

Feel free to supply me with any I've missed, and/or to debate Kat's classification as a Sue, talk about other aspects of her character, discuss which direction her character might take next season, and list ways in which she should painfully die (I rather fancy eaten by Fred, myself). Note, of course, that few of the reasons listed above are enough on their own to make her a Sue, but put together they're damning. Of course any new character halfway through a series is likely to be suspected of Sueism, but Kilobyte was an example of a GOOD way to do this (plot development and filling in the lack-of-competence hole). Kat was not.

Other question: AU. What if Mark's new girlfriend had in fact been another minion of Rick's, another shapeshifter, designed to seduce him? (Actually, that's probably what Kat is, now that I think about it.) What if Sam hadn't had to leave? How should the series have gone, then?[B][/B]

Wormy hair. You forgot the Hair Of Worms.

Hmm, maybe Fear can run her over repeatedly in the Doom Wagon?

Yup, you've pretty much got it covered there guys. The only place in which I'm going to support Kat is that she came in the second series, completely out of the blue, and the writer's obcviously worked (wrongly but hard) at fitting her in to the series in a shorter space of time. perhaps it was Shadia getting a taste for another series and leaving the team unexpectedly. perhaps it was just a really, really bad idea to isnert a whole new love interest.

There's also the lovely racial issue, out does the black girl in comes the white, though I doubt that was intentional.

Gah! *pulls out the sporks*

Yes, I know everyone hates Kat, cus she's a Sue. :P But anyway, watching 'Choices' today I noticed a bit of her personality. (Yes, she has one :o ) Kat seems to want to be accepted, or at least acknowledged by Mark (yeah, that probably ain't too healthy), so when he seems to ignore her all the time, she ends up getting really cranky at him. And overeacting and going bitchy at him and stuff. Now I'm wondering if this is going to cause problems even though she now knows about Ace Lightning. Because even though she knows why Mark's still going to appear to be ignoring her. Poor Mark, he probably thinks that it'll be relatively plain sailing if she knows. ... I don't think so. :unsure:

Ah yes, well noticed H. Yes, she does bitch a bit, I think the point is she doesn't often pay for it - like usual Sues she gets away with it where Canon's would fall. The times Mark or Chuck get mad they pay the price - and Kat never does (unless you count being trapped behind a forcefield with Random and Sparx.)

You know we're probably all a little hard on Kat all the same. She's a canon Sue - yes, can't deny that, but on the other hand, chances are they had to swing up a character fairly quickly after discovering Shadia wasn'ty going to be able to come back, and they tried to do it in a way they thought would be appealing to others, without noticing the true consequences of having a character who is instantly accepted by others, despite her replacing a usual canon and engendering so many "good qualities. They tried to create a decent character to replace Shadia simmons's (perhaps in quite a rush) they just went about it in a few wrong ways, that's all.

And it's probably only people like us who notice Kat's Sueness as a result. Though I'm met one or two people who find her replacement of Sam annoying, because Sam was so obviously well established in the series. Here's hoping that was an accident. I just don't logically see why they would NEED to replace Shadia at that point. Far better to just bring Sam to an udnerstanding of what's been going on the last few months.

And you're also probably right in that it's not going to be plain sialing even IF Kat knows the truth. It didn't work that way when Lois found out about Clark :P Seriously, though, there's still going to be the problem of... achem, lack of quality time

At least she has a bit of a personality (even if it does involve chasing after Mark :huh: ), rather than them having ending up replacing Sam with some totally flat chick just so Mark could have a girl. Personally I think she's just a little insecure or something, and seems to have latched onto Mark (either cus he was sorta nice to her, or she thinks he's a bad boy (though that ones probably an excuse)). Once again, doesn't help that Mark appears to ignore her.

Yes, lack of quality time. :P Somehow, I don't think Kat would like that. Then, of course, there's always the possbility that Kat's going to want to write something, which Mark is definately not going to like... *starts graphing out Mark's relationship problems for next season* :P

Sam didn't have that much personality either I guess, but she was a "nice girl" got bothered and was generally okay, so she was more bearable than Kat is.

The point is that Kat came in and... confused everything. She messed up the system and it annoyed us. Plus she has all the sueish qualities that the writer's gave her to try and make her liked despite her odd arrival. It didn't work too well, IMO. But yes, there are worse Sue's in the world. Kat's not a blank slate.

Yes it would be a nice addition to Kat's personality if she went on trying to write the article anyway - you know she never ASCTUALLY said or promised that she WASN'T going to write it. ;)

Sam...'represented' an aspect of normality for Mark as the Nice Girl. She was pretty, nice, popular, and quite a moral person IMO, and if we'd had lots of her it'd have been boring, but unlike Kat she didn't force herself on the viewer's conscioness and hence was less irritating. Kat, on the other hand, almost gets 'thought of' as a Nice Girl in that all the characters bar Heather and, briefly, Ashley, seem to like her, but she's also got that dreadful attitude. Silly Sue. I agree it was unfortunate fate that Ms. Simmons had to go, but they could have done it a lot better.

Kat still writing the article will be an easy way to get a Mark's Love Life plotline going, considering they probably won't break up as she Knows All, so it's quite likely to happen in future canon...if it EXISTS...

Well we don't know what kind of time allowances they had, for all we know they only found out the actress wasn't coming back say, a week before filming commensed... okay that's exagerrating a little, but you get the idea. Perhaps they were trying to do a "better" character than Sasm and just... got it a little wrong. Most professionals I doubt have ever heard of Mary Sue. And lets fae it, how many people actually pay as much attention as we do?

Haven't we had enough of Mark's lovelife? :unsure: you're right though, it's a theme and distracts from the tension, so if they can do something new with it wityhout overdoing the poor boys relationship problems, then I say that Kat continuing to try and write the article would be a safe bet.

I though Kat was a good Character I'm not sure why but dosen't seem as bad as everyone says she is in fact threw out her first appearance her character evolved allot and will Kat is they only other person (Be sides Chuck that is he was around for the first series) to discovered Ace Lightning in fact Sam never knew anything about him, What everyone else says about her they can say its there own opinions and I'll respect that that of them I just think she was quit right for the second series.

Our concerns for Kat are that she's a Sue. Blatantly and apparantly. her character seemed unnaturally "dropped in" to the story line. It was confusing. it was irritating. I mean, what precisely was the need to change samantha? There was nothing wrong with Sam's role, so why didn't she get an oppertunity to find out the truth (we only asusme from this that her actress simmons was unable to work ful ltime on the second series, so a new "girlfriend" had to be drafted in.)

And that's exactly what kat is - a perfect girlfriend and a plot device. She served this purpose, true, but she honestly wasn't nessecary, or that interesting. And she got away with things other characters didn't, which was an irregularity.

It's the fact that she DID discover the truth about Ace that is so annoying - thirteen episodes. When smarter characters such as heather or even Samantha never found out the truth. Why was it that Kat worked it all out? And why didn't she suffer the consequences of her actions - classic Sue.

She probably isn't worth getting worked up about, and she's not the WORST character I've ever seen, true, but she's quite clearly an unadulterated and not perfectly put plot device.

While Kat probably is defined as a Sue, she doesn't bother me particularity. I don't find myself wanting to claw her out of the screen everytime I see her. (Although, I sometimes want to claw Lady Illusion out of the screen, but at the same time I'm still thinking she's a great character. )

At least with the Sam stuff they managed to tie it up. And rewatching some of the eps, some of Kat's sueish-ness can actually be explained... somewhat. :)

And of course, if one is dumped behind a forcefield with those from another dimension/video game... you'd find out pretty quick.

BTW, welcome to the board LightningTyranno, hope you'll stick around. :D No one will spork you for having a diff opinion, maybe just disagree. But that's all fun. :D

Down with the Kat! My friend dislikes her too and deliberately had Kilobyte capture her in one of his stories and transformed her into an evil cat creature! :P

Ooo... yes, Kilobyte mutating humans sounds like a very interesting idea. :ph43r:

Is she going to try eat Mark or anything? :P

She was gonna spy on him and later destroy him with her claws.

Great.

And of course, if one is dumped behind a forcefield with those from another dimension/video game... you'd find out pretty quick.


Yeah, so why didn't Sam find out? or Heather? Far more plausible, right?

Yummy. :P

And, yeah, I suppose Sam or Heather would've been more plausible, but Sam is off somewhere else, and I have a feeling Heather would blab it... so I guess they chose Kat...

And I meant that from a 'well, she just happened to be the one dumped behind the forcefield' as being right there behind the forcefield she'd have to be really, really stupid not to realise. :P As opposed to writers using their power to chose who gets dumped there... but really, they are the ones in control. :ph43r:

And she doesn't seem that freaked out when she sees the CGI characters, especially when she's trapped in a forcefield with a cyborg and a red-headed hothead.

She looked pretty freaked at first. I suppose it was a good thing that Random decided to knock himself out. :D Sparx, on the other hand, is probalby not so scary when she's trapped behind a forcefield and therefore is greatly impeded from wanting to go out and kick any bad-guy-butt she can find.

Doesn't seem freaked? She was screaming her head off. Wel, close to that.

Thing is, she wouldn't have been in that situation if she'd stayed away from the carnival. She broke the rules, but at least she didn't entirely get away with it as Sues usually would.

It's just irkesome, it really is, that perfectly good characters should be pushed aside in order to insert one whom they have quite clearly TRIED to mode as the perfect american teenage girl.

She doesn't come across as perfect to me. She's flippin insecure for one. And, yeah, I know Mark runs off all the time and that would be annoying, but she sometimes gets upset about it for the silliest of reasons. eg. Chuck crashes into trashcans. Mark: gotta go. Kat: :angry:

The only example I can think of at the moment is the being really good at basketball thing. But then, if she's interested in doing well in basketball, and she's orginally from a big place, then statistally, she's going to have to be fairly good to be at or near the top, simply because from the amount of people there are going to be more that are good at it.

And she seems a bit smug when Heather is given the red card in basketball (well, I don't know if they give red cards in basketball? I'm not good with sports! :P ) Look at the way she gets up and walks into the court, with that cheesy smirk on her face. She has got a major rivalry with Heather!

And it's Heather who comes off by far the worse for that--Kat's the 'good girl' and Heather's not. She thoroughly outclasses our aggressive overachiever, beating her in basketball and getting the best story for the paper. This treatment of a previously canon character is one of the hallmarks of the Mary-Sue--think about the Harry Potter American transfer student who beats up Draco, for example.

Kat honestly doesn't bother me. Only thing I can remember her outclassing Heather in is the basketball... she can be rather catty half the time, she comes off as far from perfect to me.

Really? She comes off as 'intended to be perfect' to me--she's right about the Carnival, Mark sympathises with her wangstiness, she' s clearly meant to be the one we're cheering for in her problems with Heather, Ashley gets to like her, she's friends with Sparx and Sam. It's great you like her, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have too many Sueish qualities.

She and half a dozen other people see and hear a zombie walk past. Gee, it's not that much of a stretch to figure out that 'something weird is going on at the carnival.' She has no idea what's really going on until she gets caught by the rat and chucked behind a forcefield. Mark doesn't sypathise, he just understands... and then spends the rest of his time practically ignoring her (for obvious reasons, she doesn't pick the best times to talk to him). If she has a suish warp going on, then Mark is most definately immune, you get the impression she could throw a brick at his head and it'd just bounce off. Problems with Heather? So... Heather appears to be bitchy to everyone... she was in season one. Mark was just not so manipulatable as Brett... Brett got stuck with her for awhile. Only time I can remember Heather being particularily horrible was at basketball (I get the impression Heather can't really play basketball anyway), and they can both be pretty bitchy when they're ready. At least they seemed to get on more later... simply because I would think that they both realised the other wouldn't get all mousey. I can't remember Ashley getting all 'yay Kat!' at all. Yeah, Sam likes her... whoopee. Sparx talks to her, explains stuff (she'd have to, Kat was probably freaking big time)... and then Kat starts poking... I hardly see Sparx falling over herself to be friendly with Kat.

No, she's probably not the best character, and it would've been better if Sam stayed. I think we can safely assume that Sam had other stuff to do. Because I really can't see them wanting to change that stuff just so they can bring in super!Kat. I just think they didn't do a terrible job. And I hardly see the point in getting worked up everytime the 'canon sue' comes on screen. Or do they need to explain to all the little kiddies that 'yes, Kat is being a bit of a bum right now'? I think her periodic whinging brings that across well enough.

Then, I'd probably only be worried if she got superpowers, and I can't see that happening.

Well, it was all of two seasons and Sam and the other canon characters didn't get a clue--it'd have been far more convincing to have Heather (after three seasons of odd events) make deductions, and maybe even have sent Kat there as a paper thing. Kat appeared so much smarter than every other canon character who hadn't 'got it' that it makes her Sueish, even in the context of the show it was fairly inconsistent that nobody realised what was going on. (But there's the 'selective blindness' theory--that we as humans see only what we expect to see--and coincidence and general rationalisations.)

Mark, quite plainly, falls for her--remember the human interactions in 'Choices'? Yes, it does take him some time (and her instant obsession with the central character is contrived in itself) due to his relationship with Sam and his other concerns, but it's obvious enough he is attached to her from the start.

As to Heather, previous canon has strongly suggested she's an overachiever--she lists long accounts of extracurricular activity to Mark, external canon says she's a year young for her grade, she's very obviously aggressive and competitive. Yes, basketball isn't a skill she shows in first season, but to have a new character come in and completely trump a canonically athletic and overachieving character in a sport is a sign of Mary-Suesim. (Not conclusive in itself, but compounded by the other Sue-signs that Kat displays.)

Kat's 'whinging' either attracts Mark's attention or is seen as justifiable (ie. complaining about Mark's behaviour or zombies or so on). Every 'good' character either likes her upon the first meeting or ends up liking her (in Ashley's case, and it wasn't that Ashley disliked her for any justifiable reason). Sparx doesn't just inform her, she discusses personal details like the status of romantic relationships.

Thank Zoar she hasn't got superpowers, but she crosses my line of Mary-Suesim enough to provoke my need to vent. Your personal feelings about the character aren't the same as mine, but I believe we've covered all her Sueisms as canon fact and the personal liking of them is a different matter.

Personally, I think it was unneccessary to introduce Kat into the show at all. Her part could have easily been played by another established character (such as Heather).

I haven't said Kat is not a Sue. Nor have I said I like her. I simply do not see the reason to put everything down to being a sue. Many of the things she does do have some sort of reason, but yes, she does set off Sue flags for me sometimes. However the times she does this... usually Mark ends up running off, and for all the suish warping she might have done... it doens't work on him. When I see it I end up laughing at her, not going 'gee, nice way to mess up the series, Kat.'

So, let's see reasons...

1)Kat likes Mark: first he actually doesn't go cranky at her for being bitchy. He seems to realise why shes doing it, then she sees him being a 'bad boy'... now she's at least interested in him somewhat.

2)Mark starts liking Kat: he hardly falls head over heels in the first place. He only realises she likes him at the end of the basketball game, when she's looking at him. And as far as I could tell at that point he was thinking: 'oh crap, she likes me, oh crap, I'm going to be upsetting some other girl'. I don't see any major drooling over her until the sixth episode or something.

3) Kat is better than Heather at basketball: Heather does not appear to be good at basketball. She drops it, has it taken off her by another player, and I think she got called up for a travel or something. Yes, she is good at martial arts season one... but I don't see how one sport she plays where she is good at it, automatically means she can play basketball... she seemed pretty strong (she nearly snapped Mark's arm) and this is consistant in season two (the ref was lucky he ducked). Also Kat's basketball skills appears to be consisitant. We know Kat is good at basketball, it didn't just come out of nowhere and dissappear. Yeah, it made Mark notice her, didn't make him go suddenly swoony over her, and at least its consistant.

4) Ashley never started liking her. She lets her sit next to her... but she was more p'd off with Mark at the time. So Kat had probalby dropped on her 'I'm annoyed at you' list. And she couldn't have liked her that much if she walked off without even talking to her.

5) She finds out. And its about time someone did. Were we going to wait around for them to go through the whole thing again? So they had to change the actor... which was annoying, it would've been better if Sam had stayed. But if they do a next season, at least we'll have a different 'how Mark is dealing with his girlfriend/s' dynamic. I hardly think you can put down her finding out to her intelligence (even suish intelligence), she was just snoopy. Duff warned her to stay away, but she didn't, because she was snoopy. So, she got busted by the Rat and dumped in a forcefield.

6)Talks to Sparx: We'll have to see if they go all best-friendy next season. Ain't much evidence that they will. Anyway, if some flouncy teenager asks you if your together with your housemate, and you're kindof stuck with them, and the topic annoys you already, what are you going to say?

So... yeah... she has sue moments... the ones I'm seeing have me laughing at her... would've been better (much better) if Sam had stayed. But I'm not going to let her get me cranky everytime I see her (much better to laugh at her, and covert that cuff bracelet she has... <_< ). So, I guess 'Kat is better at basketball than Heather' might be a fact... that this neccessarily means that Heather was purposefully made inconsistantly crappy just to make Kat look good, isn't.

Hmm... yeah, someone who was already there may have been better. I'm not sure about Heather but, I think the last few eps of first season... they didn't seem to fit together. I do remember her manipulating Mark into a date. "I'll make it up to you by letting you take me on a date. I'm busy Friday and Saturday morning... what about (whatever time it was)." And then she got cranky at Mark when he said he was busy then. :P Perhaps they needed more extablished female characters. ;)

1) The bitchiness both dissolves almost instantly and seems to be intended to put the audience on-side with her rather than being an actual flaw in character. She instantly gets the attention of the main character, even if it does take a few episodes for that attention to go from friendship into more.

2) Mark likes Kat personally throughout the series, from her bitchy (yet so Sueishly attention-grabbing) appearance onwards. His reaction to her is hardly 'oh crap', though his reaction to her combined with his extracurricular activities is.

3) Technically it did come out of nowhere in that Kat herself did. It's shown onscreen as a skill outdoing every other player and winning a game, contrasting with a canonically sporty character. It's not reused more than once iirc, so it can hardly be said to be consistent and comes across more as another cheap plot device for getting attention and trumping existing canon characters. Certainly there was no prior indication that Heather was good at basketball, but the impact of NewCharacter besting OldCharacter in something in an area in which OldCharacter should probably be good at is very Sueish.

4) Ashley is 'in the wrong' for her dislike of Kat and does end up getting to like her better; this hardly shows Kat as flawed--the opposite, actually, as it makes Kat look good/victimised for putting up with the kid.

5) Yes, it wasn't their fault that they had to change actors, and certainly something had to happen, but the way they utilised Kat for that purpose was extremely Sueish. Perhaps greater utilisation of Heather would have helped, or maybe a successful kidnapping of Kat of the sort of attack that didn't come off in Ep 10 to Sam. The external actor circumstances are a reason rather than an excuse.

6) They're chatting like best buddies. Yes, Sparx is a nice enough person and it was logical enough that they'd chat in those circumstances, but it's still another Sue-sign: instant, entrenched friendship (against, say, Mark and Sparx' first meeting, or even Mark and Ace's).

I don't think Mark/Heather would have really worked as a pairing--she's too forceful for him even in first series--but they could have had her, say, send the New Girlfriend on the investigative trip to the carnival, or even have Heather find out about the CGIs in an antagonistic way. For example, in our fourth season we have her chatting to LI--Heather being (somewhat) sympathetic to the evils might've also provoked more plot development. And I admit it was necessary that one of the Mark's Girlfriend characters would have found out (does Mark constantly need a love interest anyway? Really?), but they certainly could have done a better job of introducing a character like Kat. Perhaps even Mark/CGI-like-Allison-Lightning would have been interesting.

1) The bitchyness continues through-out the series, though she does seem to improve. It is he bitchyness that attracts Mark's attention, but his response is 'what's your problem?'

2) Mark is friendly towards her initially as one would be towards a new person. Things progress, and him falling over himself for her is hardly started right from the beginning. And I said 'o crap a girl who likes me, am I going to have to deal with this all over again?' rather than 'o crap, a fangirl, get away'. This is, of course, from one look he gives her, so you can't really be sure what he's thinking, but I got the impression that he noticed her reaction to him, and while not freaking out about it, he didn't seem all that... open to it.

3) Well, of course she did. And yeah, this is a bit of suishness. And while she's good, I still remember her getting the ball taken off of her a few times. And, yes, they don't have anymore basketball games, but Kat shoots a ball through Mark's hope from, like, the street. That's a canon fact. Kat is good at basketball. And not much else. Heather, we know is good at martial arts... er... I think that's all we've been shown. And she accidently kicked Mark... lack of co-ordination... she dropped the basketball. Well, at least it gives Mark some reason to notice her other than something more silly.

4) I still have not seen Ashley start liking Kat... and I found this funny. Kat: enters, with suish bounce and lines. Ashley: *is grumpy*

5)Well, they couldn't really use Heather, at least they made some sort of an effort to not make Kat a total Sue. And, yes, it's a reason. An excuse would be: "Well, Sam's gone, so we're perfectly alright to bring in some flouncy teenager that'll steal Mark's heart, and we'll make her perfect." As opposed to: "Well, we have to bring some new girl in for Mark, and we have to get some sort of something going within... eep 13 episodes." They seem to have made some sort of effort, even if they did cut a few corners with suish noticeing. I'd be hoping that next season they try and develop her some more. (Considering she won't be chasing after Mark and whatever he's doing half the time.) It's not like they have a completely unworkable sueish package of totally unfitting pieces to work with. If they explained her a bit more, and posibly had Ace or someone get up her for whinging ( :lol: teehee) she'd probably fit a bit better.

6) Kat is asking Sparx stuff like she's her best buddy. Sparx hardly is happily engrossed in conversation with her.... and I don't see how you can tell that its an 'instant, entrenched friendship' from Sparx's two lines. Definately not instant, Sparx seemed to be semi-teasing her when she first got there. They're stuck in a forceshield and have obviously been there for some time, when Kat's flouncy teenage question comes in, I see no reason why they might not be talking... and Sparx hardly replies flouncily.

No, it wouldn't, and I think that had been established by end of first season (purposefully, Mark was supposed to have Sam, dammit <_< ). I have to say, it could be rather worriesome if Heather found out... even if she wasn't quite sure about blabbing it out, she'd sure as hell make Mark think she was. Hopefully next season Kat will give him a bit of trouble with that... and hopefully they'll point out she's being a bum. It would be interesting for Mark to just ignore girls for a few eps (damn hormones). I would like to maybe see something where he's freaking about the evils threatening his family or something (family love being so much more manipulatable than flingy teen romance ;) ) Mmm... CGI/human romance... that would be rather interesting (and if Kat was a CGI, she'd probably have more room for programmed sueism, so at least there'd be a canon reason)... and Chuck/Sparx fluff was cute too. :D

So, yeah, Kat's a sue, happy? :P I just think that it at least looks like they've made some sort of an effort to make her a half -decent character (even if they cut a few corners), which hopefully a new season might be able to expand and explain, somewhat.

Also I think everyone should note that everyone's charcter had evolved a bit since Season 1 Like Mark Chuck even Ashely had changed since last I saw her even Sam had evolved too everyone ahd evolved so much, But you know i think everyone forget about choices when Sam and Kat had a talk Sam sated that she missed her chance with Mark and was telling Kat not to miss her chance with him. It makes seince dosen't it?

Yes, that kind of makes sense, but it feels like a very FORCED kind of sense to me. It would’ve made so much MORE sense to have the other cano ncharacters developing towards realisation of the truth rather than just sticking in a whole new character.

If the characters had spent such time developing and “improving” why was there any need to stick a whole new character in at the start of a new series? Kat didn’t have the time to improve and develop that the others did – and maybe even show a few faults – and it seems that the writers were aware of this.

The way I think it works, was, that the writers realised they couldn’t get the same cast to return full time to produce a second series and, realising they needed a new character, they came up with Kat. Then they went out of their way to make Kat the kind of character they thought would appeal to the viewers. The problem is, Imo, they did this the wrong way. They had her step in as someone who “got away with” things like being bitchy and nosy - things other characters didn’t face without consequences. They gave her a spicy attitude and had her seemingly relieved of the consequences of her actions (with exception of that last scene when she ended up caught by the bad guys.) Without realising that certain (not all) fans might jump on these as being very mary sue like qalities. Kat possesses what fic writers like to all "the aura of smooth" - the universe bended in order to fit her into it's continuancy, and this bending of the canon was distinctively obvious. If it hadn;t been so bliindingly in-your-face, I mightn't have minded her so much. I just didn't see how she was nessecary.

Hey, either I believe this, or I believe that the guys who made this show willingly made a VERY Mary Sue-esque character. Admittedly I’m biased against Kat. I never liked her, I can see that she’s a character and therefore her inconsistencies are the writer’s fault, not hers, but while I’ll use her in, say, fanfic as is appropriate, and she DOES fulfil her "part", I don’t enjoy seeing her on screen.

At least they wrapped up the Sam stuff. Kat aside, it wrapped up the Mark/Sam thing, so at least we can believe Mark would fall for someone else... even if it was Kat.

I think the problem is they didn't have anyone else who they could pull up who was already there (needed one or two more established female characters ;) ). A better idea, perhaps, might have been to have someone who while not new to Conestoga, hasn't been seen yet (they did just shift into highschool). Another problem was they had to get something going within the thirteen eps, so cut corners with stuff like basketball getting her noticed. (At least she's only uber!good at one thing. I would be more bothered if she kept doing cool things randomly and only once.)

What I'm hoping is that if there's a next season, they'll take the time to flesh her out a bit (and maybe have her get told off for being bitchy). The base they have isn't so suish that any attempt to make her a better character would fall apart as they tried to delve into her character and found... nothing, or something that totally doesn't fit together. I'd also like to see her having some semblance of a normal conversation with Mark, we need some reasons why they like each other, and some idea of perhaps what Kat likes and likes doing (cus so far most of what she's done seems to revolve around Mark). I find her more flat than anything.

But I still laugh everytime she goes all bouncy at Mark and he runs off. :P

Kat was just another character to me, I din't like her but I didn't hate her.
I guess the fact Kat put together the whole carnival thing with way less clues than Sam did really bugged me. Then I was Mark/Sam all the way.

Yes. And while Sam and LI have very different personalities, they did look somewhat similar (LI's skin is pale green and the elf ears are from a Western concept, but she was codedly Other in an analogy to Sam's non-white ancestry; however, there's likely greater prejudice against 'freaks' in the 6D than towards Sam in the Northern town where she's the most popular girl in the school). Of course, in second series with further discussion on the "it's just a game" theory with Kilobyte it no longer really suited the writers' purpose to have too great a coincidence of Ace and LI and Mark and Sam pairing up; also, Heather became a lot nastier than Sparx has ever been permitted to be. However, I don't like that they replaced Sam with a white girl; it does seem racist in terms of subtext, though no doubt the writers didn't actually have that intention.

Kat's putting it all together in one season when no other character did the same in three was another of her Sueish qualities. All right if it had been isolated, perhaps, but not when combined with the girlfriend-replacement and Mark-attention and personality-inconsistency and so on. There were better ways to do it; perhaps she could have been sent there by Heather's initiative, or kidnapped, or gone to work there like Sam. While, like Kat, Sam pretty much fell for Mark without any shown reason other than his baby face and strange absences, in terms of her other qualities she was a more 'ordinary' Nice Girl (with that speech about wanting to see an alien that I'd really like someone to write down for me) that we could like as long as she wasn't too often on screen (she wasn't that deep a character; if she'd been given the amount of screentime Kat had I suspect she'd have grown very tedious). Not that I really think Mark and Sam should--or realistically would--have lasted the rest of their lives and had ten children all with Sueish names, but she made a good Girlfriend Character while the show lasted. It's a shame she was removed from the scene.

Sarah makes many good points here (and she knows we're both peeved that they went and messed up the Humans being alternate verisons of the ace charaxcters theory by switching Sam for Kat. Can YOU draw Kat-Li comparisons? I sure hope not :P)

Vaguely OT When it comes to canon sues, they have to be really distinct for them to stand out to me. Distinct is defined by charaxcters such as Kat or Nausicaa (share the pain, people... Miyazaki rocks, but I'm not mad about some of his female leads as they can be rediculously sueish, though none as bad as nausicaa, and his stories are still good *defends Miyazaki to her final breath)

That said, he IS a feminist, they say that the women's bathrooms at studio ghibli are better than the mens :P)

Kat doesn't pass as that. She really comes across as a character pushed into the role uenspectedly. perhaps the actress playing Sam had to leave suddenly.