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The Eus Yram
Have you ever heard of the Mary Sue? It is a trope in fiction, especially in fan-fiction, where some character is hyper-competent. As you can find at the linked Wikipedia page, the term was coined in 1973 in a Star Trek fanzine. Some say Rey from The Force Awakens is a Mary Sue. Some say Superman is the equivalent for men, a Marty Stu. Some say that Captain James T. Kirk was also one. Another that has been said to be a Mary Sue is Brie Larson’s Captain Marvel character. That’s all well and good. It’s a great name for the hyper-competent character who easily overcomes all obstacles.
But I have been noticing characters on the other end of the scale. They are hyper-incompetent. Nothing goes right for them. They are usually male. I remember reading a book a few years ago where, by the time the so-called protagonist found out his wife was sleeping with her hippy spiritual guru, I was rooting for the guru. The main character was just that unlikable. That book ended with a possible note of promise, although I’m not even so sure of that. The protagonist was committed to a hospital to dry out from alcohol, or some such, where he met a woman. Instead of taking the promise of better days seriously, I was thinking, “She’s a crazy person. Think of where you’re meeting her excrement-head. This will go no better than your last relationship.”
My wife just watched a short film. I asked her about it when she finished watching. “How was it?”
“It was good, but it was really depressing. It is critically-acclaimed,” she explained.
“Doesn’t ‘critically-acclaimed’ mean depressing as all get out?” I asked.
“I suppose it does,” she agreed.
“Well, what made it depressing?” I asked.
She went on to describe the character and his life in the film where everything went wrong for him. Again, he was one of these hyper-incompetent characters who are hard to like.
What is going on with these characters? Is this something that has been around and I have missed it? Or is it something relatively new? I know about characters like Charlie Brown and Sad Sack in the funny papers. Or good old Sureshot Crackshot, or whatever his name was from the old US Army training films. Charlie Brown is a “lovable loser.” He’s a kid. Kids are not expected to be hyper-competent. They’re expected to learn. And he is lovable. He’s a nice, sane kid surrounded by less nice or sane kids and animals. Sad Sack and Sureshot Crackshot are both very humorous characters. They’re likable and lazy or a likable idiot made to demonstrate what not to do in the army. Beetle Bailey is another of these types. But these characters I am now encountering are not lovable or likable. They’re incompetent losers who should be losing. They’re perfect examples of why I should be allowed to play shoulder golf. (Preferably with the authors of these characters.) Again, have they always been there, and I just missed it? Were there characters like this in Greek tragedies? I don’t like a lot of G.B.Shaw’s characters, but at least they aren’t hyper-incompetents. They are closer to Mary Sues/Marty Stus, which is a good reason not to like them. But have these anti-Mary Sues existed before the last decade or so? They are not anti-heroes, more like anti-protagonists who definitely don’t have the power to even be an antagonist. They are nothings.
And thinking this really is a new thing, I think this phenomenon needs a name of its own. Since it is the opposite of a Mary Sue, I propose calling them Eus Yrams.
What do you think Ricochet? Have you encountered this sort of character, these anti-protagonists, these Eus Yrams? Where have you encountered them? Have they been around for a while? Do they only appear at a civilization’s death? Are you seeing this trend, too?
Published in Culture
You could also do it like you described for smaller engagements. It might be the game they were playing, but I don’t know what the felt would be for in the game I knew. Jutland just used the bare floor.
Nothing too complicated. The felt was blue. The floor was a red pattern.
Mimics the sea.
I found it!
https://boardgamegeek.com/image/4216595/jutland
My version in the late seventies didn’t have miniatures, only cardboard cutouts for ships.
Yeah, there’s that, too. The problem with a Mary Sue isn’t that she’s hyper competent, it’s that it’s annoying. If you want to tell a story about a hyper-competent individual you can do that. The problem with Arahant’s Eus Yram is that the kind of guy who has no redeeming qualities, you wouldn’t even want to associate with, let alone read a novel about his trials and tribulations. Much harder to do without the character being annoying.
Did they though? Were they as over the top as they could have been?
Why do I suspect Seagal wrote this script?
I had Jutland, too. We never could figure out a way to play it. It was like Wooden Ships and Iron Men.
The category of unlikeable losers expanded starting in the 1990s with Married with Children, and every hapless dad/husband ever since.
My wargaming group played Jutland on several occasions, often on the basketball court in my high school gymnasium. That and WS&IM. The trick with WS&IM was to play scenarios with no more than 12 ships on a side. 4-8 was ideal. My first bit of historical research was developing about 20 such scenarios from battles fought between 1776 and 1816.
Can you imagine some Inspector Jacques Clouseau-type as a bad guy? Done properly, that would make a great comedy.
So, is the hero also incompetent, or does he look at the villain with pity?