The most overpowered, overrated, insufferable Mary Sue in all of "Star Trek" is...

[MAGolding]

You seem to completely miss my point. Thought these characters history we see that a vast majority of the time we see them they are represented as superior to the average person in some way (strength, intellect, leadership, etc.) and posses no shortcoming. Your post sounds like defensive, but I was not trying to attack these characters (i love Kirk, and especially love superman) my point is that when you look at it objectively most of the time we see these characters they fit the description of what we call a "Mary Sue". My point is that characters like this have existed since the beginning of story telling and the fact that we now call it a "Mary Sue" and the public gets outraged when a woman portrays these character traits is sexist. We should not have a gendered term to describe a character that we think might be underwritten, hell why do we even need a term for it period.

You seem to have completely missed my point. I am not defending those characters against what I think are your attacks, I am attacking those characters or at least attacking the idea that those characters are perfect enough to be considered Mary Sues when clearly their greatness is marred by some character flaws. Kirk and Picard, for example, may be the greatest and best Starfleet captains of their eras, but neither is a perfect Starfleet captain and neither is perfect enough to be a Mary Sue character.

 

[Tim Thomason]

Tim Thomason said:



James T. Kirk?

See above.

Jean-Luc Picard?

Many people accuse Picard of being something of a pompous ass when talking about the superiority of Humans in his age to 20th century Humans. It seems to me that Picard is only right in statements that 24th century Humans are good and 20th century Humans are bad.

In "Tapestry" Q teaches Picard a lesson that Picard's daring and risk taking is what he needs to succeed as a captain. Even if a lesson taught by Q can be correct, that lesson is only valid about Picard's personal risk taking, not the risks he takes with the lives of those it is his duty to protect. In several episodes Picard neglects to separate the saucer section and leave it behind while investigating possibly dangerous situations, thus recklessly endangering the lives of civilians, including children.

Sometimes Picard's obedience to the Prime Directive seems evil.

Picard is not a perfect Mary Sue character.

Will Riker?

Riker and Pulaski murder unauthorized clones of themselves in "Up The Long Ladder". One murder is enough to make some less than a perfect Mary Sue character.

Riker is not a perfect Mary Sue character.

Gary Mitchell?

Gary didn't ask to be zapped by the galactic barrier. But if his normal human personality caused him to commit murder and attempted murder with his new superpowers, his normal human personality was evil.

I have always thought that I could have handled the superpowers of Charlie Evans and Gary Mitchell without going off the deep end and becoming a menace to society. And I'm certain that there must be some Humans, however few, that could have used those powers for good and not evil. Therefore Gary was not a perfect enough Human when it counted to be a Mary Sue.

Maybe the galactic barrier damaged Gary's brain and removed his ethical inhibitions. How did he behave before he was zapped by the barrier? He seemed to have good qualities and bad qualities. He was a little arrogant and contemptuous of his associates and was a skirt chaser like some proto-Kirk.

Gary Mitchell was not a perfect Mary Sue character.

As for the others, we don't know enough about them.

I was listing all the characters I could think of who were based off of Roddenberry himself, or based off of characters based off of Roddenberry, in a sarcastic reply to a joke comment that suggested all author expies good at their jobs are Mary Sues.

...I was not serious.

 

[Uhura's Song]

I will go with Spock.

Too lazy for all the particulars, but the guy was never wrong about anything (except losing to Kirk at chess a couple times) untl JJ Abrams directed a Trek movie.