Uhura's Song-And the Ultimate Mary Sue

[sonak]

Yes, this is an OLD Star Trek book. Nevertheless, I recently finished reading it, and what amazed me was that the book has one of the most definitive and literal examples of a Mary Sue that I've ever seen.


Seriously, it features Dr. Evan Wilson, a brilliant doctor who becomes the indispensable character, is crucial to the resolution of key plot elements, teaches all the regular Trek characters a lesson or two, matches wits with Mr. Spock, is beloved by all, etc.

To top it off(spoiler) she turns out to be some kind of nymph or elf or mythological trickster or something who just impersonates various Starfleet personnel to perform heroic feats at various times.


I mean, this couldn't have been more of a textbook example on how to write a Mary Sue character had that actually BEEN the author's intention, or had that been the mandated assignment from Pocket Books.

"Ms. Kagan, please write a Star Trek novel with an over the top Mary Sue character who overshadows the regular cast of Star Trek characters. Make her so flawless that there'll be no doubt of your intentions."


I'm pretty sure the concept of the Mary Sue had already been out there and criticized in Trek fan fiction by this point(the book is from '85 I think), so it just amazed me that a character like this would be in a professional Trek book.


As for the rest of the book, it's OK, if pretty slow and over long. The depiction of the cat-people culture is pretty detailed and well done.

Any folks here read this book?

 

[JD]

Hmmm, I guess this one must have been written before Richard Arnold was put in charge of the tie ins.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Yes, this is an OLD Star Trek book. Nevertheless, I recently finished reading it, and what amazed me was that the book has one of the most definitive and literal examples of a Mary Sue that I've ever seen.

Well, according to the late Janet Kagan, the Evan character is loosely based on Kagan's own mother (I had guessed it seemed based on Bjo Trimble, due to the perky personality, short stature and freckles), so it's not a true "Mary Sue" in that Evan is not the projection of the author herself into the narrative.

"Ms. Kagan, please write a Star Trek novel with an over the top Mary Sue character who overshadows the regular cast of Star Trek characters. Make her so flawless that there'll be no doubt of your intentions."

The talented Ms Kagan died a few years ago. I did her obit for the ST Magazine.

so it just amazed me that a character like this would be in a professional Trek book.

Evan is a great and funny character! And it's a great SF novel, and an excellent First Contact story and ST book.

Any folks here read this book?

It always scores well in popularity polls of the earlier titles.

For an actual "Mary Sue" novel, try Piper in "Dreadnought!" or "Battlestations! by Diane Carey. Carey and her (Vulcan) husband, Greg Brodeur, were even painted in character by Boris Vallejo for the covers.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

While she is kind of a Mary Sue, if a book is generally well-written, I don't find myself bothered by those sorts of things to anywhere near the same degree.

It also helps that Uhura's Song is a childhood favorite of mine. To read about a character like that as a child is not the same as seeing someone like that as an adult, so I'm sure I'm also deeply sentimental and still able to remember how to read the book as a "child" as well as an adult.

(A rather ironic theme to bring up in light of other themes in this book... )

 

[Therin of Andor]

Hmmm, I guess this one must have been written before Richard Arnold was put in charge of the tie ins.

I seem to recall RA's first (volunteer) influences were on the novelization of ST IV (Vonda McIntyre seemingly stops adding any new material after the scene with the trash collectors in 20th century San Francisco - they are wannabe LA screenwriters testing out banal dialogue, ie. the lines they actually say in the movie). After the wonderfully rich new material she added to ST II and III's novelizations, ST IV was a big let-down.

In addition to taking people on "executive tours" of Paramount Pictures, RA often helped out Susan Sackett with licensing queries made of the ST Office. Susan vetted all the Bantam novel manuscripts, and presumably all the early Pocket stuff for Gene Roddenberry. RA's job as "Star Trek Archivist" came after the huge cash rush of ST IV's incredible success. I seem to recall McIntyre then hit lots of problems with parts of "Enterprise: The First Adventure", part of the 20th anniversary celebrations. According to the cover, this was a ST novel GR boasted about reading, but McIntyre sounds like she had a very tricky time with it in "Voyages of Imagination".

 

[Therin of Andor]

To read about a character like that as a child is not the same as seeing someone like that as an adult

Sure it can be. I was 27 when it came out - and loved it - and had met Bjo Trimble only two years earlier. I was totally convinced I'd guessed the Evan template used in the novel. I knew the concept of "Mary Sue" fanfic, but never really imagined Evan as a true Mary Sue.

 

[Christopher]

I can see why Evan Wilson might appear to be a Mary Sue, but I disagree that she actually is one. Because a Mary Sue isn't just a dominant, impressive character universally admired by the rest of the cast. A Mary Sue is a character who is alleged to be super-impressive and worthy of admiration... but actually is not. It's a character who is adored by the other characters for no legitimate reason, whose wonderfulness is asserted but not actually demonstrated. It's someone that the author lionizes but the audience has no reason to care about.

To me, Evan Wilson isn't a true Mary Sue because she actually is just as fun and fascinating a character as she's supposed to be. Yes, she steals the spotlight for much of the book, but she earns it. She's a delightfully written, intriguingly complex character who challenges the core cast in thought-provoking ways, and I don't see anything wrong with telling a Star Trek story that revolves around a fascinating guest star. Heck, that was the format of Wagon Train, the show that Roddenberry used as his model for pitching ST to executives: there was a continuing cast, but each episode revolved around a featured guest star. And ST has had its share of guest stars who've stolen the show, from Harry Mudd to Kor to Gary Seven to Q to Lwaxana Troi to Rom to Weyoun to... well, really, most of the supporting cast of DS9. There's nothing wrong with building a story around the guest star if the guest star is worthy of the attention. I loved reading about Evan Wilson and I would've loved to see her return.

There are definitely other characters in Trek novels past who are more deserving of the "ultimate Mary Sue" apellation. My votes go to Elizabeth Schaeffer in Death's Angel and Sola Thane in Triangle. They're both characters who were portrayed as superhumanly capable, better at everything that Kirk, Spock, and McCoy combined, and winning the love of at least two of the three. That's classic, blatant Mary Sue-ism. Schaeffer has the added problem of being inconsistently written -- she's said to be incredibly tough and lethal, but she lets Kirk talk down to her like an infant (which is supposed to be "romantic" but is just demeaning to both of them).

Evan Wilson wasn't like that. She didn't outshine the lead characters so much as challenge them to raise their own game. She was a vehicle for exploring how the main characters thought and felt and reacted to the unexpected. So her relationship with the regulars was additive rather than subtractive; even when the story was about her, it was still about the main cast. And that's part of what distinguishes a legitimate featured guest from a Mary Sue.

 

[sonak]

Yeah, I forgot about Sola Thane, mostly because I find Marshak and Culbreath's books to be, well, hard to wade through, despite some interesting ideas.

I've never heard that second part of the definition of a Mary Sue though, that they're supposed to be undeserving of the adoration they receive. Is that a true part of the definition or just your addition to it?


I've just read it as a character who's not part of a regular cast, who comes in, is basically an expert at all things, outshines the regulars, and is usually a stand-in for the author, although I thought even that last part isn't strictly necessary.


Using "undeserving" as a criteria, then even Wes Crusher, another classic Mary Sue(Marty Stu) wouldn't be one, because he really is a genius worthy of the praise he gets.

 

[Idran]

Yeah, I forgot about Sola Thane, mostly because I find Marshak and Culbreath's books to be, well, hard to wade through, despite some interesting ideas.

I've never heard that second part of the definition of a Mary Sue though, that they're supposed to be undeserving of the adoration they receive. Is that a true part of the definition or just your addition to it?


I've just read it as a character who's not part of a regular cast, who comes in, is basically an expert at all things, outshines the regulars, and is usually a stand-in for the author, although I thought even that last part isn't strictly necessary.

Nope, it's a true part. In fact, the term Mary Sue comes from a character in a Trek fic from the early 70s made to parody all those aspects, including the undeserved adoration, because they were especially prevalent in the poorer fic at the time; Lieutenant Mary Sue, the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Etymology

 

[sonak]

Yeah, I forgot about Sola Thane, mostly because I find Marshak and Culbreath's books to be, well, hard to wade through, despite some interesting ideas.

I've never heard that second part of the definition of a Mary Sue though, that they're supposed to be undeserving of the adoration they receive. Is that a true part of the definition or just your addition to it?


I've just read it as a character who's not part of a regular cast, who comes in, is basically an expert at all things, outshines the regulars, and is usually a stand-in for the author, although I thought even that last part isn't strictly necessary.

Nope, it's a true part. In fact, the term Mary Sue comes from a character in a Trek fic from the early 70s made to parody all those aspects, including the undeserved adoration, because they were especially prevalent in the poorer fic at the time; Lieutenant Mary Sue, the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Etymology

er, yeah, I knew that part. But it says the character DOES have amazing/unrealistic abilities, not that they're undeserving of the adoration.

By that standard, Evan Wilson, who's shown to be awesome at just about everything, does qualify as a Mary Sue.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Another page probably worth a read is the one at TV Tropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Using "undeserving" as a criteria, then even Wes Crusher, another classic Mary Sue(Marty Stu) wouldn't be one, because he really is a genius worthy of the praise he gets.

Well, Wesley is supposedly not "undeserving" at all, but the writers didn't quite manage to sell how "deserving" he was. Hence the fan resentment.

But he does fit the criteria in another way: by being the projection of a more-perfect-than-perfect version of the young Gene Wesley Roddenberry himself into the ongoing narrative.

 

[Brikar99]

Another page probably worth a read is the one at TV Tropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MarySue.

Links to TV Tropes are like internet landmines. So, so many hours wasted every time they're posted!

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Ha, ha! Well, the time is certainly spent.

 

[Idran]

Yeah, I forgot about Sola Thane, mostly because I find Marshak and Culbreath's books to be, well, hard to wade through, despite some interesting ideas.

I've never heard that second part of the definition of a Mary Sue though, that they're supposed to be undeserving of the adoration they receive. Is that a true part of the definition or just your addition to it?


I've just read it as a character who's not part of a regular cast, who comes in, is basically an expert at all things, outshines the regulars, and is usually a stand-in for the author, although I thought even that last part isn't strictly necessary.

Nope, it's a true part. In fact, the term Mary Sue comes from a character in a Trek fic from the early 70s made to parody all those aspects, including the undeserved adoration, because they were especially prevalent in the poorer fic at the time; Lieutenant Mary Sue, the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Etymology

er, yeah, I knew that part. But it says the character DOES have amazing/unrealistic abilities, not that they're undeserving of the adoration.

By that standard, Evan Wilson, who's shown to be awesome at just about everything, does qualify as a Mary Sue.

Yeah, I was wary about linking that because it seems to go against the claim. And I've spent the last few minutes now trying to write up a defense, but I've gotten myself all tangled up in how I understand the definition, and now I'm not sure about if I do agree on Christopher's claim about the definition or not. Because the more I think about it, the more I'd say that the key facet of a Mary Sue isn't that their abilities aren't demonstrated - they usually are, if sometimes in lazy ways like just having them one-up a canon character at that character's specialty - but that the character doesn't seem to have any flaws, no fields in which they aren't amazing.

 

[Christopher]

I've never heard that second part of the definition of a Mary Sue though, that they're supposed to be undeserving of the adoration they receive. Is that a true part of the definition or just your addition to it?

It's part of the original definition of a term whose meaning has been so thoroughly generalized and reinterpreted and co-opted in subsequent decades that its original usage has been obscured. "Mary Sue" has become shorthand for "a character I don't like," and the definitions tend to be tailored to suit individual people's dislikes.

And the point is not that they're supposed to be undeserving of the adoration they receive. On the contrary -- they're intended by the writer to be deserving of adoration, but the reader can find nothing worthy about them. Their wonderfulness is what TV Tropes calls an Informed Ability -- something the writer asserts is true but fails to demonstrate. For instance, if the character is said to be a tactical genius but makes incredibly stupid blunders in action, or is said to be a great comedian but never says anything remotely funny, or is supposed to be intensely magnetic and loved by everyone but is totally boring to read about.

So basically Mary Sue-ishness is about the writer's inability to deliver on a character's promise. The writer wants the character to be wonderful and loved but is unable to portray the character in a way that evokes that response from the audience. Which is usually because the character is a pure wish-fulfillment exercise for the author. Our own personal obsessions and fascinations can be hard to convey to others, because we often take too much for granted and forget to sell it to the reader, or because our attachments are just too idiosyncratic.

 

[sonak]

Well then, I guess Dr. Wilson wouldn't be in the sense that she does demonstrate her superior abilities at every thing, and from what I can tell of the reception of the character, she wasn't disliked by fans.

But still-she's a stand in for someone close to the author, she really does seem to be amazing at everything, she steals the show from as well as dazzles the main characters, she even turns out to be some kind of magical being or something at the end!

I just kept thinking as I read this book that it seemed like she was designed as a way to demonstrate what a stereotypical Mary Sue character is.

(I've read "Dreadnought," but not "Battlestations," but I read it so long ago that I don't really remember it and wouldn't have recognized a Mary Sue at the age I read it anyway)

 

[Christopher]

^I can see the merits in saying that Evan Wilson is a Mary Sue by some definitions. But if so, she's proof that no trope is universally bad. Even a trope that's usually handled badly, like a Mary Sue, can be handled well. (Although since "Mary Sue" was coined as a term of disapproval, it seems contradictory to me to use the label for a character who works well.)

And no, I don't think she was designed to be a Mary Sue, since the book was written early enough that I don't think it would've been that meta. It might be better to say that Mary Sues were an extreme example of a type of character trope that existed in ST fan and pro fiction and found expression in books like Uhura's Song.

And "magical being?" No. Evan was painted as a trickster figure in the tradition of the mythic archetype that played a role in the story, but a strictly human example of a trickster. She was akin to the real-life Frank Abagnale, the basis for Leonardo di Caprio's character in the film Catch Me if You Can -- a con artist who was successful at assuming false identities and performing effectively in a variety of jobs despite having forged qualifications for them.


As for Piper in Dreadnought!/Battlestations!, I question whether she's strictly a Mary Sue either. Those books were sort of a prototypical attempt at the sort of thing that was later done with New Frontier, SCE, etc. -- an effort to tell a story set in the Trek universe but focusing on a different set of characters from the main cast. In another sense, it was a prototype of TNG's "Lower Decks," Babylon 5's "The View from the Gallery," or Stargate SG-1's "The Other Guys" -- or the play Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead -- in that it shifted its viewpoint from the familiar main characters to the supernumeraries in the background. So instead of just having one character who "stole" the spotlight, the spotlight was shifted wholesale to focus on a whole new core cast that was intended as sort of a junior parallel to the core cast -- Piper:Kirk, Sarda:Spock, Merete:Bones, Scanner:Scotty.

And even though the viewpoint was on that new cast of characters, it was still Kirk and his crew who were the driving force in events. Piper and her bunch were dragged into what was happening, but they were several steps behind Kirk and Spock at every stage, constantly screwing up and needing to be rescued, needing to learn from the more experienced officers. Again, it wasn't about overshadowing the main cast, but about looking at them from a fresh perspective, showing how impressive they looked from the perspective of the ship's junior personnel.

So I don't think Piper counts as a Mary Sue in Dreadnought! She was just the lead character of a semi-spinoff focusing on the newest, youngest members of the Enterprise crew. However, the same can't be said for Battlestations!, because there, Piper has suddenly become a trusted member of Kirk's inner circle and been promoted to lieutenant commander just a month out of the Academy, and she plays a key role in saving the Federation from a second massive conspiracy just a month after doing it the first time. That is taking it a little far, and when you lose credibility, that's when you stray into Mary Sue territory.

 

[Greg Cox]

I just have to jump in here to say that Janet's only original sf novel, Mirabile, is definitely worth reading . . . .

 

[FatherRob]

I enjoyed Uhura's Song, and found Wilson to be a very interesting contribution to Trek lore. I enjoyed a longer, more complex contact scenario that actually felt realistic, as opposed to beaming down to a planet with blowers and heaters. You got the feeling that you were in an intelligent, yet still alien, culture. Yes, Wilson's departure was a bit odd, but in a fitting sort of way.

Rob+