OK, I misinterpreted the end with Dr. Wilson, and I thought it was going for a mythological trickster thing, rather than just a plain human example of one.
Uhura's Song-And the Ultimate Mary Sue
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OK, I misinterpreted the end with Dr. Wilson, and I thought it was going for a mythological trickster thing, rather than just a plain human example of one.
^Well, Evan's connection to the mythological trickster archetype was indeed intentional, but mythology has always featured human heroes as well as gods and supernatural creatures. For instance, Odysseus, a mortal man, is a trickster figure in the way he outwits his adversaries (thinking up the Trojan Horse, calling himself "Nobody" to the Cyclops, etc.).
My sense is that the author wish fulfillment you mention is ultimately the key facet to a Mary Sue character (regardless of their abilities), which is why the girl-next-door name was used to parody the trope, even if a Mary Sue has some fantastical name instead--since the question of whether an author pulled off a character well is always going to have some level of subjectivity anyway.
If you want to put yourself or your friend or your mother into a story as an amazing Mary-of-all-trades who upstages the main characters (effectively or not, from the perspective of the reader), that's one thing, but if you imagine that your fictional avatar would bumble their way through the world of the Federation--while always having the dashing and heroic Kirk, Spock, and McCoy nearby to save you--that doesn't inherently make that character any less a Mary Sue.
^See, this is the whole problem. There is no consensus definition of what "Mary Sue" means. It's an "I know it when I see it" kind of thing. Some people focus purely on the wish-fulfillment aspect, others focus purely on the spotlight-stealing, others focus on the failure of the character to live up to the hype. I believe that it was meant to refer to the combination of all those factors, and that just because a character has some properties in common with a Mary Sue, that doesn't automatically make them a Mary Sue. Because it's a negative term, a term of attack, I think it should be wielded judiciously. It seems to me that too many people are too eager to slap that label on any character who bears the slightest resemblance to a Mary Sue. I think that's unfairly negative.
Definitely. When "Dreadnought!" first came out, no ST fans had really ever heard of Diane Carey and the first reactions were "Wow! A first-person narrative! Kirk, as seen by a young cadet's POV.", etc. I recall a few starting to wonder how "Mary Sue" Cadet Piper might have been intended to be - but it was several months later that fans started reporting in newsletters that not only had Boris painted Carey as Piper on the cover, but Sarda was based on a photo of Greg Brodeur, whom we later learned co-plots most of his wife's books with her.
Projection of the author into the novel is very Mary Sue, but Piper had seemingly broken the mold. And is Piper an idealized version of Ms Carey? Who knows? I've never met her.
Many people really enjoyed the fresh approach Carey brought to ST novels at the time, and to me it seemed a rather positive slant on how to do a Mary Sue and do it well. Of course, some people detested Piper. About the time of "Battlestations!", we started to hear that Carey was a fan - and participant - in things nautical and, of course, "Battlestations!" opens with Piper and Kirk on the open water. Quelle surprise!
But my friends and I never really thought we knew what the author was thinking. We did some outrageous guessing and were amazed when we were correct on a few things. Of course, Carey's the author often lambasted by ST fans for "always putting her personal political views into her writing", something which (naively perhaps) always passes me by in a Carey novel.
Agreed. "A Mary Sue done well" is a great way to describe it.
I always get annoyed when people refer to Piper as a Mary Sue. Even if maybe she fits the definition. Because it always comes across as dismissive and a put-down.
I really liked Dreadnaught! and Battlestations! Just like Kirk (and Piper), Carey's books broke all the "rules." First person POV, focus on new characters rather than the "big 3," and even a direct sequel, which was at least rare at the time. Heck, how many book titles had exclamation points in them?
And yet, it was such a good story and a real breath of fresh air.
The nautical stuff was cool too, and she was able to put so much more detail and realism into it. I always loved the Kirk as Hornblower concept, and Star Trek II was still relatively recent.
She may not be able to write "modern" trek particularly well, and her writing is often uneven, but she writes a really great Kirk.
I always get annoyed when people refer to Piper as a Mary Sue. Even if maybe she fits the definition. Because it always comes across as dismissive and a put-down.
I really liked Dreadnaught! and Battlestations! Just like Kirk (and Piper), Carey's books broke all the "rules." First person POV, focus on new characters rather than the "big 3," and even a direct sequel, which was at least rare at the time. Heck, how many book titles had exclamation points in them?
And yet, it was such a good story and a real breath of fresh air.
The nautical stuff was cool too, and she was able to put so much more detail and realism into it. I always loved the Kirk as Hornblower concept, and Star Trek II was still relatively recent.
She may not be able to write "modern" trek particularly well, and her writing is often uneven, but she writes a really great Kirk.
I guess this is so, but to me the more important part is the unrealistically good at everything and the steals-the-spotlight from the main characters thing.
Since as others mentioned, unless the author comes out and says a character is a stand-in, it's hard to make that judgment(unless, I suppose you know an awful lot about the author's life story)
But the other two criteria don't require any psycho-analyzing of an author, just describing what's in the book. And again, to me Dr. Wilson, as a non-regular introduced solely for this story, who is amazing at most things and beloved by all the characters, still fits.
At first glance I could see how Evan could be conceived on the surface as a "Mary Sue." She does dominate the book a lot, but like Christopher said she's interesting and contributes to the characters instead of detracting from them. Coincidentally, I just finished reading Death's Angel and Col. Elizabeth Schaeffer was definitely a "Mary Sue" from out of nowhere that hogged most of the novel that we were supposed to care about during her "soap opera phone calls" from her husband. Ugh.
Regarding the "intended to be deserving, but doesn't come off as such" aspect, I can honestly say that I've been there, done that, and have a whole stack of t-shirts. My novel-writing experience (the adventures of a child-prodigy organist; you can read a short story about her on my web site; it's reachable from either the "organ" page or the "writings" page; look for "Introducing Jennifer") has taught me that there's probably no harder character to make sympathetic than an overachiever.
The key to making an overachiever sympathetic and believable is the same as the key to making anything else believable: show, don't tell. Which, in the case of an overachiever, is often particularly a case of "easier said than done."
As to Tail-Kinker to-Ennien, alias Evan Wilson, yes, there's a certain Mary-Sue aspect to her, and Piper is CERTAINLY a Mary-Sue. And I suppose that both of Kathleen Sky's ST novels include Mary-Sue characters (and I get the feeling that in Trek to Madworld, Stephen Goldin wrote Metika as a Kathleen Sky avatar, just as Karhu in Death's Angel is clearly an avatar for "were-koala" Stephen Goldin. Not to mention that How Much for Just the Planet seems to populate an entire planet with Mary-Sues and Marty-Stus. But I thoroughly enjoyed all of them, and have read them all repeatedly, because in all of these cases, they're good books, and even the blatantly Mary-Sue aspects of them are well written.
The key to making an overachiever sympathetic and believable is the same as the key to making anything else believable: show, don't tell. Which, in the case of an overachiever, is often particularly a case of "easier said than done."
As to Tail-Kinker to-Ennien, alias Evan Wilson, yes, there's a certain Mary-Sue aspect to her, and Piper is CERTAINLY a Mary-Sue. And I suppose that both of Kathleen Sky's ST novels include Mary-Sue characters (and I get the feeling that in Trek to Madworld, Stephen Goldin wrote Metika as a Kathleen Sky avatar, just as Karhu in Death's Angel is clearly an avatar for "were-koala" Stephen Goldin. Not to mention that How Much for Just the Planet seems to populate an entire planet with Mary-Sues and Marty-Stus. But I thoroughly enjoyed all of them, and have read them all repeatedly, because in all of these cases, they're good books, and even the blatantly Mary-Sue aspects of them are well written.
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As with all things Mary Sue, it depends on whether it's done well or not. All authors put something of themselves into every character they write. There are a lot of autobiographical characters that aren't Mary Sues. Chaucer himself shows up as a character in Canterbury Tales. Bart Simpson is based on a young Matt Groening. Hermione Granger is based on a young J. K. Rowling. Kilgore Trout is Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s self-satirical avatar. Philip K. Dick similarly had Horselover Fat (a translation of his own name). They say you should write what you know, after all. All writing draws on personal experience, and putting yourself into a character is part of that. Putting a lot of yourself into a character isn't necessarily bad either.
The question is whether you're looking for things within yourself that can contribute to building an interesting character (like when I drew on my own struggles with emotional control when writing Spock in Ex Machina or Data in "Friends With the Sparrows," or modelled Gariff Lucsly partly on my own Aspergerish tendencies, or based T'Ryssa Chen on my more goofy and gregarious side), or simply inserting yourself into the universe because you think it'd be cool to live there and be best friends with the main characters. It's the latter case, where you're driven by self-indulgence rather than the good of the story, that the creation becomes a Mary Sue.
It's not intrinsically bad to bring your own interests into a story either. That diversity of knowledge and interest among Trek novelists is part of what makes the novel line diverse, and the nautical stuff was a good fit into a universe whose creator was overtly inspired by Horatio Hornblower. Diane Carey writing about yachting isn't intrinsically different from Diane Duane writing stories with a medical focus, or Dayton Ward writing stories with a military focus, or me doing stuff based in physics or history. Again, it's a question of whether the personal interest is serving the story or the story is serving the personal interest.
Sure, 'cuz Roddenberry never put his views into his writing...
Of course!
Not telling me anything I don't know. Captain Therin is a veteran of many fanfics, and hopefully wasn't too obvious.
Exactly.
Again, of course. 'Cos they're gonna have to pay me handsomely to write about things I have no interest in. And my lack of interest will show in the writing.
Has anyone mentioned Chief Alec MacPherson from Crisis on Centaurus yet? In this novel, Scotty is one half of the Enterprise's miracle-working engineering duo known as "The Twins", along with this other guy. And why? No reason. MacPherson doesn't save the day, or die, or do much at all. He's just there, Scotty's equal in all things engineering, diluting Scotty's importance by making him one half of a WWE tag team.
I've read that one, but I don't remember that character dominating the story the way Dr. Wilson did. The reason I think Wilson is a mary sue isn't just because she's really good at her job. It's that she dominates the whole plot and the spotlight is on her much more than the main characters.
I don't think that's true. She's featured as much as the main characters, but not more.
And if that's the key criterion, what about Lwaxana Troi in "Half a Life," or Q in "Deja Q," or Barclay in any of his episodes, or Garak, Rom, Nog, Leeta, Dukat, Winn, Weyoun, Damar, Eddington, and all the other DS9 supporting players who were often as prominently featured as the nominal regulars? Are all of them Mary Sues as well?
I still think it's important to remember that "Mary Sue" is a negative term. It's a critique applied to a character that doesn't work, that isn't enjoyable to read about, that detracts from the story because it's more about authorial self-indulgence than the good of the narrative. You keep saying all these things about Evan Wilson's role in the novel, but you haven't explicitly said whether you felt those attributes of her character hurt the story, or whether you found her character unpleasant. If there's a guest character who's super-competent and well-liked and plays a central role in the story, but it works -- if the character deserves her central role by being genuinely interesting and appealing and valuable to the story -- I don't think that's a bad thing. And I've read over all your posts and I just can't tell whether you enjoyed the Evan Wilson character or not. You're describing a lot of traits that you think should qualify her as a Mary Sue, but you haven't said whether you think she's, plain and simple, a good character or a bad character. And if the character works, if the story's good, then the rest shouldn't matter.
Well, the examples you cite are of established and official recurring characters in the Trek-verse. Including those characters in a novel can't, by definition, be including your own Mary Sue. When I read Peter David's "Q-In-Law," or "Q-Squared," it's pretty obvious that Q is going to play a prominent role in the story. And if it's a series that introduces an entire lineup of new characters(like "New Frontier" or something) that's also different.
I don't have any problem with introducing your own one-shot characters either, obviously, as there are only a handful of regular crewmembers for each series.
I didn't dislike Dr. Wilson as a character. I just think her role and abilities should have been toned down some.
*shrug*
I liked the book. Honestly, if they re-printed it and did a sequel, I'd buy 'em.
I liked the book. Honestly, if they re-printed it and did a sequel, I'd buy 'em.
I'm not talking about including them in novels, I'm talking about their inclusion in episodes. Sometimes they were dominant characters in the episodes where they were first introduced, before they ever became "official recurring characters" (like Barclay in "Hollow Pursuits"). There have even been cases of episodes centering on one-shot characters that were never seen again. In Voyager's "Distant Origins," Professor Gegen was the lead character and the Voyager crew were only supporting players in Gegen's story. But it's still one of the very best episodes Voyager ever did.
A story is a story, whether it's onscreen or in print. And it's not automatically bad to tell an installment of a series that focuses on a guest star rather than (or equally with) the core cast. So what I'm saying is that building a story around a guest character is a valid, long-standing literary trope. The term "Mary Sue" was coined specifically to refer to an abuse of that trope, an instance where the guest character worked poorly because it was more an exercise in writer self-indulgence than good storytelling or characterization.
Well, isn't it more important to say whether you like or dislike a character than it is to talk about whether a certain overused label can be applied to them? I've found that labels do more to confuse understanding than to promote it.
It depends. Labels can also save time by being short-hand for a cluster of traits that would otherwise have to be spelled out. If someone says a person is a "diva," or an actor is a "ham," etc. you know what they mean without having the person spell out all the various traits they mean. I still think "mary sue" is a pretty accurate assessment of Dr. Wilson's character, depending on the actual likability of the character.
^Except that I could not tell from your previous discussion whether you approved or disapproved of the traits you described. Yes, Evan was good at the things she tried, and she was liked by the other characters, and she was important to the story, but none of those things is intrinsically a criticism. It's only a criticism if it doesn't work. And that was something you didn't actually comment on until I asked you to.
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