Uhura's Song-And the Ultimate Mary Sue

[TheAlmanac]

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?

The closest example to an onscreen Mary Sue I can think of is Amanda Rogers in "True Q," since the original pitch came from a high school student who even wanted to play the young-human-who-turns-out-to-be-this-omnipotent-being himself.

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.

I don't think of the term as intrinsically negative that way, which is why I'm not as hesitant to apply it as you are. It describes a certain type of character, but that character can still be entertaining. Woody Allen and Kevin Smith almost always include Mary Sue versions of themselves in their movies, to use another outside example, but that doesn't automatically make them bad.

 

[Christopher]

I don't think of the term as intrinsically negative that way, which is why I'm not as hesitant to apply it as you are. It describes a certain type of character, but that character can still be entertaining. Woody Allen and Kevin Smith almost always include Mary Sue versions of themselves in their movies, to use another outside example, but that doesn't automatically make them bad.

No, they include Author Avatar versions of themselves (to use TV Tropes's term). Like I said, a Mary Sue isn't just a character based on the author. That's just one of the ingredients of the definition. The term "Mary Sue" is named for a character from a parody story that mocked the tendency of Trek fanfiction authors to write a certain type of character -- an author-surrogate character that was badly executed and served only to gratify the writer's wish-fulfillment fantasies, a character who outperformed all the regular characters and won their undying love even though it was completely unbelievable. The core element is not merely self-inclusion but self-aggrandizement and self-indulgence.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The core element is not merely self-inclusion but self-aggrandizement and self-indulgence.

Bingo.

 

[TheAlmanac]

Woody Allen and Kevin Smith almost always include Mary Sue versions of themselves in their movies, to use another outside example, but that doesn't automatically make them bad.

No, they include Author Avatar versions of themselves (to use TV Tropes's term). Like I said, a Mary Sue isn't just a character based on the author. That's just one of the ingredients of the definition. The term "Mary Sue" is named for a character from a parody story that mocked the tendency of Trek fanfiction authors to write a certain type of character -- an author-surrogate character that was badly executed and served only to gratify the writer's wish-fulfillment fantasies, a character who outperformed all the regular characters and won their undying love even though it was completely unbelievable. The core element is not merely self-inclusion but self-aggrandizement and self-indulgence.

Have you never encountered any criticism of Woody Allen's movies (particularly his more recent ones), in which his "Author Avatar" has many successes (especially romantic conquests) which viewers have found unbelievable? Sounds like a Mary Sue to me.

Kevin Smith wrote a character for himself who winds up on a movie set in a lightsaber battle against Mark Hamill and then parties with Morris Day and The Time. (Don't get me started on when he played himself as single on Degrassi so he could have his high school crush from that franchise as his love interest.) If that isn't self-indulgent wish fulfillment, I don't know what is.

That doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing, though.

 

[Therin of Andor]

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.

Almost all the recurring canonical characters were one-shot characters, who proved so popular that they began returning in new stories.

Had Janet Kagan written a second ST novel, she may well have been tempted to bring Evan back, by "public demand", although it seems like she deliberately gave the character an "out" so that other authors couldn't just toss her into their novels like that may have done with someone like Narahat the horta or Security Chief Ingrit Thomson.

A true Mary Sue character, as a glamorised, wish-fulfillment extension of the author into the narrative, wouldn't be someone any other authors would pick up on, unless they planned to kill them off horribly.

Ah, and no one has mentioned Specs, from "The Galactic Whirlpool". David Gerrold put himself into that novel, but it was a fun cameo Author Avatar rather than a Marty Stu. Specs has crucial information, but he's not "the star" of the book. Gerrold also put himself into the script of one of his TAS episodes (and was animated into it by Filmation), an action that Alan Dean Foster had some delicious revenge with in the "Log" adaptation, calling Gerrold's previously unnamed ensign "Hacker".


Ensign Hacker by Therin of Andor, on Flickr

 

[JD]

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.

Almost all the recurring canonical characters were one-shot characters, who proved so popular that they began returning in new stories.

Had Janet Kagan written a second ST novel, she may well have been tempted to bring Evan back, by "public demand", although it seems like she deliberately gave the character an "out" so that other authors couldn't just toss her into their novels like that may have done with someone like Narahat the horta or Security Chief Ingrit Thomson.

A true Mary Sue character, as a glamorised, wish-fulfillment extension of the author into the narrative, wouldn't be someone other authors would pick up on, unless they planned to kill them off.

Ah, and no one has mentioned Specs, from "The Galactic Whirlpool". David Gerrold put himself into that novel, but it was a fun cameo rather than a Marty Stu. Specs has crucial information, but he's not "the star". Gerrold also put himself into the script of one of his TAS episodes (and was animated into it by Filmation), an action that Alan Dean Foster had some delicious revenge with in the "Log" adaptation, calling Gerrold's unnamed ensign "Hacker".


Ensign Hacker by Therin of Andor, on Flickr

I actually just read the Uhura's Song entry in Voyages of the Imagination and in the interview Ms. Kagan said she had an idea for another "Evan Wilson" novel, and two successive wanted her to write it, but by then the no continuing original characters policy had been enacted. She also said she wouldn't write more Trek without the character.

 

[Christopher]

Have you never encountered any criticism of Woody Allen's movies (particularly his more recent ones), in which his "Author Avatar" has many successes (especially romantic conquests) which viewers have found unbelievable? Sounds like a Mary Sue to me.

Kevin Smith wrote a character for himself who winds up on a movie set in a lightsaber battle against Mark Hamill and then parties with Morris Day and The Time. (Don't get me started on when he played himself as single on Degrassi so he could have his high school crush from that franchise as his love interest.) If that isn't self-indulgent wish fulfillment, I don't know what is.

Okay, when you put it that way, you have a point. I think the only Kevin Smith movie I've seen (or have any desire to see) is Dogma, so I wouldn't have known about that. And it's been a long time since I've seen a Woody Allen movie (though I liked some of his early ones like Take the Money and Run and Sleeper).

Ah, and no one has mentioned Specs, from "The Galactic Whirlpool". David Gerrold put himself into that novel, but it was a fun cameo Author Avatar rather than a Marty Stu. Specs has crucial information, but he's not "the star" of the book. Gerrold also put himself into the script of one of his TAS episodes (and was animated into it by Filmation), an action that Alan Dean Foster had some delicious revenge with in the "Log" adaptation, calling Gerrold's previously unnamed ensign "Hacker".

Gerrold also wrote the part of Ensign Freeman in "The Trouble With Tribbles" with the idea that he might play the part, but he was deemed too skinny to be believable as a Starfleet officer. Freeman was instead played by William Shatner's stunt double Paul Baxley, leading to an inside joke in "Trials and Tribble-ations" where O'Brien thought that Freeman was Kirk. Diane Duane included Freeman in a couple of her novels, calling him Jerry Freeman, perhaps after Gerrold.

And Gerrold did finally get to play an Enterprise crewman in ST:TMP as well as in "Trials and Tribble-ations." In Ex Machina I referred to his TMP character as Gerry Auberson, a nod to David Auberson, the author-avatar lead character of Gerrold's When HARLIE Was One.

 

[Therin of Andor]

in the interview Ms. Kagan said she had an idea for another "Evan Wilson" novel.

Some memories of the day. News about upcoming ST novels was like finding hens' teeth in those dark days. The odd mention of someone being commissioned in "Locus", an aside in "Starlog", a rumour from a ST convention... Somehow I had to cobble together ST publishing news every month for our newsletter.

"Tears of the Singers" (Melinda Snodgrass) and "Uhura's Song" both came out at about the same time, both featuring Uhura and her singing abilities, and there was intense fan speculation that one of the two women was - gasp! - a BNF (big name fan) writer using a pseudonym to turn pro (like Sonni Cooper, Della Van Hise, Marskak/Culbreath, etc). We always assumed that Janet was the secret BNF, but as it turned out, Janet wasn't a diehard ST fan but embraced general SF. It was a surprise to correspond with her and realise that she hadn't been a passionate ST watcher in her early years.

Melinda Snograss (presumably her actual name) eventually ended up on the writing staff of TNG. What I don't know if it was Ms Snograss who'd had the fannish life? And was a BNF under a different name?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Woody Allen and Kevin Smith almost always include Mary Sue versions of themselves in their movies, to use another outside example, but that doesn't automatically make them bad.

No, they include Author Avatar versions of themselves (to use TV Tropes's term). Like I said, a Mary Sue isn't just a character based on the author. That's just one of the ingredients of the definition. The term "Mary Sue" is named for a character from a parody story that mocked the tendency of Trek fanfiction authors to write a certain type of character -- an author-surrogate character that was badly executed and served only to gratify the writer's wish-fulfillment fantasies, a character who outperformed all the regular characters and won their undying love even though it was completely unbelievable. The core element is not merely self-inclusion but self-aggrandizement and self-indulgence.

Have you never encountered any criticism of Woody Allen's movies (particularly his more recent ones), in which his "Author Avatar" has many successes (especially romantic conquests) which viewers have found unbelievable? Sounds like a Mary Sue to me.

Kevin Smith wrote a character for himself who winds up on a movie set in a lightsaber battle against Mark Hamill and then parties with Morris Day and The Time. (Don't get me started on when he played himself as single on Degrassi so he could have his high school crush from that franchise as his love interest.) If that isn't self-indulgent wish fulfillment, I don't know what is.

That doesn't necessarily make it a bad thing, though.

But aren't these comedies you are talking about? It isn't what one can tolerate in a comedy radically different from what one is willing tolerate in a drama in which literal suspension of disbelief is generally far more important?

 

[DorkBoy [TM]]

Melinda Snograss (presumably her actual name) eventually ended up on the writing staff of TNG. What I don't know if it was Ms Snograss who'd had the fannish life? And was a BNF under a different name?

Maybe.

I remember reading a magazine article by her - in Omni magazine, I think it was, shortly after she left TNG. It was when I was in high school and working in the school library; someone showed it to me while we were putting away the magazines one week.

Anyhow - basically it was her laying out what she perceived as the weaknesses of Trek (particularly TNG). To me, it came across as very bitter. It's been a few years (20) ... but I remember a few things. For one, she complained about all the godlike aliens and entities, which are hard for drama. ("It takes a godlike alien to catch a godlike alien" or something to that effect.) I think she bashed Kirk for his recklessness regarding the prime directive, too.

Maybe she was a fan earlier and thats why she later became bitter (work can do that to you), I dunno.

I also remember hearing at a convention later that her reason for leaving was basically that she had a big disagreement with the other writers: she didn't like the ending of the Best of Both Worlds two-parter. ("Sleep.") It was too "easy" - but she couldn't come up with anything better.