![]() ![]() The canon protagonists are all overwhelmed with admiration for her beauty, wit, courage and other virtues, and are quick to adopt her as one of their True Companions, even characters who are usually antisocial and untrusting if any character doesn't love her, that character gets an extremely unsympathetic portrayal. She has an unusual and dramatic Back Story. She also lacks any realistic, or at least story-relevant, character flaws - either that or her "flaws" are obviously meant to be endearing. She's exceptionally talented in an implausibly wide variety of areas, and may possess skills that are rare or nonexistent in the canon setting. She's exotically beautiful, often having an unusual hair or eye color, and has a similarly cool and exotic name. The prototypical Mary Sue is an original female character in a fanfic who obviously serves as an idealized version of the author mainly for the purpose of Wish-Fulfillment. As this essay reveals, suspiciously Mary Sue-like characters were noted in subscriber-submitted articles for 19th-century childrens' magazines, making this trope Older Than You Think. ![]() (Or space, as the case may be.)Įven back then, there wasn't a total consensus on what was or wasn't Mary Sue, since it's not always immediately obvious which character is an Author Avatar. Often, the characters would get in a relationship with either Kirk or Spock, turn out to have a familial bond with a crew member, be a Half-Human Hybrid masquerading as a human, and die in a graceful, beautiful way to reinforce that the character was Too Good for This Sinful Earth. Its original meaning mostly held that it was an Always Female Author Avatar, regardless of character role or perceived quality. Originally written as a parody of the standard Self-Insert Fic of the time (as opposed to any particular traits), the name was quickly adopted by the Star Trek fanfiction community. The name "Mary Sue" comes from the 1974 Star Trek fanfic A Trekkie's Tale.
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