(Original line drawing appearing with Paula Smith’s fan-fiction “A Trekkie’s Tale” – The first graphic representation of Mary Sue)

Paula Smith’s A Trekkie’s Tale is a short fanfiction-parody piece published in a 1974 Star Trek fanzine, from which we derive the term “Mary Sue”. It is very obviously a parody of a lot of the poorly-written female OCs (original characters) in fanfiction that, apparently, were rampant even then.

Smith’s parody is not making fun of female characters in fiction. Rather, she is making fun of fanfiction clichés, particularly a cliché character that we now know as Mary Sue.

I think it is a perfectly fine story, and I love to reference it whenever I get the chance.

However. While Paula Smith does a very good job of capturing the essence of Mary Sue (as well as putting a name to the face,) what she does not do is tell us exactly what a Mary Sue is, how to identify her out of a crowd of well-written female leads, or how to avoid creating her. The science of fanfiction analysis was not very far along at that time.

Because the majority of fanfiction writers far and away are female, their poorly-written self-inserts tend to also be female. However, a Mary Sue can just as easily be male (sometimes called a Gary Stu, or a Marty Stu,), and there are plenty of well-written female OCs. For every fan who points the finger at Rey from Star Wars, there’s a Trekkie booing out Wesley Crusher, a Twihard who worships Bella Swann, and an Ellen Ripley or a Buffy Summers who no one seems to remember in the “We Need More StrongFemaleCharacters™” forum.

So far as I know, there is not a universal definition for Mary Sue, and so that can make pointing out the actual cases very difficult. My personal definition is: a black-hole character that forces other characters to act out-of-character or illogical events to happen in-universe, usually to the benefit of the character or author’s desires.

Not all of those who point at a female protagonist and scream, “Mary Sue!” are misogynists; plenty are just people looking for a good story and have been burned by one too many bad OCs. I, as well as many other fanfiction readers, steer clear of any fanfiction with an OC for just that reason.

If someone screams, “Mary Sue!”, I don’t see it as a time to run to battle stations and start picking teams. Regardless if the characters is male, female, white, black, straight, gay, or a unicorn, they deserve a serious analysis.

Sometimes, the Mary Sue criers have some legitimate concerns. With some analysis, though, you can usually come out the other end with a better understanding of the character, the setting, and the plot structure.

Tl;dr: A Trekkie’s Tale is important, I think; while it doesn’t quite identify the illness, it identifies many of the symptoms, and puts a name to the face. You can’t blame overeager fans for overdiagnosing it.