Sweet Mary Sue: Female "types" in fan fiction
by Sue Bursztynski
I first wrote on this topic back in the days when fan fiction was limited to print fanzines. The Internet provides more opportunity than ever before to write about Mary Sue and the mind boggles at what they're doing with her. When I was writing fan fiction - and doing the occasional Mary Sue for fun - we were writing original-series "Trek" and "Blake's 7" stories and not much else. Now, an on-line search will find stories set in every universe conceivable, from "Harry Potter" to "Lord of the Rings" and little Miss Mary Sue appears in all of them. The object of Mary Sue's affections is often still pointy-eared, but these days his name is Legolas or Elrond.
So, who is Mary Sue? She is the heroine of a sub-genre of fan fiction, though she occasionally appears even in the shows on which the fan stories are based. Originally, the term as applied to fan fiction really only covered the area I call "Supergirl". It has grown to the point where it falls roughly into three broad categories, each containing its sub-categories. Let's call them, for convenience, The Sweet Young Thing, The Nightclub Singer and Supergirl.
The Sweet Young Thing comes in a variety of flavours. She is a priestess, a princess in distress, a slave-girl or a rebel leader's daughter, occasionally a scientist's daughter. Her usual function is to tend the hero's wounds and nurse him back to health. As her reward, she gets his undying love and conceives his child. Alas, his undying love is often her death sentence! Our pregnant heroine would be a bit awkward to take back to the Liberator or Enterprise, wouldn't she? For an excellent example of this, see the original "Trek" episode "The Paradise Syndrome". Poor Miramanee was doomed from the moment Kirk fell in 1ove with her.
If she is a princess, however, she has some chance of survival. Firstly, she has a way out - her duty to her people, which doesn't allow her to run off with handsome starship captains or rebels. Secondly, fan-writers seem to like the idea of Avon/Spock/whoever becoming the father of royalty. It's the next best to his being a ruler himself.
The Nightclub Singer is older than the Sweet Young Thing and appears mostly in the "Blake's 7" universe. Often, she is a widow, with or without children, making her living singing for her supper. Her husband died fighting in the rebellion, which has understandably soured her on the whole business, but she ends up helping our heroes anyhow, complaining all the way, and has a quiet romance with one of them (usually Avon) before waving them goodbye; at least she survives the story and rarely gets pregnant!
The Nightclub Singer may also be a professional woman - a doctor or scientist, for example, who was working for the Federation and has broken away. She boards the Liberator and saves the crew before continuing on her way. She usually fancies Vila or Avon. If it's Avon, she spars with him for most of the story, of course! However, a number of Australian fan writers who wrote this variety of Mary Sue story in the 80s seemed to prefer the villains of "Blake's 7", especially Travis, as the object of their heroines' love - perhaps mature women have more mature tastes? In any case, these stories were usually competently written and enjoyable.
Third is Supergirl, who is even younger than the Sweet Young Thing - usually about sixteen. Despite this, she has a string of university degrees and a pilot's licence. She appears more often in "Trek" than "Blake's 7".
In the original "Trek" universe (I assume there are parallels in the spin-offs), she will probably be telepathic and brought up on Vulcan. Despite the difference in their ages, she usually knew Spock back home.
All the male characters fall in love with her, but sadly, she is not for any of them, in the end; she sacrifices herself saving the Enterprise and is remembered fondly by all; or she flies off into the sunset(so to speak) to save the day elsewhere. Jacqueline Lichtenberg's classic "Kraith" series had a heroine of this variety (well, she may have been over sixteen, but she had been brought up on Vulcan, etc.) She became pregnant by Spock and died in an ancient Vulcan ceremony that had a tendency to kill pregnant women, but had to be performed. Although Lichtenberg was a big-name fan writer at the time and went on to write professionally, the Supergirl story is mostly created by younger writers, and is the female equivalent of the space-battle stories written by earnest young boys. Possibly the author will progress beyond it, but if not, she is having fun and so are her readers.
I rather suspect there are professional writers out there still writing Mary Sue stories for their own enjoyment!