Origins of the Term "Mary Sue"

The literary term “Mary Sue” is one bandied about often today. We hear it over and over again to where the actual definition becomes clouded by accusations that every major character is some kind of Mary Sue. It is now almost synonymous with “Whiny review on the internet”. But the Mary Sue trope has a very specific definition.

I’m paraphrasing from a number of sources, but essentially it means: A perfect fictional character. Often, this character is recognized as an author insert or wish fulfillment, often inserted into an existing fictional universe. They can usually perform better at tasks than should be possible with no training or experience, and usually are able to upstage the main protagonist of an established fictional setting, such as by saving the hero.

The origin of the term comes from the name of a character created by Paula Smith in 1973 for her parody story "A Trekkie's Tale" published in her fanzine Menagerie #2. The story starred Lieutenant Mary Sue ("the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet — only fifteen and a half years old", with a genius IQ, who dies tragically), and satirized unrealistic characters in Star Trek fan fiction.  This was a parody designed to illustrate the types of stories that she did not want submitted. Essentially one’s where the established main characters of the show were not the protagonists of the story.

For you edification, the entire story (all ten glorious paragraphs of it) are reprinted below. Enjoy and Caveat Emptor.

 

A TREKKIE'S TALE

By Paula Smith

"Gee, golly, gosh, gloriosky," thought Mary Sue as she stepped on the bridge of the Enterprise. "Here I am, the youngest lieutenant in the fleet - only fifteen and a half years old." Captain Kirk came up to her.

"Oh, Lieutenant, I love you madly. Will you come to bed with me?"

"Captain! I am not that kind of girl!"

"You're right, and I respect you for it. Here, take over the ship for a minute while I go get some coffee for us."

Mr. Spock came onto the bridge. "What are you doing in the command seat, Lieutenant?"

"The Captain told me to."

"Flawlessly logical. I admire your mind."

Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy and Mr. Scott beamed down with Lt. Mary Sue to Rigel XXXVII. They were attacked by green androids and thrown into prison. In a moment of weakness Lt. Mary Sue revealed to Mr. Spock that she too was half Vulcan. Recovering quickly, she sprung the lock with her hairpin and they all got away back to the ship.

But back on board, Dr. McCoy and Lt. Mary Sue found out that the men who had beamed down were seriously stricken by the jumping cold robbies , Mary Sue less so. While the four officers languished in Sick Bay, Lt. Mary Sue ran the ship, and ran it so well she received the Nobel Peace Prize, the Vulcan Order of Gallantry and the Tralfamadorian Order of Good Guyhood.

However the disease finally got to her and she fell fatally ill. In the Sick Bay as she breathed her last, she was surrounded by Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Scott, all weeping unashamedly at the loss of her beautiful youth and youthful beauty, intelligence, capability and all around niceness. Even to this day her birthday is a national holiday of the Enterprise.

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Mothers Day Special: The Worst Mothers in History Vol. 4

 

Hey, hey, hey. Another Mother’s Day has come around and another of our tributes to the worst Mothers in History. As we’ve gone again, and again, and again,  in order to combat the wave of diabetic inducing sweetness that will be pouring over us soon enough. As preventative medicine, I suggest you read this article and realize that not all mothers are filled with goodness and light, many are drunken chain-smoking cigarette hags too lazy to get abortions when the time was ripe.

Often some milksop politician will ask, “Where would we be without our mothers?” In the case of these examples the answer, “alive and probably happy.”

 

1.     Kenisha Enroda Berry: Dumpster Diving With Baby.

On November 29, 1998, in Jefferson County, Texas, 20-year-old Kenisha Berry placed duct tape across the body and mouth of her 4-day-old son, placed him in a black plastic trash bag and left his body in a trash dumpster, resulting in his death. The child was later found by a homeless couple dumpster diving for aluminum cans. An anonymous tip led the police to Kenisha’s door. DNA tests proved she was the mother and her fingerprints were found on the bag and duct tape, yet she still denied responsibility for the crime.

She explained that when she woke up on that day the baby was limp and not breathing. Realizing that he was dead, she said she was too scared to call for help. She duct taped his arms so that they would be in front of him and across his mouth because it bothered her that his mouth was opened. She then put him in a trash bag, borrowed her grandmother's car and placed the infant in the dumpster where his body was later discovered. Forensic reports that the baby died of asphyxiation due to the duct tape over his mouth. This is was not in fact the first baby she had dumped.

The same DNA evidence linked her to another newborn found tossed into a ditch filled with fire ants. Luckily this one survived, but it was a near miss. She was sentenced to death, but it was later reduced by a limp wristed review board to life in prison.

            2.     Deanna Laney: Bashing Their Heads Slowly

Here is another example of people with severe mental illnesses attempting to normalize themselves by become fanatically devoted to a political or religious cause. We’ve seen it with the anti-abortion movement, Antifa, PETA, and various religions. The result are that they take something to the extreme and put it all in doubt.

Deanna Laney was a devout member of the Pentecostal church Assemblies of God. She believe t so much that she had the delusion that God talked to her. One night, God apparently told her that the end of the world was coming and to get her house in order. To Deanna this meant she had to bash her children’s head in with rocks. First victim was 8-year-old Joshua, followed by six-year-old Luke, then 14-month old Aaron. The last one survived, but had his growth crippled by the severe head trauma he experienced.

She was diagnosed with suffering from psychotic delusions (big surprise there) and was later found by a jury to be not guilty by reason of insanity. She was committed to a mental institution in 2004 and released in 2012. Apparently 8 year in a summer camp facility is long enough for the death of two children and giving a third brain damage. She now freely walks the streets of Texas.

3.    Dora Luz Buenrostro: Hate is Thicker than Love

After a lengthy divorce Dora Luz Buenrostro was forced to share custody of her children with her ex-husband. Neighbors testified that they heard her screaming for hours at her children when they were with her. On October 27^th, 1994 she went to the local police department and told officers that her ex-husband was inside her apartment and that she feared for her three children’s safety.

When they arrived at the apartment, they found two of the children stabbed to death and the third one missing. The husband was held for questioning. Later that day, the third child was found ten miles away. She was killed by having a ball point pen shoved in her neck and bled out. By this time the husband’s alibi had been checked out and it was proven he was nowhere near Dora’s apartment that day.

With the list of suspects narrowed down from two to one, Dora was quickly arrested. Evidence of murder was found in her car, which she claimed her ex had planted. Her inevitable insanity defense tanked and Dora was sentenced to death, after which she blamed everyone else, her lawyers, the police, the prosecutors, the judge, for her situation. Jurors said Buenrostro showed a lack of remorse when she testified during the penalty hearings. She planned the killings to hurt her husband, then tried to frame him.

       4. Susan Dianne Eubanks: Shooting for Love

Born of generations old California trailer trash, Susan Eubanks just couldn’t find love. Having four sons by four different men somehow just didn’t attract Mr. Right. Even with her added quirky traits of alcoholism and pill popping, the finer things seemed to pass her by. Susan’s life just couldn’t seem to get started.

Thus one day, after a long day at a bar of mixing vodka with valium she got into an explosive fight with her boyfriend (not the father of any of her children). She slashed 2 tires on his car and refused to let him in the home. He called the police and they then escorted him to the home, where he removed some belongings and left. Susan then decided to reset the clock. She took a .38 revolver and killed her four boys, aged 14, 7, 8, and 4. A fifth boy, her nephew was also shot, but he survived.

She then attempted suicide by shooting herself in the stomach. The defense tried to use this as part of her insanity plea, but the jury did not believe her. If you really want to kill yourself, why not the head? They then shifted to a blackout defense, she had imbibed so much that she didn’t remember doing anything- but that is not grounds for insanity.

In September 1999, a jury decided Susan Eubanks should be executed for murder. At her sentencing a month later, she said she loved her children but felt they would be better off dead. She said she killed her boys as a final act of love in what was an attempted murder-suicide.

 

 

5.  Michelle Lynn Kehoe: The Eternal Cut-Up

And rounding up this affair we have the wonderful Michelle Kehoe, a narcissistic chronically depressed loner, who turned every public occasion into a sob fest about herself. One night after everyone had gotten tired her complaining about how hard her life was, she decided enough was enough, put her two kids, 7 and 4, in a van and drove to a remote area. She then placed duct tape over her sons' eyes, mouths and hands and cut their throats with a hunting knife she had bought a month earlier. She then cut her own throat. Just before this she had written a note to make it appear as though they were abducted by a fictitious assailant, and she made similar claims to investigators before admitting to the crime. The note said a man broke into the car when the family stopped at a gas station and forced them to the area where the van was found. In the note, Kehoe said she tried to fight him off with pepper spray, but he knocked her unconscious.

All this made her insanity defense a pathetic joke. That and the fact her seven-year-old son survived the attack and testified against her in court. She was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.



That's it for this year. Happy Mother's Day everyone.

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My Honeymoon: Sick in Honduras

Drifting on our booze cruise, we docked at Roatan, Honduras. Yes, the same Honduras that once got into a shooting war with neighboring El Salvador over a soccer match. Luckily this port is part of an archipelago of islands claimed by Honduras, so they can keep most of the degradation away from delicate eyes like mine.

But honestly, they didn’t do a very good job.

Now, mark that my recollections here are tinted by a sinus infection I had forming in my lungs. The constant shift back and forth from air conditioned dry coolness to water-pregnant 90 percent humid heat began to eat away at me. Eventually it formed a knot of filth that spread.

Still, I in my rugged masculinity was determined to push on. I had paid for this crap and we were going to do it! Well, most of it. Well, some of it. Frankly after a few hours, I didn’t have anything left in me. All I could manage was to sit in my room and suck down a hot toddy.

Basic Reflections

We had hired a tour guide for the day to take us around to the various local points of interest. His name was Guy, originally from Costa Rica. He told us that once he came to Honduras he fell in love, about how much more opportunity here than where he came from. Looking around at all the shacks, the tourist traps made from scrap lumber hammered clumsily together, I could only guess at what a shithole Costa Rica must be.

Unlike Belize, which had the veneer of once being prosperous, it was clear that this third world island had almost literally nothing going for it until the cruise lines stuck a port on its tail end. Any place not owned by a Westerner was a dirt poor shack, made from leftover garbage and dead dreams. It was impossible to keep the filth out of eyesight as, apart from the constantly encroaching foliage, that was all there really was. The only cars on the roads were tourist taxis, like the one we were in, zooming fat Americans about from dingy dive to overpriced tourist trap.

 

The entire economy of the island must have been based on tourism as they charged for everything. Apart from when we went to the highest point on Roatan, a greedy palm was stuck out before every event. I don’t mean just the things we did listed below. Those we expected to pay for. But things like going to the beach, using wi-fi (which I still had my phone turned off) cost twenty dollars per person- an absolute rip-off. 

The Sloth and Monkey Zoo

The highlight of the day for me was a private enclave where they breed white faced capuchin monkeys, sloths and various toucans.  This was better than any zoo, as you got to go into cages with them, and interact with the beasts. As I said, this was my favorite. The wife, on the other hand, had an adverse reaction to hairy, sweaty, apes crawling about her- Don’t know why she married me then.

We entered the cage and two monkeys immediately alighted onto my head. I’ve had a lot heavier cats jump up and down my torso, so I had no problem with it. My wife screamed and batted one to the ground. She did much better when the toucan landed on her hat, but was less than thrilled by the bird’s parting present.

 

The monkey spent its time wrapping its tail around my face, and rubbing up against my head. The guide explained that the creature was absorbing moisture from my face of which there was plenty. After he had wiped my brow for me, the animal became more intrusive in his examination. Little fingers dug into my ears and pulled out the wax, which he promptly ate. I honestly didn’t know how to feel about this. On one hand it was gross. on the other it did me a service, like pilot fish that cleaned shark’s teeth

The oddest experience was holding the three toed sloth. With a well-deserved reputation for sluggishness, the animal didn’t struggle in our arms. In fact, if I was reading its facial expressions correctly, it seemed to enjoy it. It was like holding a plump one year old with four inch fingernails. The animal shifted about, looked at me, looked around, but basically clamped onto us as if we were tree branches.

Snorkeling

I had become somewhat pale by this time and my wife was whispering profanities at me about how my illness was ruining the whole trip for her. So I bucked it up and we went on the smallest chocolate factory I’ve ever seen. Basically it was a set up in someone’s attic. After a ten minute demonstration they tried force chocolate on us. We declined and thing went south from there. For that reason, we skipped the rum factory and went straight to what my wife was waiting for, the snorkeling.

A rusty skip pulled up at the dock and we got on with another family. We had come prepared with our gear, but I hadn’t tried it on yet. The last time I had gone snorkeling was in Lake Ontario before I had hit double digits, and I hated it. I couldn’t get the damn pipe to stay up to keep drinking me air and it seemed useless to stay flat looking down, when it was more fun to go down and zip about. 

 

By this time, the sinus infection had hit my lungs, breathing became more intense. What’s worse was that the damn mask sealed itself hard around my nose and I sure felt like I was suffocating. It was god awful and once again I had trouble getting air down the tube, but plenty of water came.

My wife kept bobbing up jabbering about all the wonderful fish I was missing out on. But it was so uncomfortable that I chucked the gear and figured if I wanted to see the damn fish, I’d fucking google them. I spent next hour enjoying myself by swimming the depths and banging my legs against the reefs. It was very relaxing. Didn’t need a suffocation mask to do that!

The Pharmacy

Well the day ended a little early, I was wiped out by all that swimming and monkeying around, plus the first stages of the infection was all over me. I suggested going to the ship’s doctor and wondered about getting some antibiotics on board, when my wife yelled that I could go to one of the pharmacies at the port.

“Will they have them?”

“Oh hell yeah. No prescription needed. Pus they carry all sorts of other things that’ll fuck your shit right up.”

With that sort of recommendation, I hopped right over. It was an open at one end with no front door. Typical of a shop at a cruise port. At first it looked like it was just full of all of the banal goods of a standard pharmacy: bandages, rubbing alcohol, cough syrup. Then I gazed upwards and read a sign listing all of the goodness behind the counter: steroids, muscle relaxers, pain pills. All the pharmaceutical colors of the rainbow.

 

I asked the woman behind the counter about my needs and she handed over a box of 100 amoxicillan tablets. My eyes widen, to even get this far in the states would’ve cost way too much, and eaten up several hours waiting for the doctor to saunter in.

“How much?” I asked, fearing for my wallet.

“Thirty five dollars for the entire box.” she replied, stifling a smirk.

I got the impression, she thought she was ripping me off, but I didn’t care. I was happy as hell. I downed two and headed for my cabin.

Rest of the Trip

So there I was, stuck in bed, watching the most random shows and films pop up on the ship’s television channels. My wife, the human gadfly, was out and about on the trip. Making friends, running up debts at the casino, drinking and gorging. She’d occasionally show up to toss me a banana or a partially eaten sausage- whatever was left on her tray when she was done.

There was one further stop, Cozumel, Mexico, but I couldn’t get out of the bed to enjoy it. My wife went and later reported that it was the best port on the trip, but she may have thought that because I wasn’t there. 

Three days later we pulled into Tampa and, sore and sick, we disembarked for another 9 hour journey back up the highways to our beloved Columbia, South Carolina. There we lived happily ever after, until she burnt her first pot roast and then there was HELL to pay.
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