Mary-Sue's name

[ladeedooda]

Where did Mary-Sue get her name? I don't know where this came from, it just popped into my head and made me very curious...

[Nittanylizard]

Good question! This is from Wikipedia:

"The term "Mary Sue" is taken from a character created by Paula Smith in 1974 for her parody story "A Trekkie's Tale,"[2] published in her fanzine Menagerie #2.[3] The character in question was Lieutenant Mary Sue ("the youngest Lieutenant in the fleet — only fifteen and a half years old"). Smith's story poked fun at what she considered to be the unrealistic and adolescent wish-fantasy characters appearing in Star Trek fan fiction of the period. Such characters were, in general, original (non-canon) and female adolescents who had romantic liaisons with established canon adult characters. They also possessed unrealistic, unlikely, and often exotic skills and traits above and beyond those that would have been expected of any character in that particular series or of a conventional author surrogate."

Here's the link:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

[Keira]

Haha, Mary Sue's a trekkie?! That's so funny! I had always assumed the name originated from the simple fact that Mary Sue was a common name, much like Mary Ellen or Annemarie, and it just happened to be the lucky one picked. That's a cool tidbit, though.

[Tensleep]

Yeah, didn't you know MS was a Trekkie? She also goes by the name of Amanda, The Princess of Pink and all things that torture her roommate...

Ah, Wikipedia, what would we do without you....