Heinlein x Mary Sue

[bunsen_h]

A Mary Sue should be able to raise a perfect family, lead an invasion, teach all of the people and animals of the world to be vegetarian, command a fleet, design an architectural wonder, write a world-changing book, obviate the need for money, build an impregnable defense, cure an incurable disease, restore the dying to health, re-interpret "orders" to mean what she wants, give orders that save the day, show them show them all, overcome a tragic past, solve problems that have stumped experts, outsmart any attempt at trickery, change her eye colour, destroy a computer with illogic, create a food synthesizer from pocket stuff, defeat the villains, outshine the heroes. Anything less is for background characters.

Comments

[armiphlage]

Laurence Dahner's characters do 80% of this.

[beable]

you are reminding me of Spider Robinson’s terrible essay defending RAH from a bunch of criticisms in which for each one he manages in his defense to make Heinlein’s writing seem even worse than it actually is.

[bunsen_h]

Some of Robinson's comments have merit, but there's more than a bit of straw-man and ad hominem stuff there. It would have helped his essay enormously, I think, if he'd acknowledged some of the real flaws in RAH's writing. Such as his tendency to pontificate on subjects that he didn't actually know much about e.g. raising a family, and about what people should be like.

For example, I think that specialists are really important, and one would have to be pretty blinkered to not understand that a person could be a fully valued human being despite being fundamentally unable to manage many of the items in his little list. If I were having blood vessels in my brain unblocked, to choose an example not at all at random, I'd prefer that it be done by someone who spent a lot of time working on such surgery. Their ability to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, etc. would not be of great concern to me. (Setting a bone would be part of their training. Comforting the dying should be part of a doctor's skill set, especially if they're dealing with touch-and-go stuff like brain surgery.)