So there's a round of discussion about Mary Sue (and Gary/Lary/Harry/Barry Stu) happening in corners of fandom that I read, and one of the entries mentioned Wesley Crusher and got me thinking off on a tangent.

How could Wesley Crusher have been treated in Star Trek: The Next Generation, to make him identifiable and even awesome? He was apparently a blatant self-insert of Gene Roddenberry, and annoying, and because he was so disliked, when an episode focused on him, he was show-warping rather than show-enhancing. I think it would have been possible to make him identifiable rather than alienating, and with only a few tweaks to premise and casting. (Note: this is the perspective of someone who's not seen the whole show, and therefore I am pretty much guaranteed to be missing parts of Wesley's canon portrayal that might screw with what I'm proposing.) But he was basically shoved into the show without proper grounding for his existence, just a flimsy backstory, and viewers were expected to identify with him and accept him just because he was OMG TEENAGE. That ... doesn't really work.


Idea 1: Don't make him the exception.
( Holy fuck that's a lot of midshipmen. )

Idea 2: Even on a ship that *has* teens, Wesley really doesn't have any friends his own age.
( Read more... )

Idea 3: Give him some non-adult friends, or at least people he has a positive relationship with.
( Read more... )

With a those few tweaks, Wesley could have been transformed from being the Only Special Snowflake in a desert, to being the Only Special Snowflake in a blizzard. He's still a Special Snowflake, but now there's more support for his existence in his own society. He becomes identifiable: not just sole teenager in a world full of adults, but teenager isolated from his peers because of his intelligence and difficulty with/disinclination for social interaction, having more meaningful interactions with adults than people his own age, yet isolated from them too due to age and social difficulties. With identification, Wesley becomes awesome and not dreaded, and the audience can buy in: this is me, this is my friend who's too smart for his own good, and there I am/he is, and OKAY THIS IS KIND OF AWESOME.

If Wesley hadn't caught on with the audience even with the changes, with a framework that inserted a pool of teenage extras into the background, another teen or two could have been brought forth as a guest star and tested for recurring character potential.

I think I survive in fandom with weird fic pairings thanks to trek and Heinlein. I see ALL fic as AU. Some canon too.