Palmer's girl is a full-fledged Mary Sue -- though, as you point out, charming enough not to irritate me. Besides, she has the excuse of her genetic history. I must say, though, I never considered Podkayne a Mary Sue; she felt more the equivalent of a bright, future version of Beany Malone, or one of those other teen girls from YA books out of the Fifties. (Heinlein wrote a few short stories about another teen girl from the same mold -- I forget her name, but they weren't SF stories. I vaguely recall she was attending college and dating a guy and living with her parents in a small town.)
Podkayne often gets things wrong and sometimes marvels at her own naivete. Her older friend Girdie (Gerdie? Don't have the book close by) knows more about men, and her younger brother Clark, while pleasantly sociopathic, knows more about everything. Poddy describes herself objectively as a pretty girl, but not beautiful, and I think she was Heinlein's attempt to write about girls at an age he found endearing -- still coltish, but starting to bloom into adulthood. It's a bit of a cliche, no doubt, but it's something I've seen plenty of in books and movies. The fact that some of the male characters in the book find her charming on exactly that level I think says more about how Heinlein felt men perceive a pretty, lively, interested girl at that age; i.e., like an endearing puppy, but with the bonus of sex appeal.
The fact that she can do higher-level math, to me, just means she can match the absolute basic requirements for most Heinlein protagonists. He doesn't go on from there to make her a genius in physics and someone who can shoot to kill accurately from either hand -- and lord knows he was quite capable of giving those gifts to other characters.
It's not as if Heinlein never wrote Mary Sues. His trademark "competent man" is pretty damned Mary Sue-ish, I think. But Podkayne seems far less so to me than most of his other protagonists. And then, her fucking up something at the end -- depending on which version of the book you read -- causes her own death or injury. Given how many of Heinlein's protags are survivors, that seems telling.
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Date: 2003-03-05 05:12 pm (UTC)Podkayne often gets things wrong and sometimes marvels at her own naivete. Her older friend Girdie (Gerdie? Don't have the book close by) knows more about men, and her younger brother Clark, while pleasantly sociopathic, knows more about everything. Poddy describes herself objectively as a pretty girl, but not beautiful, and I think she was Heinlein's attempt to write about girls at an age he found endearing -- still coltish, but starting to bloom into adulthood. It's a bit of a cliche, no doubt, but it's something I've seen plenty of in books and movies. The fact that some of the male characters in the book find her charming on exactly that level I think says more about how Heinlein felt men perceive a pretty, lively, interested girl at that age; i.e., like an endearing puppy, but with the bonus of sex appeal.
The fact that she can do higher-level math, to me, just means she can match the absolute basic requirements for most Heinlein protagonists. He doesn't go on from there to make her a genius in physics and someone who can shoot to kill accurately from either hand -- and lord knows he was quite capable of giving those gifts to other characters.
It's not as if Heinlein never wrote Mary Sues. His trademark "competent man" is pretty damned Mary Sue-ish, I think. But Podkayne seems far less so to me than most of his other protagonists. And then, her fucking up something at the end -- depending on which version of the book you read -- causes her own death or injury. Given how many of Heinlein's protags are survivors, that seems telling.