For the uninitiated to fanfiction terminology Mary Sue refers to a character who is so perfect and competent that it becomes absurd. I believe the name was given to a parody fiction written for the Trekkie universe -- ah and wikipedia confirms (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue)

Also this gem, an excerpt from the fanfiction: "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."

I was very interested when I learned my high school English teacher was writing a novel and I expressed my admiration. “Oh, everyone’s writing a novel,“ he replied. I asked him how it was going and he said he’d had this character who was just too good and was taking over the book. “So,” he said, “I killed him.”

I'd assume Mary Sue characters existed from the dawn of human existence. We just don't remember them because it's relatively bad storytelling. Even if people enjoy it, stories with Mary Sue characters rarely stand the test of time. Ready player one, Twilight, etc etc.

Early epics are noted for their flawed characters. Gilgamesh's bloodlust, Odysseus's disdain of the gods. Iccarus's hubris. King Authurs infidelity.

We better remember characters who were flawed. 'Perfection' is strangely boring.

Odysseus did not had disdain for God's. But he lied a lot through that was not framed as bad.

Odysseus got raped by goddesses a lot, so you could call his posture disdainful I'd say. As the story is related he really did just want to get home to his superlatively excellent wife.

On a tangent, I do like how the phrase "holy moly" is a direct allusion to the Odyssey.

Whether he is disdainful should be judged by what Odysseus says and do. Not by what goddess do.

In the story Odysseus is not behaving in disdainful way to gods at all. He is not disrespectful, he is not treating gods as unworthy. It quite the opposite the whole time.

I will add that his respect towards gods is something Athena brings up at one point as argument towards other gods and argument works. Odysseus gets help. For that matter, Odysseus gets a lot of godly help.

There is one god that is angry with him trying to kill him (cause Odysseus killed his son without knowing it is gods son) and one that keeps him trapped on island cause she likes his presence. Odysseus never express disdain toward her through nor toward gods in general.

I accept your correction. Still, Odysseus clearly doesn't like being held as a sex slave by not one but two different goddesses.

Imo, his situation was considerably better then the one of slaves. He was kept not allowed to leave and yes he had sex he did not wanted aka rape.

But not every prisoner is slave. The slaves are present in the books.

Slaves are also killed by Odysseus himself if they had sex with suitors, no regard is made to whether sex was voluntary and odysseus himself claims that sex was rape before (but he just guesses that).

It is not like that story took much regards with regards of rape.

How does "holy moly" relate to the Odyssey?

Moly was the sacred herb that freed Odysseus from Circe’s spell.

Perhaps disdain is the wrong word. But did not Odysseus claim that he beat Troy without the help of the gods?

I know the blinding and taunting of the cyclops was when he pissed off Poseidon. But I seem to recall that other gods were mad at him too.

Edit: killing Helios cattle was also a bad move.

Odysseus had the favor of Athena though, and I don't think he ever lost it.

He did not knew cyclop was Poseidons son. At that point, Odysseus was pirate during pirate things - stealing from random island. Cyclop being Poseidons son is Odysseus being unlucky (or just karma). There was no intention to attack Poseidons family.

Odysseus did not killed Helios cattle, he told his men not to do so. His men did killed them after they disobeyed Odysseus.

Athena argues that Odysseus did sacrificed a lot more then usual towards gods at one point.

I dont know what Odysseus claimed after he beat Troy, sorry.