Mortal Coil… Missed the Mark?

[M]

Withers wrote:

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The potential message

I guess that's one way to interpret what the episode tried to convey. Personally, I think it's intended to comment on the value of religious beliefs. Neelix realizes that, although his belief may be factually wrong, it did help him in many ways throughout his life. The real worth of faith hasn't anything to with how much of it is actually true, but with how it can help in certain situations. And I think the episode succeeds in getting that point across.

Withers wrote:

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... elements like the show being about Neelix [...] made the message irrelevant and the episode essentially... crap.

Why?

Withers wrote:

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Naomi Wildman being the voice of...wisdom

I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, but what do you mean by that?

Adm_Hawthorne wrote:

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Re: Vegan - not intending to offend, though I do consider it a form of vegetarianism.

No, neither is a form of the other. Both are philosophies regarding the human diet and the consumption of animal resources.

[exodus]

NCC-1701 wrote:

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I guess that's one way to interpret what the episode tried to convey. Personally, I think it's intended to comment on the value of religious beliefs. Neelix realizes that, although his belief may be factually wrong, it did help him in many ways throughout his life. The real worth of faith hasn't anything to with how much of it is actually true, but with how it can help in certain situations. And I think the episode succeeds in getting that point across.

I think it has more to do with the power faith than religious beliefs, just like "Sacred Ground" did.
You don't have to be religious to understand the strength in the faith of will.
An Athiests faith in ones-self to over come all obticles in their path of life is still the power of faith.

[Adm_Hawthorne]

He was definitely a clingy one. Lynx can help me out here, but wasn’t that part of Kes’s reasons for breaking up with him? I know she was known to say he was being too ‘over protective’.

So, now Neelix is going to go off and find a reason for living by ignoring his guilt, pain, and faithlessness. That’s healthy.

Why not have the character have more of a crisis of faith and come out stronger? Why have him abandon it altogether?

I want to be clear that I’m not proposing that he go off on a man crusade for religion. What I am saying is that, given his characterization, it would have been perfectly plausible for him to evaluate what happened to him and see a clear light of why he didn’t see the afterlife that fell into his current belief structure as opposed to shattering his beliefs. He’s a fairly hardheaded charter. That seems more inline with his personality to me… to find a reason why and place it into his beliefs… than to walk away from it all.

[exodus]

Adm_Hawthorne wrote:

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He was definitely a clingy one. Lynx can help me out here, but wasn’t that part of Kes’s reasons for breaking up with him? I know she was known to say he was being too ‘over protective’.

So, now Neelix is going to go off and find a reason for living by ignoring his guilt, pain, and faithlessness. That’s healthy.

Why not have the character have more of a crisis of faith and come out stronger? Why have him abandon it altogether?

I want to be clear that I’m not proposing that he go off on a man crusade for religion. What I am saying is that, given his characterization, it would have been perfectly plausible for him to evaluate what happened to him and see a clear light of why he didn’t see the afterlife that fell into his current belief structure as opposed to shattering his beliefs. He’s a fairly hardheaded charter. That seems more inline with his personality to me… to find a reason why and place it into his beliefs… than to walk away from it all.

Because nobody but Vulcans can rationalize death and move on so neatly.

Healthy?

Neelix has grow up his whole life consumed by his families death, how was that ever healthy to begin with? You're expecting rational thought from someone that wasn't to begin with.

[Adm_Hawthorne]

No, what I think I was expecting was for him to stay more true to his moral code/belief structure.

The over-all rationalization of death is not easy for many people. I get that, believe me.

To rationalize your own death and (essentially) resurrection and then realize that what you expected to remember wasn't at all what you thought you'd remember must be quite near impossible.

Thing is, that's what I (note I said I) consider faith to be. Faith is believe in something you can't prove or rationalize well if at all.

So, here we have a character with a strong personality, strong convictions, who is accustomed to over coming hardship after hardship. Upon realizing that he can't remember an afterlife, he immediately falls into a super depression.

He's depressed and has a vision quest experience where his subconscious basically tells him life isn't worth living anymore.

Wait a sec...

First of all, no one was trying to treat his obvious depression that was quite possibly clinical. Where was the doctor during all of this? Playing golf? It's clear he's having problems adjusting, but no one's thought of keeping an eye on him to make sure he'll be okay? That seems dubious.

Again, I have to bring up the counseling. Even Data ran a program to talk to Freud, for goodness sake's. No one could pull a counseling program out of whatever thin air they pull all their other holodeck programs from to help him come to some sort of resolution? That also seems dubious to me.

Neelix decides life is worth living because Naomi needs him. Okay, sure... fine... what happens when she grows up or one of them leaves?

[teya]

Adm_Hawthorne wrote:

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Neelix decides life is worth living because Naomi needs him. Okay, sure... fine... what happens when she grows up or one of them leaves?

Naomi's growing up was one of the reasons Neelix decided to leave Voyager. She didn't need him anymore.


I'm not understanding your religious argument...


Are you saying people of faith never have crises of faith?

[Adm_Hawthorne]

Heck no!

I'm saying that people with religious beliefs can have a crisis of faith and come out stronger as opposed to coming out atheist. (Although, I recognize it goes both ways.)

I feel Neelix's character would lend more toward stronger faith than faithlessness.

[Lynx]

Adm_Hawthorne wrote:

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He was definitely a clingy one. Lynx can help me out here, but wasn’t that part of Kes’s reasons for breaking up with him? I know she was known to say he was being too ‘over protective’.

So, now Neelix is going to go off and find a reason for living by ignoring his guilt, pain, and faithlessness. That’s healthy.

Why not have the character have more of a crisis of faith and come out stronger? Why have him abandon it altogether?

I want to be clear that I’m not proposing that he go off on a man crusade for religion. What I am saying is that, given his characterization, it would have been perfectly plausible for him to evaluate what happened to him and see a clear light of why he didn’t see the afterlife that fell into his current belief structure as opposed to shattering his beliefs. He’s a fairly hardheaded charter. That seems more inline with his personality to me… to find a reason why and place it into his beliefs… than to walk away from it all.

Although it was never stated that Kes dumped him because of being over-protective, there were situations in which she did find him too jealous and too over-protective and if the writers had handled their cards right, it would and should have been the reason why she dumped him.

Personally I find Neelix somewhat neurotic. Don't misunderstand me, I love the character but he did seem to have some problems. His exaggerated ways to help and cheer up people and the whole Moral Officer and Briefing With Neelix things may have been his way to hide his insecurity and being haunted by the terrible memories of having his whole family annihilated. That can also be seen in his relationship with Kes where he obviously was so afraid of losing her that he became over-jealous and over-protective and finally did scare her off.

But I agree with Adm_Hawthorne that it would have been better to have him have more of a crisis of faith and come out stronger than having him abandon his faith altogether, especially since such a re-evaluation of his beliefs could have made him feel even worse than before. And as we could see in the coming episodes, he didn't change to the better or the worse. A story in which he kept his faith and because of that became stronger would have suited the coming storytelling better than the rather cruel and meaningless (from a storytelling point of view) loss of beliefs that he had in the episode.

[teya]

Adm_Hawthorne wrote:

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Heck no!

I'm saying that people with religious beliefs can have a crisis of faith and come out stronger as opposed to coming out atheist. (Although, I recognize it goes both ways.)

I feel Neelix's character would lend more toward stronger faith than faithlessness.

Did they actually say he'd abandoned his faith?

I have a friend who's been going through a crisis of faith for years. He was a minister. Now he's an atheist.

It happens.

[exodus]

Adm_Hawthorne wrote:

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First of all, no one was trying to treat his obvious depression that was quite possibly clinical. Where was the doctor during all of this? Playing golf? It's clear he's having problems adjusting, but no one's thought of keeping an eye on him to make sure he'll be okay? That seems dubious.

Sam Wildman showed up in time to stop him for killing himself. She didn't act terribly surprised to catch him doing it and she talked him down off that ledge.

Are you sure nobody was watching him making sure he's ok?

[Adm_Hawthorne]

Okay, there was very little evidence on screen that such a thing was happening.

Of course, as often as we actually saw Sam on screen, I can't help but ask if she's just a figment of our collective imagination.

[M]

exodus wrote:

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I think it has more to do with the power faith than religious beliefs, just like "Sacred Ground" did.
You don't have to be religious to understand the strength in the faith of will.
An Athiests faith in ones-self to over come all obticles in their path of life is still the power of faith.

True, faith doesn't equal religion. I'm an atheist, so I should know. However, Neelix' faith was very well augmented by the religion he practiced.

Adm_Hawthorne wrote:

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I'm saying that people with religious beliefs can have a crisis of faith and come out stronger as opposed to coming out atheist. (Although, I recognize it goes both ways.)

The episode really doesn't say either way. It's just your interpretation that he abandoned his faith. Unfortunately, later episodes don't give a definitive answer to this either.

[exodus]

Adm_Hawthorne wrote:

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Okay, there was very little evidence on screen that such a thing was happening.

Again I disagree.
Chakotay, Tuvok, Seven, etc. all offered up advice and aid to him. Nobody ignored him but people lives & responsabilities don't stop either. Counciling can only do so much, the only one that can save you is you. Neelix had to come to his own conclusions himself. He had to want to get better. What helped was finding a new purpose in life.

[Adm_Hawthorne]

Meh. Maybe I was too busy hoping he'd transport out to the nebula that I lost sight of the helping hands being offered?

[exodus]

Adm_Hawthorne wrote:

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Meh. Maybe I was too busy hoping he'd transport out to the nebula that I lost sight of the helping hands being offered?

Now that's just plain mean.