Guinan in "Q Who"

Discussion in 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' started by SchwEnt, Jul 28, 2010.

  1. sonak

    sonak Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Agreed that her powers issue was a "dropped the ball" element with Guinan. Her pose and readiness to fight Q clearly indicated that the writers had it in mind for her to be a MUCH more powerful character than she really turned out to be. Maybe they didn't want her to be a deus ex machina character where she could potentially bail the crew out of danger or something. Or they were just lazy and didn't develop the idea.
     
  2. Praxius

    Praxius Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    I always considered her and her species as very powerful in some ways, but they were a more passive species and only use their powers for self defence, while Q would use their powers for whatever they felt like.

    Back in Time's Arrow, she was injured and needed Picard's help.... that's evidence that her species isn't immortal like the Q, nor can they wave their hands to fix problems.... but they live for a very long time and the Q show some level of concern towards their species for some reason which I would conclude stems from their species being able to thwart some of the Q's abilities in some manner.

    Here's what Memory Alpha has to say about her species, which are dubbed as "Listeners" (sounds to me as passive):

    http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/El-Aurian


    So there were three El-Aurians in the ST series.
     
  3. Too Much Fun

    Too Much Fun Commodore Commodore

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    That's just a cute visual reference to an 'iconic' pose she makes in the movie "The Color Purple". And the reason she's so vague about the Borg is just to make them seem more ominous with her dialogue. I think we're overanalyzing a bit here.

    If she actually gave them a detailed, logical rundown about the Borg right off the bat, it wouldn't get across the basic message of 'the Borg are supreme badasses and the crew is in some deep shit now' quite as powerfully as, "all I can tell you is you better start heading back RIGHT NOW". :p
     
  4. SchwEnt

    SchwEnt Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Eh, probably right. But then it's all strictly for dramatic purposes. Yeah, she COULD tell them who and what the Borg are and what they do, but... nah, let's save it for an exciting and dramatic reveal in Act Two.

    Yeah, it makes for a great eps. But hard to understand in RL terms.

    The Enterprise being tossed into Borg space unawares was essentially a certain-death situation, unless they were lucky to leave RIGHT NOW.

    I think of other RL situations where one might be in a certain-death situation (Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th, Mexico City earthquake, Hiroshima, and so on)
    If you knew the situation was pretty grim and people asked you for help and info, and you KNEW the circumstances, wouldn't you offer something more than "you'd better leave RIGHT NOW" ?

    If you knew the circumstances, wouldn't say right away "there's a huge tsunami coming" or "a terrible bomb will go off today" or "an air attack is headed towards us"
    or "a tremendous earthquake will destroy us" ?

    I still think Guinan should have spilled the beans about the Borg from the get-go. Less dramatic, sure. But seemingly more reasonable to me.
     
  5. Finn

    Finn Bad Batch of TrekBBS Admiral

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    I might be missing something, but who's the third?

    Guinan, Soran and....?
     
  6. DonIago

    DonIago Vice Admiral Admiral

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    He's in the DS9 episode "Rivals" - An El-Aurian finds what he thinks is a game-of-chance and opens an establishment that rivals Quark's. It's a fairly forgettable episode.
     
  7. FormerLurker

    FormerLurker Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    One of the other reasons I find it difficult to accept Guinan as an El-Aurian. She's so much more than the others.
     
  8. JoeFromEarth

    JoeFromEarth Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    We now the Q are not invincible. They can kill and strip the powers from their own kind. As we saw in Voyager, non-Q's can hold and use Q weapons, thus becoming lethal to an individual Q. I do not find it surprising, then, that Guinan, and perhaps other El-Aurians, have, throughout their centuries if not more of listening, learned of defense techniques against the mighty Q.
     
  9. Tulaberry whine

    Tulaberry whine Lieutenant Commander Red Shirt

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    If remember correctly, Guinan warns Picard to leave almost as soon as they get there. We then go to a commercial and when we get back Picard's decided to go exploring. Who knows what was said by who in the meantime? But I'll give Guinan the benefit of the doubt as Picard has proven to be quite stubborn when he wants to be. And once he's made up his mind, what can she do? (I mean, he's just ignored a warning from a person who is apparently beyond friendship and family - this was a man whose mind was not going to be changed.)

    I also don't necessarily think Guinan knew the Borg were in the area - she just knew that
    that part of space was not a particularly friendly place for lost Federation starships.

    BTW, I don't think Guinan was ever used as effectively again as she was in this episode.
     
  10. Basill

    Basill Captain Captain

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    The Q. Followers of the "tough love" approach. :borg:

    Who knew? :vulcan:
     
  11. dodgy_unicorn

    dodgy_unicorn Cadet Newbie

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    Why in the world would she say that? Apparently, the awesome power of a few phaser shots are enough to rip a Cube apart leaving it totally disabled. Not to worry.
     
  12. Noname Given

    Noname Given Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Personally, I HATED Q episodes - until this one. This was honestly the only one I liked the Q concept in the series (and my dislike had nothing to do with how John DeLancie played the character - just that most times the character was written stupidly, or very annoyingly).