Nana Visitor says no to Vedek Kira

[jaime]

It sounds to me like you are justifying lumping large swaths of people together by telling me you have a Jewish friend, a Sikh friend, a Muslim friend, ...

No, I am telling you that the rest of the world uses the phrases Judeo christian, including the person who first mentioned it in this thread, to describe those two religions as a group because they have common ground.
You seem to dispute they have any common ground, and imply that thinking otherwise is lazy or stupid. You also seem to have an issue with suggesting Jews and Christians can be linked ideologically in this manner, heaven knows why.
I know different, and in order to head off your assumptions and bad manners, gave you an anecdote suggesting I am not posting from some mono cultural perspective, with limited knowledge, but instead from an informed perspective, hoping that would make you stop making some of your assumptions.
And I will happily lump large swathes of people together. I call it London. Whatever else me and my friends were, we were all friends, classmates and Londoners.
It's a bit like the Federation.

Now, why you take such umbrage with me, I do not understand, but it was not me who brought the comparison into this discussion, I simply disagreed with the comparison. The fictional Bajoran Religion does not have more influence from those specific Real World Religions, in my opinion, than from others or from general Elements. Nor from other Abrahamic faiths, assuming I am allowed to call them that.
It is noticeable that what we are not told about Bajoran Belief is as informative in that regard as what we are told.
Would Kira shift into a religious role following her life to that point? Yes, I can see that. No, I don't like it, but it makes sense so meh, writers choice.

 

[jaime]

Religion has a way of bringing people together, in a peaceful way, it's amazing! What would we do without it?

People are people.

 

[jaime]

I am sorry but I fail to see what's abrahamic about the prophets.

Nothing at all. Apart from maybe the choice of name and it's connotations in the West. The overall thing has a 'we predict the coming of a figure who will you you to us' figure in the Emissary, which is Messiah like. I don't think the Bajoran Religion is particularly Abrahamic, just a few words and silly hats aside.

 

[Christopher]

There are many religions that have a good vs. evil paradigm and are in no way related to abrahamic religions.

Yes, but the people who wrote the later seasons of DS9 and took the Prophets in a more "godlike" direction were American TV writers, most likely raised with a version of religion that was in the Western, Abrahamic tradition, and it's obvious that they just copied the definitions of "god" and "religion" that they were familiar with rather than attempting to imagine something more alien. And that was a lot more boring than Michael Piller's original conception of the wormhole inhabitants as a form of life so profoundly alien that we and they could barely understand each other, that humanoid brains couldn't even perceive them directly but could only filter them through analogies from our own memories (e.g. Sisko saw their aggressive aspect as Locutus on the Saratoga viewscreen, their inquisitive aspect as Jake at the fishing pond, etc.) Piller's idea was richly imaginative and intriguing, and pushing the Prophets into a more conventional, Western religious mold, complete with cast-out gods and a Manichaean battle of good and evil, was simply less creative. I mean, you want Abrahamic, look at "The Reckoning," where the Prophets commanded Sisko to sacrifice his son as a show of his faith. The very first time I saw that, I thought "Okay, that is way too on the nose." (As if that weren't enough, the DS9 novels even established that Jake's middle name is Isaac!)

And then there's their attempt to tack a "virgin birth" sort of thing onto Sisko by saying a Prophet took over his birth mother -- which was totally ill-conceived (no pun intended) because it was incredibly rapey, with Sarah forced to have sex and conceive and deliver a child against her will. I mean, Mary was actually given a choice. Sure, the angel came to her and told her she'd been chosen to bear the Messiah, but at least she got the chance to say "Be it unto me according to thy word" rather than just being mentally enslaved and turned into a sex puppet. I've been told that Mary's free will in the decision is part of the reason she's so venerated. So not only does it look like they were just lazily trying to copy something they vaguely remembered from Sunday school, but they got it horrifically wrong.

I mean the Bajorans never even talk about what happens after they're dead. Have you noticed that? That's the main subject of conversation of most Christians, in fact that part of their recruiting patter.

I think Christians are too diverse a group to allow saying anything about how "most Christians" express or practice their faith. There are some vocal groups that like to insist they represent all Christians, but I don't take them at their word any more than the Trek fans who insist that their hatred of the Kelvin films is the consensus of all "true fans."

And she never ever tries to convert him. That's not very Christian, IMO, who are constantly trying to justify themselves and trying to get new people, even unconsciously. So you see why I am not convinced that this is related in any way to the abrahamic religions.

I've had several good friends who were devout Christians and who never tried to convert me. Well, I did have a conversation once with one of them that probably had that as a subtext -- she assumed that everyone must've had the same awareness of the presence of God that she claimed to have, and was reluctant to accept that I'd never had any such perception -- but ultimately she accepted my right to my point of view.

 

[jaime]

Yes, but the people who wrote the later seasons of DS9 and took the Prophets in a more "godlike" direction were American TV writers, most likely raised with a version of religion that was in the Western, Abrahamic tradition, and it's obvious that they just copied the definitions of "god" and "religion" that they were familiar with rather than attempting to imagine something more alien. And that was a lot more boring than Michael Piller's original conception of the wormhole inhabitants as a form of life so profoundly alien that we and they could barely understand each other, that humanoid brains couldn't even perceive them directly but could only filter them through analogies from our own memories (e.g. Sisko saw their aggressive aspect as Locutus on the Saratoga viewscreen, their inquisitive aspect as Jake at the fishing pond, etc.) Piller's idea was richly imaginative and intriguing, and pushing the Prophets into a more conventional, Western religious mold, complete with cast-out gods and a Manichaean battle of good and evil, was simply less creative. I mean, you want Abrahamic, look at "The Reckoning," where the Prophets commanded Sisko to sacrifice his son as a show of his faith. The very first time I saw that, I thought "Okay, that is way too on the nose." (As if that weren't enough, the DS9 novels even established that Jake's middle name is Isaac!)

And then there's their attempt to tack a "virgin birth" sort of thing onto Sisko by saying a Prophet took over his birth mother -- which was totally ill-conceived (no pun intended) because it was incredibly rapey, with Sarah forced to have sex and conceive and deliver a child against her will. I mean, Mary was actually given a choice. Sure, the angel came to her and told her she'd been chosen to bear the Messiah, but at least she got the chance to say "Be it unto me according to thy word" rather than just being mentally enslaved and turned into a sex puppet. I've been told that Mary's free will in the decision is part of the reason she's so venerated. So not only does it look like they were just lazily trying to copy something they vaguely remembered from Sunday school, but they got it horrifically wrong.




I think Christians are too diverse a group to allow saying anything about how "most Christians" express or practice their faith. There are some vocal groups that like to insist they represent all Christians, but I don't take them at their word any more than the Trek fans who insist that their hatred of the Kelvin films is the consensus of all "true fans."




I've had several good friends who were devout Christians and who never tried to convert me. Well, I did have a conversation once with one of them that probably had that as a subtext -- she assumed that everyone must've had the same awareness of the presence of God that she claimed to have, and was reluctant to accept that I'd never had any such perception -- but ultimately she accepted my right to my point of view.

Do you know I had never thought of the Reckoning that way? Now you mention it though... I guess because of the time and the effects I just assumed it was your standard Demon vs Angel (insert culturally relevant functionally similar supernatural beings here) fight a la Buffy.
I agree with the clumsy Virginia birth stuff, and definitely prefer the Piller version of the prophets to a large extent, but I guess that was so strong that even later stuff didn't make it seem so overtly western religion influenced.
That or like you said, it was so ham fisted and half remembered from Sunday School I didn't recognise it, despite coming from that background.

In my further case, the fact I largely missed season 6 and 7 and caught up later may mean It just didn't read that way to me because of my disjointed viewing.

They are lucky in that a fair chunk of the stuff the borrowed is pretty archetypal anyway, including Siskos rather odd conception tale.

 

[Tim Thomason]

It probably would've been better if Sarah had never existed (i.e. been a Prophet who took human form and seduced Joseph before eventually disappearing into the aether). Or maybe if she was part of some secret human cult that worshipped the Prophets. Both of those *almost* reverse the dilemma here, and kind of make Joseph into the one being tricked into a relationship against his free will.

The best thing would've been for Ben to have a normal family life, with no prophetic interference until he ran across them in 2369. If they want to send him images of his mother, that's cool, but just have it that they were temporally spying on him and once again taking images from his past.

 

[jaime]

It probably would've been better if Sarah had never existed (i.e. been a Prophet who took human form and seduced Joseph before eventually disappearing into the aether). Or maybe if she was part of some secret human cult that worshipped the Prophets. Both of those *almost* reverse the dilemma here, and kind of make Joseph into the one being tricked into a relationship against his free will.

The best thing would've been for Ben to have a normal family life, with no prophetic interference until he ran across them in 2369. If they want to send him images of his mother, that's cool, but just have it that they were temporally spying on him and once again taking images from his past.

Joseph Sisko was *also* the one being tricked into the relationship. Not in quite as invasive a way, but it's still pretty darn unpleasant.

 

[Christopher]

It probably would've been better if Sarah had never existed (i.e. been a Prophet who took human form and seduced Joseph before eventually disappearing into the aether). Or maybe if she was part of some secret human cult that worshipped the Prophets. Both of those *almost* reverse the dilemma here, and kind of make Joseph into the one being tricked into a relationship against his free will.

The best thing would've been for Ben to have a normal family life, with no prophetic interference until he ran across them in 2369. If they want to send him images of his mother, that's cool, but just have it that they were temporally spying on him and once again taking images from his past.

Yes, the best thing would've been never to go there at all. Even aside from the horrifying sexual-consent problems, it was a bad idea storywise to try to turn Sisko into Jesus. The Emissary wasn't the Messiah figure in Bajoran religion; he was just a messenger, an intermediary between gods and mortals. The Emissary was, ironically, a prophet in the literal sense of the word, a messenger from the gods (which is why it was odd to use "Prophets" as a name for the gods themselves).

If they had to do the Sarah thing, they should've had the Prophet simply arrange for Sarah to meet and fall in love with Joseph of her own free will, or encourage her to do it and give her a choice. There were ways they could've made it more or less okay, but they went for something far more troubling.

 

[jaime]

Yes, the best thing would've been never to go there at all. Even aside from the horrifying sexual-consent problems, it was a bad idea storywise to try to turn Sisko into Jesus. The Emissary wasn't the Messiah figure in Bajoran religion; he was just a messenger, an intermediary between gods and mortals. The Emissary was, ironically, a prophet in the literal sense of the word, a messenger from the gods (which is why it was odd to use "Prophets" as a name for the gods themselves).

If they had to do the Sarah thing, they should've had the Prophet simply arrange for Sarah to meet and fall in love with Joseph of her own free will, or encourage her to do it and give her a choice. There were ways they could've made it more or less okay, but they went for something far more troubling.

Thinking about it more, it's more Classical....Zeus and Titans, Leda and Swans and Wotnot (Swann..Vesta....strike a light even the Aventine in the relaunch is connected..)
When we look at it that way, and take into account the female Prophet being imprisoned for a crime she knew must be committed in order to have Sisko keep Rom on the station so Rom could save the Prophets when Keiko got an extra passenger that wasn't the fault of Miles for once.....

I guess that's the question. Are they going classical or Judeochristian? The fire caves are as much Tartarus or the Underworld as they are Hell, and they are only Hell if you take something of a Paradise Lost interpretation, which itself is just religious inspired fiction, not the scripture some people seem to think it is.

There's a lot more going on if we give the writers more credit. Even their use of the different Dax hosts thematically leans to a more old world religion theme. I don't know which way they were leaning, and partially that is because of the many blanks in the tapestry. The orbs all represent something, yet the orbs can also contain people or prophets...are the orbs themselves imprisoned gods? Volunteers? Saints? Holy figures of Bajor itself locked in there at the end of their lives by the prophets? Is Sisko Elijah or Jesus? Is he something else entirely? Arthur? Lu (and I am pretty sure I have the name wrong) who was only allowed into the Irish Celtic Pantheon after showing he could teach the older gods something and so join their number (every God was a master of one thing, so he became a bit of everything...hence jack of all trades master of none)

Does all of this make Kira into something different? Gawain? St.Paul?

In which case does her becoming Vedek then Kai make more sense? I know the novels have given her the title Hand, and made Illyana the fire (or something)

I think Rom needs a title, he did save their bums. And maybe Miles too.

 

[locutus101]

...
I've had several good friends who were devout Christians and who never tried to convert me. Well, I did have a conversation once with one of them that probably had that as a subtext -- she assumed that everyone must've had the same awareness of the presence of God that she claimed to have, and was reluctant to accept that I'd never had any such perception -- but ultimately she accepted my right to my point of view.

You know when you stop to think about it the Klingon faith is loosely inspired by Norse mythology, even the part about destroying the gods. I think Brunhilde set the Valhalla on fire to signal the end of the gods Die Götterdämmerung means the end of the gods.

 

[revolution22]

I talked to Penny Johnson Jerald about the novels semi-recently, and she wanted Ben and Kasidy to have a baby boy.

 

[revolution22]

Die Götterdämmerung means the end of the gods.

That's what Germans call it. The Norse themselves called it Ragnarok.

 

[locutus101]

That's what Germans call it. The Norse themselves called it Ragnarok.

Do you agree that Klingon mythology is loosely inspired by it?

 

[revolution22]

If you like to dwell on such comparisons, go for it. I do like mythology, but I have better uses for my time.

 

[locutus101]

If you like to dwell on such comparisons, go for it. I do like mythology, but I have better uses for my time.

That's good. People should always have better uses for their time.

 

[Jinn]

Is it just me, or did this thread become a lot more hostile since we stopped talking about the Ascendants?

 

[Jarvisimo]

It must be the pah wraiths getting to us all

 

[trampledamage]

Is it just me, or did this thread become a lot more hostile since we stopped talking about the Ascendants?

Mmm... but now that we're back on the problems of DS9's treatment of religion it's getting better again.

This forum isn't the place to discuss religion in general, so please do keep it Star Trek related.

Thanks ever so

 

[DS9Continuing]

In an attempt to bring it back to topic, I just remembered that there is precedent for Kira's rapid rise through the religious ranks.

Yevir was not even a member of the church as of 'Rapture', in mid season 5. Yet by the beginning of season 8, less than three years later, he was a well-known and respected vedek and the generally accepted choice to replace Winn as kai.

It was said that his passion and fervour for the church was inspired by that three-second meeting with the Emissary in 'Rapture'. If that tiny moment was enough to drive Yevir almost all the way to the top spot within three years, then a whole seven years as the Emissary's right hand woman has got to afford Kira quite a lot of religious caché as well.

.