I'm saying they are portrayed in such a negative light I take it as a writer's potshot.
Was DS9 anti-Vulcan
- Thread starter Voth commando1
- Start date
They weren't ever portrayed in a good light.
All this way and no one has mentioned the PTSD Vulcan going postal with an enhanced snipers rifle. A character complex enough that you can feel sympathy for what broke him, showing the conflicted emotions under the Vulcan face, and also hate him for what he did.
Ds9 just didn't rely on Vulcan characters often enough to make the judgement. It has to be taken as part of Trek as a whole in that regard...it showed slightly differing Vulcans to what we had seen...but only slightly. Sarek had no end of failings, as we saw when Picard felt them for him. Arrogance is practically a Vulcan trait from Spock right through. So no, DS9 was not anti Vulcan.
Ds9 just didn't rely on Vulcan characters often enough to make the judgement. It has to be taken as part of Trek as a whole in that regard...it showed slightly differing Vulcans to what we had seen...but only slightly. Sarek had no end of failings, as we saw when Picard felt them for him. Arrogance is practically a Vulcan trait from Spock right through. So no, DS9 was not anti Vulcan.
Apparently, not showing Vulcans shitting marble is a crime against humanity*.
*(word choice is intentional).
Sarek is a great character, played wonderfully by Mark Lenard, but, as noted, he was a complicated individual who was far from the perfect paragon of logic he aspired to be: he didn't speak to his son for eighteen years because he disagreed with his career choice, he hid a serious medical condition from his wife, etc.
On the other hand, he was wise enough to admit when he was wrong, as when he confessed to Spock in ST IV that he had misjudged Kirk and crew. And he always maintained his dignity at all costs, even if occasionally at the cost of seeming cold and aloof.
But, yes, a certain intellectual arrogance and disdain has always been part of the Vulcan persona. Note also how even T'Pau objects at first to the presence of "outsiders" at Spock's wedding.
DS9 was terrible at writing Vulcans. Every single one seemed to have less grasp of basic logic than a ten year old.
Killing people with happy pictures in their quarters is the logical thing to do.
It's really important to prove Vulcans are superior to humans? Most logical way to accomplish this? Baseball.
Killing people with happy pictures in their quarters is the logical thing to do.
It's really important to prove Vulcans are superior to humans? Most logical way to accomplish this? Baseball.
Finally someone who agrees with me.
It's not the logical thing to do. It is a reasonable explanation for how a Vulcan who's gone mad from grief could convince himself his actions are based in logic.
I'm not a fan of the episode: two/three good ideas crammed into one, so none gets done well, but...
DS9 didn't pay much attention to how they presented Vulcans. It's not a conscious bias. Presentations of Vulcans were governed by what the plot demanded of specific episodes and little thought was spent thinking how the Vulcans had been mapped out throughout Trek.
I personally didn't mind Sakonna for example. I respected that character. She's probably a representation of a very young Vulcan who isn't necessarily trained in all the mental disciplines and has her own logical interpretation of things. I don't think she's stupid but she is probably more provincial than she think she is and like many Vulcans she struggles to quite make sense of the emotional species. Like alot of young people she has a very firm sense of right and wrong and wants to correct real/perceived injustices. She may herself have been a colonist. So I liked her trying to come to terms with Quark and eventually to be persuaded by his oratory. .
The wooden, forbidding deathly looking Vulcans we see later in the show is not something that I found favour with. Although Solok does have *some* moments sparring with Sisko I suppose.
I personally didn't mind Sakonna for example. I respected that character. She's probably a representation of a very young Vulcan who isn't necessarily trained in all the mental disciplines and has her own logical interpretation of things. I don't think she's stupid but she is probably more provincial than she think she is and like many Vulcans she struggles to quite make sense of the emotional species. Like alot of young people she has a very firm sense of right and wrong and wants to correct real/perceived injustices. She may herself have been a colonist. So I liked her trying to come to terms with Quark and eventually to be persuaded by his oratory. .
The wooden, forbidding deathly looking Vulcans we see later in the show is not something that I found favour with. Although Solok does have *some* moments sparring with Sisko I suppose.
Have you seen Enterprise?
The logic isn't something they are born with, it's more like a religion. Some are better at following that than others, some hide behind an identity based on it while not following it at all. Like Kai Winn, or most Klingons, or Quark....if anything Ds9 understands Vulcans perfectly, and uses them accordingly in their story. The Vulcan that goes postal is having a major loss of faith while trying to cling to it in a situation where he really can't see it reflected. (Because the Dominion in particular do not behave logically, as they have perverted faith from our perspective.) Thinking about all these things in detail really brings out the nuance.
And the baseball is about beating Sisko at his own game. And it's one Vulcan. Against a team of mostly not human players. It's a Sisko thing.
I agree that modern Trek got progressively worse at getting Vulcans right. That's especially true of Deep Space Nine and Enterprise. Personally, I loved Tuvok, T'Pol and Sakonna from “The Maquis”, but yeah, the presentation of Vulcans seemed to be viewed more and more through a very cynical lense by the authors. TOS often made sure to remind us that Spock's repression of emotions was not necessarily a good thing, but on the whole his logic-based lifestyle was presented as a valid alternative to the human's over-emotional failings. I think that and Leonard NImoy's performance are what made Spock such a breakout character and the Vulcans such a fan-favorite race. Later Trek tended to scrutinize everything that people like about them. Or they just plainly got them wrong.
Having said all that, I'm not convinced DS9 was intentionally anti-Vullcan. I think it has more to do with changing writing conventions and sensibilites.
Having said all that, I'm not convinced DS9 was intentionally anti-Vullcan. I think it has more to do with changing writing conventions and sensibilites.
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I do concede however Tim Russ on Voyager was pressured to act like 'everyone else", he resisted that pressure and stayed true to his character's species.
I do think yes the writers have treated Vulcans more and more cynically.
I do think yes the writers have treated Vulcans more and more cynically.
Yes I understand, however they did attempt to get T'Pol right in season 4, they screwed up badly prior but hey at least they mitigated it somewhat.
There were also a Vulcan flag officer and ambassador who probably had as much screen time as the Vulcan from "Field of Fire" and maybe even Sakonna. They were your 'standard' Vulcans. Plus several other very minor characters that had maybe 2 or 3 lines, while it is hard to judge they don't seem atypical as it were. Interesting that they have simply been forgotten in all this.
You could say DS9 had 5 episodes with prominent Vulcan characters. 3 where the Vulcans were antagonists. Whether you think they worked in those roles is subjective. To declare because they had those roles that it was an obvious sign of malice by the showrunners just seems a bit out there.
You could say DS9 had 5 episodes with prominent Vulcan characters. 3 where the Vulcans were antagonists. Whether you think they worked in those roles is subjective. To declare because they had those roles that it was an obvious sign of malice by the showrunners just seems a bit out there.
So I got to the Vulcan murderer episode. So ok, maybe DS9 is anti-Vulcan.
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