Respect from who? They're fictional characters designed to give a certain point of view, incite a certain reaction or drive a particular plot. Respect from other characters depends on the needs of the story.
Was DS9 anti-Vulcan
- Thread starter Voth commando1
- Start date
The way DS9 and Enterprise treated the species(fictional yes) was utterly cynical, hostile, inconsistent and downright aweful.
At least Enterprise made attempts at correcting/retconning its own failures in this regard.
What do you think when the general public thinks of Trek what species do they think of? Vulcans I'll bet is on the top five on any list.
Maybe the fans(DS9 in particular) and the producers feel that Vulcans need to be "humanized" so as to be relateable or something.
But to do so disrespects the writers that imagined them, disrespects Mr. Nimoy who made them famous and it's just wrong.
In consistent with what? TOS never portrayed the Vulcans as perfect or an ideal to be emulated. Vulcans were shown to be petty, devious and self serving. Spock himself comes off as cold, heartless and yes cynical at times.
Which failures were those?
So? Why should that change how they are written or portrayed? Klingons are associated with Star Trek by the general public too. Should they be "sanitized" too?
They've been "humanized" since day one. That's been part of what the writers and Mister Nimoy intended. I suggest you watch TOS, especially episodes like "Galileo Seven" and "Amok Time".
Those episodes more than anything illustrate why they shouldn't be humanized. Humans don't have an irascible need for sex every year. Humans aren't stoic hard nosed aliens. That's what they were meant to be.
Cold, heartless, cynical and detached is what their supposed to be. DS9 made Solok an ass that could only be shown his place by Sisko who acted like a bigger ass. Spock or Tuvok(or Hell just about every other named Vulcan) wouldn't have even entertained Sisko's chest thumping attitude.
I swear to God TMOTTH was so bad.
I swear to God TMOTTH was so bad.
I suggest you watch again.
I believe you may be on to something.
-Sokonna. I liked her, but she's not shown to be very intelligent or competent. It was really unexpected to see a Vulcan terrorist, but perhaps that was the point.
-1
-Crossover. Spock, through his reforms, tried to preserve the Terran Empire. He instead caused it to collapse even sooner, resulting in the enslavement of humanity.
-0 neutral
-For the Cause. The Traitorous Eddington dupes SF officers into loading a shipment of Replicators on to a Vulcan ship. He orders them to keep it secret from the Bajorans.
-2
-Take me out to the Holosuite. Solok, and his crew seem to be overtly racist. Solok himself seems to have either a superiority or inferiority complex, probably the former, perhaps both. He's not very logical though. #VulcansDOholdgrudges
-9
-Field of Fire. Chu'lack is a serial killer. He kills people based on whether or not they have pictures of smiling people in their quarters. When apprehended, he states "It was the logical thing to do." Was it Chu'lak? Are you sure?
#VulcansDOholdgrudges
(This last one has been admitted by the writers-that they intentionally chose a Vulcan for shock value. So that would be your strongest evidence.)
-5
Positive Depictions:
-Emissary. The Vulcan captain seems to be a decent fellow, although it's been ages since I've seen it. +1
-Trials and Tribble-ations. Dax finds him to attractive. How attractive? VERY attractive. Who, Kirk? No, not Kirk...Spock!
+2 for this episode.
-Random Vulcan Admiral. Again, decent fellow.
+1
Final Arbitrary Score:
Negative 13. Sorry, Salek.
Lets do TOS
Spock- Recommends Mitchell be executed. (WNMHGB) Gets several crewmembers killed in Galileo Seven. Make a joke about her assailant to the victim of an assault.(Enemy Within) Falsifies orders, kidnaps an officer and hijacks the ship. Commits mutiny.(The Menangerie) Falsifies orders, again. Kills Kirk (Amok Time). Manipulates the Romulan commander through lies and deceit. Aids in the theft of the cloaking device. (Enterprise Incident) And those are off the top of my head.
T'Pau- Shows distain for humans
T'Pring- Tricks Spock into killing Kirk. Manipulates Stonn. Planned to take Spock's property and name of he died while still being with Stonn.
Stonn- Willing participant in T'Pring's scheme.
Sarek- Lies. Insults non-Vulcans
Spock- Recommends Mitchell be executed. (WNMHGB) Gets several crewmembers killed in Galileo Seven. Make a joke about her assailant to the victim of an assault.(Enemy Within) Falsifies orders, kidnaps an officer and hijacks the ship. Commits mutiny.(The Menangerie) Falsifies orders, again. Kills Kirk (Amok Time). Manipulates the Romulan commander through lies and deceit. Aids in the theft of the cloaking device. (Enterprise Incident) And those are off the top of my head.
T'Pau- Shows distain for humans
T'Pring- Tricks Spock into killing Kirk. Manipulates Stonn. Planned to take Spock's property and name of he died while still being with Stonn.
Stonn- Willing participant in T'Pring's scheme.
Sarek- Lies. Insults non-Vulcans
Spock being half human eliminates quite a lot from that list or at least allows alternate interpretation.
The others you mentioned I don't think should be interpreted in so negative a light.
DS9 and its writers whole business was deconstructing the trek universe and its creator. To do so they had to tear down the Vulcans one of the most iconic and "Roddenberryian" races in the franchise.
Voyager shows the complexity of Vulcan psychology without disrespecting prior material.
Enterprise as bad as Vulcans were portrayed it did improve and showed their culture with some level of respect and nodding.
TNG-well it didn't really have Vulcans except Unification.
Many of his actions come from being Vulcan.
Why not? How are T'Pring's actions, trickery and manipulation, a positive?
For Vulcan tradition and custom to be satisfied. A bit of a traditionalist if I recall but not inconsistent.
She wanted Stonn and gamed the system to get him.
"Respect" does not mean idealizing them. Or not portraying them as complicated beings with both positive and negative qualities, in different proportions depending on their individual personalities. They're fictional characters, not icons. Taking them seriously, in the context of a televised drama, does not mean glorifying them. Or that they should be immune to criticism. Hell, McCoy challenged their philosophy every chance he got. Was he disrespecting "a key aspect of the Trek mythos"?
And, no, you're not disrespecting them by acknowledging their flaws as well as their virtues. Ultimately, Vulcans are a tool for exploring various facets and approaches of the human condition, just like pretty much every alien on STAR TREK, be it TOS or DS9.
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Isn't this thread about DS9 consistently portraying Vulcans in a Negative light?
I think we can all agree, mostly yeah. It's not a slight against DS9 really. It's just a few stories out of 170 or so, probably each written by different writers. And with so little a Vulcan presence, it ended up that way
I think we can all agree, mostly yeah. It's not a slight against DS9 really. It's just a few stories out of 170 or so, probably each written by different writers. And with so little a Vulcan presence, it ended up that way
So looking at the writing we have:
The Maquis-Berman, Piller, Taylor, Behr, and James Crocker
Homefront/Paradise Lost- Behr, Wolfe, Moore, and Hans Beimler
For the Cause- Moore & Mark Gehred O'Connell
Take me out...- Moore
Field of Fire- Wolfe
(I threw in Homefront because they originally had the Vulcans actually cecede from the Federation, but it was later dropped from the story.)
The Maquis-Berman, Piller, Taylor, Behr, and James Crocker
Homefront/Paradise Lost- Behr, Wolfe, Moore, and Hans Beimler
For the Cause- Moore & Mark Gehred O'Connell
Take me out...- Moore
Field of Fire- Wolfe
(I threw in Homefront because they originally had the Vulcans actually cecede from the Federation, but it was later dropped from the story.)
"Respect" does not mean idealizing them. Or not portraying them as complicated beings with both positive and negative qualities, in different proportions depending on their individual personalities. They're fictional characters, not icons. Taking them seriously, in the context of a televised drama, does not mean glorifying them. Or that they should be immune to criticism. Hell, McCoy challenged their philosophy every chance he got. Was he disrespecting "a key aspect of the Trek mythos"?
And, no, you're not disrespecting them by acknowledging their flaws as well as their virtues. Ultimately, Vulcans are a tool for exploring various facets and approaches of the human condition, just like pretty much every alien on STAR TREK, be it TOS or DS9.
Spock/McCoy at loggerheads: Logic and Emotionalism battling it out. How the Greek philosophers saw the human condition.
It seems the writers knew exactly what they wanted to show and took the idea a stage further in the episode "The Enemy Within" where Kirk is split into two people.
And all humans act exactly the same. Good, noble and fighters of democracy
Perfect logic and lack of emotion is certainly the ideal that Vulcans aspire to, but that doesn't mean that every Vulcan individual (or even most of them) manage to obtain that goal every moment of their lives. Heck, the very existence of Kohlinar suggests that the vast majority of Vulcans do not succeed in completing purging their emotions, but fall short of that ideal to varying degrees. Only the supreme masters of Kohlinar are totally without emotion, not your average, everyday Vulcan, like the ones we saw on DS9 and the other series.
Ideals are a target to aspire to, but there's always going to be a gap between the ideal and the reality, and not just with the Vulcans.
Klingons revere courage and honor, but some Klingons are braver and more honorable than others. Humans have their own ideals, which they struggle to live up to, be they Captain Sisko or the Maquis. And, yes, some Vulcans are going to be more stoic and unemotional than others, and at different times.
Ideals are a target to aspire to, but there's always going to be a gap between the ideal and the reality, and not just with the Vulcans.
Klingons revere courage and honor, but some Klingons are braver and more honorable than others. Humans have their own ideals, which they struggle to live up to, be they Captain Sisko or the Maquis. And, yes, some Vulcans are going to be more stoic and unemotional than others, and at different times.
Some fans equate logical Vulcan with moral Vulcans. T'Pau was known to be ruthless with her logic (as stated in ST VOY 'Dark threads' ) and we saw that in ST ENT she would risk Archer's life to get that katra out of his head in order to free her people from V'Las. If he died in the process just too bad he was human to be sacrificed.
'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few', is a dictator's wet dream.
'The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few', is a dictator's wet dream.
It's perhaps worth noting that Roddenberry himself was heavily involved with the first movie, in which Spock ultimately rejects Kohlinar and the pursuit of pure logic and the total absence of emotion.. Instead, Spock finally sees the value of his simple human feelings . . ..
So DS9 was simply following Roddenberry's lead when it came to acknowledging that pure Vulcan logic has its limits . . ..
So DS9 was simply following Roddenberry's lead when it came to acknowledging that pure Vulcan logic has its limits . . ..
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