Do Rebellious Child/Teen Characters Have to Be Disliked?

Suggestions? The chief engineer has a cadet telling him his work is substandard and needs an overhaul. Backed up by nothing but a condescending reference to some paper. If the engineer did anything at that point except stand by his work, it'd be right back to Season One. ("Gee, Wes, I didn't know you were so interested in this stuff! Tell me more!")

 

I never had an issue with Wesley Crusher on TNG. I find grown up Wil Wheaton much more annoying then teenage Wil Wheaton.

 

Don't forget "Red Squad" from DS9.

... Didn't they blow up a ship by themselves....???

 

Rebellion is not one of the problems with Wesley. I wouldn't call him rebellious at all, at least not until his final appearance. He was the opposite. Super eager to please. He received privileges because of his connections. And they had to make the grownups dumber to enable him to be the one to make the grand revelation. And I could accept that he is a genius, but they made him a Beaver Cleaver instead of making him act like a real teenager.

 

True, that is, up until we stopped seeing him, when he started to develop a nice peteena of adult bitterness.

 

lol yeah but in context, aren't many people in Star Trek a little creepy in that they behave so progressively compared to us? They write characters sometimes who exist for us to aspire to, not necessarily relate to. For example? Beverly. Beverly is one creepy acting lady. Who acts like that?

 

I'm trying to figure out which TNG character I'd like to aspire to.

...

...

Nope, can't think of a single one.

Well, maybe Sonja Gomez. She's a little klutzy, and she likes hot chocolate.

 

I aspire to be like Geordi at my work, & Picard in my personal discipline. Socially? No... probably none of them lol

 

Rebellion was not the problem. It is always when they try and make kids central characters as opposed to them simply being kids and something to inform and define the main characters. Jake mostly worked because he really didn't have much personality. He was something to define who Sisco was and inform us of Sisco. Nobody cared who Jake was and thankfully they rarely tried to force that onto us. Naomi Wildmon was great because she was a kid portraying a kid. She was used to bring out empathy in the main cast. She wasn't piloting the ship. She was something to be acted upon.

Nog is probably the most interesting one. Although he wasn't really a kid now was he. Aaron Eisenberg is literally as old as Trek itself. He grew into a more regular or main character status as he grew up in front of us. He was in many ways a sort of "Anti-Wesley".

 

This thread lost me when it was stated that Jake was more annoying than Wesley.

But more seriously, my feelings for Wesley follow a bell curve. I despise him in his earlier appearances (and I was in high school at the time), start to like him as he grows up a bit...in "The First Duty" I thought he was a bit of a jackass but I could at least vaguely understand where he was coming from, and then all of the respect I've managed to develop for him as a character gets flung out the window in "Journey's End", where mouthing off at everyone apparently is just a sign that you're about to evolve into a higher being.

 

Good choice. I always liked Geordi too. Expanding out of TNG and into DS9, I think O'Brien is a good one to aspire to, at least for me. Loyal, almost to a fault, to friends, family and colleagues; highly skilled and experienced; and despite his personal demons and high potential for PTSD resulting from his time during the Cardassian conflict (unlike his former Captain), he still functioned with extreme diligence and professionalism. Definitely a strong role model, IMO. Bonus that he's also someone I'd like to sit down and have a pint or five with.

 

The only downside of O'Brien would be his choice of a whiny shrew for a wife.

 

Agreed 100%. It does, however, further exemplify his extreme loyalty in the face of her generally bad attitude. I feel sorry for him in that one regard, but I also highly admire his personal code of ethics and unflappable iron will. Overall, a good man. I do wish Keiko appreciated him more.

 

Keiko appreciated him enough to go to a run-down and potentially dangerous space station for him. I don't recall him ever abandoning his career for her.

And frankly, in any argument they had, I always thought he gave as good as he got.

 

Rebelliousness is not mandatory and dislike is not mandatory even if they are rebellious, but TV seems to have a lot of trouble creating situations where both the teens and adults have a point. Partly it's because there's usually a very different amount of screentime for the two perspectives, depending on the focus of the show.

Similarly I think part (only part) of why Keiko is so disliked is that we only see her when she's angry with her husband, whereas we see O'Brien having fun, fixing things, interacting with all of the main cast.

 

She bitched at him for everything, even what he liked to eat!

Maybe if O'Brien and Julian had invited her along on one of their holodeck adventures... nah. She'd have whined the whole way through and then nobody would have had any fun.

As far as giving up careers is concerned, botany is something that can be done wherever plants can grow. They even do botany experiments on the International Space Station in RL. Keiko had a whole planet to study, and if she couldn't go to Bajor, why didn't she ask Sisko for a room to convert into a lab so she could continue whatever she was studying?

 

Given that it's a tv show, do you really think they were going to show us the likely countless hours where the O'Briens were getting along without incident?

 

I always figured Keiko was annoyed with O'Brien because he farted loudly near her every chance he got. I suspect O'Brien was a big fan of the dutch oven in bed.

 

I never have a problem with Keiko, it surprises me to see the extremeness of people's negative reaction to her. I think it's all based on one or two episodes of DS9 where she is unhappy. She seems like a perfectly normal supportive wife most of the time. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that she got a little depressed out on an isolated space station with nothing to do.

O'Brien *did* try to get her an arboretum on the station, but as Bashir pointed out, you can't make somebody's career into a hobby. She was trying her best to be happy, and she's the one who sacrificed her own ambitions so she could support her husband's career.

I think on some subconscious level we see it as just expected for women to put their career on hold to support their husbands. But nobody would call Miles negative if he left Starfleet to support Keiko as Head of Starfleet Botany Research, then he got a little depressed and wasn't happy just tinkering with engines in his spare time.

 

In Fascination, he resigned and offered to follow her back to Bajor, then to wherever she wanted to go next, particularly Earth. She told him that she appreciated what he was doing, then told him to go get his letter back before Sisko saw it.

Having been the wife who follows the husband so that he can pursue his career, I feel for Keiko. It's very hard giving up the life you have built to move somewhere you didn't choose and maybe don't even want to go to. It's hard to start over, build a home, make friends, raise children without support. Your husband is happy, and that's good, but you're alone except for him, and he's busy with his job (as he should be). It's just tough. I think their marriage is solid and good and as realistic as possible for being set in the 24th century.

And, so to not totally derail the thread - I liked Molly. I thought she was a good little character.