I actually agree with you and I think your typo 'treat' is adorable
Diet Coke would be a neutralised treat!
The age of the antihero
- Thread starter Refuge
- Start date
Diet Coke would be a neutralised treat!
Yeah. The issue here was compounded by the fact that stun was shown to be completely effective against the Klingons in taking them down. In the moment that Burnham switches the setting from stun to kill, we learn that she is the opposite of everything we've been told and shown about her up to that point. She is in fact not very intelligent, her emotions are not controlled in a way that would speak to years of successful Vulcan education, she is incapable of following the critical mission plan that she herself helped devise, and she is utterly unwilling and/or unable to exercise the self-discipline necessary to safeguard the lives of millions that would befit someone worthy of starship command.
Based on what's been in all episodes to date, it seems that the writers could have better served the character of Burnham by having made the fairly obvious plot change of making the stun setting ineffective against some or all of the Klingons for some reason such as because of Klingon armor. If the writers had followed that road, it wouldn't been necessary to assassinate Burnham's character to the degree that was done in BatBS by having her approach the situation as if it were a choice between sticking to the mission versus exercising personal vengeance. Instead, Burnham could have seen it as a choice between sticking to the mission versus trying to defend Georgiou.
Again, stun had been stopping Klingons intent on killing them so far. Furthermore, firing in Georgiou's direction with a kill setting endangered Georgiou as much as it helped prevent her death. Under the circumstances, stun was the logically correct setting for trying to defend Georgiou. Only if that failed should Burnham have escalated to kill.
Or maybe Starfleet's training in phaser use just plain sucks.
Lorca is not more compelling for me. I prefer Burnham. I have compassion for both of them, and I certainly don't think "anti-hero" is an appropriate descriptor for Burnham. If breaking the rules is "anti-hero" then Kirk is right there with them.
Not in that episode. In that one he was very black and white in his condemnation of an alcoholic doctor who couldn't operate.
For me, I feel like it's the same thing with Burnham. She broke the law+she isn't in prison=she got away with it. Regardless of circumstance (a war) or the fact that she would be returned to the penal colony after the crisis is resolved, the argument is very black and white. In my opinion, it doesn't fit the story as presented, and isn't consistent with Burnham's character growth. That's my frustration is that it's black and white view of the law, with no room for compassion or circumstance.
It does.
There's nothing "sure" about that proposition from Burnham's perspective. Remember, it's been a century since any close contact with the Klingons. This is the first test. She made a split-second decision that she knew might have been an error either way, and she chose to err on the side that would potentially have resulted in Georgiou's life being saved over T'Kuvma's. As with all her other decisions, there was a mix of both logic and emotion involved. It turned out to be the worst of both worlds, but not because she wanted that outcome.
This situation was analogous—and I believe deliberately so—to the issue of police shootings in the United States, which has loomed large in the public discourse in recent years (although it goes back much farther than that) and on which there are deep divisions in opinion, with each side of the debate having understandable perspectives and making good points, both in general and with respect to individual incidents. Many accuse police officers of "murdering" people indiscriminately (or rather discriminately)—and there have certainly been cases where this seems to be the case, and there are legitimate issues with prejudice and training, I don't mean to minimize that concern at all here—but in a lot of cases the officers are found after inquiry (and occasional trial) to have been acting justifiably and within reason based on the situation at hand. Police officers as a rule don't "shoot to wound" instead of kill, because it isn't reliable, and when lives are at stake you don't pull your punches and go for half-measures. Doing so can often be disastrous. But so can using deadly force, of course. There is very often ambiguity as to whether such force was in fact required in hindsight, but whether it is judged justifiable essentially comes down to the perception of the officer, in the moment.
The difference between stun and kill could well have made the difference between Georgiou being dead and Georgiou being alive, from where Burnham stood. She could not see that Georgiou was already mortally wounded, even though we the audience could. It was intentionally edited that way so that we would all question it and come away with conflicting impressions of what happened and have to go back and "review the tape" to determine what really went down in the heat of the moment...just as with police shootings. Burnham may have made the wrong decision, and it may only have compounded the tragedy of the situation, but it was not an act of malice. Still, we must question whether her affection for Georgiou and her evident prejudice against Klingons played no role on a subconscious level. I myself initially came away with the impression that Burnham had murdered T'Kuvma in an emotional act of revenge, but when I went back to watch the scene again, I found that upon review it seemed this was not supported by the evidence. Then I realized how closely it all paralleled the discourse and debate surrounding police shootings, and I now think that was no accident (no pun intended). I would encourage everyone to revisit the scene to see if you come away feeling the same.
(NOTE: To reiterate and clarify, I am not suggesting by this that police shootings are always justified or that this is the "message" of the scene. If anything, it shows us how even when there is justification, using deadly force can be of no benefit, and not only futile but with results even more destructive and detrimental than the alternative. But the nuances must be observed and appreciated when judging someone in that position.)
The later situation with L'Rell is entirely different, because she was not making any aggressive move toward anyone there, was not acting as a combatant, was unarmed, and was bound. She was not an imminent threat, and to have used deadly force against her would have been completely unjustifiable. Additionally, it would likely be known by that point that the current stun setting was sufficient, and if not, then it would have been worth the risk to try it, since no one was in immediate danger. Plus, Burnham would surely be more cautious about using deadly force after witnessing the devastating consequences of her previous action.
-MMoM
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Well this is beating a dead horse but the law can be black and white and sentencing can require a limited choice of terms. The court process is where any circumstance and possible compassion is considered.
After her mutiny Burnham was given leeway by Georgiou but it was one disaster after another by Michael, much of it fuelled by her emotions and her demons. Killing T'Kuvma (something she has used twice since to impress - once with Mudd and once with Kol), compounded her mistakes and failure. Let's be honest she stuffed up. She accidentally killed one Klingon torchbearer and then went for the mutinous takeover. That whole business of booby trapping a Klingon corpse and sneaking onto T'Kuvma's ship to kidnap and humiliate him was really both low and stupid. What did they expect? Of course he was going to fight back.
It's not like Burnham hasn't had compassion at all. She's had it spades.
That was Georgiou's idea, not Burnham's. And Burnham's plan in sneaking aboard was specifically to take T'Kuvma alive. And the whole thing was authorized and carried out under Georgiou's supervision and direct participation. It just went wrong.
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Think you might have assigned one of my quotes to Conscientious Consumer?? Unless he said the same thing.
Yes, sorry about that. There was another quote in there left over from a draft of my previous post, and I deleted the wrong portion. Corrected now.
-MMoM
Lol, that's okay I just figured it might have caused a moment of disquiet for another poster to have one of my comments assigned to themYes, sorry about that. There was another quote in there left over from a draft of my previous post, and I deleted the wrong portion. Corrected now.
-MMoM
Not from your argument is my larger point. Other characters in Star Trek have done similar and worse, but don't face the "They must be in jail!" constant argument. It feels very much like arguing for a double standard, and expecting Burnham to sit in jail with no possibility of any other fate. That's my struggle is this arguement for black and white application of the law with no consideration to context and circumstance.
@The Mighty Monkey of Mim: The analogy with police shootings breaks down short of the point of an effective analogy for at least two reasons.
First, the stun setting was shown to be effective. Georgiou and Burnham were in a run-and-shoot with their weapons set on stun and were doing just as well as they would have been were their weapons set on kill: they were dropping every Klingon they shot at.
Second, the method of switching between stun and kill on phasers is entirely different than switching between lethal and nonlethal real world police weapons. There is no stun setting on a police firearm. An entirely different weapon must be used to attempt to tase a target, and the firing parameters of a stun gun, such as rate of fire, number of shots available, range, and aiming practice are all entirely different than with a firearm. While stun and kill on phasers no doubt might have different firing parameters, their differences are much more minor by comparison. Tactical deployment is thus entirely dissimilar. Since TOS, stun has been this imaginary thing that has no counterpart in real world weapons. While things have taken a step towards that capability from where they were 50 years ago, and there is still no real world analogy to phaser stun settings.
First, the stun setting was shown to be effective. Georgiou and Burnham were in a run-and-shoot with their weapons set on stun and were doing just as well as they would have been were their weapons set on kill: they were dropping every Klingon they shot at.
Second, the method of switching between stun and kill on phasers is entirely different than switching between lethal and nonlethal real world police weapons. There is no stun setting on a police firearm. An entirely different weapon must be used to attempt to tase a target, and the firing parameters of a stun gun, such as rate of fire, number of shots available, range, and aiming practice are all entirely different than with a firearm. While stun and kill on phasers no doubt might have different firing parameters, their differences are much more minor by comparison. Tactical deployment is thus entirely dissimilar. Since TOS, stun has been this imaginary thing that has no counterpart in real world weapons. While things have taken a step towards that capability from where they were 50 years ago, and there is still no real world analogy to phaser stun settings.
^Hm, just watched that bit again, and I forgot about the first three Klingons. It's a fair point, but I don't think it really changes much overall. The initial two they catch unawares and they don't appear to be armed. Georgiou gets one more that is holding a rifle, but not aiming it at her, while Burnham is watching her six. Burnham is then immediately tackled by Voq.
It's a rapidly escalating situation and the stakes are upped once Georgiou has lost her phaser and she and T'Kuvma are locked in hand to hand combat, and again even higher when she's been wounded. And Burnham still definitely doesn't know for sure that Georgiou is already dead until after she fires. What you point out may suggest that her reaction was somewhat more emotional than logical, and reinforce that it was a misjudgment on her part. But it's still justifiable use of deadly force in the heat of the moment, not cold-blooded murder, even though it was a fuckup. I really don't think we are meant to believe that Burnham decided "he just killed Georgiou, fuck it, screw the plan, I'm icing this motherfucker where he stands!" rather than "this plan isn't working, he's killing Georgiou, I better make this shot count!" in the final analysis, even if we have reason to wonder a bit. And Burnham herself may wonder, too.
And we clearly see that T'Kuvma remains conscious despite his mortal wound, so it I think there's merely a bit of dramatic license in play, and room for doubt regarding the supposed certainty of stun being effective. FWIW, there's a fair amount of variability to how effective it is in TOS at times, too. Sometimes it puts someone out cold for a lengthy duration, and sometimes it only leaves them slightly dazed. (Wasn't that also true of Saru on Pahvo as well? Didn't it take several stun shots to wind him? I'm gonna need to re-watch all of these soon to refresh my memory.) Neither they nor the camera linger on Klingons they do stun; for all we or they know, those guys could have gotten right back up within a few moments. But like everything else, I guess it's also supposed to be somewhat ambiguous.
-MMoM
It's a rapidly escalating situation and the stakes are upped once Georgiou has lost her phaser and she and T'Kuvma are locked in hand to hand combat, and again even higher when she's been wounded. And Burnham still definitely doesn't know for sure that Georgiou is already dead until after she fires. What you point out may suggest that her reaction was somewhat more emotional than logical, and reinforce that it was a misjudgment on her part. But it's still justifiable use of deadly force in the heat of the moment, not cold-blooded murder, even though it was a fuckup. I really don't think we are meant to believe that Burnham decided "he just killed Georgiou, fuck it, screw the plan, I'm icing this motherfucker where he stands!" rather than "this plan isn't working, he's killing Georgiou, I better make this shot count!" in the final analysis, even if we have reason to wonder a bit. And Burnham herself may wonder, too.
And we clearly see that T'Kuvma remains conscious despite his mortal wound, so it I think there's merely a bit of dramatic license in play, and room for doubt regarding the supposed certainty of stun being effective. FWIW, there's a fair amount of variability to how effective it is in TOS at times, too. Sometimes it puts someone out cold for a lengthy duration, and sometimes it only leaves them slightly dazed. (Wasn't that also true of Saru on Pahvo as well? Didn't it take several stun shots to wind him? I'm gonna need to re-watch all of these soon to refresh my memory.) Neither they nor the camera linger on Klingons they do stun; for all we or they know, those guys could have gotten right back up within a few moments. But like everything else, I guess it's also supposed to be somewhat ambiguous.
-MMoM
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Stun settings are inconsistent, at best, especially with Klingons. Even in "Heart of Glory" Federations phasers take two shots to get through a Klingon vest.
My belated comment: I don't believe Michael Burnham qualifies as an anti-hero. Certainly, she counts as a fallen hero seeking redemption/atonement, whether that's through service aboard Discovery, serving her sentence once that service aboard ship is done, or some combination. How she earns it - to the satisfaction of others if not herself - is to be the core of this series' tales.
It's a war. Perhaps Kirk shouldn't have killed the Klingons in "The Search for Spock" as well?
Yes indeed, but again, what exactly do you find objectionable about intentionally killing an armed combatant who is employing deadly force against one of your own? That's what war is all about, isn't it?
The are so many jokes that I want to use in here....
This will have to do:
From what I understand...
Anti-heroes aren't to heroes like anti-matter is to matter, it's a misleading name.
Anti-heroes are just characters that are heroes but have un-heroic traits, basically a Greek "hero" along the lines of Odysseus, they may use "metis" rather than righteousness.
By that definition Han is a perfect example of an anti hero, just like The Man With No Name from the Dollars trilogy, and his character was modelled on westerns too.
Han Solo demonstrates plenty of cunning or metis; shooting Greedo first, going into the asteroid field, attaching to the Star Destroyer. As Lucas develops him, he reforms into more of a genuine hero, which is why perhaps it might have made more sense to have seen an old Han as a General in The Force Awakens.
Say that a character was scrupulously a realist, and did not trust any higher philosophy than the immediate good of their own survival, they would be a force to be reckoned with, if they were sceptical enough, they would be able to cut through a lot of bullshit, to see what amounted to self-serving rhetoric in others, and want nothing to do with it, except in so far as it helped them. But they would also be somewhat distrustful of earnest social ideas, or civic virtue, seeing that many people use high ideas to get others to give up their wealth or time or lives for a cause they are not willing to die for. It's interesting in drama I think, because it can make for these rogues who understand the brutality of the world better than the hero, and are able to cut through bullshit, but at the same time are good people with compassion, who just deploy it more for things like loyalty, friendship, etc.
King of Thebes Oedipus is the quintessential Anti-Hero archetype in Greek Mythology.
