Thoughts on the Empress?

[Zod]

SPOILERS for Season 2

I enjoy Discovery, but I'll be honest - I'm kind of disappointed the Empress is sort of Michael's 'frenemy' instead of more of an arch-foe. I thought she was a great foil for Michael at the end of season 1, and that she'd be to Michael what Dukat was to Sisko or Q was to Picard. But instead, season 2 sort of established her as an ally. Of course, Dukat was allies with Sisko, before turning full crazy bad, but I don't see that panning out this way - I can't really detect an opposing agenda from her, and Michael's mother did hint that she'd sacrifice herself for Michael.

On top of that - she's a xenophobic, genocidal dictator - she ate Mirror Saru! It's just a bit jarring for me to see her so cozy with the crew now. Anyone else feel this way, or am I missing something?

I dislike the character and they way she is written. To be honest I would have liked her prime universe self to have survived and be part of the show. I liked that character in the pilot and I am sure I would have enjoyed her going forward.

 

[fireproof78]

Prime Georgiou would have been more enjoyable, in my opinion. But, as a visual representation of Burnham's mistakes? She works well enough for my part.

 

[NCC-73515]

Visually she's fine - it's the vocal part that's annoying XD

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

I'm a Michelle Yeoh fan, so seeing more of her works for me.

But I wish they didn't kill of Prime Georgious so fast.

I would've rather had Prime Georgiou die at the end of season 1, only to be replaced by Mirror Georgiou sometime in S2.

 

[guyute03]

After episode 2 I still can't stand her but also maybe don't want to walk into a bar full of trouble without her either.

 

[Odo]

Glad to see people interested in this topic, but it's driving me nuts that I wrote "Empress" instead of "Emperor" and can't change it - whoops!

 

[Kraig]

With the Federation in disarray, at times you might need someone with Georgiou's skill set. It seems like 980 years after season 2 is more like the mirror universe of the past, instead of the Prime universe of the Federation in the past. Terran Georgiou may be the best equiped on Discovery to deal with this particular time.

 

[Jackson_Roykirk]

She was a bit too much for me when she was blabbing on about getting the Discovery fixed...

...but I thought she was perfect as a bad-ass on the planet against Zareh and his men.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I wish they didn't kill of Prime Georgious so fast.

They could always bring her back.

(I mean, we never actually SAW the Klingons eat her, did we? )

That said, I wonder how Ms. Yeoh would feel about playing Prime again. She obviously has a lot of fun playing the MU version, I hope she wouldn't feel like Prime Georgy is too goody-goody or something .

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

(I mean, we never actually SAW the Klingons eat her, did we? )

Time travelers from the future pull a doppleganger body swap like what happened in ST:ENT with DeadStop?

Ergo, high probability that the Klingons won't know that the body was swapped.

Then they fix up the real Georgiou and use her as a temporal agent?

Then you can have Double Georgiou goodness with Mirror Georgiou on STSC and Regular Georgious somewhere else?

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

"Empress" instead of "Emperor" and can't change it - whoops!

Does it really matter?

 

[The Wormhole]

Does it really matter?

One is her title. The other is not.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I still don't get it.

 

[The Wormhole]

What's there to get? She is always addressed as Emperor. Never Empress. Seems straightforward enough to me.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

What's there to get? She is always addressed as Emperor. Never Empress. Seems straightforward enough to me.

Look, maybe I'm way the hell off base here, but...oh hell, I'll put it in spoilercode:

Spoiler

She IS a woman, so why is Empress not an appropriate title?

 

[Kraig]

Look, maybe I'm way the hell off base here, but...oh hell, I'll put it in spoilercode:

Spoiler

She IS a woman, so why is Empress not an appropriate title?

The same reason actor is preferred over actress. It is gender neutral. An emperor is a monarch who rules an empire. It is also more precise. An empress may be one who is married to an emperor, the mother of an emperor or the actual emperor. Then to be more specific you would need to add consort, dowager or regnant. Some consider nouns with the sufex 'ess' to be sexist.

Of course we could also be talking about penguins.

 

[PiotrB]

The same reason actor is preferred over actress. It is gender neutral.

This is just the specificity of the English language. More important for the rest of the languages, including those without a gender neutral(more complex grammar), is that this is Georgiou's wish.

 

[Timo]

Hoshi Sato was Empress. Philippa Georgiou is Emperor. Might be an error of translation, might be a preference evident in error-free translation.

Old Egypt only even had Kings, regardless of their gender. The Terran Empire might be undergoing a phase like that, basically the very opposite of going gender-neutral for purposes of gender equality.

FWIW, mine is a gender-neutral language. The terminology nevertheless is sharply gendered, there being separate words for King and (ruling or non-ruling) Queen, for Emperor and Empress, etc. and with a feminine suffix for most job titles. It's just a somewhat extraneous suffix most folks used to drop long before it became fashionable to shun gender-specific titles elsewhere. It hasn't affected anybody's perception of female hereditary rulers, though, since those are antiquated things and allowed to be a bit silly. No language insists on Presidentess, AFAIK...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Takeru]

That said, I wonder how Ms. Yeoh would feel about playing Prime again. She obviously has a lot of fun playing the MU version, I hope she wouldn't feel like Prime Georgy is too goody-goody or something .

I'm pretty sure mirror Georgiou is the reason she signed on in the first place, somehow I can't imagine her being excited at the "Your character is a nice starfleet captain and Michael's mentor and then you die" part of the pitch, "badass emperor who kicks ass, chews scenery, eats Saru's siblings for dinner and could rule another universe if she wanted to" sounds a bit more appealing.

 

[Timo]

I for one am not the slightest bit sorry that we got what we got. The same with Lorca: we had several episodes to enjoy the "Oh, perhaps he's a traumatized badass" version before moving over to the "Oh, he was a scheming Mirror bastard all along and hid it really well but the signs were always there and of course I always knew" version, and neither one was lost in the process. We got it all, and are all the richer for the double experiences.

Timo Saloniemi