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"Such men dare take what they want..."--Khan: Sexy or creepy?

My biggest issue is the manscaping.

If he'd looked like this... rrowf!

khanbeard.jpg
Now he looks like Adrian Pimento from Brooklyn 99.
 
Welcome to Thread Creep, where no matter what you ask people will say what they want, on topic or not.

I never found Khan attractive, visually or behaviorally. He may not strike McGivers but he forces her to her knees and then throws her to the floor. He's somewhat charming in some scenes, but basically he's a smiling cobra.

I don't know that he ever wore a real beard, except maybe in Escape From the Planet of the Apes.
 
She already was pretty interested in him before he even started seducing her

A historian interested in a historical figure?

No one is aghast.

Marla wanted to write a book.

Which might require years of immersion like Diane Fossey did.

Augments in the Mist.

On the other hand....

Was it the augment plague that gave Klingons their second penis? Did all the supermen have four balls, and therefore twice as much semen struggling to break free, and personality complications that go along with a double sexdrive?
 
Creepy!

When I saw it first as a pre-teen thought why would she want to go with that guy who was using his strength to abuse her - was she crazy?
Now as a woman - I'm thinking - domestic violence. So its still creepy for me, I'm afraid.

Look dominant guys like Khan and Sarek are probably not going to beat their partners in drunken rages but I bet you McGivers and Amanda wouldn't have a crying baby or toys on the floor for Khan or Sarek to deal with when they came home from an day of conquering or ambassadoring. And they would always go for the same footy team as their husbands.

OK Montalban is pretty attractive and charming but I don't think I's be happy for the rest of my life having to be Khan's "perfect" wife. I know some women do. Good for them.
 
Blood fever.

Three times stronger than a human.

Amanda got some bruises that never went away.

Actually...

Sarak's first wife, the princess, if she's still alive, would divorce (and a ceremony) sever the telepathic connection? It's possible that Sarak only gets true Ponn far for his first wife, and breeds out of season for his human mate.

Furthermore does Amanda know?

That once every 7 years, Sarek will die if he doesn't try to have a child with his first wife? Or Sarek has to have a child once every seven years with his first wife, or he dies.

So either Amandas is cool with this, Amanda joins in, and there's enough baby batter to go around, or its super secret, Amanda knows nothing, and Sarek has to fake pon far for Amanda, so that his human consort does not figure out that she is the other woman receiving inauthentic sex.
 
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Khan represents what quite a few people, male and female, romanticize—a history or society that didn’t actually exist.

We have all known someone who has lionized Stalin or Mao or Castro and communism in general. But they never met those individuals or actually lived in their societies. If they ever did it would be a rude aeakening.

McGivers romanticized and fantasized over “bold men of the past.”

Then she met the real thing.
 
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Try to sound like Ricardo Montalban
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I remember just thinking that it was unrealistic for McGivers to become Khan's follower just because she thought he was attractive. I thought that by the point in life where someone was an astronaut and had done all that work that their ambitions and loyalties wouldn't be that flimsy and shallow.

Now, since then we've had at least one astronaut who was a real nutcase and was charged with plotting to kidnap a perceived romantic rival. People are just people no matter how bright they are, right? But in 1966 when I was barely a teenager I didn't see adults that way.
 
Try to sound like Ricardo Montalban
Dunno. For tacos, I usually go to Wahoo's (and typically order "#1, regular chicken taco, cheese only, rice only, half white, half brown). And in a sit-down Mexican restaurant, I'll typically order a plate of chicken (or mixed chicken and beef) fajitas, hold the peppers, with flour tortillas.

And NASA has evidently lowered its standards a bit, from when they only accepted military test pilots with engineering degrees, perfect health, and an utterly unimpeachable private life.

Then again, the 1960s standards for astronauts were Roddenberry's justification for Starfleet not having any enlisted ranks.
 
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I remember just thinking that it was unrealistic for McGivers to become Khan's follower just because she thought he was attractive. I thought that by the point in life where someone was an astronaut and had done all that work that their ambitions and loyalties wouldn't be that flimsy and shallow.

Now, since then we've had at least one astronaut who was a real nutcase and was charged with plotting to kidnap a perceived romantic rival. People are just people no matter how bright they are, right? But in 1966 when I was barely a teenager I didn't see adults that way.

Well, despite my numerous problems with Space Seed's plot - which don't detract one bit from its status in my mind as a fantastic episode, so strong are the other elements of the show - I think they actually dealt with this one pretty well. I think the point of the brilliantly scripted and acted "Bolder? More colorful?" dressdown that Kirk gives McGivers in sickbay is to show that she was really tired of allegedly bland 23rd century dudes and had a (resulting?) fascination with the movers and shakers of the past, irrespective of their morality. In fact, there's a whole subtle commentary about historiography and historical ethics tied up in that scene (and other scenes in Space Seed) that I find fascinating.

However, I do have to say - by the end of the episode, does McGivers still find Khan "bolder" and "more colorful" than Kirk? Kirk does win, after all - ah, but perhaps McGivers believes that's only because she intervened. And she'd probably be right.
 
And still went with him! :wtf:

There was an Anime Expo I went to twenty years ago. I had been corresponding with a girl who was obsessed with the character "Dryden" from Escaflowne (with good reason. He's awesome).

I remember knocking on her hotel door in my Dryden costume (I was a spot-on Dryden) and when she opened it, she just sort of gasped and was clearly interested.

When you meet your fantasies in the flesh, it's a powerful thing.

dryden1.jpg


expo.jpg
 
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