Poll Is Q Right About Troi?

So is it?

Maybe that's not the best example, but consider Picard watching Nella Daren's concert in Lessons, with Troi directly behind him, eyeing him up when she takes note of his fondness for her. Isn't that kind of like eavesdropping on someone, & in that sense, kind of rude?

However, maybe it's not the kind of thing you can just turn off, kind of like if Jane has a pimple on her nose, and while it might be rude to stare, or draw attention to it, you can't exactly NOT see it there

Then again, Q is quite familiar with all kinds of telepathic creatures, I'm sure, & he still calls it rude.... That's assuming you can take Q's selfish & egotistical word on anything to do with being socially acceptable lol

I guess, I'm just kind of wondering how everyone feels about Troi poking her nose in on people's feelings, especially personal ones that are really none of her business. I bet she couldn't wait to gab all about it with Beverly, knowing Bev is already reeling slightly over them having "Another duet?" as it is... lol

Bev never did seem to stomach Picard's romances very well did she? hahahaha

 

He doesn't want to admit that he is afraid in front of them, but he kind of did by not arguing to the contrary. Suddenly, something he'd normally find quite amusing isn't funny when he's the one being scrutinized...not to mention that the mere fact that he can be subject to Betazoid scrutiny is jarring to him...

 

Oh surely all those things are true. Heck, he admits as much to Picard later on

But is it rude of her to do stuff like that? Take this example. O'Brien beams aboard the Cardassians in The Wounded. As they exit the transporter room, Miles is eyeing them up & down. Troi stops, looks back, & tosses him a questionable look, & he embarrassingly looks away, as he clearly had some dark feelings about them

That's not cool IMHO. What business is it of hers, that she should be OK with shaming him like that? She doesn't know anything about why he felt that, & he didn't do anything wrong there. She treats people like any emotion they have is her right to judge

 

It is rude because she's literally probing Q, but it's also her duty to use every means of evaluating whether or his story is true for the safety of the ship. I would liken it to airport security folks strip searching somebody and carefully viewing every millimeter of that person's body as part of an investigation. Nobody likes that. It's a horrifying invasion of privacy that, at the very least, is rude. It's also necessary.

In regards to some of the other references, I think we can cut her some slack. She is an empath powerful enough to sense emotions of individuals even across great distances, and certainly can feel everybody's mood on the ship. It's like our being able to see. You don't need to stare, but you also can't just switch off your sight. If you saw somebody care about starting to get on well with another person and showing genuine happiness, could you easily dismiss it? It's not like she was deliberately probing him like an enemy commander about to open fire.

 

Well at least she didn't share it with everyone. Or perhaps, as a counselor, she already knows why he felt that way, being privy to his records for counseling purposes. Maybe he seemed to be making progress and then she noticed that he had slipped a little and was trying to encourage him not to take a step backwards.

 

Wasn't there an episode where someone told Troi to turn off her probe into their mind and that they wished to keep their emotions private?

It's like having a pair of x-ray goggles. Not everybody wants someone to know what they think or feel.

 

By the way, you chose the wrong header. It should be "poll", not "contest".

 

I think you're talking about Dr. Paul Stubbs in Evolution.

But I continue to disagree with the idea that it's something you can turn on or off. How would any of us react if Stubbs had said "My dear, Captain, please close your eyes. I will share my appearance that I wish to share"? It's not a fair demand. You can take off x-ray glasses; you can't take out your eyes. Empathy is one of Troi's senses, like sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. How can she just turn it off at will? Stubbs behaved like an immature child who was as uncomfortable as my own toddlers; he was frustrated at being so easily understood and stymied in his effort to control the perceptions of others.

 

He doesn't know how powerful it is or isn't. I imagine there would be plenty of misconceptions about such abilities; heaven knows we have plenty now about disabilities.

 

Crap... Can that be fixed?

And I'm fully willing to concede that she can't turn it off. I'll even concede your other points about Q, & how much of her job involves determining intentions as it relates to the safety of everyone

BUT just because she can't turn it off shouldn't mean she can't control how she reacts. We're made to assume these people are adept at handling this stuff. Now, she didn't really do anything to Picard when she probed him in Lessons, except sort of eavesdrop, & so long as it's benign, then I'd say it's sort of ok, in so much as checking out someone's ass might be uncool, but as long as no one saw it, you get a pass, because, as we've stated, she probably can't help it anyway,

However the scene with O'Brien? Not ok, imho. This isn't about her job. He didn't do anything that would require counseling. The safety of the crew, ship or mission isn't at stake. This is O'Brien. We trust this guy. She called him out on it with a pretty icy gaze


"Oh... Hi gang! We're victims with funny hats in this episode"


"We use to stack your corpses like sandbags for cover"


"Murderous feelings from what the who now?"


"Oh shit... Brain burgled"


"That's right Buddy, You get the dead eye over that feeling"


"Yup... jus doin muh job. Nuttin to see here"

That's right lady. Keep on walking. Just cuz you caught wind of a foul smell don't mean you get to stare me down. You weren't on Setlik. You were probably spooning on a nude beach with your Imzadi

 

I don't know why anyone would call Deanna "rude". She's about as far from that as a sentient being can get. If Q calls her rude, that just means he's an insensitive jackass.

I see no indication that Deanna's empathic abilities are like a light switch that can be turned off and on at will. Some emotions are just so powerful that she can't help but pick up on them. It doesn't mean she's invading anyone's privacy (I should hope that Betazoid society would have evolved strict rules against such things, especially when offworlders are involved), just that she's sensitive and can't help but use the gifts she's been given.

 

I think of it like this: you're walking out of a room with some guests from work, and your buddy shouts behind you -- rather surprisingly -- "Yeah, that's right, get the F out of here. And if you come back, I'll rip your throat out!"... Would you not turn around in shock, in horror, and even be like "WTF Dude?"

Granted, O'Brien didn't say anything vocally, but for somebody who can "hear" feelings, I'm sure his outburst was every bit as arresting.

 

If I'd never heard anybody do that before? Yeah, but this lady feels everybody's emotions, all the time, AND she's a therapist. Would it have been surprising to sense that coming off O'Brien? Sure. Should she be used to surprising emotions dropping on her like a bomb? Absolutely, at least enough to know how to respond properly.

I can't even think it must have been a total surprise. She stared him down as she was leaving, & he surely didn't feel any good about them, since the very minute they beamed aboard. So some especially ugly emotion must've happened right there at the end, that was a step or more above how he must've been feeling the entire time, but still, he didn't decide to hate them all at once in that final moment

And here's the fine point of it. She got surprised, & looked at him. Ok, it is what it is. He looked at her looking at him, not quite realizing at 1st that she was on to him. Then she KEPT looking (Not very long, but still) She kept looking at him... until he realized WHY she was looking at him & then HE looked away... in shame. Only then does she decide to let it go & walk out. She was making a point, ("I see you") & not only is it pretty inconsiderate to get all up in someone's head like that, it's pretty judgmental too

Now, granted, there's very few instances like this one, so I'm not condemning her altogether, but it's enough to make me suspect her of occasionally being kind of judgmental in a really specific way. It's certainly enough that I never really felt all that bad for her carrying on in The Loss

 

There are a lot of problems with Troi as a character but she is not in the least bit 'rude'. If anything she errs in the other direction. She is overly diplomatic, overly understanding.

You don't need telepathic powers to notice a person's body language. You can't turn off your perception. She doesn't overstep any kind of boundaries, and if she's asked to leave well enough alone she does. She never forces her services on anyone or intrudes outside her role as counselor.

For her reaction to O'Brien in The Wounded, that is not outside her role. Not like a very perceptive person could ignore hateful body language, O'Brien's hatred for Cardassians is within the realm of things that could affect his job performance.

 

Ahh, but has it ever? or does he in fact accord himself so well, that his sound mind & understanding actually aids someone who can't handle himself as well, in dealing with that bad stuff, and he actually saves the day. Hell, I'd have recommended him for a commendation after what he did there, & he couldn't have done it, without that he also felt the same things that Maxwell feels. Some people might not need Troi foisting her professional opinion on them with disapproving stares. The worst he did was get a little stern in the turbolift, & then he sucks it up later & makes amends

I'm not saying she's a rude person. I'm saying that this behavior is kind of rude, or at least not cool. "I'm going to call you out with a staring contest, to let you know I'm not letting you go unchecked with that emotion you're having". You may be the counselor, but it ain't cool to be checking people like that all the time. This is why I love how Picard handles her sometimes. If he wants to shut her down? She be shut down lol

Kirk said it best "I don't want my pain taken away. I need my pain"

lol thanks

 

Well, in my experience, I can recall multiple times in life when I've been exposed to ugly expressions -- and repeated exposure never made them any less ugly. If anything, in some cases, it made them all the more reprehensible.

A big part of this episode was O'Brien wrestling with what he was thinking and feeling vs what he believed of himself to be true. He even tried passing off his feelings to his wife, "I like them fine," he said while privately seething, in part because he knew what was inside of him wasn't in line with who he wanted to be. It wasn't until later that he was able to come to grips with the reality of who he is and began healing. "It's not you I hate, Cardassian. I hate what I became because of you."

So I think it's entirely possible that O'Brien may have flashed anger/disdain/hatred at times while keeping himself cool and collected at others. I imagine he was focused on his work, doing what he was told, made nice the Enterprises latest guests as expected... but when duty had been satisfied, he let himself go a bit...

Given the passion of your position, I'm sure you're going to love this: She was right to shame him. That's what you do when you encounter displays of misoginism, racism, xenophobia, and so on. If O'Brien had voiced what only Troi could "hear", Captain Picard would have given him a lecture that would last half the next episode and assign him to counseling to deal with the underlying problem. Because it is a problem. That Lt Commander Troi let him off with only a disgusted stare -- which arguably may have helped him realize he had a problem -- showed restraint on her part.

She lost a sense that was integral to her perception of and interaction with the world around her and had a hard time dealing with that. I'd have a pretty hard time too. Last year I was in Frankfurt and visited the Dialog Museum and took a tour of what it's like to live blind. It was interesting because I knew it was temporary, but if I had to face the prospect of a life without sight, I'd be having a meltdown.

 

First, everyone on the ship is her patient. I agree O'Brien's feelings didn't impact his job performance, but it's the sort of thing that could have if he was a less disciplined person and she'd be negligent in her duties if she failed to keep tabs on.

Second, betazoids are affected by the emotions they sense. A strong surge of hate is like if somebody suddenly screamed in your ear. You couldn't help but react.

 

She's a PITA.
How about when Captain Jellico is in charge and
Riker says: he certainly is sure of himself ( or something like that)
And dumb bossy face chick says: No, HE isn't!
He doesn't have to be sure, but he does have to project confidence to the crew, her undermining it like that proves she needs to be working down in 10-Forward washing dishes, not on the bridge of the ship.