Keiko is a Misdrawn Positive Character

Keiko is often understood to be a jerk and a spoilsport. I think that's because she takes a dim view of Starfleet. However, to look at it from her point of view, she is only responding to the constant danger and traumatic incidents she and her child exist in and deal with. If you just wanted to be a botanist and raise your kid in peace and quiet, you'd want off DS9, too.

 

When most of what she says is criticizing and belittling her husband and/or his choice of food, friends, and recreational activities, of course she's going to come off like a shrew.

There are very few times I ever liked Keiko, and those were when she was standing up for a principle, or trying to save her husband or child.

But most of the time it was All About What Keiko Wants, And To Hell With What Anybody Else Wants.

 

Or as a deeply unhappy person who gave up her career for her husband, for the first half of the show she either didn't work or worked at the school (which wasn't her dream job) amd took care of Molly the rest of the day. Then she went to Bajor working as a botanist (which was great) but took Molly with her (which was not that great considering she was effectively a single parent during that time).
Meanwhile Miles did what he loved during work hours and then went to the holo suite with Julian or played darts with Julian or build a model of the Alamo with Julian or got drunk with Julian. He couldn't take care of Molly once in a while so that Keiko gets to have some fun with her friends?

Keiko was flawed but Miles wasn't exactly a great husband most of the time.

 

Seems there was an argument exactly like this just a few months ago.

I have to ask if Keiko even has any friends, other than her husband and Data.

So let's get this straight: Keiko and Molly are on Bajor, which is more than just a quick transporter trip away, and you think Miles should have taken a shuttle down to the planet for a few hours' babysitting with Molly, then taken the shuttle back to the station?

Why didn't Keiko make any friends on the planet?

And why are you blaming him for loving his job?

 

I was actually referrimg to the time when Keiko was on the station. Miles,spend time with his family but I don't recall a situation where took care of Molly alone while Keiko enjoyed herself. And when Keiko was on Bajor he could have taken Molly for a week for example.

I'm not blaming him, it's great that he has a job he loves but it led to Keiko moving to a place where she wasn't happy and couldn't fulfill her own ambitions. I think she should be allowed to complain and nag a bit, Miles got everything he wanted, Keiko not so much.

 

How do we know Miles didn't have some father-daughter time while Keiko rested or lunched with friends or whatever?

The truth is that DS9 really wasn't little kid-friendly. It's not like she could just hang out with Jake and Nog. Knowing the Ferengi attitude toward females, that would have been a recipe for disaster.

 

The fundamental problem of Keiko was that it was a recurring character that was a major part of the life of a regular character. If I am not mistaken, Piller and Berman had wanted Keiko to be a regular, but according to Larry Nemicek, Rosiland Chao turned down the offer in favor of a movie career. Thus Keiko tended only to appear when Miles needed a wife and family. It may have seemed life she was simply an antagonistic presence in Miles' life as a consequence.

Whatever the flaws of the character, there are aspects of Keiko and her relationship to Miles that I find interesting. When the show aired, couples faced with decisions about career more often chose to avoid prolonged separation, often giving preference to the career ambitions of one (usually the husband) over the other. One spouse (usually the wife) would be forced to carve out a career wherever the couple landed. Aspects of that made its way into the first two seasons, but not enough really to make the story meaningful. Keiko sacrifices for her husband, she gets bored, she starts up a new opportunity, and then (and most interestingly), she finds something that will allow her to pursue her true interests. The first part of that story rang true to the experiences of many, the last would have been more innovative. Being only a recurring character, Keiko's story came off as she hounds Miles, she fights with the Kai, she abandons her husband for plants, and she gets pregnant again.

 

Did Keiko get pregnant before or after they realized they would have to write Nana Visitor's pregnancy into the show?

 

Thinking about it, I don't think she was more "negative" than any Civilian character from Star Trek. Even Joseph Sisko came out as whiny sometimes. If you are used to living in utopia, moving or visiting a place where weird stuff happens all the time will sure make some negativity come out of you.

And she had a lot of perseverance too. She had her body hijacked by an evil spirit, had her workplace bombed by religious bigots, saw her daughter turn into a feral child... Not to mention all the times she had to be there for Miles when he had his usual case of bad luck. Somehow they both managed to survive all of this and went back to utopia.

Honestly, if I was in her place, I would not only complain more but I would give up the first time something awful happened to me.

 

Miles gets tortured, he gets a twenty year stretch in the clink, he gets infected with a deadly virus, he gets worked to despair on numerous occasions. The writers explicitly and specifically preyed on his everyman persona to put him through some harrowing experiences. That stuff just doesn't happen with Keiko. Miles is a fine husband with the occasional "dog-eared" approach to his partner, granted, but overall he has little to answer for.

It's just very hard for any relationship to have two people enjoying parity of esteem in respect to their professions. So you are always going to get one partner seemingly with the short end of the stick in that area.

There's nothing to say that Keiko was forced to be a trained botanist. If this is the progressive future it purports to be, she chose that profession, instead of Starfleet, which she, perhaps thought was too much hassle.

The O'Brien marriage suffers from what all domestic relationships suffer from. A heckuva lot of trivia in there -- usually burdened by the partner who might be betwixt and between in their professional life. It's why sometimes I'm in two minds about the portrayal of long term relationships. You want a representative society were everyone isn't a sassy singleton -- yet long term relationships are typically so... boring.

 

I've never understood the hostility aimed toward her, but I'm going in with a bias: I always thought she and Miles made an interesting pair.

 

All it takes is just one simultaneously screechy, whiny "MY-yulz!", followed by the complaint of the moment.

That's why, in my TNG fanfic parodies, Miles is renamed Kilometres.

 

So you're saying you don't like her tone of voice? That's it?

The O'Brian marriage has both of them getting what they need, and a lot of what they want. They worked it out so Keiko could do some botany and Miles could be chief of operations. At least once Keiko was happy for Miles to go off and amuse himself with Julian because he was getting to be a well-meaning pest around their quarters. Everyone needs some alone time. And there's no reason to assume Miles never took care of Molly just because we didn't see it on screen. You can be sure if Keiko felt exploited she would have said so. Making sure all parties get what's most important to them is the essence of a happy marriage.

 

That part of it, but not all.

I just plain don't like the character.

 

I think the writers wanted an "outside perspective". A spouse of a devoted Starfleet officer who dislikes Starfleet and resents the limitations and dangers it imposes on her life. In many ways, being married to a Starfleet officer is akin to being an Army wife. You're also married to the military. Unfortunately, Chao's delivery of Keiko comes across as unreasonably shrill and negative. She seems angry, which makes her the aggressor; as opposed to depressed, which would have portrayed her more sympathetically.

 

There's no evidence that Keiko was alone or friendless. She could have had as many friends as Miles did for all we know. There just wasn't time on the show to get into all that detail.

That said, my favorite Keiko moment is "Armageddon Game" where she actually helps solve the mystery of the episode. If more eps had been like that, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

 

If something doesn't happen onscreen and it's never alluded to, then you have to assume it never happened.

 

^ Absolutely not. If it's not shown, we are free to invent our own explanations.

 

Object permanence is your friend!

 

C'mon. Worf trying and failing to get the baby to sleep made a somewhat acceptable B plot. Miles taking good care of the baby is not interesting enough to put on television.