Spoilers Dr. Hugh Culber Despite Yourself Spoilers!

So a question is how will they know Tyler killed him and why (ie - Culber discovered Voq theory)...if I recall, didn't TOS 1701 have ability to look at in-ship camera/replay to at least see what transpired in that room at a particular time? Better not blame poor Stamets...I know there are other (mirror) issues to deal with first, but perhaps Saru might get on that one...

 

That was the ISS Enterprise and Kirk's Tantalus Field.
But yeah, one would think there'd be security cameras almost everywhere on a secret ship like Disco.

 

Im inclined to agree to a point BUT , I think part of the we are all equal thing is to kinda follow through. With it. Just because they are gay doesn't mean one dying is a "bury your gays" trope.

They are also the most accessible and relatable romantic couple on the show, and killing off a husband or wife or deeply loved companian has been a practical dramatic tool since forever. It isn't like they played up the gay character and then the gay guy dies and its sad because it was a gay person. This is the federation, it isn't a "thing" that they are gay. But their relationship? now that's something workable and they absolutely showcased the natural loving relationship

 

I'm definitely disappointed that they killed Culber, and the fact that it plays into the gay characters getting killed trope is unfortunate. I want to give the producers and writers the benefit of the doubt here, and believe that they didn't mean anything by killing off a gay character, it still does look kinda bad.
I'm really hoping they're going to be bringing him back.

 

Not every gay character killed is a kill your gays trope.

 

I think it shows that they were more focused on writing a good story and not the social whims of the outside looking in.

Personally I just don't see it as an issue unless it was some deliberate "kill the gay guy" choice.

 

Hmmm. I don't know.

If the story they want to tell includes the aspect of one character losing another character in which they were in a romantic relationship, then to me it seems a little pretentiously reactive to say "Oh wait...I know we want to do that with this story, but we can't because the characters are gay".

I'm all for writing stories for gay characters/couples the exact same way you would write stories for straight characters/couples.

 

As said above, if you have a good story and good material but stop because "we can't do that cause they are gay" you are creating a sub world of straights only.

The best way to move on with issues is to pick which is which. This one IMHO was a tasteful and well written story, and I like that they didn't let the characters being gay keep them from telling it.

Else wed either have two deeply rkmantic relationships which would be too much to tell, or the romantic relationship woulda had to be between two straight folk. Then we are right back where we started, treating gays differently.

 

I know he's a secondary character, but aside from being Stamets' boyfriend and a doctor, can anyone name a single thing about Culber? The more I think about it, the more hastily he seems to have been conceived.

 

It seems to me that Stamets and Culber's relationship could work out exactly as it did if they were straight and one was a woman.

Nothing about their relationship as written so far would matter if they were a same-gender gay couple or if they were a straight couple of opposite genders. Nothing about the way the character so far was written (say, for example, Culber) would matter if Culber was a straight woman.

So why suddenly care about how the story of one of them dying gets written? Why not just continue writing for those characters as if it didn't matter if they were gay or straight?

 

Well he isn't all that bright, that's about all I know

 

In Culber's defense, I don't think he could have automatically assumed that Tyler would hurt him. Culber didn't really understand what his "scan" meant; he wouldn't necessarily realize that Tyler had a Klingon personality ingrained on top of his own.

Maybe if he thought about it, he would have thought it possible, but he didn't necessarily think that Tyler would be an immediate danger to his life.

We viewers had the advantage of seeing into Tyler's mind during his flashbacks. Culber did not have that advantage.

 

Bingo.

People forget that the character Dr. Culber does not have all of the information that we the viewers have. All he can see is that someone that he assumes was a human had some incredibly weird and traumatic things done to him in a Klingon torture chamber. He didn't really have any advance warning that Tyler posed an immediate danger to him.

As I said earlier, the murder took me by surprise. I can't fault Dr. Culber for failing to see something coming that I failed to see myself.

 

And you (as a viewer) had even more information than Culber had.

 

Meh. I have a feeling Stamets (who is looking very Gary Mitchell-Like) will use Gary Mitchell-Like powers to bring Culber back.