Why the hate for Disco?

I don't even have any issue with the perceived "Michael is constantly crying" aspect of the show. The problem for me is that a lot of it just rings hollow because I'm not emotionally invested in what's happening to her a lot of the time.

 

I completely disagree with this analysis but it's covering topics not Discovery so I'll just say these characters do grow. Not just jerks, but have a reason behind what they do.

All the characters claimed to be jerks have reasons too. But, spot on on Michael.

Possibly. Maybe because that is interesting to people. I'm not saying it interested for everyone but certainly it is a style I have seen multiple times.

 

Exactly, characterizing female assertiveness as arrogance is sexism right there.

How dare she be so sure of herself when she's just a black female!!!

Everything that is deemed a positive attribute in a white male like Kirk or Picard, is frowned upon for someone who's either not white like Sisko or not a male like Janeway but if it's a black female then all hell breaks loose!!!

How can people not see that?

 

Indeed, I'm not disputing that. I feel that I was pretty specific in saying that I don't think ALL people who dislike Burnham are doing it for the reasons I stated, but that there is that aspect to SOME of the hate/dislike whether conscious or not.

Personally, I think some of the criticism or moreso, the feeling behind the criticisms fall into uppity negro territory. Particularly when it comes to how forthright and opinionated Burnham is.

 

IMHO the problem isn't that you show a character as a jerk. Plenty of shows have focused on flawed protagonists. The problem is wanting to both show your character as a jerk and to show their judgement as always being correct. I think Discovery did this early on because they wanted to portray Michael as a strong female lead. Which is the exact same way they screwed up Janeway in VOY. By making the lead always right, it by definition means that other characters need to be always wrong (which in the case of Voyager, ruined Chakotay, because his role was to disagree with Janeway and then meekly give in by the end of the episode).

Again, the opening two-parter was indicative, because everything was teed up for the Klingon War to be her fault - but it wasn't, not really. The Shenzhou never actually fired on the Klingons, and T'Kuvma's dialogue suggests that if a "Vulcan hello" was given it's possible that they would have backed down. Aside from perhaps killing T'Kuvma in a fit of rage, Michael didn't do anything which actively made things worse for the Federation.

And yes, I realize that by the end of the season she somehow realized that her earlier bellicosity wasn't warranted. But it was an...odd conclusion...because nothing we saw onscreen actually suggested her actions in the prologue were the wrong ones. It seemed to be more a conclusion which was aimed at the audience than flowing out of the characters - a writer's cop out to justify a season which felt very grimdark and militaristic. And in the end she makes a random-ass decision to trust Georgiou and L'Rell and both pay off, just because. Again, she might be flawed, but her judgement is perfect, due to the writers needing to railroad the plot to a predetermined conclusion.

 

Why do people always forget that, against orders from Georgiou, she landed on the Beacon and killed the Torchbearer.
That is what started the conflict. This happened in the first 20 minutes of episode 1.

That she killed T'Kuvma, instead of capturing him, which was the plan, is the second issue.

 

Talk about not being able to let things go... That was three seasons ago. The show has moved on since then, and so have most of the rest of us.

But for those who want to stay stuck in the past, the Klingons were itching to go to war no matter what. If it wasn't something Burnham did, it would've been something else.

 

The Klingons wanted a war. This was just an excuse. War still would have happened regardless of Michael's choice.

 

Why don't you say that to the people who argue that "Burnham did nothing wrong in the pilot episode".
I didn't bring up the pilot episode, I just replied.

 

Dr. Piper: Mr. Spock, wasn't your stepsister the infamous mutineer who started the Klingon War around a decade ago? For some reason everyone stopped talking about it.

Kirk: ...

Spock: Doctor Mark Piper, you are hereby relieved from Starfleet and guilty of treason. You are to be beamed directly to Section 31 headquarters where you will be dealt with.

Dr. Piper: No--what? How does this make sense? What's with all the secrecy? Why are you helping Section 31 cover up things? I heard they tried to attack you back in the day!

Kirk: Computer, energize!

Piper: No---nooo! NOOOOOO!!!!

Kirk: 31, do you have him?

Section 31: Enterprise, what we got back won't live long...

Kirk: Have new medical officer Dr. McCoy dispose of the bones and tell him it was a transporter accident.

(Thus McCoy gained his nickname and a fear of transporters all in one day)

 

Well, you know I was short of things to cause me to wake up screaming. This should do for at least a week.

 

No worries at all! I know that wasn't your intent. I was talking in more general terms than directing anything specific at you. I think there are all kinds out there.

I just want to caution fans in general to not immediately suspect bigotry when someone says "I don't like Sisko" or "Stamets is my least favorite character." I think we're conditioned to see bigotry and racism everywhere, unfortunately. Sometimes, it's really just that people don't like a particular character.

I can understand why, for example, people might not like Burnham. I totally get it. I don't share that opinion (she's still one of my favorites), but I can see how the people who (for example) expect their leads to be Picard or Sisko would find her unappealing and grating. I'm the opposite. I'm glad she's cut from a completely different mold.

 

This is a fair point. Good reminder.

 

Some of the arguments are so transparent though. Like when someone says that he likes Owo better than Michael because she is less arrogant, what they really mean is that Owo knows her place and Michael doesn't.

 

I think that’s a dangerous and irresponsible assumption to make about someone, based solely on their opinions of fictional characters.

 

Yep. It implies bigotry where there is nothing more than honest critisim.

 

Yep, @Vger23 is completely right on this. I actually know how bad this can get from the infamous toxicity of that other Star franchise. At worst people end up defaming an innocent person over something said about a fictional character.

Over at theforce net Jedi Council Forums, I made an offhand comment on a thread that Luke's fantasy dream with Camie in the Last Jedi novelization (someone who had bullied him and called him Wormie) seemed out of character (out of character that his dream would be with someone like her instead of any other women he'd met who were kinder to him).

Immediately, a moderator and another poster (both of whom were male) teamed up against me, said I was a sexist "nice guy" who hated women in publicly accessible forum posts (none of this is remotely true just to be clear) in regards to this post about Camie (a fictional character) and banned me on the spot. In shock, I messaged the moderator and said if my post about Camie (I didn't say anything bad about her at all, just that it seemed unrealistic she'd marry Luke even in a fantasy dream) was off they can delete it, but that his and the other poster's posts declaring me sexist (all publicly accessible) were false and defamatory and should be removed.

In reply, the moderator wrote a taunt "Lawyer up", which I then had to spend an inordinate amount of money to get a law firm to look over theforce net forums, only for my attorney to find that the defamatory content was removed (the moderator must have realized I was taking this very seriously by that point).

My lawyer then saw the mod's message to me that the ban was for 48 hours and we felt the matter was resolved. However, after 48 hours passed, the ban was still there and I asked the mod what happened. He said for daring to ask and not "apologizing" for sexism (about a fictional character keep in mind, and over comments about her history of calling Luke Wormie not her gender), the ban was extended to 96 hours. This was almost a year ago, and it's clear my ban is permanent unless I "confess" to their accusation of sexism.

I really don't want to see that kind of thing here in Trek fandom. While combating sexism/racism etc. is important, outright accusing someone of being sexist/racist/etc. solely on opinions about fictional characters without evidence of real life wrongdoing is just outright defamation and can seriously damage someone's life.

 

This. Troi in TNG was largely considered useless and not exactly the most popular member of the lead cast because she was written poorly or underwritten or both, not necessarily because Marina Sirtis is a woman. She just wasn't a very good character for significant stretches of the series and it had nothing to do with her gender nor that of the actor portraying her.

 

It seems like Star Trek episodes centered around a female leads have largely gotten sub-par writing. That's not to say there weren't some decent Troi/Crusher episodes; there was, but not many.

Kira episodes were always great. Her and Janeway seem to be the exceptions.

I don't think many people ever looked forward to Keiko or Lwaxana episodes. Quark's mom was a fun character though.

Discovery is continuing the tradition of poorly written female leads.

 

Agree with what you're saying, it's very very easy to self radicalise on the internet etc etc, but I'm dying to know - did you pursue the matter? I'm not sure I would have been able to restrain myself, tampered evidence or no.