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A Semi-Hater Revisits Voyager

Tallis, I think you've misread Teya. She is, I believe, summarizing what she believes TheGodBen and others who think having Seven sacrifice herself would have made for a compelling ending are saying, but she doesn't care for this point of view herself. That's what she means by her comment about it being "incredibly cynical."

If I'm wrong, I'm sure Teya will correct me.
 
My bad - that post stands directed at the people who originally took that viewpoint then. Cheers JustKate, and sorry Teya
 
I can't believe it's over! :wah:

The tears aren't just for the end of the thread - they're also for how bad "Endgame" was. I think "Endgame" is a pretty good capsule of the entire Voyager experience, both on the creative side and on the viewing side. There are emotionally rewarding moments, there are really stupid :brickwall: moments, and overall if you try not to think too hard you can enjoy it if you want to. Overall, you can tell the creative types behind it wanted it to be one thing, created plot contrivances and ignored holes to make it what they wanted it to be.

I want to thank TheGodBen for a remarkable journey. Believe it or not, I wasn't just trying to be funny or trite in agreeing with him. I really have pretty much agreed with his assessments of the show - and when I haven't agreed, I've understood where he's coming from.

Ultimately, this thread reinforced my own perception of Voyager (which is also the way I describe it to people when asked): it's overall an enjoyable show, but the extremes in good and bad episodes are perhaps the greatest of any Trek series, making for a very hit-or-miss viewing experience.

And finally, perhaps my favorite nugget of wisdom from the final assessment:

Harry: Poor, dumb Harry. :( The perpetual ensign who was always reset back to Caretaker Harry at the beginning of each episode. He died, he got thrown into a parallel dimension, he mutated into an alien, he was eaten alive, he got an STD... but he always remained poor, dumb Harry. :( I like Harry in a way, but he's a very badly developed character.

The universe - she hates him. :)

Thanks again, TGB. I can't wait for the next one. :hugegrin:
 
1) "Crimes against humanity" - I don't think your pinning these onto Seven because she was a former member of the collective would stand up. She was assimilated against her will (because she was 6... it's hard enough to do something about it when you're 26 or 36 etc), and she acted, from that moment on, as a vessel for the collective's wishes. Watch Best of Both Worlds and listen to Picard explain how utterly destroying it was to have been Locutus and not be able to act under your own impulses and that should lend some weight.

Absolutely. But the question isn't whether *we* or the crew or anyone else thinks her responsible, the point is that *she* feels responsible. She talks about the relevance of guilt as a motivation in "Memorial" among other episodes.

2) I sort of follow your logic on the "sacrifice to regain humanity" notion, but I see it as a little flawed. I don't think she has to die to atone for her sins, or those of the collective. She's Seven of Nine, not Jesus. She can save lives without having to die, and did on Voyager. If that doesn't make her human, or at least contribute majorly, then what does? How about her relationship with Chakotay and the ability to experience love? Or her friendship with the Doctor? Or her intellectual repartee with Tuvok?

I really think you've misjudged her!

I completely agree. My argument was (as I think you understand now) *against* the argument that sacrificing herself proves her humanity.
 
1) "Crimes against humanity" - I don't think your pinning these onto Seven because she was a former member of the collective would stand up. She was assimilated against her will (because she was 6... it's hard enough to do something about it when you're 26 or 36 etc), and she acted, from that moment on, as a vessel for the collective's wishes. Watch Best of Both Worlds and listen to Picard explain how utterly destroying it was to have been Locutus and not be able to act under your own impulses and that should lend some weight.

Absolutely. But the question isn't whether *we* or the crew or anyone else thinks her responsible, the point is that *she* feels responsible. She talks about the relevance of guilt as a motivation in "Memorial" among other episodes.

I always thought it was interesting that Seven felt guilty for her actions as a Borg, even though she was mind-controlled, but Icheb and the other Borg kids, who were much more in control of their own actions when they killed all those people trying to assimilate them, never seemed to feel much remorse about any of it.
 
I don't really post here but I wanted to thank TheGodBen for an enjoyable thread, I've pretty much only come to the site to read these reviews and everyone else's opinion, and it was a nice refreshing take on Voyager.....

I haven't even seen most of Enterprise so I might try watching each ep just before your reviews.
 
See what gets me with this as applicable to Seven is the sense that she--and only she--wouldn't be *really* human until she sacrifices herself.

Janeway doesn't have to sacrifice herself to prove her humanity. Nor does Kim, nor Paris, nor Torres...

Just Seven. Because she was violated as a child, in order to reclaim what she lost, she has to sacrifice herself.

Do you see why I think that *incredibly* cynical?
No. Slightly cynical perhaps, but incredibly cynical? If she had been rescued from the Borg, put on trial for crimes she didn't commit, was imprisoned, used as a "canary" for hazardous away missions, was raped by the male (and lesbian) crewmembers, and at a critical moment in the final episode she killed herself so that the entire Voyager crew would die with her as her final revenge upon them... now that would have been incredibly cynical.

But Ron Moore only wrote the one episode. ;)

The reason why I proposed Seven dying as a means of ending her character arc is because she is the character whose arc was all about reclaiming her humanity. The rest of the characters either didn't have a character arc or they had a completely different arc, such as Tom's transformation from a convict into a family man. The only other possible candidate was Doctor Shmully, but his arc had already been wrapped up in Author, Author at which point he was happy defining himself as a hologram and he was only interested in attaining rights for his kind.

However, Seven's arc had always been about her desire to become human, and that is an arc which worked all the way up to Endgame when she made the decision to remove the Borg suppressant thing. If her character arc had been about amassing the biggest pile of beans in the galaxy then I would not be suggesting death as an appropriate resolution, but since her arc was about becoming human I believe that sacrificing herself would be the ultimate way of showing that she had completed her journey. You probably don't agree, but that's how I see it.
 
I get where you're coming from THEGodBen. I tend to agree with the idea - it kinda makes me think of Starbuck's arc from BSG. Kara starts out as someone with a bit of a death wish, not caring if she makes it back from a given mission, and by the end of the series, she's become someone who has a desire to, if she must die, have her death mean something. Likewise, I see the idea of Seven sacrificing herself to be an emphasis of what the character has become - as a Borg, if she were to have gotten killed, it would have been the destruction of an unimportant cog in the machine and it would have just been the Collective's will. Now that she's become human, grown and regained her humanity, her death would mean something, and it would be her choice to die in order to send the crew home.

I'm not saying that this had to have happened to make Endgame a good finale or this was the best ending for Seven's arc, but I can see it as a fitting conclusion to her character's journey.
 
However, Seven's arc had always been about her desire to become human, and that is an arc which worked all the way up to Endgame when she made the decision to remove the Borg suppressant thing. If her character arc had been about amassing the biggest pile of beans in the galaxy then I would not be suggesting death as an appropriate resolution, but since her arc was about becoming human I believe that sacrificing herself would be the ultimate way of showing that she had completed her journey.

I don't see choosing to sacrifice yourself as the highest standard of being human.

But then, since Voyager decided I'm not completely human (see "Tattoo"), then I'm probably not the best judge of what makes someone human. ;)
 
Since I'm the most perfect example of humanity on this planet, I believe that I'm in a good position to define what a human is. It is my personal conviction that only white people with blonde hair and blue eyes are true humans (even though I have dark hair myself) and all other peoples should be contained within camps of some form.

It has already been tried, you say? :wtf: Okay then, I'll go with the Captain Kirk definition; everybody's human, even the Vulcans. :)
 
I believe that one of the main themes of Star Trek is the exploration of what it means to be "human" in the widest application of the word--which means that it includes aliens, like Vulcans. It is written, after all, for a human audience! :techman:
 
I believe that one of the main themes of Star Trek is the exploration of what it means to be "human" in the widest application of the word--which means that it includes aliens, like Vulcans. It is written, after all, for a human audience! :techman:

Ah, how nice to know that even the the Star Trek world we're human after all.

Too bad "Tattoo" still casts us as "other"--as in different from the rest of humanity.

Seems the US Govt was right, after all. :p
 
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

I would guess the answer would be "not very many if any at all," and there is a reason for this. Episodic TV doesn't do this very well - not with its main characters. And the reason is just what I've said earlier: writers might be capable of dealing with it adequately (that is, they are talented enough to deal with it adequately), but TV shows aren't good at it, and viewers aren't either. Some of us can cope with seeing our favorite characters saddened but then made stronger by grief; we would not cope well with seeing them devastated and broken by grief.

I don't really think you would cope with it that well either, Tomalak. I could be wrong since I know you not at all, but it's hard for me to imagine myself or anybody else wanting to watch a character they know and care about being grief-striken week after week. And that's what it would take to deal in anything like a realistic manner with the death of a child, the rape of oneself or one's spouse, etc. I don't personally think that episodic television deals very well with the death of a spouse, either - but they do try that from time to time.

Examining deep, overwhelming grief is a subject that works in some forms of fiction, but I really don't think it works on a weekly TV show whose characters we get to know intimately. Shows, as far as I can recall (and my memory isn't perfect) that have dealt with such issues use non-regular characters, or they are shows where the characters aren't deeply explored (I'm thinking of police dramas here, which often do touch on major issues, but only as the B- or C-plot) or they deal with it very badly.
Oz dealt with all those with major characters, most notably with the one that could probably be considered the main character (even though it was an ensable show) who had all of these happen to him (in chronological order: repeated rape, abuse and humiliation of self; suicide of a spouse; death/murder of a child) - and they changed him profoundly. In fact, this change that the character undergoes was the basis of his character throughout the series. And he was not the only one who had to deal with the death of a child, or rape of oneself - several other characters had to deal with one or the other. The show was one in which these issues - violence and how it affects and changs people - were at the core of the show; it explored them deeply, because that's what the show was about, and there were always consequences for the characters and their psychology and later behavior.

But of course, there is a world of difference between Oz and any Star Trek. Especially Voyager.

Voyager, or any Trek, for that matter - or BSG - could not have the child of one of its major characters die and then coinveniently wrap it up in a few episodes. Well, OK, they could, but what would be the point?
Ironically, that's exactly what BSG did. And of course, it was not good TV. (Granted, they only had a few more episodes till the end - but they shouldn't have done it in the first place, as it was pointless.)

I dunno, I thought that BSG dealt with the aftermath of the death of a child quite well.

Both with Adama and with Sharon & Helo when they thought their daughter was dead.

It didn't go away, but their lives did continue.
They did it well... up until
Liam, Caprica and Tigh's baby
.
 
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

But maybe it was their way to cope with a hopeless situation?

I mean, there have been people who have worked in dreadful places who have kept the spirit up by twisted jokes and weird humor. Maybe many of the crewmembers on Voyager just did the same. Tom Paris definitely seem to be that kind of person with his jokes and funny comments.

Basically BSG and Voyager were opposite ends of the spectrum. The Voyager crew seemed to be having a bit too much fun, yet the BSG lot barely cracked a smile. Gallows humour will always exist in the worst situations (the 'Blitz spirit' if you like), so somewhere there's a happy medium.

I guess that it was one of the reasons why I never liked BSG. Not a smile, everyone acted as if they were on some funeral and everything was so serious.

On the contrary to series like Voyager and NCIS. The old Lynx need a twisted joke and a good laugh now and then. :)
That's just not true. There were plenty of moments when we saw the pilots together laughing, drinking toasting to each other, cracking jokes, or celebrating something (in "An Act of Contrition", they were cheerfully celebrating a pilot's 1000th landing, just before a bomb went off and killed many of them). In a deleted scene from "Scar" they were even auctioning a late pilot's belongings, including a porn magazine. In "Torn", everyone except Tigh and Starbuck behaves cheerfully and there is a lot of mirth and jokes when they're trying to come up with a callsign for Sharon, before Tigh destroys the moment because he is still tormented after his New Caprica experience, which is of course completely understandable. We always see Racestack and Skulls jokingly tease each other in the raptor.

The Galactica crew were the perfect example of what you are talking about - people trying to laugh and find humor in a bad situation, despite their obvious traumas and pain. They just were not always happy and too functional for traumatized people in a hopeless situation. The Voyager crew, OTOH, just seemed happy-go-lucky and completely unfazed by the situation. If anything, BSG was also too optimistic and unrealistic in some respects - as someone said on the BSG subforum, in real life there would've been many suicides on the ship all the time.
 
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

The VOY crew were more happy-go-lucky because their situation wasn't a unique case (other ships had been that far out and got home safe) and they had a civilization waiting for them.

In other words, they didn't have that much to be sad about if you think it all through.
 
Re: A Hater Revisits Voyager

The VOY crew were more happy-go-lucky because their situation wasn't a unique case (other ships had been that far out and got home safe) and they had a civilization waiting for them.

In other words, they didn't have that much to be sad about if you think it all through.
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