He was technically not intoxicated, but for the first time in his life he felt safe and at peace. It was believable to me that he would react the way he did to never lose that feeling again.
Anyone else feel Saru got character assassinated?
- Thread starter Charles Phipps
- Start date
And not just a little stronger, but stronger enough to apparently effortlessly crush equipment with his bare hands. That hoof to the ribs should have broken Burnham in half.
Still, though, aren't Andorians, Cardassians, Bajorans, and Betazeds all about the same speed and strength as humans? Even the Ferengi are depicted as basically at the same physical level, except, generally, height. Not counting the more monstery races like, say, Gorn and Nausicans, it's just Vulcans (and, presumably, Romulans), Klingons, and, now, Kelpians who appear stronger.
As a sufferer of social anxiety.... I would venture to say that its possible.
Its rare when I feel entirely comfortable, so even being used to the state, it's a constant stress.
Saru I guess basically has a similar existence to millions of us people with anxiety disorders - but perhaps in some ways less bad, as he appears to be able to turn it off to some degree - they wrote him as if he was suffering anxiety all the time, whereas he seems to be quite comfortable with himself in the pilot.
Wasn't there one species who had lived on a planet of very low gravity? In ds9? their species was significantly hinged in our environment.
Yeah, she was an Elaysian.
Had to use a wheelchair or get a special operation to function normally in standard gravity, which made DS9 a terrible assignment because Cardassian design included a step in every doorway.
Seriously, what a bunch of colossal aholes.
C
Captain pl1ngpl0ng
Guest
Absolutely agree on this. Doug is doing a fine job as Saru but the writers have really missed a great opportunity to create a truly fascinating and intriguing character.
Indeed. Doug Jones is fantastic, but the writing seems to giving Saru a streak of pettiness, almost. Like when Burnham offer him Georgiou's telescope; there wasn't even the pretense of turning it down or making sure that Burnham was sure of her decision. He just took it and ran.
He also seems very bitter, which is understandable, to an extent, given what's happened between him and Burnham. But he's now the First Officer of the most advanced ship in the fleet. I'm not sure what else he needs to prove.
Like all of the other characters on this show, his has always been presented as so flawed that I don't see how succumbing to an alien influence is any sort of assassination.
It's odd that they characterized Saru with a human baseline that being in a state of heightened anxiety is a point of stress or unease. A squirrel from our perspective is a very uneasy anxious animal. I bet that's steady state for them, and honestly them being at a less anxious state would cause anxiety, if that makes sense.
If I ignore that for the moment, and leave the chips where they lie. I can understand why Saru wouldn't want to give up bliss for anything. Very similar to Odo going back to the homeworld.
The issue is I think they didn't develop and round out the character development properly. It's possible because they overloaded the episode with Klingon character development as well.
I think if they showed more progression towards his peaceful state, and brought it on more slowly. That may have helped. It is very possible we come back to this episode 2 years later, and see it all makes obvious sense as we then will have a deeper understanding of Saru's race.
Maybe adding some remnant effects when he came back on board. Some sort of similarity to a drug withdrawal, that would have closed the loop better too. More than just remorse/regret.
That's my secret, Cap.
There's those gold-painted little people from Journey to Babel.
They don't look super strong but they might be fast as hell. Who can say?
Sadly, all we know is that they like putting weird colored food into little goblets.
I don't like Saru and this episode reinforced that.
I should clarify that this shouldn't be taken as criticism of Doug Jones, the prosthetics, the writing or anything else. That's all fine and I'm happy to have him in the show. It's just that you don't find everyone likeable in reality either.
Should you like all the characters ? I'd just assumed he was not supposed to be sympathetic.
I should clarify that this shouldn't be taken as criticism of Doug Jones, the prosthetics, the writing or anything else. That's all fine and I'm happy to have him in the show. It's just that you don't find everyone likeable in reality either.
Should you like all the characters ? I'd just assumed he was not supposed to be sympathetic.
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If by "you", you mean us humans, keep in mind, Saru isn't human, nor is he a rabbitt. So, as a Kelpian, born into (and living your whole life in), a state of heightened anxiety punctuated by periods of somewhat less heightened anxiety, almost surely does not have the same affect on his species as it does humans or other species.
On another note, at the end of the episode Saru very clearly and somewhat shockingly, stated that he was not under the influence of any "spores" or "mist" or the Pahvians. He said that he apparently felt so comfortable on the planet that his fear response was entirely unnecessary. I believe he also stated that he wasn't himself . By "himself", I believe he meant his naturally fearful self as opposed to his newly found contented self, who thought it was okay to attempt to force that "contentment" onto Burnham and Tyler.
When it's stated this clearly, why then would we create some other reality? Yeah, I know, we're Trek fans.
I don't feel he was character assassinated, This fits well into his character. Not that I care for it. I prefer Saru when he's on the top of his game and being the smart know-it-all. Instead of angst ridden and jealous to borderline sociopath Saru.
I'm still myself when I'm intoxicated. People who try to excuse behavior because of outside stimuli or mental illness tend to be people who don't want the responsibility of making sure it doesn't happen again. Saru doesn't seem like someone to shirks responsibility so it makes sense that he would take it on in this case, even considering the intoxicating effect of the Pahvan's influence.
I hear you, before I went on medication i lived in a state of constant anxiety. Normal mundane things like grocery shopping and crossing the road would illicit an anxiety response to varying degrees. I often found it very difficult to filter things out. My guess is that Saru has learned to filter out his fear response during his years in starfleet. Considering how long he'd served on the Shenzou and his regard for Georgiou, it's understandable that he was very much at ease there.
a Human could not
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