Harry Kim

[RoseDuneKat]

We have made it to Season Four.

During all this time, Tuvok has been promoted. Belana and other Maquis are members of the crew, some senior staff. Neelix and Kess have joined, Kess is gone and we have replaced her with a Borg that has been dis-assimilated.

Yet harry Kim is still an Ensign.

Why?

He's been given the Con while Janeway and the entire Senior Staff go off and do other things. He's managed to work with Seven to combine technologies, and has demonstrated his love for Starfleet.

When does Harry get a break?

 

[froot]

When does Harry get a break?

So, I work with a nice fellow who does a ton of work. He's young and a bit green, but he's responsible and capable and they really need him around...

...And he's been an intern for a year and a half.

So, uh, that said... never.

 

[RoseDuneKat]

I would like to correct my spelling error.

I should say: B'Elanna

 

[Yevetha]

Harry should had ben killed wery early on.

Who needs him.

 

[Guy Gardener]

He was killed early on.

It didn't keep.

A few weeks earlier he also destroyed the entire universe so that no one alive had to put up with him anymore.

 

[F. King Daniel]

When you get to the episode "Nightingale", you'll see exactly why Harry's still an Ensign.

He just doesn't have it. I was amazed at how much fail in crammed into his first real command.

 

[Guy Gardener]

He thought he was in command in Nightingale because he said he was in command but in truth he was just barking orders into an intercom and the other 100 crewmen didn't know him from Tom and Dick, but he still expected instiloyaty because he was told that he was the Captain by dishonest people.

I liked it in favourite Son where Kim thought that he was like recovered royalty at the top of the food chain because he'd been switched at birth by really important aliens... His real name wasn't Harry Kim at all, it was "Dinner".

 

[Joel_Kirk]

Harry Kim was a poorly written character; an Asian male stereotype. Simple as that.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Stereotypical Asian?

Kim was interchangable with most any pinkskin from Mayberry.

he was a clone of Wesley form Season One TNG.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

Stereotypical Asian?

Kim was interchangable with most any pinkskin from Mayberry.

he was a clone of Wesley form Season One TNG.

If you say so.

I'm actually touching upon it in an article I'm still revamping for an editor for an online magazine speaking on Asian Americans in Trek.

If we specifically look at how Asians, specifically Asian men, have been depicted in the media, even outside Trek....it goes a little deeper than brushing it aside and saying 'they can be interchangable with any 'pinkskin''....which also leads to the fact that he had no stand out traits if he could be 'interchangable.'

 

[Guy Gardener]

I heard a wanker on TV throwing about a disturbing idea recently...

"Don't worry, I'm postracial."

It's not going to be too long, a few generations until everyone is exactly the same on the inside, and a few generations after that we're all going to be the same colour.

By the 24th century, it's almost ridiculous, especially after WWIII and the Optimum movement that culled millions to clean up the radiaton mutations in the genepool that recognizable races are still dominant in the future.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

I heard a wanker on TV throwing about a disturbing idea recently...

"Don't worry, I'm postracial."

There are people who believe we are 'postracial' because of Obama, unfortunately....but that is very far from the truth.

It's not going to be too long, a few generations until everyone is exactly the same on the inside, and a few generations after that we're all going to be the same colour.

By the 24th century, it's almost ridiculous, especially after WWIII and the Optimum movement that culled millions to clean up the radiaton mutations in the genepool that recognizable races are still dominant in the future.

Oh, heavens....I hope we don't all look the same.

I enjoy the variety of people and ideas.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Black lads don't get beaten to death anymore for looking at white girls and white guys will actually be seen in public with black women they are in love with.

Isn't it amazing how far we've come in just 20 years.

 

[indolover]

Garrett Wang often expressed displeasure at how his character was written, and frankly who can blame him? I've never served in a military capacity, but which US Navy officer is an Ensign for seven years? lol He should have been at least Lt. senior grade, maybe even Lt. Cmdr.

It's just one of several glaring reasons why Voyager was lost potential; too many mistakes, illogical writing, and poor production decisions. it was a good show, but was stopped from being a great show by poor production.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Early on, after The Next Emanation it was proof positive that Kim didn't get it. That only assholes tell people that their most heartfelt religions are made up poppy cock, or that Aliens live in space who know that their most heartfelt religion is poppy cock.

Do no harm dude.

The Prime Directive.

He was oblivious... In al honesty, I think the writers were too.

It's like not promoting someone who works at a newspaper after discovering that they cannot read.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

Black lads don't get beaten to death anymore for looking at white girls and white guys will actually be seen in public with black women they are in love with.

Isn't it amazing how far we've come in just 20 years.

True.

Unfortunately, there many who are still 'behind the times'...

For instance:

*There are many disparaging online comments on the Heidi Klum/Seal marriage...and only a couple of years ago, Hollywood didn't want Will Smith opposite a white woman in 'Hitch' (so not to offend US audiences) neither a black woman...(because it was thought audiences would think of the film as a 'black film'). Interestingly, there wasn't a problem when an Asian actress was kissing up on a white male.

*Moreover, race is still looked at in 'black' and 'white'...and other races of color (Asian, Native American, brown-skinned Latinos/Hispanics) are usually ignored...especially when matters of race occur.

*When Obama was inaugerated, there was so much talk about a post-racial era....but critics, in this 'post-racial' era spent so much time talking about the man's race and so forth.

Yes, we've made progress....but we still have a long way to go.

I think if we were to swing it back to Harry Kim, and the Asian male depiction in the media, there still is work to be done.

Some might argue that 'Lost' gave audiences some Asian characters, particularly, Asian male characters with depth.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Daniel Dae Kim.

Certain and smarmy lawyer using tax law and zoning violations to defeat Angel in Angel.

Dutiful telepath first officer (actually that appointment was smeared in race, but telelpaths not Asian.) of the Excalibur

The first redshirt on Enterprise, although for some reason they gave him a Klingon name for that character.

Wide Eyed explorer braving the unknown in Voyager (Blink of an Eye).

On 24 he played the Fourth Doctor Who.

Meanwhile on Lost, I think it's possible that he was playing a growing living human being that was many people through out the course of a seven year )(*&^)*(&^ odyssey.

The fellow is versatile, and it seems that he loves his science fiction because it can't be an accident that he keeps going back to the well.

And they used to call James Brown the hardest working man in Show business.

...

There was an episode of South park that said that Obama negated white guilt, which meant that rich white people started buying and selling black slaves again.

 

[Captain Ransom]

What's with all the hate for Harry? I thought he was a great/fun character. I liked him a lot more than some characters (Tom Paris, Chakotay).

And I think they go into why he wasn't promoted. If I'm not mistaken, I think Janeway said to him at one point that he would have been promoted if they had been in the Alpha Quadrant and closer to Starfleet. (kind of like the crew in "The Good Shepard" wouldn't have lasted on Voyager had they been in the Alpha Quadrant) I could be wrong, though.

 

[Guy Gardener]

You're thinking of Nightingale.

It was Harry who said that he would have been promoted.

Janeway laughed at him and said that he had a mighty high opinion of himself.

She's jolly.

In the AQ, even with the War on he wouldn't be given the opportunity to shine because Kim would have a safe and snug with a little engineering job back home in prancing distance to his mommy's tit, either because he is too excellent an engineer to waste on the front line or he's too timid a warrior to waste as cannon fodder.

I gotta wonder whey thy didn't mention the Dominion in Non Sequitor when Kim was back on earth in Season 2? Unless the inner worlds had their head in the sand nd didn't care about Sisko's (pre)War?.

Lets see (airing order vs production order in relation to DS9's airing order vs production order), Non Sequitor is either the 5th episode of season 4, or the 22 episode of season 3 Ds9, which would make analogous to Rejoined or family Business. Although actual air dates places Non Sequitor inside the DS9 Mid Season Hiatus between the Adversary and The Way of the warrior.

But there's no mention of the Klngon war with the Cardassia in Harry's earthbound adventure, or the Dominion Threat, and lets face it, if Starfleet Security was looking for Changeling spies, Kim would have stuck out like a sore thumb that day what that he wasn't exactly who he said he was.

Inside of a week if he stayed and almost explained away all the bollocks he got into with Tom (And didn't blow up in that shuttle), they would have drained every last ounce of blood out of him waiting for some transformation into changeling goo.

OR...

It's altogether possible, that because of some butterfly effect that Daniel Byrd off on Voyager replacing Harry Kim on that lost Ship, that the Federations first contact with the Jem'Hadar and the Dominion was somehow postponed considerably.

Kim's mewling need to get back to Voyager assured the murder of billions that might of lived a few months longer if he could have just stuck what he knew about Voyager in a box and spent the night in with Libby.

 

[CoveTom]

Do we even want to be post-racial? Non-racist, sure. But do we want to pretend that differences in cultures don't exist, or even try and homogenize everyone?

More on topic, I still don't see how Harry Kim is a stereotypical Asian character. Can someone explain?