Jake Sisko the worst
- Thread starter mattmatt
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It's like...have you met teenagers? By the time they get to be Jake's age toward the end of the show, they have everything figured out, and anybody who tries to tell them differently is just dumb. I know I went through that phase. It's cringey now, but it's all part of growing up. If you're lucky, you live long enough to find out how wrong you were and look on it in hindsight with a head shake.
If I now met myself when I was Jake's age I would probably strangle and kick my younger self in the ass
You sound like Kai Winn when she was complaining about Jake in Rapture.
Jake was one of the most well-rounded and relateable characters in all of Trek. I'd argue that Jake grew as a person very quickly in a short few years. He became his own man, set his own path and stuck with it.
Also he dated a 20 year old Dabo girl when he was like 14 or 15. How many dabo girls have you dated?
You know, I really think I wasn’t like that. Unlike most teenagers, I remained quite conscious of my own mortality. And it was something I thought about it quite often. But I was always more introspective and philosophical than most.
Cynicism and the skill to not be surprised at the depths of how low people would sink, or how bad thinks could get were the essence of my conception of worldly wise and not naive.
I wasn’t edgy or whatever, but I made it my business to be informed and to not be sheltered at least intellectually.
This thread was clearly started in an attempt to troll, but it turned into a good discussion about a good character.
I haven't seen Jake's role in "Valiant" discussed on this thread yet. He was the only one with any sanity on that ship.
Nog and the rest of the crew on that ship blindly follow that pill popping Captain Watters to their doom. Jake picked up on his vanity and that he wanted to be the hero and got thrown in the brig for it. Luckily, Nog finally had a change of heart and realized his friend was right the whole time and they escape with their lives.
How foolish was it to attack a Dominion battle cruiser with one ship and a crew with very little combat experience? Why the Valiant's crew followed Watters to their doom never made sense to me. Unless Red Squad just brainwashes all of their cadets.
I haven't seen Jake's role in "Valiant" discussed on this thread yet. He was the only one with any sanity on that ship.
Nog and the rest of the crew on that ship blindly follow that pill popping Captain Watters to their doom. Jake picked up on his vanity and that he wanted to be the hero and got thrown in the brig for it. Luckily, Nog finally had a change of heart and realized his friend was right the whole time and they escape with their lives.
How foolish was it to attack a Dominion battle cruiser with one ship and a crew with very little combat experience? Why the Valiant's crew followed Watters to their doom never made sense to me. Unless Red Squad just brainwashes all of their cadets.
It's not the first time it's been shown that Starfleet Academy gives its "best" students special treatment, and as Spock noted as far back as "Space Seed", "(the perception of) superior ability breeds superior ambition". If it's the kids' faults for buying into what the academy was dishing out, it's at least as much the academy's fault for dishing it out to begin with. What's really troubling is that this was already prefigured in "Homecoming"/"Paradise Lost" and apparently whatever steps were taken to address it then were woefully insufficient. Then there was Nova Squad back in "The First Duty".
I really hope the academy finally took the hint after "Valiant".
I really hope the academy finally took the hint after "Valiant".
Never toughens up? Are you kidding me right now, he decided to stay behind when the order to evacuate DS9 was given. He could have made it safely back to Earth on board the Defiant, but he made the choice to stay behind so he could report on life on DS9 under Dominion rule. This decision was a dangerous one, and could have cost him his life. You don't need to be a bat'leth weilding warrior to be a 'real man' you know.
Jake is a respectable young man, and for the most part he is just a normal teenager being a normal teenager. I don't see him as a nervous wreck at all, far from it. He is outgoing, chose a good career for himself (even if it wasn't in Starfleet), isn't exactly shy about girls...etc. I'd say he is a lot more believable than Wesley Crusher overall.
Even if you were preternaturally wise, emerging into the world with a fully formed psyche that was incapable of foolish acts...that doesn't change the fact that most teenagers are not like that. Jake is a pretty average guy, making mistakes as he grows up and learning how to be a better adult.
If you grew up in the Federation of the 24th century, it's unlikely that cynicism would be nurtured or encouraged. And while it's hard not to feel cynical sometimes, it sounds like it would be a miserable state to be in permanently.
This is a mind-screw. It's akin to Time Squared where the future Picard says that the ship is headed for disaster, so the present crew start thinking of ways to avert it, but then someone (Riker?) points out that any course change they make could itself be the cause of the problem. It's basically unwinnable.
Well, despite Jake's faults, he'll always be better than Wesley...
I never thought the writer angle worked, I wouldn't have minded Jake having the writing thing as a hobby but I thought Jake would lead to being an engineer or an architect. Something useful to stories to come; he was interesting when he was a kid and when he grew older the writers became interested in developing Nog instead. There was a lot of possibilities for Jake lost by all of the new characters shoved into the war seasons.
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I’m not sure what your saying?
I liked the writer angle. It was nice seeing a kid who didn't automatically want to join Starfleet, and really nothing about Jake made me think of him as an engineer or an architect. Being a writer fit his personality better, and one of the best things about having Jake in the show was that he represented the other side of Sisko - the devoted father. To have Jake mixed up in the war like Nog might have been good for a few storylines, but it would have removed that sense of seperation between Sisko the officer and Sisko the father. The Starfleet stuff worked better with Nog anyway.
Also, I thought having Jake stay behind as a 'war correspondent' during the Dominion occupation was a nice idea.
I agree. The writer bit gave him several interesting things to do, and a reason for sticking his nose into dangerous situations (station during Dominion occupation, combat medicine with Bathir). I'm so, so glad they didn't make him also want to join Starfleet! At times I got to thinking 3/4 of the Federation was either in Starfleet or wanted to be.
Can't find it right now, but I remember this great article on The Onion (or similar) that was basically 'Man with No Career Path Finally Decides What Job He'd Take in Starfleet'.
This weird idea in Trek that everyone just wants to join Starfleet is oddly upheld by us fans. There's a contemporary equivalent of basically every role, and it's not like the whole world is clamouring to fill them.
Given how many worlds and other inhabitations would exist in that universe, there must be many different jobs or life callings that would be more appealing to people than Starfleet.
I used to imagine I would join Starfleet, but given the freedom to pursue academic endeavors because of the post scarcity conditions, I am not sure I would anymore.
I used to imagine I would join Starfleet, but given the freedom to pursue academic endeavors because of the post scarcity conditions, I am not sure I would anymore.
Developing totally differently from established expectations must be a Sisko trait.
I don't imagine Joseph Sisko originally was very happy with his son ending up in Starfleet instead of becoming a chef cook, and becoming "the Emissary" after that (or Starfleet itself with that last one, for that matter). Wouldn't have been surprised had it been revealed Joseph' s old man again had a very different career, a professional Parises Squares player, or a professor of linguistics, say.
So in that respect Jake does what could be expected from him in not following expectations...
Seriously though, I liked that they showed that Starfleet wasn't everyone's dream, and conversely, that some unlikely candidates turned up there (Nog).
I don't imagine Joseph Sisko originally was very happy with his son ending up in Starfleet instead of becoming a chef cook, and becoming "the Emissary" after that (or Starfleet itself with that last one, for that matter). Wouldn't have been surprised had it been revealed Joseph' s old man again had a very different career, a professional Parises Squares player, or a professor of linguistics, say.
So in that respect Jake does what could be expected from him in not following expectations...
Seriously though, I liked that they showed that Starfleet wasn't everyone's dream, and conversely, that some unlikely candidates turned up there (Nog).
