Keiko is a Misdrawn Positive Character

[JeffinOakland]

^ Absolutely not. If it's not shown, we are free to invent our own explanations.

I suppose so in the sense that its all make-believe anyway but then every person who watches the show is free to fill in the blanks as they see fit and, thus, there can't be fan agreement as to character traits and motivations or even whats going on.

 

[Sakonna]

Did Keiko get pregnant before or after they realized they would have to write Nana Visitor's pregnancy into the show?

Before. The DS9 Companion credits Ira Steven Behr's wife with the brainstorm of moving Keiko's baby into Kira, when he came home and was complaining about having to figure out how to work in this new pregnancy without being redundant with the start of the Keiko pregnancy story they'd already shot.

I suppose so in the sense that its all make-believe anyway but then every person who watches the show is free to fill in the blanks as they see fit and, thus, there can't be fan agreement as to character traits and motivations or even whats going on.

Yep, sounds about right.

Isn't filling in the blanks with headcanon half the fun of being a Trek fan? Especially for the posting-on-message-boards-decades-after-the-fact variety.

 

[Long Syntax]

Miles O'Brien was meant to be the "every guy" or "average Joe" character that people could relate to, even though average would be the last thing one would say about Miles day job. Because of his average Joe type of character, I believe the writers wanted to show him to have an average marriage - one with ups and downs - the same pitfalls most couples face. The Keiko character just reflects the average relationship - albeit in a boiled down, snapshot sort of way that TV shows impose. I've never looked at Keiko as a negative character, just as the average Joe's (in starfleet) wife.

 

[fireproof78]

I liked Keiko, a lot, and found her interesting and dynamic. The times when her and Miles are struggling to make their relationship work, especially in later seasons, are among my more favorite character moments in the series.

 

[Jayson1]

I don't get this stuff about her hating Starfleet? When she was on "TNG" she was basically working for them and you never see her show any dislike to any starfleet people.
We also know she had at least a few friends. In one episode or 2 they talk about people who could babysit Molly. One was were she says the line "She likes them better than us" in a joking way and when she was possed by a Paigh Wraith, O'Brien wants Molly to stay with someone but the Keiko/wraith didn't want that.
Then their was Savar who O'Brien got jealous about who was on the Bajor expedition and I think she and Kira became good friends, especially once Kira had to carry her child.

Jason

 

[mos6507]

Or as a deeply unhappy person who gave up her career for her husband, for the first half of the show she either didn't work or worked at the school (which wasn't her dream job) amd took care of Molly the rest of the day. Then she went to Bajor working as a botanist (which was great) but took Molly with her (which was not that great considering she was effectively a single parent during that time).
Meanwhile Miles did what he loved during work hours and then went to the holo suite with Julian or played darts with Julian or build a model of the Alamo with Julian or got drunk with Julian. He couldn't take care of Molly once in a while so that Keiko gets to have some fun with her friends?

Keiko was flawed but Miles wasn't exactly a great husband most of the time.

Apparently utopia in Star Trek doesn't extend to married life. Are there any examples of a happy marriage anywhere? I guess not until Troi and Riker finally get married at the very end.

 

[mlbach]

Re: comment that what doesn't appear on the show doesn't exist:
A fan's imagination should exceed canon, or what's a fanfic for?

 

[Michael]

Again with the Keiko hate? Didn't we have that thread just, I don't know, last week?

I sometimes wonder if people who complain about Keiko and the O'Brien marriage ever have been in a lasting relationship with someone. “Happy marriage” doesn't mean you don't ever argue or you can't have differing opinions. Keiko and Miles were actually one of the if not the most realistic relationships in Star Trek. Only ever portraying her as a “shrew” strikes me as a very immature way of seeing their relationship.

 

[Sakonna]

I sometimes wonder if people who complain about Keiko and the O'Brien marriage ever have been in a lasting relationship with someone. “Happy marriage” doesn't mean you don't ever argue or you can't have differing opinions.

Well said.

Keiko and Miles were actually one of the if not the most realistic relationships in Star Trek. Only ever portraying here as a “shrew” strikes me as a very immature way of seeing their relationship.

Though I do draw a line in my mind between O'Brien/Keiko on TNG and O'Brien/Keiko on DS9. The introduction to their relationship in those first two TNG episodes is so weird -- they're getting married, but they seem to know nothing about each other. In "The Wounded" they play like people on an awkward first date instead of newlyweds. I do think the TNG writers were playing Keiko as a shrew for a lot of her first year -- and, not incidentally, that show did have a much more immature view of relationships in general than DS9 did.

But even in seasons 5/6 of TNG this was wearing off, and I just do not see it on DS9 at all. On DS9 they have a strong, loving relationship, and they're working together to construct a life that will be fully satisfying for both of them, and occasionally that's a process that's going to involve conflict. IIRC, the only truly serious fight, where the marriage is really called into question, is "Fascination", but going through it gets them to such a strong affirmation of their bond at the end. They had a lot of uncomfortably real marriage scenes, but this one is probably the most uncomfortably real of all...

 

[sbk1234]

Again with the Keiko hate? Didn't we have that thread just, I don't know, last week?

I sometimes wonder if people who complain about Keiko and the O'Brien marriage ever have been in a lasting relationship with someone. “Happy marriage” doesn't mean you don't ever argue or you can't have differing opinions. Keiko and Miles were actually one of the if not the most realistic relationships in Star Trek. Only ever portraying her as a “shrew” strikes me as a very immature way of seeing their relationship.

You took the words out of my mouth! Their marriage was extremely realistic. Anyone who thinks a happy marriage will be ALWAYS happy and pleasant is in for one Hell of a disappointment.

 

[kkt]

Apparently utopia in Star Trek doesn't extend to married life. Are there any examples of a happy marriage anywhere? I guess not until Troi and Riker finally get married at the very end.

Well, Sisko and Jennifer. And Sisko and Kassidy. Joseph and "Mama" his second wife. Worf and Jadzia. Rom and Leeta. Okay, some in the past and some didn't get a lot of screen time. But still.

 

[Tosk]

If something doesn't happen onscreen and it's never alluded to, then you have to assume it never happened.

So I guess none of the characters ever went to the toilet?

I mean, how did Keiko manage to live her life and do all that work without making friends? Do you think she just sat silently alone all day?

Also, Keiko specifically mentions a zoologist friend of hers in Fascination.

 

[Mark_Nguyen]

In case the OP hasn't read it yet, we've done a lot of this topic just recently:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/obrien-keiko-data.287993/#post-12031294

And I'll copy my response below. Long story short, I didn't truly appreciate their dynamic until I got married. And now I think it's one of the salient relationships of that whole show.

On my rewatch this year I was pleasantly surprised by how much I appreciated their marriage on DS9 compared to earlier viewings. When I saw it at first air, I was single, but now I'm a happily married husband and father. I sympathized a lot with the compromises they made to overall come out on the positive side of marriage. They bickered a "lot", but IMO it's more because NOT seeing them bicker would be pretty boring. History's best on-screen couples are best defined by how they fight AND how they make up, not how they get along the other 99% of the time. I thought the O'Briens had great stories and chemistry as characters and actors.

My criticism is more about how O'Brien got pigeonholed into playing the always-suffering guy in most of his stories. The writers are on record as being fans of how Colm Meaney plays that sort of story, so they kept writing them. IMO this was to the detriment of having stories as a couple, to the point where they were almost looking for excuses for Keiko to be shipped off to Bajor or Earth or wherever for months at a time.

Mark

 

[mlbach]

Ah, yes, the "O'Brien must suffer " trope...

 

[fireproof78]

In case the OP hasn't read it yet, we've done a lot of this topic just recently:
https://www.trekbbs.com/threads/obrien-keiko-data.287993/#post-12031294

And I'll copy my response below. Long story short, I didn't truly appreciate their dynamic until I got married. And now I think it's one of the salient relationships of that whole show.



Mark

This is how i feel as well. I personally find the Miles and Keiko's relationship to be among the most realistic couples ever presented in Star Trek.

 

[midnightz]

I was actually referrimg to the time when Keiko was on the station. Miles,spend time with his family but I don't recall a situation where took care of Molly alone while Keiko enjoyed herself. And when Keiko was on Bajor he could have taken Molly for a week for example.

What a riveting episode THAT would have been... I think we can assume that most of the 'mundane' general living of life happened during the show without actually needing to see it.

 

[DonIago]

It might be interesting to ask ourselves how much of Miles and Keiko's life together we ever actually see.

If they argue 2-3x per season but those are the only times they argue, then I think they're doing pretty well for a married couple. I know people in relationships who get snippy with each other pretty much every time I see them...it doesn't mean they don't love each other, it just means they're sassy and a little argumentative.

Alternately we could prorate and assume we're not seeing a whole bunch of arguments as well. But then, if they were really as unhappy as some people suggest, why would they have stayed together?

I'm reminded of a poster here arguing about how unprofessional Kira was, and wondering why Sisko put up with it (and a similar argument about Nick Fury putting up with Captain America's mouthing off on him), and to me it all boils down to: clearly the characters are happy with, or at least willing to put up with, each other, because in the end they do put up with it and continue their relationships.

 

[Eric Cheung]

If something doesn't happen onscreen and it's never alluded to, then you have to assume it never happened.

No, it's like proving a negative. Economy of plot never precludes something having taken place, merely that it wasn't considered important enough for that particular story. There's no reason to assume Keiko only had the exact number of friends mentioned in the show.

That would be like assuming that Kramer became friends with Lomez and Bob Sacamano the exact day they were first mentioned on Seinfeld.

There's actually a show on Netflix right now that's acclaimed for having a realistic depiction of how social circles work in real life Master of None. There, friends enter and exit Dev's life. It's never one set of friends for the entire duration of the season, like on Saved by the Bell, or the aforementioned Seinfeld.

In fact, DS9 was somewhere in between in this regard, partly because it had such a large recurring cast. But given that most of that recurring cast had a direct relationship to a main character, it was more rare to see people that were two degrees from a main character. Since Keiko was not a regular, her friends might have been too much of a tangent for the writers to want to explore. But I'm sure she would have had them outside our view.

It's not like the only friends another person has are the ones that happen to be mutual friends with you on social media. I would guess that 24th century Federation citizens have access to something like Facebook as well, even if we didn't see it on screen. Someone that works on a starship, and then a space station, would probably even have a larger number of at least acquaintances than someone living planetside. They would have varying degrees of closeness to them, of course, but I bet some of them would make an effort to swing by Bajor, as online friends do today.

 

[jaime]

*shrug* I never saw her as anything but positive, certainly not a shrew, and most of Miles whinging to Julian about stuff like the model etc, I just put down to it being the sitcom type scene that those basically were. I liked Keiko. I liked Miles. I liked Miles and Keiko. Between them and Tom and Bells I think Trek handled relationships better than most 'realistic' dramas (read:soap operas.)
Only one marriage ever ends in divorce in Trek, and we basically see none of it, and it's in an alternative future anyway. (Picard/Crusher.)

 

[fireproof78]

*shrug* I never saw her as anything but positive, certainly not a shrew, and most of Miles whinging to Julian about stuff like the model etc, I just put down to it being the sitcom type scene that those basically were. I liked Keiko. I liked Miles. I liked Miles and Keiko. Between them and Tom and Bells I think Trek handled relationships better than most 'realistic' dramas (read:soap operas.)
Only one marriage ever ends in divorce in Trek, and we basically see none of it, and it's in an alternative future anyway. (Picard/Crusher.)

Wasn't that officer that Data dated married before? Or are you referring to main character romances? Thought, McCoy was divorced as well.