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Maurice and Yvette Picard - How do we interpret them?

Charles Phipps

Rear Admiral
Rear Admiral
A poster here asked if we would be discussing the issues of NU TREK in the future and what those issues would be. I think that, yes, we will and the majority of those issues will be Picard. In this case, one of those issues is definitely the portrayal of Jean Luc Picard's parents as well as how we should interpret them as well as their actions.

A pair of Luddites living in a centuries-old mansion and growing wine without machinery (which Picard sensibly ditched--ending a centuries-long tradition), Yvette is severely mentally ill and either not seeking treatment for it or has gone off her meds equivalent.

We know that by "To Whom Gods Destroy" that most forms of mental illness have been cured so either she's suffering something like Irumodic Syndrome (and that Picard may have inherited his brain flaw from her) or she simply has refused treatment. As someone who has mentally ill relatives who refuse medication and being "forced" to seek treatment, this is hardly uncommon and I doubt they force you to in the Federation.

The show depicts Maurice Picard as locking Yvette up and we are left with the question of whether this is a regular thing or a one time thing that ended tragically horrifically badly. I think the show means for Picard to view it as something well-intentioned but catastrophically a TERRIBLE idea that may have directly led to her suicide. The Jane Eyre parralels are pretty clear as "locking up a woman in a closet leads to her breakdown" is a pretty Victorian trope, however out of place it may be in the 24th century.

On my end, I'm comfortable saying that I think they were both very terrible, at least in their decisions, but believable people.
 
We already knew from TNG and its movies the Picard family had an irrational distrust of modern technology and modern ways. I mean, we see Robert inherited his fathers hatred of modern technology he refused to use modern firefighting and fire detection technologies at the vineyard resulting in he and his son getting killed in a perfectly preventable fire. So with that in mind, nothing the past season revealed about Maurice and Yvette was at all surprising or out of line with what was previously established. If anything it was surprisingly consistent for Star Trek.
 
I interpret them as terribly conceived and written characters in nu-Trek. In all honesty, they weren't really addressed in any significant manner in TNG.

The more time the entirety of S2 of Picard has to percolate in my brain, the more disappointed with it I am. :(
 
Even in Trek's world, people are going to slip through the cracks. They won't be able to force everyone to get a proper diagnosis, take their medication and get therapy any more than we can today.

Picard's parents were fucked up. But it happens. And it's believable to me it can happen in Trek's world. Just look at Barclay, who was barely functional and yet basically ignored for a long time before the Enterprise.
 
Of course they can. In the 24th century people are compelled for their own damn good

Apparently not.

It's certainly a massive pain in this century.

I interpret them as terribly conceived and written characters in nu-Trek. In all honesty, they weren't really addressed in any significant manner in TNG.

I'd say otherwise because we have enough encounters with Maurice Picard to show Jean Luc didn't care for his father in any way, shape, or form. He was apparently a domineering, out of touch, technology hating sourpuss who'd raised someone like him (Robert).

"Father understood better than anybody else the danger of losing those values which we hold most precious."

In the first draft script of "The Battle", Jean-Luc Picard recalled, "My father used to say, 'Nature is the best medicine for a troubled mind.'" However, later in the same scripted scene, he considered that his father may have been incorrect, concluding, "The best medicine for a troubled mind is a good woman."

MAURICE: Jean-Luc, I told you not to go running off to that Academy.
PICARD: Father.
MAURICE: I told you that Starfleet would bring you to a bad end, but you wouldn't listen. Now look at you. Dead before your time.
PICARD: Q, enough of this.
Q: Enough what?
MAURICE: Why couldn't you have listened? Didn't you know that I was working for your best interests?
PICARD: Q, stop this.
MAURICE: After all these years, even now, you manage to disappoint me, Jean-Luc.
 
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It's interesting in that it's easy to read the situation as putting Jean-Luc as the lynchpin of his family's miserable dynamic. Maurice's lifelong harshness and bitterness toward his son could easily be his displaced guilt over Yvette's death - blaming Jean-Luc for how that all went down, even if he never actually voiced the blame aloud. I also think it's not a reach to think that Yvette's suicide wasn't due to a history of self-harm, but because the realization that she'd endangered her son and having that revelation while she was in a depressive swing lead her to kill herself as a misguided way of protecting him from herself. And then Robert presumably hears about this while he's away from school, and winds up in the position as being the overly strict, protective sibling once he's home.

I'm just not sure that I buy the situation between Maurice and Yvette as one easy for for even young Jean-Luc to misremember as domestic abuse. Even if his parents argued a lot, Maurice also seemed genuinely gentle and concerned over his wife's condition, and I have a hard time squaring that with the "You ruined her! You broke her!" outburst if locking up Yvette wasn't a regular occurrence. I think that's one of the missteps in how this plotline was conceived - Jean-Luc doesn't really become a more reliable narrator just because Tallin broke through to those memories.
 
It's interesting in that it's easy to read the situation as putting Jean-Luc as the lynchpin of his family's miserable dynamic. Maurice's lifelong harshness and bitterness toward his son could easily be his displaced guilt over Yvette's death - blaming Jean-Luc for how that all went down, even if he never actually voiced the blame aloud. I also think it's not a reach to think that Yvette's suicide wasn't due to a history of self-harm, but because the realization that she'd endangered her son and having that revelation while she was in a depressive swing lead her to kill herself as a misguided way of protecting him from herself. And then Robert presumably hears about this while he's away from school, and winds up in the position as being the overly strict, protective sibling once he's home.

I'm just not sure that I buy the situation between Maurice and Yvette as one easy for for even young Jean-Luc to misremember as domestic abuse. Even if his parents argued a lot, Maurice also seemed genuinely gentle and concerned over his wife's condition, and I have a hard time squaring that with the "You ruined her! You broke her!" outburst if locking up Yvette wasn't a regular occurrence. I think that's one of the missteps in how this plotline was conceived - Jean-Luc doesn't really become a more reliable narrator just because Tallin broke through to those memories.

Given the very personal nature of the story to Patrick Stewart, his father being a abusive alcoholic to his mother but suffering PTSD that his wife was attempting to deal with, it's probable that we're not meant to view Maurice in a 100% positive light. He doesn't get a moment of redemption here but he does get a moment of understanding that this was a horrible situation for everyone and no one was to blame completely.

I think Picard blaming his father for his mother's suicide is also a way of avoiding his own guilt and the two of them never had a relationship that was remotely close thereafter. Jean Luc wants nothing to do with the vineyard, barely tolerates Robert (its implied he never visited him in the entirety of his career in Starfleet--spanning decades), and Q's image of Maurice Picard is a bitter condemnatory old man in "Tapestry."

Picard wants to sanctify his mother in his memories and demonize his father, classic Oedipus there, but he chooses not to acknowledge his mother refused to get treatment and his father enabled her.

Doyle-ist Notation: Really, the elephant in the room is the fact that free medical care of an advanced nature SHOULD be available for the Picards and the fact they didn't seek it isn't something that can be ignored. Unlike Patrick Stewart's time, post WW2, it's something Jean Luc's parents always had as an option. I think that actually makes it more relevant, though, because we live in a time of anti-vaxxers and medical ignorance that can and does lead to tragedy.
 
Given the very personal nature of the story to Patrick Stewart, his father being a abusive alcoholic to his mother but suffering PTSD that his wife was attempting to deal with, it's probable that we're not meant to view Maurice in a 100% positive light.
Patrick confirmed in an interview that I can't find right now that no, the season was not inspired by that.
 
In the first draft script of "The Battle", Jean-Luc Picard recalled, "My father used to say, 'Nature is the best medicine for a troubled mind.'" However, later in the same scripted scene, he considered that his father may have been incorrect, concluding, "The best medicine for a troubled mind is a good woman."

I can just picture Gene Roddenberry throwing that line in, or Leonard Maizlish throwing it in... then someone else seeing it and insisting he take it right out.
 
So Picard never addressed his mom's death in all those counseling sessions with Deanna? God, when did she ever get anything right with a patient?
 
Throughout the majority of TNG the extent of Deanna's counselling was basically just "I sense hostility." "Yes, so I gathered when he attempted to punch me."

Patrick Stewart himself once said it was ridiculous after a take.

Marina was like, "Yeah, I know! Don't blame me!"

I wonder if that was the inspiration for Galaxy Quest's Gwen.
 
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