Not All Main Characters Are Supposed to Be Likable

[Firebird]

Look at it this way: Marion Crane is set up to be the protagonist in Psycho, despite the fact she is presented as being amoral (relative to 1959/1960) and kicks off the movie’s plot by stealing thousands of dollars from a client.

Does it mean Hitchcock intended the audience to like her? Absolutely not. But, you’re put into the position of following her, even sympathizing with her, until she meets her end… And then, wouldn’t ya know it - Hitch does the same thing with Norman Bates, all over again.

 

[Khamsin]

Uhura was a character with a very well thought out and consistent backstory. She grew up in Kenya - a country with more than 60 spoken languages - which sparked her interest in linguistics. Both her parents taught at the university, so she probably grew up in an environment that promotes and nurtures child's interest in the sciences. Combined, that made her an expert in linguistics. It would be logical for her to pursue an academic career, which she was planning on doing until her family was killed in a shuttle accident. It's easy to understand why she didn't want to stay in Nairobi after such a tragedy. Her grandmother, probably the only relative she had left, was ex-Starfleet. So applying to the Academy was a pretty obvious choice.
I can see how some could have perceived her as a glorified secretary, but that only speaks to their bias blocking their perspective. Uhura's character is so much deeper and more sophisticated than that. Her calm and collected demeanor made her an excellent officer and a great asset to the Enterprise. And I think it was recognized by the bridge crew, as they relied on her in difficult situations on several occasions.
I apologize to fans of Burnham, but she could not hold a candle to Uhura, in my opinion.

 

[fireproof78]

Uhura was a character with a very well thought out and consistent backstory

Starting when exactly?

apologize to fans of Burnham, but she could not hold a candle to Uhura, in my opinion.

It's not a competition.

 

[The Wormhole]

Uhura was a character with a very well thought out and consistent backstory. She grew up in Kenya - a country with more than 60 spoken languages - which sparked her interest in linguistics. Both her parents taught at the university, so she probably grew up in an environment that promotes and nurtures child's interest in the sciences. Combined, that made her an expert in linguistics. It would be logical for her to pursue an academic career, which she was planning on doing until her family was killed in a shuttle accident. It's easy to understand why she didn't want to stay in Nairobi after such a tragedy. Her grandmother, probably the only relative she had left, was ex-Starfleet. So applying to the Academy was a pretty obvious choice.

Aside from being born in Kenya, none of that stuff was established about Uhura until SNW. Even her birth in Kenya wasn't established on TOS until The Savage Curtain, the third to last episode of the series.

 

[DarKush]

I saw plenty of complaints about lorca's actions.


The internet will always be the internet. A hang out for the social dregs of the world. They should never be taken as a majority or an opinion worth serious consideration.



Guess you never hung around Star Wars forums when TPM came out. Tons of people had problems with the chosen one angle for Anakin. I know I roll my eyes every time the trope is used.I dont recall Burnham being a chosen ,but then again I stopped watching around S2. If that came later then Im definitely not watching again because that trope was tired even back in the 90s.


Wow. That has got to be the most insane viewpoint I have ever read about Uhura. Especially the whole "this is what viewers were thinking."




Think about what you just wrote. The first time we see Captain Kirk on screen he is having a friendly game of chess with Mr. Spock, not trying to mutiny and be the cause of so many innocent lives lost. Im suppose to like this person and follow her journey. Really? I dont think so.

I saw plenty of complaints about lorca's actions.


The internet will always be the internet. A hang out for the social dregs of the world. They should never be taken as a majority or an opinion worth serious consideration.



Guess you never hung around Star Wars forums when TPM came out. Tons of people had problems with the chosen one angle for Anakin. I know I roll my eyes every time the trope is used.I dont recall Burnham being a chosen ,but then again I stopped watching around S2. If that came later then Im definitely not watching again because that trope was tired even back in the 90s.


Wow. That has got to be the most insane viewpoint I have ever read about Uhura. Especially the whole "this is what viewers were thinking."




Think about what you just wrote. The first time we see Captain Kirk on screen he is having a friendly game of chess with Mr. Spock, not trying to mutiny and be the cause of so many innocent lives lost. Im suppose to like this person and follow her journey. Really? I dont think so.

If so many people disliked Lorca, where are the threads discussing, or still discussing, how unlikable he was, or where were the You Tube videos all but burning him in effigy? I was around for a lot of the dislike and at times hatred heaped on the prequels and I don't recall a lot of that directed toward Anakin being the Chosen One. I do remember people not liking the acting from Lloyd and Christensen, among many other detractions, but I don't recall decrying Anakin as the Chosen One. I personally preferred that it be Luke, but in any event, whatever you heard/read about Anakin back then doesn't compare to the reaction that Rey got in the sequels.

Regarding Uhura in the Original Series, Nichelle Nichols considered quitting the series until she had a timely conversation with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Nichols was disappointed because her role was so limited. We didn't even get the character's first name until the 2009 movie. And it was the Abrams-Kurtzmann Era that gave the character more depth and more skills. Original Uhura didn't know Klingon, which was used for comic relief in The Undiscovered Country. Nichols broke barriers, but the Uhura role gets a lot of credit largely for a Black woman being depicted as competent and as a respected part of the crew which was still rare at that time. Original Uhura is not that remembered for what she did, because they didn't give her a lot to do.

When we first meet Burnham, she's playfully bantering with Georgiou shortly before they save an alien civilization. The first episode gives us a little day in the life before the mutiny. She doesn't start off mutinying, they built to that, and they also took some time to explain her mindset, because she wasn't supposed to be an unhinged villain. She was a person who was misshaped by trauma, made rash and tragic decisions, and spent the first season redeeming herself. The pilot episode (s) establish that the Klingons sought the beacon to unite their people to go to war against the Federation. Perhaps, that was done to soften the idea of Burnham being a warmonger.

People like who they like, or don't like. It took me seasons to come around on Tilly, but she annoyed me to no end in the two seasons, but I also believe that the writers thought that character was endearing from the get go. I don't believe the writers set out to make Burnham unlikable. I think the things that they thought would make audiences like the character turned off some of them, including a lot of them who got on the internet to say so.

Regarding Burnham and Uhura. You don't get Burnham without Uhura. Uhura had to walk so that Burnham could run basically. There shouldn't be a competition between the two. I can only imagine how much Nichelle Nichols would've loved to have gotten the same opportunities that Sonequa Martin-Green got, but SMG wouldn't have gotten the role without Nichols's Uhura. It was the Original Uhura that inspired countless people, including Dr. Mae Jemison and Whoopi Goldberg, and it was Nichols's Uhura that also inspired Bryan Fuller who wanted to create another inspirational character like Uhura.

 

[fireproof78]

and I don't recall a lot of that directed toward Anakin being the Chosen One

Oh, my. I could make several places I saw that discussion centered right on this. That the prophecy made Anakin a weird figure now in the lore. It felt extremely out of nowhere.

Anakin was treated extremely poorly and his whole role was derided, his romance unbelievable and poor chemistry with the other characters. Rey got it bad too but Anakin was treated awfully as well. Both are horrible ways to treat people.

Back to Burnham. I think she was a tragic figure, shown not fitting in and not healing from trauma but forced to repress it under logic. I don't think she was supposed to be likable but sympathetic on her healing journey.

 

[johnjm22]

I think people conflate "likeable" with "like-to-see"

I don't like Gul Dukat, but I like seeing him on my screen. Wesley Crusher is the opposite.

 

[DarKush]

Oh, my. I could make several places I saw that discussion centered right on this. That the prophecy made Anakin a weird figure now in the lore. It felt extremely out of nowhere.

Anakin was treated extremely poorly and his whole role was derided, his romance unbelievable and poor chemistry with the other characters. Rey got it bad too but Anakin was treated awfully as well. Both are horrible ways to treat people.

Back to Burnham. I think she was a tragic figure, shown not fitting in and not healing from trauma but forced to repress it under logic. I don't think she was supposed to be likable but sympathetic on her healing journey.

I recall people taking issue with Anakin for various reasons, as I mentioned before, however, I don't remember much griping about him being the Chosen One, or people not decrying the prequels being about him, his journey, like I do with Burnham.

To be fair, the nature of storytelling is different for the two franchises, and Discovery was trying something different, or making a franchise lead character more explicitly the lead whereas older/predecessor series were more subtle with it. And that might have thrown people off, but even, during the unsubtle days, there wasn't much griping either about the other leads from Kirk on saving the day, repeatedly.

And I didn't get that about Anakin really, for being the Chosen One. Yes, I saw people disliking the acting, the writing/direction, the romance, but not that bummed about him being the Chosen One itself. I can only speak on what I remember, and I don't remember the focus of prequel anger being about that. As I said before, I preferred Luke in that role, but Lucas made the decision, even though Disney suggested it was Luke anyway on Rebels years later.

Likable is so subjective. Burnham's tragic backstory and being sympathetic was part of the writers attempt to make her likable. Tying her to Spock, her spending time with Sarek and Amanda, establishing her as brilliant and courageous, a future captain in the making, her mentorship of Tilly, the doomed relationship with Ash, her reclaiming and advocating Federation values, all of those things were meant to sell her as a character the audience was supposed to root for. Some in the audience just didn't, and it goes that way sometimes.

I am iffy on Burnham as a character myself. I liked SMG's performance, but I didn't like how the character was always written. And I didn't care for making her Spock's sister. That being said, I never saw her as a Mary Sue or "Space Jesus", but I do think the writing was clunky at times and the writers needed to lead with action more than just people talking about how great the character was. Enterprise did this to some extent with Archer as well, so it wasn't just a Discovery "problem".

 

[ichab]

If so many people disliked Lorca, where are the threads discussing, or still discussing, how unlikable he was, or where were the You Tube videos all but burning him in effigy? I was around for a lot of the dislike and at times hatred heaped on the prequels and I don't recall a lot of that directed toward Anakin being the Chosen One. I do remember people not liking the acting from Lloyd and Christensen, among many other detractions, but I don't recall decrying Anakin as the Chosen One. I personally preferred that it be Luke, but in any event, whatever you heard/read about Anakin back then doesn't compare to the reaction that Rey got in the sequels.

B.S. The young actor who played Anakin got picked on and bullied for that role which left him emotionally scarred for life. Ahmad Best also got a ton of hate for playing Jar Jar (derp... step and fetch character... derp) so spare me the "women get it worse shtick. Your memory is either faulty or you are arguing in bad faith. What those two actors went thru was many times worse than what Daisley Ridley went thru. She was a grown woman while Jake Lloyd was just a ten year old boy. There is no comparison.

Regarding Uhura in the Original Series, Nichelle Nichols considered quitting the series until she had a timely conversation with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Nichols was disappointed because her role was so limited. We didn't even get the character's first name until the 2009 movie. And it was the Abrams-Kurtzmann Era that gave the character more depth and more skills. Original Uhura didn't know Klingon, which was used for comic relief in The Undiscovered Country. Nichols broke barriers, but the Uhura role gets a lot of credit largely for a Black woman being depicted as competent and as a respected part of the crew which was still rare at that time. Original Uhura is not that remembered for what she did, because they didn't give her a lot to do.

No one is arguing with that. My argument was your whole "This is what viewers were thinking and why they liked her."

Regarding Burnham and Uhura. You don't get Burnham without Uhura. Uhura had to walk so that Burnham could run basically. There shouldn't be a competition between the two. I can only imagine how much Nichelle Nichols would've loved to have gotten the same opportunities that Sonequa Martin-Green got, but SMG wouldn't have gotten the role without Nichols's Uhura. It was the Original Uhura that inspired countless people, including Dr. Mae Jemison and Whoopi Goldberg, and it was Nichols's Uhura that also inspired Bryan Fuller who wanted to create another inspirational character like Uhura.

No one is arguing this point either.

 

[Set Harth]

As I said before, I preferred Luke in that role, but Lucas made the decision, even though Disney suggested it was Luke anyway on Rebels years later.

IMO that scene is widely misunderstood. Anakin as "Chosen One" relates ultimately to his actions in ROTJ. In the Rebels scene in question, we're at a point in the timeline where no one thinks Anakin could come back. Ben in particular falls into this category. Thus the characters are depicted as thinking Luke is the Chosen One, but it's not the same thing as Disney itself claiming it. A few years after "Twin Suns" Disney released TROS, in which Anakin's Force ghost claims to have brought back the balance.