Well, O'Brien did say to Keiko in "RIVALS" that he just bumbled on the court making a complete ass of himself.
O'Brien - is he actually the 2ndary protagonist?
- Thread starter Weyoun 251
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What's interesting about O'Brien is he at first is the everyman and even the shows main drawl seeing as he is the one character everybody already knew since he was from TNG. Then he adds additional levels. He becomes the character most fun to torture by the writers and also the fun buddy with Bashir that became at first the Odd Couple and then the shows go to place for male bonding fun.
I would also say is he is kind of the shows heart. He is the always nice guy though they also used him to explore casual racism at times in the first few seasons with his feelings about Cardissians which of course was set up on TNG in "The Wounded" episode and also the episode I bet good money was the inspiration for Berman and Pillar to bring him over as a regular on the show.
I would also say is he is kind of the shows heart. He is the always nice guy though they also used him to explore casual racism at times in the first few seasons with his feelings about Cardissians which of course was set up on TNG in "The Wounded" episode and also the episode I bet good money was the inspiration for Berman and Pillar to bring him over as a regular on the show.
/\O’Brien often has that “casual racism”dig thrown at him.Unfairly in my opinion.
The man was in a real honest to goodness shooting war with the Cardassians.Both sides trying their level best to kill each other.I think O’B is perfectly entitled to view the Cardassians with a good deal of side-eye.
And if you remember the dialogue from “The wounded” he tells the glinn “I don’t hate you Cardassian,I hate what you made me do”.
This view that O’B is just a working class guy and so must be be a casual racist is just so wrong-headed and goddam toxic.
The man was in a real honest to goodness shooting war with the Cardassians.Both sides trying their level best to kill each other.I think O’B is perfectly entitled to view the Cardassians with a good deal of side-eye.
And if you remember the dialogue from “The wounded” he tells the glinn “I don’t hate you Cardassian,I hate what you made me do”.
This view that O’B is just a working class guy and so must be be a casual racist is just so wrong-headed and goddam toxic.
O'Brien is also unique in that he was a character who had the closest thing to a typical family life. He began as a bachelor. Then, he married Keiko, had Molly and Kirayoshi, and even added a cat to his brood.
Most other Trek characters were single or widowed, and the ones who did marry, we didn't get to see their marriage evolve. The closest we get to that is the Paris-Torres union (which we followed for only one year) and the Riker-Troi marriage, which we got a look at 20y after the fact.
Most other Trek characters were single or widowed, and the ones who did marry, we didn't get to see their marriage evolve. The closest we get to that is the Paris-Torres union (which we followed for only one year) and the Riker-Troi marriage, which we got a look at 20y after the fact.
Completely agreed. O'Brien had do to things in the war that haunted him and saw even worse things that haunted him. Not to mention his experience in "TRIBUNAL".
To believe someone can go through all that and not have a side-eye view of Cardassians is completely unrealistic.
And I completely agree that saying someone is casually racist just because they are working class and went through things is not only very toxic, but very closed-minded.
I think you're drawing a correlation where none exists.
O'B is a working class guy. O'B is also, for entirely understandable reasons, at times casually and perhaps even unconsciously racist toward Cardassians. That doesn't make him a bad person, just a victim of his experiences. But the casual racism has nothing to do with the fact that he's working class; it's due to the trauma he experienced.
And on Empok nor when he could legitimately taken Garak off the board permanently,he didn’t.
The casual racism tag doesn’t get thrown at anyone else which is strange when the much admired Worf is so extravagantly racist towards the Romulans-going so far as denying one a life saving blood transfusion.
The casual racism tag doesn’t get thrown at anyone else which is strange when the much admired Worf is so extravagantly racist towards the Romulans-going so far as denying one a life saving blood transfusion.
Yes, and even the backstory presented in DS9 made it clear that O'Brien's bias against Cardassians is a result of his combat experience, not because he's enlisted.
I wasn't saying he was racist because he was working class. I was saying racism in working class tends to look more like it does in O'Brien. He isn't a mean or bad person like a Nazi or anything. He just has some bad views.
Also it's very understandable why he would have those views after his war experience. War damages people and brings out bad traits but it doesn't mean he is a bad person. He is just someone who has been through some shit that created a negative trait in him.
But he is also someone who, because he is a good person did lots to not let that inner demon you could call it bring him down or turn him into a truly toxic person. I felt it was a nuance look at racism you don't always get into tv. Many tv racist are just one-dimensional cartoons.
Can't really blame Worf for his feelings regarding the Romulans, either. The Romulans murdered his parents.
Besides, the Romulan made it clear he didn't want the blood.
Having been working class my entire adult life, I haven't seen racism nearly as prevalent as you seem to think. Even 'passive racism'. Lumping working class people as having passive racism or any racism of any sort is not just wrong, it's goddamned insulting. (If you are indeed working class and you have personally seen it, l apologize... I take assumptions like that on hard working people rather personally, because it's unfair to them.)
Now, I have seen classism, because upper class people have shown a big level of disrespect and disdain for working class people. Basically, snobby assholes. And a lot of us have had to bite our tongue far too often. Disdain and hatred of upper class among the working class is not just understandable, it's well earned.
I'd call Worf racist toward Romulans, and I've never "much admired" Worf.
Worf was a great character, but he had flaws. He was a lousy father, and he was racist as @$*#!
I don't believe Jayson1 has made any reference to prevalence within the working class, rather is discussing how O'Brien is used to express racism with a working class slant - I have seen it quite often in England that there is a difference in how a working class person and an upper class person would express racism.
O'Brien's seems less rooted in racial and societal superiority (which is what upper class racism tends towards) and more a dislike due to the experiences of the war and so there was the odd use of imperfect language (presume "Cardies" is meant to be pejorative).
On the topic of classism - this does seem to go both ways in the UK, in that neither side speaks well or thinks well of the other (in fact I'd arguably say I hear working class people speak in more vulgar and powerful terms about the rich than vice versa), although obviously class based power dynamics mean that it is felt more by the working class
Just a further thought - you'd argue that O'Brien is racist in the same was Dr McCoy was - they may not show explicit hatred or act violently towards the targets of their racism, it is their use of language that is racist.
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Yeah. Flaws are part of a great character. Perfect people are boring.
Being perfect means you can't be boring. That would be a flaw after all.
And who gets to define what is perfect?
I am poor also. Just saying racism comes out in different ways with different types of people. I see it less as class issue or even a racial or gender issue but as a negative byproduct within all humans do to the lizard part of our brains. The part of use still connected to our more primitive state before our species evolved.
The animal inside us in essence. That is where our fear of the unknown and things we don't understand comes from. Society just finds ways of shaping those instincts in a variety of ways and people usually deal with them by being self reflective and embracing empathy which also something built into our DNA.