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This is really bizarre take. Beverly is straight. Being straight is not homophobic, and it unreasonable to expect her to change her sexuality and I truly hope that the 'evolved sensibilities' of the 24th century people mean that no one would ever expect that from anyone.
But I think the problem was, the show would not have Beverly simply admit it.
She could simply say she wasn't attracted to females. But maybe the fear was that by saying that it would hurt that perfect image of human beings in the 24th century.
So she has to reject her, but make it about changing different bodies instead of her gender.
Even though she slept with Riker when he was the host and seemed eager to meet the next host when she thought it would be a male.
The explanation had a 'have your cake and eat it too' aspect to it.
That's the irony right now. Would Trek Picard boldly just say Seven was bi or had a female lover, or just leave subtle hints about it.
In "the Host", it is VERY clear that Beverly is rejecting the new host explicitly due to her gender. She reacts with shock upon seeing her, despite being super jazzed about Odan's new body moments before.
It's clear that, in the final scene, Beverly is just reaching for a more pleasant sounding excuse for rejecting her.
So...two weeks later we're still debating what a character who's never appeared on this show said/did on another show 30 years ago? Seems like there might be a forum for beating that dead horse.
In "the Host", it is VERY clear that Beverly is rejecting the new host explicitly due to her gender. She reacts with shock upon seeing her, despite being super jazzed about Odan's new body moments before.
It's clear that, in the final scene, Beverly is just reaching for a more pleasant sounding excuse for rejecting her.
Nobody seems to have taken my hint. Let's make it official: The Beverly/Odan thing goes to TNG now. Continuing it here will result in reply bans for this thread.
We have only ever seen the Borg have sex once, in VOY Unity, and it was an orgy.
Do Borg even ever have the sex with one person at a time?
Seven of Nine might have been rumuging through her Fenris Rangers encampment for an 8th to cap their free sex party, and that's how she had sex a villainous stranger.
Chakotay and Riley did it while in a healing link with 5 or 6 other Borg.
We saw an awkward expression on one of the Borg still connected to these lovers, as Chakotay took Riley to pound town, becuase Chuckles was taking the lot of them to pound town.
I know that I am not alone in reading, in the particular intensity of the exchanges between Seven of Nine and Bjayzl in "Stardust City Rag", hints of a past intimate relationship. It would have been nice, to be sure, if they had come out and said what they were hinting at; but then, they were not covering up much.
The 1990s did it plenty of times as big news already. Decades have passed; a relationship is a relationship. Sex is the most common thing and a sign of the least amount of creativity in a creative-driven genre such as sci-fi. And arguably the most common thing for any generic and cheap soap opera.
I never read the Seven/Janeway relationship through a slash lens; that relationship seemed much more maternal to me than anything else. In any event, I did not and do not think it likely that an adult Janeway would want to take advantage of a younger and much more vulnerable Seven.
Or maybe it is news. Two lesbians in the same room doesn't mean they become lovers or have an attraction just because they're both the same orientation, or one may have an attraction and - gasp - not act out on it out of respect for the other person. Just like gay guys and bis and straights and pans and the sheepherders and everyone else.
All that said, I do think that Seven not being straight might indeed work. The Borg Collective us hugely flawed, but homophobia likely does not tank as one of those issues. Whatever Seven's orientation, I do not see her as likely to be any more intimidated or inhibited re: a same-sex relationship than an opposite-sex one. She certainly would not stand for others intimidating her.
I'd buy into the lesbian aspect because the attempt to ship her off with Chakotay felt forced on all levels.
But I never cared for Trek regardless of who was shagging whom. Neither did some of the people doing the shagging.
And some do. I'm happy for them since that particular *cough* website wasn't good enough. Or the other one. Many websites already exist. They also exist in audio, book, and certain cable channel forms.
(If Seven had in Bjayzl a horrid ex, well, Picard technically can claim the Borg Queen. We can all be unlucky.)
Thoughts? Are there any bits from Voyager that you think might support a non-heterosexual Seven of Nine? What did you think it the episode? Where would you like this to be taken in the future?
Many people, regardless of orientation, don't. People get hit on, or other people can be attracted and it's not mutual. Or other combinations. Life itself is a room full of herded cats - or to use the TLDR version, it is "IDIC".
Michael Chabon's latest interview with Variety goes into much more detail about sexuality.
In “Stardust City Rag,” there’s an implication that Seven of Nine (Jeri Ryan) and Bjayzl (Necar Zadegan) might have been lovers at one time. Given the history of the LGBTQ characters in your body of work, I wondered why there weren’t any more sort of explicitly queer characters this season?
Well, the way that people’s identity is constructed with sexuality as a component of it, in my experience, it emerges in a much more organic [way], and not like wearing a t-shirt that says, you know, Queer Power — or the equivalent in the 24th century. We get to know these characters the way we get to know real people. It emerges in conversation when it would emerge in conversation. Like their parentage, for example. It’s really important to me who my parents were. I’m sure it was really important to you for shaping your identity. We don’t know anything about Jurati’s parents except that her father read paper books and she used to interrupt him. We don’t know anything about Raffi’s parents. We don’t know that much about Picard’s parents — even if you’ve watched “TNG.” In terms of the show, it just doesn’t come up.
Well, on “Star Trek: Discovery,” it was a very big deal that Lt. Stamets, the character played by Anthony Rapp, is gay. So I think there’s a certain subset of “Trek” fandom that was excited about seeing that perpetuate on “Picard.”
We’re doing it in a different way. We’re doing it in an organic way — what feels organic to me. It emerged in that scene between Bjayzl and Seven. I think it’s pretty explicit, but it’s explicit in a way that feels real. Bjayzl doesn’t say, “We were lovers.” She doesn’t say, “We were a couple,” or anything like that. She says, “We were incredibly close.” It felt, to me, natural. It felt like how somebody would talk about many years later, a relationship that was in the past.
And it will continue to emerge. I think it’s a part of our understanding of Raffi’s character. In Raffi’s scene where she calls into Starfleet to try to get access for them to the Artifact, and calls that old friend of hers, I mean, to me, the implication is there too in their relationship. But she doesn’t ever say, “I’m going to call this woman that I used to go out with,” and she doesn’t say, “Hey, remember me. I used to be your girlfriend.”
That the first season of Picard ends with, among other things,
a shot of Seven and Raffi holding hands and looking romantic over a game of kadis-kot (?), is indicative.
Michael Chabon's latest interview with Variety goes into much more detail about sexuality.
In Raffi’s scene where she calls into Starfleet to try to get access for them to the Artifact, and calls that old friend of hers, I mean, to me, the implication is there too in their relationship. But she doesn’t ever say, “I’m going to call this woman that I used to go out with,” and she doesn’t say, “Hey, remember me. I used to be your girlfriend.”
Dear Mr. Chabon,
even I didn't catch that. And my second name is "subtext".
I did catch, however, that Raffi was sort of fangirling around Seven in "Stardust..." - but I still didn't read more into it, I just jested about them being a thing. Which, nevertheless, also means...
Yeah, same. With Seven/Bjayzl, everything about their interactions, from their dialogue and body language to the actors' line readings implied there was more to their past relationship than just friendship IMO. The other relationship Chabon mentioned, not so much. To me, that's definitely a case of being so subtle as to be almost pointless. There should have definitely been more implication there if that's what he wanted to get across.
I also find this approach kind of odd coming from someone who populates his novels with many unambiguously gay/bi characters, in a manner that feels very organic but also very clearly defined.
Dear Mr. Chabon,
even I didn't catch that. And my second name is "subtext".
I did catch, however, that Raffi was sort of fangirling around Seven in "Stardust..." - but I still didn't read more into it, I just jested about them being a thing. Which, nevertheless, also means...
Regarding the spoiler-tagged portion of your post...
I'm just copying what I said over in the Ep 10 discussion thread, but...
Seven/Raffi wasn't really built up or alluded to in previous episodes, but then, Rios/Jurati hooked up on pretty tenuous grounds as well. In fact, I don't think it would be much of a stretch to say that the reasons two damaged people like Rios and Jurati gravitated to each other (that is, feelings of emotional vulnerability and wanting a physical connection to distract from their respective realities) are the same reasons Seven and Raffi might have drifted together, especially given everything they had just been through, not to mention all their hardships over the years. They definitely share common ground, not least of all the loss of a son. I think what we're seeing at the end of this episode is the beginnings of a relationship borne out of shared circumstances and experiences, and that kind of relationship can develop pretty quickly. The fact that we haven't seen a lot of Seven/Raffi interaction doesn't make much of a difference to me because their coming together still makes sense on an emotional level. So in that sense, I don't think it's coming out of nowhere.
Or Time After Time, or Logan's Run, or, for Pete's sake, "City on the Edge of Forever."
Romance has been part of STAR TREK since Pike and Vina because it's part of the human condition. Granted, some Trek romances have been handled better than others, but as long as STAR TREK is about people and not just hardware and space-time anomalies, you're going to have people falling for each other and sometimes getting their hearts broken.