Opinions on Chakotay & Seven

[Amaris]

At the end of the show C7 were dating, they were not committed. Things could have gone either way after that.

However, there is more to go on with what we saw at the end with Chakotay and Seven than the entire run with Janeway and Chakotay.

J.

It all depends on how you define "more to go on". J & C had dinner every week in her quarters and it wasn't because they were obligated to. No they never kissed on screen (although one was scripted but not shot in "Resolutions" and ther are rumors of another scripted kiss in "Hunters") but the chemistry between them was imo undeniable.

Besides, this thread is about opinions on C/7 and you don't need J/C in order to make a case against it.

I respectfully disagree. What we got were undertones with J/C. What we got with C/7 was actually scripted and shot. So there's "what is", and "what could be", but until "what could be" becomes "what is", what we see is what we get. There was an actual intimate relationship, whether new and lasting or not, between Chakotay and Seven. What there was not, was an actual intimate relationship between Chakotay and Janeway. Speculation can go on and on about what happened after the series ends, but in regard to series stated canon, it's Chakotay and Seven. There's no way around that.

Now, that's not saying there were or were not sparks between Janeway and Chakotay, but whether they did exist or not, they were never acted upon, never realized. That makes them pure speculation and wishful thinking, which is fine, but that's what they are in regard to the series' established lore.

J.

 

[freak]

Well, in the Spirit Walk book series, C/7 were no more. And I think that later on there was an implied J/C relationship(I don't know for sure since I haven't read all the books yet) so it works for me.
I will have to say that I rewatched episodes of Voyager yesterday, particularly "Natural Law" and "Human Error". I did see sort of an attraction between C/7 but I thought it was sort of rehearsed a bit. I remember in an interview with either Ryan or Beltran(can't remember which) they said that the writers wanted to put "sexy with sexy" in other words, a really hot man with a really hot woman. I got a kick outta that! Then I thought: so yall just threw them together just like that?! GEESSH!

 

[kimc]

There was an actual intimate relationship, whether new and lasting or not, between Chakotay and Seven.

Once again my argument is that three dates and a kiss do not make an INTIMATE relationship. It's a dating relationship which may or may not become more serious.

What there was not, was an actual intimate relationship between Chakotay and Janeway.

If you're defining "intimacy" by whether or not they kissed than I would have to disagree with your definition of intimate. Some of the more "intimate" relationships of a lifetime are going to be your friendships.

For example, tonight I visited with a friend who is being hospitalized due to complications in a pregnancy. We hung out in her room the same way we would on her back porch. We talked hopes and dreams and emergency/contingency plans. How could she reach me if something happened while her husband was at work. How would I reach him later. The time I spent in that hospital room with both her and her husband I would certainly define as more "intimate" than the three dates I've recently had with a certain guy even if we did kiss (okay, make out heavily).

This guy will most likely not be in my life a year from now but these friends and their babies (hopefully if everything turns out okay!) will be and any future guy of mine will need to get used to that idea.

An intimate friendship is still intimate. A dating relationship needs time to become intimate. What we saw on screen between C/7 was not intimacy but the EARLY stages of dating.

 

[kimc]

I will have to say that I rewatched episodes of Voyager yesterday, particularly "Natural Law" and "Human Error". I did see sort of an attraction between C/7 but I thought it was sort of rehearsed a bit. I remember in an interview with either Ryan or Beltran(can't remember which) they said that the writers wanted to put "sexy with sexy" in other words, a really hot man with a really hot woman. I got a kick outta that! Then I thought: so yall just threw them together just like that?! GEESSH!

The actors also asked if they should play any romance between the two and they were told not to because it wasn't in the plans. I think at that point the plan was still to have "Human Error" be the start of Seven's tragic arc ending with her death.

 

[freak]

kimc: I think you're right about that.

 

[Amaris]

Once again my argument is that three dates and a kiss do not make an INTIMATE relationship. It's a dating relationship which may or may not become more serious.

I consider an intimate relationship anything more than a platonic relationship, i.e, the desire to progress a relationship to a level of intimacy. Chakotay and Janeway never left the platonic level of their relationship, whether they planned to do so no longer matters, only that they didn't before the end of the series, whereas Chakotay and Seven did have that relationship. Three dates may end in just a friendship, but three dates are more than what Janeway and Chakotay ever had.

If you're defining "intimacy" by whether or not they kissed than I would have to disagree with your definition of intimate. Some of the more "intimate" relationships of a lifetime are going to be your friendships.

To be fair, that's a bit of wordplay. When you're going on a date for the express purpose of escalating a friendship, you are attempting to do more than just be friends. Whether that works out or not is one thing, but it is a definite marked difference between platonic friendships and "something more", which is the direction Chakotay and Seven were heading by initiating a "date" and then repeating it twice more.

For example, tonight I visited with a friend who is being hospitalized due to complications in a pregnancy. We hung out in her room the same way we would on her back porch. We talked hopes and dreams and emergency/contingency plans. How could she reach me if something happened while her husband was at work. How would I reach him later. The time I spent in that hospital room with both her and her husband I would certainly define as more "intimate" than the three dates I've recently had with a certain guy even if we did kiss (okay, make out heavily).

Again, that's using the word "intimate" in a way that is not intended in this particular situation. I have best friends whom I share all my secrets with. When I had a girlfriend, I did not share as many secrets, because I was still getting to know her. However, my intent was to enter into an intimate relationship with her, something I would not attempt to do with my dearest friends. It is a wholly different animal and the word usage is completely different in this context.

This guy will most likely not be in my life a year from now but these friends and their babies (hopefully if everything turns out okay!) will be and any future guy of mine will need to get used to that idea.

An intimate friendship is still intimate. A dating relationship needs time to become intimate. What we saw on screen between C/7 was not intimacy but the EARLY stages of dating.

It is a different usage of the word "intimate".

The early stages of Chakotay and Seven dating were still beyond the point of Chakotay and Janeway's status as friends. I'm sure Chakotay and Janeway shared many secrets, but there was no escalation. They were as best friends. Logically, if there were going to be an intimate pursuance of a relationship in the context of becoming more than just friends, it would have happened between Chakotay and Janeway long before it happened with Chakotay and Seven.

J.

 

[kimc]

It is a different usage of the word "intimate".

Yeah, I think I get that now. You're using intimate as not an actual state but as an intent if I'm understanding you correctly?

Logically, if there were going to be an intimate pursuance of a relationship in the context of becoming more than just friends, it would have happened between Chakotay and Janeway long before it happened with Chakotay and Seven.

J.

Not necessarily. You can be friends with someone before deciding to take it to the next level. Also, at the point C7 were at either one can walk away if they want without being a "sleaze".

 

[Amaris]

Yeah, I think I get that now. You're using intimate as not an actual state but as an intent if I'm understanding you correctly?

Intent of which is visible, as intentions would be for two friends who start dating, as we see with Chakotay and Seven.

Not necessarily. You can be friends with someone before deciding to take it to the next level. Also, at the point C7 were at either one can walk away if they want without being a "sleaze".

Of course, but Chakotay is friends with both Seven and Janeway. He could have chosen to date either of them. He chose to date Seven first.

J.

 

[Guy Gardener]

But "everyone" was told that there was wedding bells looming.

Talk about putting the cart before the horse, I mean clearly such premonitions didn't work out for Matt Parkman and Daphne on Heroes, and Leela divorced Fry instantly because she couldn't fathom how such a bum would talk her into nuptials... But then ther's always my favourite quote from Wonderfalls: "I'm fates bitch, so I might as well bend over for destiny."

Skipping all the hard work trusting fate to work it out is just bad juju.

I mean it's not like either of them want to seem "easy"?

I would have loved to have seen Kieko O'Brien square off against Ensign Tannerbaum, telling that "(&*&^" to stay the hell away from her man.

 

[Lynx]

When it comes to the chemistry, I saw more of chemistry between Janeway and Chakotay than it was between Paris and Torres.

I also find it plausible that Janeway and Chakotay may have agreed on not having an open affair as long as they were in the Delta Quadrant. Maybe they thought that it wouldn't have lloked that good if the Captain and the First Officer were holding hands on the bridge.

But they could have gone out openly with it in "Endgame".

Besides that, it was what many fans wanted so why don't give them that?

Or they could at least have kept it open instead of coming up with that Chakotay-Seven thing. There were no chemistry between them at all. There were more chemistry between Seven and Neelix than between Seven and Chakotay.

 

[Guy Gardener]

A terrorist leaders girlfriend by association usually winds up in her own cell.

That being said, Seven was probably a beard.

 

[NumberSix]

I will have to say that I rewatched episodes of Voyager yesterday, particularly "Natural Law" and "Human Error". I did see sort of an attraction between C/7 but I thought it was sort of rehearsed a bit.

As well as those episodes and the friendly flirting that I interpreted as such in the early seasons, and of course Resolutions (which resolved nothing IMO) I really thought the show spoke out for J/C in The Q and the Grey. When Janeway told Chakotay that Q wanted to mate with her, his face falls and he says "I know I don't have any right to feel this way, but this bothers the hell out of me", followed by her saying "Oh, Chakotay" and touching his shoulder, sharing a moment before Q appears and says "Why didn't you tell me there was another man?" Regardless of her response ("Because there isn't" - well she's not very well going to admit it to Q, is she?) I still took that as a message to the viewers that there's something there.

Even if they never acted/act on it, I think there'll always be something between them that for different reasons, they decided not to act upon. I think that you can always be attracted to, or even love, someone but just don't act on it because it's not right to you at the time.

But with regards to Chakotay and Seven, I just didn't see any attraction between them, I didn't feel anything while watching them. Maybe if there had been more episodes to show how their relationship developed to the point where they started dating, we would have a different perspective? But we didn't, we had only seen their dealings in the past where they weren't anything more than a colleagues. Human Error was only a holodeck program, and then we suddenly saw them having a picnic in Endgame (I think this was the first time we saw them on a date?) and it was all just a bit too rushed. I sort of felt similar shock as I did when I first saw Dawn appear on Buffy, but then that was explained over time and this wasn't. The only reason for their relationship that I saw was because the writers wanted Seven to have a boyfriend/date and Chakotay was a better choice than Harry (and of course they can't go beyond the senior staff ).

Now before anyone bashes anything that I said, this is MY opinion/observations only.

 

[Brit]

But "everyone" was told that there was wedding bells looming.

And by the very woman that a lot of you think deserved to die for messing with fate or karma or whatever.

Did it ever occur to any of you that good old Admiral Janeway, with her agenda just might have been lying. There is a big difference between "seeing" and "telling."

I think the argument is mute anyway, the moment that Admiral Janeway's shuttle contacted Voyager the time line changed. Now some say for worse, I've always thought for better. In any case the little stroll down the corridor and the conversation between the Captain and her doppelganger could have been heard by anyone.

So just how is Chakotay (who practically told Kathryn he loved her in "Resoultions") going to feel when he finds out she loved him back, and loved him enough to walk into the Borg Queen's chamber and die just to insure his happiness?

I frankly don't think anything that could have happened between Seven and Chakotay, would have after that.

Brit

 

[kimc]

Of course, but Chakotay is friends with both Seven and Janeway. He could have chosen to date either of them. He chose to date Seven first.

J.

Actually Chakotay struck me as pretty passive about the whole thing. It was Seven who was making arrangements - he was just along for the ride. Also, Chakotay and Seven weren't friends. In fact before "Endgame" they had no personal relationship beyond being colleagues at all.

Also, as captain and first officer J & C weren't necessarily available to each other (or one could argue to the crew either) while in charge of Voyager.

 

[andersonh1]

Anyone remember the scene in "Shattered" where Janeway comes right out and asks Chakotay if anything ever happened between them? And he replies "let's just say there are some lines we never cross." That and "Resolutions" are two episodes that come as close to exploring the topic as I can think of during Voyager's run, and in both cases "the line" is not crossed from friends into a romantic relationship.

 

[Brit]

Anyone remember the scene in "Shattered" where Janeway comes right out and asks Chakotay if anything ever happened between them? And he replies "let's just say there are some lines we never cross." That and "Resolutions" are two episodes that come as close to exploring the topic as I can think of during Voyager's run, and in both cases "the line" is not crossed from friends into a romantic relationship.

If there was nothing there, then there wouldn't be a line at all. Thank about that, and if there wasn't chemistry why did she ask him in the first place? Never is always past tense and doesn't have any correlation with forever, and finally "what" line is it that they've never crossed? It could be that the relationship is there just not official.

Brit

 

[andersonh1]

Anyone remember the scene in "Shattered" where Janeway comes right out and asks Chakotay if anything ever happened between them? And he replies "let's just say there are some lines we never cross." That and "Resolutions" are two episodes that come as close to exploring the topic as I can think of during Voyager's run, and in both cases "the line" is not crossed from friends into a romantic relationship.

If there was nothing there, then there wouldn't be a line at all. Thank about that, and if there wasn't chemistry why did she ask him in the first place? Never is always past tense and doesn't have any correlation with forever, and finally "what" line is it that they've never crossed? It could be that the relationship is there just not official.

Brit

Sounds like wishful thinking to me.

I agree there's chemistry between Chakotay and Janeway. I wouldn't mind seeing more of a romantic relationship between the two while the show was on the air. But it just never happened, despite the writers flirting with the idea, pun intended.

And it's easy to see why they didn't. It's the same reason Riker and Troi never got together during TNG's run, or the same reason Picard and Crusher didn't get together. The writers want to leave the door open for romance episodes for the characters.

 

[Brit]

I agree there's chemistry between Chakotay and Janeway. I wouldn't mind seeing more of a romantic relationship between the two while the show was on the air. But it just never happened, despite the writers flirting with the idea, pun intended.

And it's easy to see why they didn't. It's the same reason Riker and Troi never got together during TNG's run, or the same reason Picard and Crusher didn't get together. The writers want to leave the door open for romance episodes for the characters.

Actually it kind of comes from the idea that married people and especially married women that are moms, do not have interesting lives which IMHO is a crock.

Yes I know how Hollywood thinks, it's that kind of thinking that shaped "Gunsmoke" and Matt and Miss Kitty for twenty years. The producers wouldn't put them together and the audience wouldn't hear of either of them being with someone else. We all saw Matt climb those stairs in the Longbranch for years, but you never did know in whose room he was sleeping. In some shipper circles Matt and Miss Kitty are known as the First Janeway and Chakotay.

Brit

 

[kimc]

And it's easy to see why they didn't. It's the same reason Riker and Troi never got together during TNG's run, or the same reason Picard and Crusher didn't get together. The writers want to leave the door open for romance episodes for the characters.

It's not just a Trek phenomenon. Other shows like "Cheers" and "Moonlighting" wanted to draw out the chemistry between two characters as long as possible knowing that once they got together the whole "will they or won't they" suspense would have to be replaced with something else.

Even on "Friends" when they finally got Ross and Rachel together they ended up splitting them up again to try to regain that suspense.

 

[Thestral]

It is a different usage of the word "intimate".

Yeah, I think I get that now. You're using intimate as not an actual state but as an intent if I'm understanding you correctly?

Logically, if there were going to be an intimate pursuance of a relationship in the context of becoming more than just friends, it would have happened between Chakotay and Janeway long before it happened with Chakotay and Seven.

J.

Not necessarily. You can be friends with someone before deciding to take it to the next level. Also, at the point C7 were at either one can walk away if they want without being a "sleaze".

You're correct; at the point of C/7's relationship displayed, either one could walk away theoretically without being a sleaze. Breaking up with your girlfriend because you realize (perhaps mutually) that this is not worth pursuing due to some difference is not a sleazeball move. But there are certain reasons for walking away which would cast the decision into a sleazy light. To wit: Telling your girlfriend that you're breaking up with her because the woman you've actually been IN LOOOVVE with all this time is now available? That's a slimy, sleazeball move.

I think the argument is mute anyway...

It's worth noting that the word you're looking for here is "moot," not "mute"

So just how is Chakotay (who practically told Kathryn he loved her in "Resoultions") going to feel when he finds out she loved him back, and loved him enough to walk into the Borg Queen's chamber and die just to insure his happiness?

I frankly don't think anything that could have happened between Seven and Chakotay, would have after that.

Brit

Oh I dunno, that's only one interpretation of Kathy the J's actions. Alternately, Chakotay might be very grateful that his dear friend wants to ensure his happiness - with Seven - and thank her appropriately. Because, you know, platonic friendships between a man and a woman who care very much about each other can involve one sacrificing for the good of the other.

I agree there's chemistry between Chakotay and Janeway. I wouldn't mind seeing more of a romantic relationship between the two while the show was on the air. But it just never happened, despite the writers flirting with the idea, pun intended.

And it's easy to see why they didn't. It's the same reason Riker and Troi never got together during TNG's run, or the same reason Picard and Crusher didn't get together. The writers want to leave the door open for romance episodes for the characters.

Actually it kind of comes from the idea that married people and especially married women that are moms, do not have interesting lives which IMHO is a crock.

You're both right, after a fashion. Although it's worth noting that there was another Star Trek series that seemed to have no problem displaying a married couple... wait, what's that, two married couples? Three by the end? And when one of the married men ended up a widower, they didn't throw random romances at him? Humm... What can that possibly mean?

Anyway, back on track. I think you're both right - showrunners like to have young, unattached stars for random romances of the week, and there seems to be some bias against married people (especially moms). Though that didn't stop Seventh Heaven...