Question about O'Brien in "The Wounded"

[Leee79]

Every time I watch this episode, I just can't figure out the conflicting reactions by O'Brien towards the Cardassians.
In the transporter room when they first beam aboard, O'Brien's negative feelings are so strong that they literally stop Troi in her tracks. She apparently was picking up his feelings of hatred towards the Cardassians.

Then when he "popped off in the turbolift", such an outburst could have won the actor an Emmy award. It's quite evident that he wants nothing to do with the Cardassians.

Okay, so then comes the head scratcher. He's in his cabin with Keiko and goes into this long speech how he can't understand why people still hate the Cardassians. He says the war has been long over and people should just let go of their hatred. He asks her, "Why do you suppose people are still angry at them?"
And yet just a few short minutes ago he was on the verge of physical violence in the turbolift.

Was he just plain lying to Keiko? Did he forget he was just screaming at a Cardassian to leave him alone?
Did he not realize he was doing it? Or was it just bad writing?

I know he goes on to explain (and apologize) to the Cardassian, saying "I don't hate you, I hate what you made me do" Okay, so that sort of explains the anger, but this scene came AFTER the scene with Keiko. If anything it should have been in between the turbolift scene and the cabin scene. But even then it still doesn't explain his totally OPPOSITE conversation with Keiko and the feelings Troi felt from him, and his outburst in the turbolift.

Every time I watch this episode, I try and find something I might have missed. But after about the 50th time watching it, I still am stumped at this discontinuity of his words and his feelings. My first gut reaction is that he's just lying to his wife! And that's very uncharacteristic of O'Brien.

Any takers?

 

[The Old Mixer]

He kind of was lying to her. He was trying to get her input about what he was feeling by talking about it as if he were talking about somebody else. People do that all the time. "So I've got this friend...let's just call him...'Fixer'...."

 

[Leee79]

I guess that makes sense, I guess it was they way he delivered the lines (maybe too sincere sounding?) There was nothing in the scene (either his delivery or some kind of off-kilter music) that would indicate he wasn't totally sincere about his questions.
I think if they had a shot of him looking at her sideways while her back was turned, it would have indicated better that he was actually trying to get input about himself instead of pretending it was about someone else.

 

[The Old Mixer]

Keiko kind of lets on that she knows who he's talking about when she asks, "How do you feel about them?"

Also, O'Brien is a 24th-century human, so he can't just have an irrational prejudice...he has to examine why he feels the way he feels because he knows he's not supposed to feel that way.

 

[Leee79]

That's true I suppose. But I don't think it was exactly an irrational prejudice. In his mind they turned him into a killer.
I can relate to that, using his same example of feeling bad about just stepping on a bug. If a sensitive, non-violent person is forced to kill another person (human or alien), I'd probably need daily sessions with Counselor Troi. LOL!

 

[Tosk]

I guess that makes sense, I guess it was they way he delivered the lines (maybe too sincere sounding?) There was nothing in the scene (either his delivery or some kind of off-kilter music) that would indicate he wasn't totally sincere about his questions.
I think if they had a shot of him looking at her sideways while her back was turned, it would have indicated better that he was actually trying to get input about himself instead of pretending it was about someone else.

Sometimes you just gotta read between the lines. I dig subtlety.

 

[Triskelion]

Yah, subtext eh. Him not wanting to bias her answer with emotional support of her husband, eh. Looking for a more rational explaination, yah. If you watch their other arguments, (say, whether to stay at DS9), they are very good at stepping outside of their own positions, k.

 

[Greg Cox]

People are conflicted and sometimes lie to themselves, especially about emotions and reactions that they're not particularly proud of--and don't want to admit to.

One of my favorite TNG episodes, btw. And we should give TPTB credit for realizing what a great asset they had in O'Brian (and Colm Meany) and building up his part over the years.

 

[Paradise City]

I did think these where strange scenes. I agree people lie to themselves of course. But usually its revealed in the body language or the individual twitches for a split second. Or something. O'Brien plays it straight and just after a fairly harsh confrontation with the Cardassians. It's a very controlled pretence for Trek's everyman, a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve.

 

[flandry84]

Not saying that O'Brien is a hater,more like a traumatised soldier.But does any prejudiced person realise they are prejudiced?O'Briens hostility towards the Cardassians is so instinctive and atavistic that he probably doesn't even realise.
And as somebody pointed out,he is a Roddenberry human and his reaction to the Cardassians confuses nobody more than himself.

 

[Paradise City]

O'Brien's reaction reminds me of Kirk in VI. If you are on the frontier for a prolonged time, in war situations, you're going to get traumatised. A lot of Federation types who are Maquis sympathisers are shown to be very disparaging to the Cardassians for example. Further out you go, the less of the Roddenberry humans there are.

Of course, I remember bursting out laughing when Picard said to Maxwell "I'm going to allow you the dignity of captaining your own ship home......." No prizes for guessin' what was going to happen next, eh? hahaha.

 

[Tracy Trek]

Wasn't this the one where at the end, Picard says to the Cardassian commander something like, "Maxwell was right to be suspicious of you"?Implying that Picard believed that Maxwell had been right when he tried to get them to see that the Cardassians were up to no good.

 

[tharpdevenport]

Leee79, I think perhaps you are misinterpreting O'Brien's anger. He makes it very clear in the episode after describing the horrors he witnessed and how he had to kill the first person he ever had, a Cardassian trying to kill him and the people he was protecting:

It's not you I hate, Cardassian. I hate what I became, because of you.

It's not some feelings relaying four generations later by a rleative, it's events that happened in his life time that changed who he was and not necessarily for the better he thinks, as he even stated he worried about even swatting a misquito.

All he's seen, all he's been a part of, he's just never come to grips with it and suddenly he's confronted by that by a group of Cardassians beaming aboard. His anger was directionless and and more venting out of personal frustration.

 

[Greg Cox]

Wasn't this the one where at the end, Picard says to the Cardassian commander something like, "Maxwell was right to be suspicious of you"?Implying that Picard believed that Maxwell had been right when he tried to get them to see that the Cardassians were up to no good.

Yep. I love that ending, because it's nicely complicated. It wasn't a black-and-white situation. Maxwell was right and he was wrong.

 

[Leee79]

I did think these where strange scenes. I agree people lie to themselves of course. But usually its revealed in the body language or the individual twitches for a split second. Or something. O'Brien plays it straight and just after a fairly harsh confrontation with the Cardassians. It's a very controlled pretence for Trek's everyman, a guy who wears his heart on his sleeve.

I think this is the point I was trying to make (after it was explained to me that he actually was not being honest with Keiko)
Even the most subtle lines/actions/scenes need some sort of clue or reference to let the viewer know that there is something else going on. Without the missing subtle body language, look, twitch, or music, there are no indications that O'Brien is trying to seek an opinion about HIMSELF from Keiko. Which is why I originally was so confused as to the discontinuity between his talk with Keiko and the scene before in the turbolift.

Perhaps, as someone already suggested, the missing clue was indeed Keiko asking O'Brien "How do you feel about them?"
But at the same time, his response, "Oh I like them just fine" confused me even more. Without the funny behind-her-back look, facial tic, or brief music sting would have gone a long way in demonstrating O'Brien's true intent.
Colm Meaney had a great subtle wink that he used often, it was quick but effective. Some form of negative gesture by the actor would have been just as effective in this scene

 

[Mojochi]

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.

 

[Leviathan]

Dude spends all day alone up in a transporter room waiting to press a button....we can forgive a little instability.

 

[Starfleet Engineer]

O'Brien was trying to work out his own inner conflict about the Cardies in his discussion with Keiko. Just like in the excellent DS9 episode, Hard Time, O'Brien is trying to reconcile being an "enlightened" 23rd century human with his more base and animalistic reactions to traumatic experiences in war and as a prisoner. The conversation with Keiko is perfectly normal and not contradictory for a character who has had those experiences.

 

[Jedman67]

 

[Vandervecken]

Office Space!


yeahhhh....(Gary Cole)