Ok, I know this subject has been beaten to death, but reading the Endgame novel has brought it back into focus for my mind. The Chakotay/Seven pairing seems so wrong and so forced and so out of nowhere that it irritates me even reading it years later. Were we, as fans, ever given an official explanation as to why this abomination of a relationship was thrown together in the last episode of the series?
I don't know the motivations, but the relationship was established earlier in Season 7. "Human Error" had the first stirrings of it, I think. Also, I think Seven and The Doctor were effectively over as a couple after the events of "Body and Soul." I don't really see a problem with C/7. They were both single and interested, and I could believe that they would be attracted to each other.
Well if you can forgive a guy for throwing you out an airlock, sure? I do not believe for a second that Seven bedded the Doctor. he was just her imaginary friend because real people suck, or smell like Harry. Human Error just proved that she was an emtional coward. Going after the hologram is not the same thing as goig on a date or asking someone on a date or mentioning you have feelings to explore. Considering Riker and Troi's furious responses to be characterized and pornovisioned respectively, exactly how sure are we that the Indian would have been flattered for being used as a template for a comforter blanket sex puppet by the Borgette? Surely it would bring back all those feelings of being used and abused form when Seska raped him... Well "artifically" raped him.
Exactly. Seven was still mentally at this point a little above a teenager. She still wasn't mentally ready to handle a relationship, so she took as you say the cowardly approach. However, her mind state was still Borg. Chakotay was the Alpha male on Voyager. He in her eyes because of his status on the ship, her "perfect" mate. Still, how would Seven know of Chakotay's rape by Seska?
The baby was common knowledge because Seka wouldn't stop blabbing about it. I believe I recall seeing Seska thrusting her big baby belly into the camera hogging the full perspective of the forward view screen at one point. Seven must have read the ships logs? Reading all those logs simultaneously in the Voyager conspiracy is what drove her insane that time. Though considering Chuckles did it with Riley the Borg, and Seska, then Seven's research would have told her that Chakotay had a penchant for bad girls. Of course the first thing which should have drawn her to him is that his religion was borglike in that he temporarily met with people inside an AI plane and they "shared" about there animal spirits... Not that any of that matters.... But mind melding is also like the collective in some ways that if she was after a commonality then Tuvok was a contender if he would forget about his wife for a minute. Seven wasn't asleep when she was borg. She was aware of everything she did, and in one manner or another she processed her activities along with, as we saw in Infinite Regress, a lot of information and a jigsaw collection of thousands if not more personalities which would have bolstered her own personality if of course all that wasn't filed away in cold storage usually that she couldn't pick and mix like Joe 90? I think enough ground work was laid so as to explain away why Seven didn't think she was an 8 year old little girl who had just been assimilated after she was severed fromthe collective, but Seven did certainly have some antisocial behaviour probably because the Borg are more open about these things that they will embrace anyone with open arms except the kazon, even if they're not reciprocatively charming and inviting. THG Holo Pursuits, seemed to be a metaphor for drug or alcohol escapism addiction to me and that's cured unsimply by courage and faith, but Human Error was about her brain damage. She just didn't have the faculties to take the next step without the Borg tech in her head killing her. She wasn't allowed to be human because of a mental handicap.
Nope, not at the request of Robert Beltran at all. He hated the whole idea of throwing them together in the finale. Kate Mulgrew is on record (at cons) as saying that she came up with the stunning idea that "Sexy went with sexy". I have my own personal theory about Mulgrew's self-serving agenda there, but that's another subject Certainly, before "Human Error" Beltran joked with Jeri Ryan that her then boyfriend Brannon Braga would never write a C/7 thing and Jeri told him that she was going to tell Braga that - she did and Braga came up with "Human Error" which isn't even really Chakotay/Seven, it's Seven/hologram. That was supposed to be the end of the joke, but then Braga left to work on "Enterprise" and Ken Biller took over as Exec Producer. When "Endgame" rolled around, it was wall-to-wall Janeway x 2, so scrabbling around for something for Chakotay and Seven to do in the episode, Biller maybe went KM's suggestion on C/7. Braga is on record as saying he told Biller NOT to do C/7, but Biller ignored him. So Beltran and Ryan had a joke about C/7, but desperate for ideas, Biller made "Human Error" something it wasn't in "Endgame". That's my take on it from various cons and interviews etc. I still can't watch "Endgame" because of the C/7 (I'm a J/Cer), but now all these years later, I think it did more good than harm as all the J/C, J/7, D/7, C/P fan fic writers wrote stories to fix "Endgame" and gave a real boost to several 'shipper communities which are still on a high now in most of them
WOW! I was aware of KM pushing C/7 for Endgame to make it seem as though Janeway for martyring herself for them rather than for either one of them, but I did not know that Braga was not involved. It now makes sense, as Seven's character was diminished greatly, which Braga would not have been happy about. Thx IluvChuckles (J/7 still rules!!! Had to get that in!!!!!)
OK, let's think out this rationally. She could have sex with Tuvok...except sex with Vulcans was banned after the Trip/T'Pol Neuropressure Scandal of 2153. She could do it with Neelix, but bestiality was banned after the Archer/Porthos Decontamination Scandal of 2152. She could do it with Janeway or B'Elanna, but homosexuality was banned after the Tucker/Reed Shuttlepod Scandal of 2151. So what choice does she have? On the other hand, there are several reasons why Chakotay and Seven might get together... They both have funny-shaped things on their foreheads. Seven assimilated Janeway's fantasies. Her study of fanfiction has shown Seven that any pairing is possible, no matter how implausible. They both think expression is irrelevant. It's either Chakotay or a hologram who's young enough to be Seven's son, but looks old enough to be her father. Chakotay's a-koo-chee-mojo! There's a reason they call him The Wooden Man... See? There you are.
I didn't like Seven and Chakotay as a couple. He is like 19 years older than Seven (he was born in 2329 and Seven was born in 2348. Chakotay should have been with Janeway as it should have been done that way.
I liked it in Human error, that was seven with a hologram though, that was fine by me but come Endgame it's just used to pad out the minutes.
Seven and Chakotay had next to nothing in common and the whole thing just made Chakotay look like he was going through a mid-life crisis. I'd have liked to see Seven and the doctor end up together instead.
Humans live to be nearly 200 in the future. Chakotay was still a baby himself. Once you go Borg you don't go back. In season 3 he'd has "sex" while connected to a Borg healing link. A special hive sensation to share the feelings and sensations around. This included that he felt what his sexual partner Riley felt while he had sex with her. so in turn he was piratically having sex with himself. Seven was a means to a happing ending.
I guess that makes sense since Braga was so protective of the character and C/7 didn't do either the character or the actress who played her (his girlfriend) any favors. That about sums it up for me too. Some day I'll get around to using my dvd to make a special version with the C/7 ripped out. I doubt it would take away from the storyline and then I can see if "Endgame" has any redeeming qualities despite the use of time travel and the borg - AGAIN. I agree that the various fanfiction communities benefited from the interest in "fixing" the series ending. The J/C sites in particular are still going strong even though the show has been over for years.