It is descriptive, it is figurative. It is not precise. Picard was captured and mutilated. He was brainwashed. He was not penetrated. He did not have his sexual organs stimulated against his will. Let's put it differently: if Picard needed therapy, would you send him to a sexual assault survivors group?
Hmmm.... an android that cannot use contractions, talks with a British accent, and spits out Shakespeare quotes at the most inappropriate times? I dunno ....
I entirely agree. The Borg took Picard's humanity and identity. However, it is not clear why that fact requires us to dismiss any other pain that someone experienced in the Borg invasion. A man may have spent years in Vietnam's jungle watching his buddies die. Does that fact that others were captured and tortured mean what that man experienced was meaningless?
I don't think it has been mentioned, but it's also possible Sisko suffered survivors' guilt, in that he feels Jennifer should have survived and he died in that battle. As a married man, I would far prefer dying to allow my wife to survive than seeing her corpse. I think that scene with Sisko and Picard was excellent. And I think Sisko was not abrasive or rude. Yes, his tone conveyed repressing anger, but to say someone should be over the pain of losing a loved one is actually condescending, rude, and completely wrong. Emotions in people, especially strong ones like that which alter his ENTIRE life, cannot be quantified in a timeframe. And frankly, if I were in a similar situation, I doubt I would be as restrained as Sisko was. And the scene with them at the end... it would not have been as good if the first was not done as it was. It showed Sisko growing and moving on. And that is what the core of DS9 was... growth. EVERY character grew so much from their first introduction to the finale. I think, by and large, they grew as characters better than ALL other STAR TREK series.
I wouldn't say every character had growth, nor should every character in an ensemble show. For instance, Miles O'brien, or Jadzia. I think Ezri had more growth in her one season than Jadzia in 6. Worf was given a lot of development, but his character in season 7 is not very different than his character in season 4. The ones who grow the most are probably Nog and Bashir.
Perhaps Miles didn't get a lot of growth, but he did get some. Plus, he is our everyman, and most identifiable person. He should be easy to connect with through the entire run, and he was. I would argue that Jadzia did have a lot of growth during her 6 years. Worf is a bit of an anomaly. He DID get a LOT of development, far more than his 7 years on TNG. But that's it right there... he had 7 full years before coming aboard, so I don't think it's fair to put him in the same category as the original DS9 lineup.
I agree on principle but it's hard to evaluate without having experienced either one of them. It's like... what's worse? Dying by strangulation or by suffocation? No one will ever know.
I watched 20-30 episodes of the dominion war story arc and i couldn't agree more about Sisko. He was one of my least faborite characters and found his acting to be really over done and unbelievable. He rivals shatner for most over top performer in a star trek series.
O'Brien went through some really gruesome ordeals (framed and tortured by Cardassians, imprisoned in a virtual cell for twenty years, his wife possessed by a Pah-wraith... to name a few) and yet after each of them, he went back to his own self really fast.
In regards to him going back to his normal self every time, I defend O'Brien about that for one simple thing. He was the everyman, the current world equivalent of the blue collar family man. Speaking as one, there is a mantra that we live by... work needs to get done and we need to take care of our families. That usually means we push through the day, no matter what happens to us or how much pain we are in. A LOT of times, that means we have to put on a face of 'everything's fine', because at the end of the day, our loved ones count on us. And sometimes the best way to take care of them is to let them think nothing is wrong with us, because our job is to lighten their burden, not add whatever physical/emotional/mental pain we have to their list of worries. A friend at work described it best... it's like a duck. When you see a duck, it looks peaceful and happy just floating on a pond. But under the water's surface, that same duck is frantically moving his webbed feet to maintain that serene appearance. For me, O'Brien is the most solid, reliable character of the franchise for exactly those reasons. He's a hero for the working class. And he would be the first person I would take on my way to any command.