I created my own characters too! And of course Robin counts.
Spoilers Star Trek: Picard 3x03 - "Seventeen Seconds"
- Thread starter Commander Richard
- Start date
I wanted to be like Picard when I was a teen because of his stoicism and wisdom, and it just kinda fizzled out as I realized the extent of how emotionally suppressed I was in my twenties. This series has offered me a rare opportunity to look at him as a human being as opposed to just a role model. Nowadays I find relatability to be more important that aspirations though.
Well put. I think I hit that as well in my 20s, and I thank many factors, science fiction included, in helping me to identify those challenges. I definitely lack the desire for an aspirational figure in fiction though nowadays.
I admit my memory is fuzzy, so it may have more to do with where I was in my life in 87. I was a 19 year old college student who'd been terrified of a nuclear war since high school and who was struggling with undiagnosed depression and anxiety.
I think the wall came down in 90 or 91 btw. I know it was after I graduated in 88.
I'm still looking for aspirational figures, but now they're in real life and for aging with good health and grace.
I don't have the disappointment others do, but I get it. I turned to fiction for role models because I didn't see many IRL. But I can enjoy the ride of different "takes" on characters I love. Maybe that's my Lit major training.
Lorca was not badly written. Neither was this.
She went to F.I.U., but I don't know if Freudian classes were part of the curriculum for that degree. I'm sure she has done it to some extent, though.
To be perfectly blunt, I tend to just lump all shrink stuff together because they all essentially do the same thing... try to get in someone's head. I'm not exactly a fan of it.
Curious. Why not?
I can sympathize a bit, despite being trained in psychology, mental health counseling, and the like, as I do not enjoy people trying to analyze me. But, the flip side is that if I don't try to get in to someone else's head on some loevel then my perspective remains quite limited.
If she's damaged beyond repair, then by definition it's not temporary.
But I agree with your sentiment. Unfortunately, I think the melodrama will persist throughout the season but in the end they'll have a conversation and forgive each other. A reasonably happy family at the end. Hopefully.
Agreed! That doesn't mean they have to be perfect, but these real bitter disputes can be hard for some of us to watch.
Take it from the "Evoled Humans" perspective that Roddenberry tried to push for. Everyone is very thoughtful, even when angry at each other people show little surface emotion in the face of their semi-professional setting. So having a slightly awkward conversation with what is effectively your adoptive uncle who is himself nearly as big a legend as your Admiral Father... is a bit non-trek.
It seemed like it was generally less scary, the first treaties had been signed finally limiting the nuclear weapons of the world and things were proceeding fairly well with what would become START. There's no major wars aside from the usual drone of the proxies...
Just another case of people wanting different things.
For instance, I'm confused as to why people would want so much melodrama. But the thoughtful comments by you and others show me that the interest is there for valid reasons.
Some of us prefer other things in our fiction. Different tastes. Simple as that.
Does that damage the characters? Makes them less heroic or aspirational?
But, it's not as simple as that. Not for me, any way. Because it's outside my experience and I do desire to understand it, even if I don't share it.
We both share a love for MASH. And I've recently finished my complete rewatch. First time I've watched it in quite a while. The transformation from the early seasons to later seasons is huge. The early seasons reminded me of the teen comedies with debauchery and getting around an authoritarian environment. Lots of sexism, etc.
But by later seasons, many of the characters were highly aspirational. Hawkeye with his pacifism, Potter with his wisdom, BJ with his love of family. Mulcahey. Even Klinger who always went the extra mile! Even Houlihan became a bit aspirational with her dedication to duty, once she got over herself!
I'd just add that aspirational characters don't have to be heroes. I don't really have fictional heroes. But I also don't like to watch jerks and over the top melodrama. At least the early seasons of MASH were very funny, and the main characters were basically good people finding a way to survive a nuts environment. (Which is actually a bit aspirational!)
I return you to your ST discussion now!
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I think damaged characters can be aspirational and heroic. And maybe that's what we're building to here.
It's just my preference to not have all the melodrama. It's a personal preference for me. I just don't want a series to be mired down in the bitterness and dispute between the protagonists. But that's all personal preference. And, to be honest, a lot of that might be my desire to just sit down and enjoy watching a show.
So, I do think it's largely just different people liking/wanting different things.
You referenced MASH so you get a like but that doesn't really answer my question. But I appreciate it anyway!
I guess it's one thing for me to watch characters and go "Oh, they're just jerks!" But, this season has already set up there is way more beneath the surface to unpack than just being jerks. It's why I thoroughly love Pine Kirk and Quinto Spock. Beneath the surface of both characters is a lot of different emotional things going on. So I welcome the exploration of that, so it's hard for me to envision the damage, or this as melodramatic when we are not done with the story yet.
Same, absolutely same here. Going back to MASH these were not always good people. These were damaged, broken, struggling people who recognized their weaknesses and tried to move past them in an impossible situation. I would not consider Hawkeye aspirational or Houlihan aspirational but both have huge character growth that is so fun to watch unpack over the course of the show.
I don't know. Maybe's it's a distinction without a difference or my little J side coming out that I can't quite wrap my mind around this idea of fictional characters being damaged so that I don't want to watch.
ETA: Nowhere does anyone need to have an answer. This may be as much my verbalizing and organizing my thoughts as anything else.
I always find the modern discourse around Friends, particularly Ross, ignores the fact that these people are *extremely* damaged, and that is where we get half the comedy from because that is the kind of story it *is*. (With of course, the obligatory romance and drama elements, as was the style at the time)
Modern audiences are for some reason oblivious to that, preferring surface reading.
But that’s the flip side of Trek, where the characters are impervious, *most* of the time. And like a sitcom, when that is shown differently for a carefully chosen moment, it is for a purpose.
Again, I’m things like Discovery, and because of modern audiences, we are given surface. All the time.
In this case though, yes, Beverly has been radically changed, and we just have to hope that works out for the best and for good purpose. Rather than just ‘drama’ because it agin then becomes surface, and with her current portrayal, that surface is not particularly ‘good’ or in keeping with these characters.
Edit: which is to say the character is damaged in the sense she is not the bullet-proof character we knew, as opposed to ‘damaged’ in the sense I and others have used it here.
Modern audiences are for some reason oblivious to that, preferring surface reading.
But that’s the flip side of Trek, where the characters are impervious, *most* of the time. And like a sitcom, when that is shown differently for a carefully chosen moment, it is for a purpose.
Again, I’m things like Discovery, and because of modern audiences, we are given surface. All the time.
In this case though, yes, Beverly has been radically changed, and we just have to hope that works out for the best and for good purpose. Rather than just ‘drama’ because it agin then becomes surface, and with her current portrayal, that surface is not particularly ‘good’ or in keeping with these characters.
Edit: which is to say the character is damaged in the sense she is not the bullet-proof character we knew, as opposed to ‘damaged’ in the sense I and others have used it here.
I'm afraid I don't have a better answer than that. I truly think we just look for and value different things in fiction.
In real life, I'm not all about exploring emotions. I'm not emotionally suppressed either. But I don't seek that stuff out.
We have a lot of counselors and psychologists in this group apparently. And my wife actually went through graduate level counselor training years ago as well. One day she had a class where the group was going through a group counseling session involving themselves. So, lots of talking about emotions and stuff. But by the end of it, the class had gotten into a big argument, lots of conflict.
When my wife told me that, I'm like, "Whelp I could've told you that would happen with you all talking about emotions and stuff!"
I survived that crack! She even laughed a little.
But, we're not all looking for or like the same things. A bit of it is fine with me. I love the conflict between McCoy and Spock in TOS.
I don't know. I'd say Hawkeye, Trapper, and Blake were all good people. I'd be hard pressed to say how they weren't. But they weren't perfect.
I would definitely consider Hawkeye to be aspirational. He's a pacifist in an impossible situation. But he persists in his own fight against it. He always finds a way to insert his pacifism, such as treating enemy combatants as equal to our own. And various other things like that. Hawkeye fretted over his role of "weapons repair" being a surgeon and the impossible situation of needing to heal people who would then go on to kill and be killed. Radar once warned that Hawkeye would break down eventually due to fighting the war in his own ways, and he did. I find that aspirational at least.
I don't mind damaged characters. There's just a certain level of melodrama that's too much for me. I might just have a low threshold?
And, I'm not even saying that I'm disliking Picard this season because of it. I've actually mostly enjoyed it. However, those specific moments we've been discussing pass my threshold! And, even then, I'll admit that it will probably all work out enjoyably in the end. Seems inevitable that they'll work things out.
I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of the season!
I was referring to what's going on with Riker... I hope it's temporary, or he's a changeling, or whatever.