a line that was open to multiple interpertations
"That book never happened!"
- Thread starter F. King Daniel
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a line that was open to multiple interpertations
Yep, and Marco chose to use the interpretation that opened up what he felt involved the most interesting possibilities for storytelling. By ensuring that two Andorian sexes were "male" and two were "female", he anticipated the possibility that some future canonical ST might go a more traditional way.
There's a difference between interpreting something in a different way, and flat-out taking something completely out of context.
The original statement made on the show was simply that Andorians commonly required four people for their weddings. I took this to mean that instead of one male and female getting married, there were two groups of people having separate marriages within the same ceremony, for example me getting married to my fiancee and my brother Dave getting married to his fiancee, but we're both sharing the same church hall at the same day and time.
There's no mention at all in that statement about the Andorians having four genders, and the show itself pretty much implies that Andorians have the same two sexes that humans do. Nor does the statement imply that four people are essentially marrying each other.
A Vulcan dying and then coming back? That almost never happens!
I dunno, seems like someone would have to come up with a definitive list of which episodes and films are in the same continuity first....
The verbatim line is, "Andorian marriages require groups of four people unless--" with Data's statement being cut off before the "unless." True, there's more than one way of interpreting it, but frankly yours is rather strange to me. Requiring any marriage to be paired with another marriage at the same time? How do you coordinate something like that? Would it have to be a family member getting married too, or would they just schedule any two random weddings for the same time? And why would such a thing be required? If their marriages are otherwise conventional two-partner weddings, why slap this odd addition onto the practice? You'd need to concoct a very long and elaborate explanation full of ad hoc assumptions to justify this. By Occam's Razor, the single assumption that they require four partners in each individual wedding is more likely than just performing two-partner marriages in tandem for some unspecified reason. And the simplest explanation for requiring four partners in a marriage is that they have four sexes.
Different show. Remember, Andorians were barely a presence in TNG. Data's line was one of only a few throwaway references to the species in the course of the series. When ENT came along and showed us Andorians on a regular basis, it was a decade later and different people were writing the scripts. It would be grossly anachronistic to use the portrayal of Andorians on ENT as evidence for the intentions of "Data's Day"'s screenwriters when they wrote that line.
And of course that "unless" provides a handy way for rationalizing any apparent inconsistencies in later canon. It suggests that they usually marry in foursomes but don't always have to -- so two-partner pairings like Shran had in ENT could be exceptions that fall under that unfinished "unless" clause.
Oh, it may not definitively confirm that, but it certainly implies it. It's a reasonable interpretation of the line. And it's the more interesting one by far, as the books have shown.
It was more than implied, but I'd say that Shar and Thriss' particular act doesn't fall into the "unless" category of cultural exceptions because their actions were considered socially irresponsible. Their exclusive tezha bonding was an undermining of the four-way bond, not an acceptable alternative to it.
They were naughty kids. For shame.
Basically, the novels suggest that pairing is acceptable for lonely older Andorians who have already performed their social duties and moved on. Even when the bondmates are all still around post-fertility, it seems that unofficial reducing-to-pairing isn't too uncommon - it was mentioned that Charivretha was closer to one of her mates than the other two. And in the Enterprise relaunch Shran describes his relationship with Talas in terms of "I'm alone and I was approached by another lonely person for company". I suppose if you're adrift it's easier finding one companion than three other people floating around. And Shar and Thriss did demonstrate for us that only two Andorians are necessary for love even if four are needed to make little Andorians.
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But that's my point: You personally do not understand how such a marriage can be arranged because it's not in your culture to do things like that. This is a completely alien culture. For all we know, these "group marriages" conducted just as I described are completely normal for them and are handled just fine. If it's a cultural tradition for two pairs of people to get married at the same ceremony, then I would think their culture has the particulars of such a ceremony down pat.
I was referring to the Andorians in ENT when I said that they seem to be primarily male and female. If one is interpreting the line in TNG to imply that there are four sexes of Andorians, ENT didn't really bear that out.
Actually, Occam's Razor would imply that because Shran's two-partner pairing was what we saw, then two-partner pairings are the norm, not the exception. Shran never says "well, my people don't normally get married like this, but I'm an exception." He acts as if there's nothing abnormal about it, because whoever wrote that ENT episode didn't have four-partner pairings in mind.
Don't get me wrong: I have nothing against Marco Palmieri's interpretation of this. If Trek novel writers want to give the Andorians four sexes, fine. All I'm saying is that I personally believe that whoever wrote that marriage line for Data totally did not mean to imply that Andorians have four sexes.
So, in other words, there was a line in TNG that was ambiguous and allowed for multiple interpretations. The novels went by one interpretation. ENT seemed to go by another interpretation, but did not flat-out contradict the novels' interpretation, so the novels haven't been forced to change their depictions of Andorian sexes.
What's the issue again?
What's the issue again?
Dude, I'm a science fiction novelist. Imagining cultures with customs wildly different from our own is a key part of what I do for a career. I'm also a student of non-Western history with a lot of practice at understanding cultures unlike my own. I've either read about or created many cultures with marital customs that would be startling and bizarre to the average American.
But here's the thing: you can't just make up some random thing and say "they do this because they're alien." You have to have a reason why they do it, an explanation for why it makes sense for them to do things that way. You haven't offered a why for this proposition.
As Therin already pointed out, the novels made it clear that two of the four sexes are close enough to male to be called "he" while the other two are close enough to female to be called "she." It's not unlikely that other, two-sexed species would choose to refer to Andorians in terms of their own male-female dichotomy, either as a convenient shorthand or because they simply don't know any better. After all, it's not as if Shran would've had much motive or opportunity to give Archer a lesson about the Andorian birds, bees, birds, and bees. The humans would've simply assumed the Andorians had two sexes and wouldn't have had that assumption corrected.
And the people who wrote "Data's Day" very well may have. So any preference of one intent or the other is arbitrary, and the choice should be made on the basis of whichever interpretation allows for the most interesting storytelling.
And Occam's Razor doesn't mean ignoring variables that are relevant, like a substantial difference in timeframes. Shran lived two centuries before the TNG era, and a culture can change a great deal in two centuries. The novels did, in fact, imply that the four-sex marriages practiced in the 24th century are not the way things have always been done. In the "present," with the population declining and the species' survival at risk, it's considered a cultural imperative that all marital unions be procreative. It could be the case that in earlier centuries, before that urgency arose, the culture perceived marriage as being more about emotional bonds than reproduction, and thus had no trouble with two- or three-partner pairings. So there's still no contradiction.
I don't see any way you can support that assumption. Considering that the episode was co-written by Ron Moore, who's clearly not afraid of exploring issues of sexuality in his work, I see no reason to favor that interpretation over the other.
Well, I'm clearly in the minority here as to how to interpret what I believe to be a very ambiguous line of dialog that I believe was interpreted in a wholly different way than what the author might have intended, so I'll let the matter drop. And if Ron Moore wants to come on the TrekBBS and state for the record that he did in fact mean that Andorians have four sexes when he wrote that Andorians marry in groups of four, I'll be the first to admit my wrongness. But until then, I'll stick with my presumptions.
The reasons behind cultural practices can sometimes be highly arbitrary. For instance, white is the preferred color for wedding dresses in the West because Queen Victoria wore a white dress when wedded in 1840, when floral prints and stripes where the reigning wedding fashion. But by 1849, Godey’s Lady’s Book declared that "Custom has decided, from the earliest ages, that white is the most fitting hue, whatever may be the material. It is an emblem of the purity and innocence of girlhood, and the unsullied heart she now yields to the chosen one.”
Further, the causes of human social monogamy are poorly understood; nearly every argument raised has significant drawbacks - and some evidence to the contrary. If we don't understand the causes of our own system of marriage, should we expect the causes of an alien one to be simply explained? Social mating practices may come down to no more than ancient religious edict made for any number of reasons - e.g. to solve a temporary problem, because of the strange or selfish philosophical leanings of a particular shaman, chief, or cleric, etc.
Another point--the DS9-R made a point of saying, long before ENT even started exploring Andorian culture, that the Andorian four-gender paradigm was not something that was widely known to off-worlders, much like Vulcan Pon-Far and the intial description of Trill symbiotes, as it made it easier dealing with other alien cultures. So anything Shran may or may not have said to Archer about Andorian mating practices could be interpreted with this mind-set in mind.
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I didn't say anything about what you like and don't like. I'm talking about what you personally think is canon and not canon. That's what starts fights.
That's an oxymoronic question. Canon, by definition, comes from a central authority. It's the direct opposite of personal opinion.
No, it doesn't. Canon, by definition, consists of those texts (or other media) accepted as genuine; that acceptance is generally consensual throughout a community, whether because that community recognizes the choices of a central authority, because the textual list has been developed by slow consensus, or because of some other reason. The key element of canon is acceptance, not authority. (Of course, authority is all that matters when only that authority has exclusive legal right to the texts in question.)
All of which is moot, because the STAR TREK canon is determined by STAR TREK's owners: CBS Studios and Paramount Pictures. It's not a matter of opinion.
^ Hence my statement quoted below.*
That said, I don't think that Paramount or CBS particularly cares to establish a canon for Star Trek (well, 2009's Star Trek is canon, but I doubt anything else is). In general, the practice at Paramount has been one of vague continuity with earlier productions.
I suppose that you might say that the canon of Star Trek is composed of a series of well-known facts and impressions, not any particular works. It is accepted as genuine that Vulcans have green blood, Kirk fought Khan in the Mutara Nebula, etc. But the specifics of stories that made no vivid impression are of no consequence. In many ways, its a lot like mythology.
* I made a minor emendation.
That said, I don't think that Paramount or CBS particularly cares to establish a canon for Star Trek (well, 2009's Star Trek is canon, but I doubt anything else is). In general, the practice at Paramount has been one of vague continuity with earlier productions.
I suppose that you might say that the canon of Star Trek is composed of a series of well-known facts and impressions, not any particular works. It is accepted as genuine that Vulcans have green blood, Kirk fought Khan in the Mutara Nebula, etc. But the specifics of stories that made no vivid impression are of no consequence. In many ways, its a lot like mythology.
* I made a minor emendation.
What were the contradictions?
Actually, a popular fanfic interpretation of Andorians was postulated by pro fan and filksongstress, Leslie Fish, in the early 70s. She proposed that all (six-breasted) Andorians pass through a neuter gender phase before becoming fully male or female, and that reproduction is similar to Earth seahorses, with the egg passing back and forth between the parents via an ovipositor.
http://andorfiles.blogspot.com/2009/09/summary-of-physiological-roots-of.html
The birds and the bees, and the seahorses and kangaroos by Leslie Fish, on Flickr
Fish's fanfic colleague, Jean Lorrah, actually attempted to acknowledge some of this work in her novel, "Metamorphosis" (TNG), but Richard Arnold caused the Andorian references to be dropped, or adapted for the "related" species, Theskians.
The reference to Andorians marrying in groups of four may well have been TNG's writers (Harold Apter and Ronald D. Moore) having a bit of fun with the previous fan material. (Or just coincidence.) Moore has also acknowledged TAS and "The Final Reflection" in other episodes.
Marco was aware of Fish's work on multiple Andorian sexes prior to the DS9 Relaunch taking shape, but deliberately did not read it while the books were being written/edited. But, as I said earlier, he decided that two male sexes and two females sexes, and a zygote carrying genetic material from three of the partners, would be a useful extrapolation of Data's canonical comment for the unfolding dramas of the upcoming DS9 novels. It also acknowledged accepted "fanon" that Andorians had a complicated reproductive cycle.
Marco's premise had the population falling drastically. Fish's had the opposite: overpopulation, sometimes leading to fratricide, and the warlike Andorian persona common in fanfic of the early days.
Picard has a different reunion with Ro Laren, and forgives her, for the first time (since "Pre-emptive Strike") in both the "Dominion War" books and the DS9 Relaunch.
Taurik the Vulcan and Sam Lavelle (both of "Lower Decks") barely break free from Dominion captivity in the "Dominion War" books - and no one is left behind alive. Later, we learn that this Taurik is a Changeling, and it seems highly unlikely that the real Taurik would have survived the plot to replace him. And yet, he turns up inexplicably alive and well in current TNG novels.
Taurik the Vulcan and Sam Lavelle (both of "Lower Decks") barely break free from Dominion captivity in the "Dominion War" books - and no one is left behind alive. Later, we learn that this Taurik is a Changeling, and it seems highly unlikely that the real Taurik would have survived the plot to replace him. And yet, he turns up inexplicably alive and well in current TNG novels.
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