THE ORVILLE S2, E10: "BLOOD OF PATRIOTS"
- Thread starter Mudd
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"Look, Orrin, I know you're a patriot at heart."
https://www.springfieldspringfield....s.php?tv-show=the-orville-2017&episode=s02e10 <--- love it
Trying to influence his friend to play ball, yes?
Orrin served patriotically. But now he's a broken man, a casualty. So, is he still a patriot? Well, I think the episode is saying yes, but it doesn't excuse his actions. If the war had somehow kept going, he might have been thought of as a hero. Terrorists can have legitimate grievances, but that doesn't mean the rest of us have to let them blow things up. Something like that.
One of the things I like here, and about this show generally, is that the episode does not preach to us about right and wrong. It creates a complex situation that reflects real life, but it doesn't try to set up an absolute right way to behave. The characters want the best but they also make pragmatic decisions.
The thing is, Orrin considers invoking patriotism to be a dodge used to motivate other people to make deep sacrifices. It just rolls off Gordon's tongue - "I know you're a patriot" - as almost a platitude, because he hasn't been asked to give up much personally.*
"Take one for the team, dude. Its for the greater social good."
Orrin, from his POV, is just an angry guy determined to protect what he cares about, and to punish the Krill for hurting his family. "Protecting the Union" may get him called a patriot if he does the right things at the right time in the eyes of his superiors, but it's not a mantle he assumes for himself in doing what he's moved to do to protect it in the way that he personally is determined to do that.
And until this moment, I didn't even think of the significance of the juxtaposition in the story of Yaphit receiving a medal and ship-wide applause, which he accepts with socially appropriate gratitude, to the much less tidy and sadder tale of Orrin and his family.
*That we know of. Give this show enough seasons and someday he'll have a traumatized backstory.
"Take one for the team, dude. Its for the greater social good."
Orrin, from his POV, is just an angry guy determined to protect what he cares about, and to punish the Krill for hurting his family. "Protecting the Union" may get him called a patriot if he does the right things at the right time in the eyes of his superiors, but it's not a mantle he assumes for himself in doing what he's moved to do to protect it in the way that he personally is determined to do that.
And until this moment, I didn't even think of the significance of the juxtaposition in the story of Yaphit receiving a medal and ship-wide applause, which he accepts with socially appropriate gratitude, to the much less tidy and sadder tale of Orrin and his family.
*That we know of. Give this show enough seasons and someday he'll have a traumatized backstory.
Well, there was a cease-fire in place between the Union and the Krill, though I'll concede he really may not have known about that. Again, he may not have known about this, but there is the fact that Krill warships do carry children aboard, which definitely makes it a little hard for the Union to protect him on the matter. Granted, the Krill themselves have attacked Union outposts with children, but two wrongs don't really make a right.
Um, the Orville has kids (and families) aboard it too, so it's not like either side has the high ground there.
Indeed. He's a fallen patriot. It's not his fault that he's a broken man, but he should be treated more as mentally ill than criminal.
Orrin spent 20 years in the Krill concentration camp. Krill killed all his family. He had the right to take revenge.
He blew up four warships. OK so far.
He did it during the cease-fire. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. He was a fugitive on the run. He was not able to receive an official order from the Admiralty or Union.
But then he got on the Orville and found out the truth. It's about time for him to stop. But he is going to blow another ship. You know what? Let's forgive him for a moment. He is the Space Opera character after all. Space Opera Characters are allowed to do controversial things for the sake of the plot.
But here is my personal red line (YMMV).
He brought a walking bomb to the Orville without telling anybody. He put the whole crew in mortal danger. He was OK with shooting fellow Union soldier (Talla). And when he decided to make the last suicide run, he wad ready to take his old friend Gordon with him to the grave.
That's what makes him a criminal and a traitor.
He blew up four warships. OK so far.
He did it during the cease-fire. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt. He was a fugitive on the run. He was not able to receive an official order from the Admiralty or Union.
But then he got on the Orville and found out the truth. It's about time for him to stop. But he is going to blow another ship. You know what? Let's forgive him for a moment. He is the Space Opera character after all. Space Opera Characters are allowed to do controversial things for the sake of the plot.
But here is my personal red line (YMMV).
He brought a walking bomb to the Orville without telling anybody. He put the whole crew in mortal danger. He was OK with shooting fellow Union soldier (Talla). And when he decided to make the last suicide run, he wad ready to take his old friend Gordon with him to the grave.
That's what makes him a criminal and a traitor.
Maybe, maybe not. Depends on a lot of things.
Justice is about harmony. Revenge is about you making yourself feel better.
I'm afraid there have been a bazillion examples in human history when the two have been treated as one and the same.
The choice is not between revenge and justice but between clan justice and a system of law. It's about the substitution of a culturally defined set of sanctions for the principle of retribution, because once a community reaches a certain size the resolution of dispute through feuds, etc creates more problems than it solves.
A lot of people are comparing this episode to TNGs "The Wounded", and while there is a lot of that episode present here, I actually saw more of a beat-for-beat retelling of Deep Space Nine's "Past Prologue"--
Deep Space Nine rescues a shuttle being chased by Cardasdians that contains an old ally of Kira's from the resistance.
The Cardasdians want him back, and Dr. Bashir discovers evidence that he was tortured under Cardasdian care.
Kira's ally pretends to not have anything to do with current terrorist activity, but it turns out that he's been misleading people and continuing to fight a recently ended war.
He attempts to convince Kira to help him continue the violence, and she briefly considers it, before telling everything to Odo the security chief, and then the captain.
Kira pretends to help him steal a shuttle in order to commit more violence against an enemy against which there are currently peaceful relations.
"Past Prologue" also had stuff with Garak and the Duras sisters, replacing the "daughter" in the plot as the source of the explosives, and Kira's old ally is taken into custody rather than killed, but the frame of the story is the same.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Past_Prologue_(episode)
Deep Space Nine rescues a shuttle being chased by Cardasdians that contains an old ally of Kira's from the resistance.
The Cardasdians want him back, and Dr. Bashir discovers evidence that he was tortured under Cardasdian care.
Kira's ally pretends to not have anything to do with current terrorist activity, but it turns out that he's been misleading people and continuing to fight a recently ended war.
He attempts to convince Kira to help him continue the violence, and she briefly considers it, before telling everything to Odo the security chief, and then the captain.
Kira pretends to help him steal a shuttle in order to commit more violence against an enemy against which there are currently peaceful relations.
"Past Prologue" also had stuff with Garak and the Duras sisters, replacing the "daughter" in the plot as the source of the explosives, and Kira's old ally is taken into custody rather than killed, but the frame of the story is the same.
https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Past_Prologue_(episode)
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I had completely forgotten that episode, one of the early ones. But you are right.
