What did Burnham do to Spock?

[Alan Roi]

The interpretations of the events the audience were imagining are often what children do to themselves after such things. Children internalize things a lot more than adults realized.

I find it gets harder in adulthood than it is as a kid. As a kid, you think everything your parents say is truth and you must have done something wrong to deserve getting yelled at.

As an adult, you realize that a lot of times they are yelling for no reason at all. You know from adult years of experience that the world they showed you as a kid is not what you actually faced when you hit the real, working world. And you realize that their yelling isn't due to anything you did wrong (when you have a successful job, clean record, good reputation among people) and is due to their own inability to rise above habits of pettiness and anger management.

And those are sad realizations to have that I never could have comprehended as a kid.

Take it from me that it gets even more interesting (from personal experience) when you're parents get divorced when you are seven and then proceed to hate each other and attempt to use you and your siblings against each other for decades. That becomes a real early and then continuing crash course in how damaging familial relations can get.

 

[Yistaan]

Take it from me that it gets even more interesting (from personal experience) when you're parents get divorced when you are seven and then proceed to hate each other and attempt to use you and your siblings against each other for decades. That becomes a real early and then continuing crash course in how damaging human relations can get.

Even knowing intellectually that this is a sadly common thing in the world, it's still horrifying to read about it first-hand. Sorry you had to go through that.

 

[Alan Roi]

Even knowing intellectually that this is a sadly common thing in the world, it's still horrifying to read about it first-hand.

Yeah. But there are two ways that can learn from that experience. One becomes like their parents, or understands what happened was exactly the wrong way to behave so one chooses a different path that provides peace.

 

[fireproof78]

I have no words for either of your stories but thank you for sharing.

 

[seigezunt]

"well, double dumbass on you!"

 

[eschaton]

You have no idea what my family life is like. Things didn't end with a hug, and suffering inflicted lasted for years at great permanent cost to my physical and emotional health.

To be fair, after marrying my wife has done what she could to help me, and that's a great credit to her.

When your own brother says, "Why don't you just kill yourself" and refuses to apologize for it after you are having personal difficulties with permanent tinnitus (William Shatner says he personally struggled with suicidal thoughts due to his tinnitus, and I actually think mine is worse than his). And pushes you. And he says he's "Telling it like it is" and uses the president's twitter tone to back up his words.

And your own parents back your brother up. Imagine that level of cruelty. Imagine your own mother laughing at your wife in a restaurant (and refuses to apologize for it afterwards) and your wife crying afterwards and you have to comfort her.

Don't pull this "You'll be a parent and do the same thing." Maybe I'll have rough times, maybe even lasting years, but there are things my parents have said and done that I would just. never. do.

My own brother and I did not have a great relationship as children. I don't think he was purposefully cruel, but he was older and much bigger, stronger than me as a child, is a naturally bossy person (our father got MS when I was young, and he felt the need to step in as a "substitute dad"), and had anger issues to boot. Many times in my teen years he sucker punched me in the gut, or I had to lock myself in the bathroom to stop him from coming after me. Or as a kid when he used to take all the toys out of my toy box, put me inside, and then sit on it and keep me trapped while he read a book.

Regardless, I'm an adult now, and I don't really feel...anything...about those times. I mean, I'm not close to my brother at all. He calls me once every few months, and we'll talk for around an hour - usually ranting about politics (which we're very much the same on). I accept he did what he did when he was younger because people are flawed, have different personalities, and to a large extent - especially as kids - aren't even in full control of their own actions. But I don't feel any pressing need to develop more than a civil/functional relationship with him - not because of what happened, but because he lives several states away, and I don't have many friends in general. I honestly don't think about much of anything about my childhood for weeks at a time. If he ever needed money or some other type of help, I wouldn't hesitate to give it though. I've forgiven, I just...I dunno. The past was a different me. It doesn't matter now.

 

[Tenacity]

What did Burnham do to Spock

For years Spock had to listen to her speaking ... that's all it took.

 

[ITDUDE]

dealt

I know, I know, but it's the College English Major in me.

Tell me this, Mr English Major, learned or learnt. I'm at a small disagreement with my SO

 

[F. King Daniel]

I thought the reveal scene was adorable and heartbreaking. I loved how they shot it, alternating between the child and adult versions of Burnham and Spock.

I'm so, so glad the writers didn't go to the well I initially assumed. Season 2 is far more reliant on character and far less on shock reveals and it's making for such a satisfying show.

 

[DaveyNY]

Tell me this, Mr English Major, learned or learnt. I'm at a small disagreement with my SO

That is one, where depending largely on where you come from, can be correct in both cases...

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/learnt-vs-learned

To paraphrase a lovely young Vulcan Barkeep...

ENGLISH PAST-PARTICIPLES ... it is a difficult concept.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

My thoughts on the reveal: https://twitter.com/ryantriddle/status/1104075554192470016

 

[Turtletrekker]

My thoughts on the reveal: https://twitter.com/ryantriddle/status/1104075554192470016

Well said.

 

[Succubint]

As the elder sister in the family of two siblings, I could totally relate to this entire episode.

I think the big thing to remember is that at the time little Spock idolized little Michael, which really made her harsh rejection that much worse than if they'd just been bickering. Spock was being bullied by his peers, most likely being called a half breed and other slurs and also suffering from a learning disability and then to have the person he had attached to emotionally say he was incapable of love and reinforce all the negative things he'd heard and thought about himself, it was no doubt a catalyzing moment for his developing psyche. He even says as much.

ETA: Oops, I forgot which thread I was in. Removed the rest of my comments to post in the correct thread.

 

[NewHeavensNewEarth]

It seems like culture and discourse are so coarse these days that I wasn't too moved by the reveal. I work with troubled teens, and the things I hear from them every day are on that level all the time. But I know that it's different coming from family, from someone who's idolized, whose opinion is everything to a small child. The same teens often had formative experiences like that, so it's no wonder that they get raw and personal with what they say. The effects can last a lifetime. In any case, the reveal has spurred some awesome discussions and sharing on here, so I can definitely appreciate that even if I was expecting more after such a buildup.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

Underwhelming reveal. I've heard my nine year old daughter say worse things than that to my five year old son. Then they happily play together the next day.

No, you didn't. It wasn't just the slur. It was her hitting him right where it hurt, poking the sorest spot and rejecting him in the worst possible way after he opened up to her (which is no small thing). Telling your sibling (foster or otherwise) that their worst fear is true and that they are not worthy of being loved is basically the most damaging shit in the universe.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Underwhelming reveal. I've heard my nine year old daughter say worse things than that to my five year old son. Then they happily play together the next day.

Is one of your children mixed race with perhaps uncertainty about their place in the society in which they are being raised?

 

[Hythlodeus]

Is one of your children mixed race with perhaps uncertainty about their place in the society in which they are being raised?

or part alien?

 

[Nerys Myk]

or part alien?

It's a Trek board. All of our kids are part alien

 

[matthunter]

Even if you've seen kids say nastier things to each other and play together the next day, it doesn't mean they haven't hurt each other. I've been terribly hurt by stuff friends said to me and put on a mask of "got over it" just to preserve the relationship because it was clear they and others considered it "not a big deal". I can still relive the pain of those moments decades later in my darker moments - some with Vulcan memory training like Spock must feel it even more keenly when his emotional control fails.

 

[David cgc]

The timing feels weird to me. It looks like virtually everything we know about in Michael's childhood happened before lil' Spock could visibly age, a year or two at most. So Spock meets her, slams the door in her face, idolizes her, she's blown up, decides to run away from home, yells at Spock so he won't follow her, ends up not running away from home because of Spock and... she and Spock spend the next seven to ten years living under the same roof quietly seething at each other and never working things out, and apparently nothing happens to address Michael's very reasonable concerns about the terrorist movement that wants to murder her.

I think putting her outburst at him the same night that she ran away makes things too pat. When she described it earlier, it sounded like they were separate incidents, that she was trying to distance herself publicly from the Sarek family while still living there, which adds up better. It also feels like it makes repairing the relationship too easy, since Spock panicked about "imagining" Burnham getting killed by a monster and didn't just huff and think, "That'd serve her right," so there's obviously still love there.