Why Didn't Harry Get Promoted?

[Ragitsu]

Yeah, but supposedly, we'll be "above" that, too.

Discarding the right amount of ego does wonders for heavenward aspirations.

 

[fireproof78]

I don't really see anyone here arguing that this is how it should be except for those who are proposing reasons why Harry might not have been promoted, which isn't the same as claiming that the character deserves ridicule for it (IMO it's a weakness of the show, not the character).

It is a weakness of the show (as many of the characters were for Voyager) but the idea that Kim doesn't deserve promotion just doesn't wash for me.

I guess I also don't see anyone insisting that anyone else should be unbothered by it, but there are perhaps more healthy and understandable levels of being bothered by it, and then less healthy and more difficult to understand levels of being bothered by it.

As others have noted, it's the jokes that have come along since the show's airing that smacks of a mean streak, intentional or not. "He should just stay an ensign" is just an odd statement to me with any understanding of structured and uniformed organizations.

As I said, it's a mileage will vary type thing. We all have our things that we get persnickety about. I don't like uniform errors myself.

 

[Oddish]

Mileage will vary as to how this lands. In my opinion, like O'Brien must suffer, it is a poor joke.

O'Brien must suffer was a consequence of Colm Meaney's ability to play the beleaguered everyman, and gain the audience's empathy. Also, his physical misery was counterbalanced by career success and a loving family.

And, on the other hand, other fans will insist that the schadenfreude of a character's suffering is somehow a great running joke that in no way takes away from the seriousness of Star Trek.

Seems similar to seeing the "fun" in watching a bully stuff a smaller kid in a locker.

I think most everyone would stipulate that it's strange and another thing that has some bearing on one's opinion of VOY overall, but I guess I don't understand why anyone would feel so strongly about it as to comment on it off-and-on for 375 posts (oftentimes somewhat repetitively), or why anyone cares whether it's a running joke or not.

This is nothing. There was a previous post on the same subject, and one before that. And those are just the ones I was involved in.

In the end, I think it would have been nice (and reasonable!!!) if Kim had been promoted at some point, but given how VOY was handled otherwise, I don't think his rank ultimately made that much of a difference to how the series progressed.

Might have made him something other than a figure of ridicule. Punch "Harry kim meme" into Google.

I have much more of an issue with the way TPTB would go on to lampshade it. I don't know what the intention there was, but it didn't do either them or the character any favors.

Because this was a big deal to them, they were clinging to it like a toddler who's grabbed someone else's teddy bear. It would have required far less effort to just promote Harry to LTJG and done with it than they spent on their idiot explanations of why they wouldn't.

Yeah, but supposedly, we'll be "above" that, too.

Why should we work hard at anything if people who have only done 25% of the work get honored... and we don't?

The last part of it is the insistence that people should be unbothered. This is a franchise in which debates over what NCC numbers must mean, or stardate numbers must mean yet this is a bridge too far?

I could tell you some stories about my involvement in the Harry Potter shipping wars. You either get it or you don't.

I guess I also don't see anyone insisting that anyone else should be unbothered by it, but there are perhaps more healthy and understandable levels of being bothered by it, and then less healthy and more difficult to understand levels of being bothered by it.

This topic was created so those of us who ARE bothered can be bothered, and vent about being bothered, without involving those who don't want to be.

 

[fireproof78]

O'Brien must suffer was a consequence of Colm Meaney's ability to play the beleaguered everyman, and gain the audience's empathy. Also, his physical misery was counterbalanced by career success and a loving family.

And it still sucks.

I could tell you some stories about my involvement in the Harry Potter shipping wars. You either get it or you don't.

People are weird, man.

 

[Oddish]

People are weird, man.

Some of us even admit it.

And it still sucks.

Yeah. It's still my head canon that Bashir was able to do something about those prison memories at least. That's why O'Brien wasn't permanently messed up.

 

[Guy Gardener]

HARRY WAS (also) GENETICALLY ENGINEERED!!!

He didn't want to attract promotion from being in a ship of the line receiving successive promotions, making Captain by the time he was 27, and even went so far as to guarantee that during his first mission , that his ship was marooned in deep space, far from the introspection of Starfleet Command who was always on the look out from criminal gene-freaks like Harry Kim.

C'mon, lets be serious, no one is that pretty, by accident.

 

[Oddish]

He didn't want to attract promotion from being in a ship of the line receiving successive promotions, making Captain by the time he was 27...

Then why did he even mention not finding a box on his chair, if that was his goal?

C'mon, lets be serious, no one is that pretty, by accident.

I wouldn't really know how pretty he is. Dudes aren't my preference.

 

[Ragitsu]

CHAKOTAY: "Well, he looks pretty, all right."

 

[Guy Gardener]

Then why did he even mention not finding a box on his chair, if that was his goal?



I wouldn't really know how pretty he is. Dudes aren't my preference.

Once upon a time People Magazine made a list of sexy people.

Garret was number 18 out of 6 billion people.

Tom Cruise was number one.

Lucy Lawless was in the mix somewhere.

 

[Takeru]

So, on the one hand many Trek fans will insist that Starfleet is an aspirational place were hard work gets rewarded in some measure.

But Harry was rewarded, he got to be on the bridge, attend senior staff meetings, he had the captain's ear almost any time he wanted, he got to design and build the astrometrics lab, he was on away teams all the time, he was in command of the bridge during the night shift (which is a big deal even if Harry insists it's just the night shift).
He already had one of the most prestigious jobs on the ship, it didn't get much better than that so what's the point of a promotion other than stroking Harry's ego which is something we're told humanity has moved past.

Of course he could have been promoted, that wouldn't have bothered me but the lack of a promotion doesn't bother me either because I don't see the downside of remaining an ensign.

This topic was created so those of us who ARE bothered can be bothered, and vent about being bothered, without involving those who don't want to be.

That's not how a message board works. People who are unbothered can post here just as much, if you want to be bothered without others voicing different opinions, write a blog.