tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35276667.post658246517150293075..comments2023-10-11T09:04:08.311-05:00Comments on Powered by Indifference & Focused by Caffeine: Arguing about Star TrekVanVeldinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03441999455333315750noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35276667.post-18172839545614394682011-07-25T02:31:41.539-05:002011-07-25T02:31:41.539-05:00You can’t count The Intendant. She’s evil. Besides...You can’t count The Intendant. She’s <i>evil</i>. Besides, the fact that that Yar only has a romance under the effects of the virus is a pretty clear indication of just what it takes to get her interested in someone. (I want to mention “Yesterday’s Enterprise” Yar, when she starts a romance in the middle of a full-scale, hopeless war, but I just invalidated my point by invalidating The Intendant.) Yar doesn’t let go and doesn’t open up. Bouncing back to Kira, she never dates Shakaar until years after The Occupation is over. Kira opens up, but her duty and her personal life seem are very different things (with the patented exception of Bajoran political/religious stuff).<br /><br />Yar and Ro have left their civilizations behind, but you can tell from “Preemptive Strike” when Ro joins The Maquis, that she’s only left hers temporarily. Ro has some serious teenage rebellion going on while Yar’s planet has nothing redeemable about it at all. To paraphrase Philip J. Fry, even her sister kinda feels like a “B,” even before she turns out to be a jerk. Kira loves, and has always loved, her home and her people. The source of all of her hatred (save, perhaps Winn Adami) was the external Cardassians. <br /><br />While Ro’s perception of Picard as a father figure might let her grow into becoming a new Yar, given her final decision I don’t see that happening. For Ro, there’s just too much accommodation and too much of a long game being played in The Federation. Yar trusts the system enough to hold back and let others lead, Ro--because of her past with ‘failed systems’ like the conquered Bajorans, the not-quite-space-Nazi Cardassians, and the enabling Federation--will never be there.<br /><br />“Help or get out of the way,” is something that Yar lives and dies by. Well, “dies by,” at the very least. Ro uses The Federation; she doesn’t believe in their little mottos and morals. She fakes it until she can’t fake it anymore, never intending to actually ‘make it.’ That’s why she’s fresh out of a brig when we meet her and that’s why she’s a criminal/rebel when she leaves. Kira doesn’t even want help at first. Then, like Ro, she does just want to use them. I’ll leave out the later stuff as it’s the result of her being around so much longer.VanVeldinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03441999455333315750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35276667.post-6302196655612722122011-07-17T13:01:49.180-05:002011-07-17T13:01:49.180-05:00Hah, thanks. Though not classy enough to stay awa...Hah, thanks. Though not classy enough to stay away from Yar.skiltaonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35276667.post-10182593484716982292011-07-17T06:36:50.027-05:002011-07-17T06:36:50.027-05:00Aw, snap! It's genuinely classy how you don...Aw, snap! It's genuinely classy how you don't mention <i>which</i> DS9 woman was hot for his transporter clone.VanVeldinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03441999455333315750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35276667.post-60560915655424634692011-07-16T19:52:40.545-05:002011-07-16T19:52:40.545-05:00Riker is a non-issue. He's introduced as a la...Riker is a non-issue. He's introduced as a ladies man, and in the first episodes they play up how all women (including Yar and, eventually, one of the DS9 girls) are <i>consciously</i> hot for him. They hang a lampshade on it later on when he gets imprisoned by a pre-warp culture (kooky non-human psychiatric nurse wants to have his alien babies).skiltaonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35276667.post-85326616135998781782011-07-06T08:02:19.641-05:002011-07-06T08:02:19.641-05:00I'll respond to the rest later, but the relati...I'll respond to the rest later, but the relationship thing is an interesting connection I never saw before.<br /><br />Ro was apparently subconsciously hot for Riker, so that breaks that whole deal, but it's still an interesting parallel about Star Trek writers making tough chick female leads interested in the members of the crew who look at humanity from the outside.VanVeldinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03441999455333315750noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35276667.post-69164211754638967762011-06-22T00:01:31.589-05:002011-06-22T00:01:31.589-05:00Correction: dates given by Memory Alpha work out t...Correction: dates given by Memory Alpha work out to Ro Laren entering Starfleet at age 18, but she ran away around age 7-10, so it averages out. :Pskiltaonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35276667.post-70231139343228052322011-06-21T23:42:05.407-05:002011-06-21T23:42:05.407-05:00(AND NOW, THE CONCLUSION)
When we meet Kira on De...(AND NOW, THE CONCLUSION)<br /><br />When we meet Kira on Deep Space Nine, she's as hot-headed as both Ro and Tasha and would snap either Ensign in half. They're all wound up with the same help-or-get-out-of-the-way attitude. I can't imagine Lt Yar being casual, let alone relaxing enough to join Riker's weekly poker game. Obviously Kira warms up more than the other two ever had the opportunity to do, but that develops on-screen from where YarRo left off, and we still see Kira frustrated by learning how to solve problems without violence. <br /><br />Now, while Ro Laren's romantic arc is basically non-existent, Kira's is a fairly straightforward continuation of Tasha's. The Next Generation displays Tasha and Data as a matched pair (in terms of visuals and stage placement), and how Tasha breaks things off after their intimate encounter leaves our singular alien of mysterious origin to pursue, awkwardly and with glacial slowness, a one-sided relationship with the lady. (Or would have, had she not died.) That's the same boat Odo climbs into. Even the Data-Lore(-Borg) and Odo-Changeling(-Dominion) character arcs have parallels. <br /><br />But back to the women: all three are rooted deep in the violence and helplessness they suffered on their homeworlds. As girls they lose parents to rebel forces (Tasha) or occupation forces (Ro) or both (Kira), and at ages 13-15 they escape victimhood by joining whatever military would end up controlling their television show's spacecraft. Their experience with these organizations teaches them integrity and compassion and noble ideals, which stands in tension with how all three hold responsible and despise some members of their own people for perpetrating, and sometimes just failing to challenge, the status quo. <br /><br />The two most tangible differences between the the young (Yar), the mature (Kira) and the bridging (Ro) iterations of YarRoKira are where she was born and how close she is to returning to her people's homeworld: Natasha Yar died before the <i>Enterprise D</i> returned to help her people's world; Ro Laren was unable to act from the world she was born to; and Kira Nerys cut to the chase. Those are less features of the character than they are functions of where the show is set.skiltaonoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35276667.post-25135655466049557352011-06-21T23:29:31.485-05:002011-06-21T23:29:31.485-05:00I can't make a full defense of my Yarrokira &q...I can't make a full defense of my Yarrokira "slander" :-D because that would/will involve watching more than 36 episodes. Tasha does feature rather prominently in the first few episodes of The Next Generation though, so I'll work from those (Yar) & from memory (Kira) & from internet (Ro). <br /><br />Two weeks late, but: REBUTTAL GO!<br /><br />When the water-virus intoxicates the <i>Enterprise D</i>'s crew at large, Picard calls Tasha. Some guy (the first unoccupied intoxicated man she had run into) answers the intercom from Tasha's bed and, without turning the intercom off, Picard sends Data to fetch her. Overhearing that a superior lover is en route, Yar kicks her current lover out of bed - something we also see <i>Kira's</i> mirror universe twin (representing the suppressed aspects of Kira's personality) do. <br /><br />Yes, Tasha finds civilized emotions confusing and difficult to express: like RoKira, she spent much of her life "<i>living on nothing but adrenaline and hate. It's not much of a life and it eats away at you</i>" (via <a href="http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/Kira_Nerys" rel="nofollow">Memory Alpha</a>). In any crisis Tasha's first -and only- instinct is for unthinking violence. She doesn't think things through and when pressed she gets frustrated if violence can't work. Her chosen office is violent. Even her hobbies (martial arts and fictional sports) are violent. In "<i>Code of Honor</i>" she goes on about how glad she'll be to embarrass Yareena (Yar-ina, what Tasha wishes her feminine life could be) in a duel which, only five minutes later, Picard describes as an anarchic, pompous, strutting charade. <br /><br />She is angry and ashamed of (and has abandoned) her own civilization and this drives her, like Ro. But unlike Ro she has enough experience and almost enough patience to hold back and let her friends or commanding officer solve things. Ro's arc on The Next Generation was as much about learning that she <i>could</i> rely on the Federation and her crewmates - ie, grow into Yar's ideals - as it was about setting up Deep Space Nine (and those two themes are not unrelated). Freezing Ro at Ensign makes her a close match for an inexperienced Ensign Yar and yes, if they met, Lt Yar would probably want to snap Ensign Yar in half. <br /><br />(MAXIMUM CHARACTER LENGTH EXCEEDED: TO BE CONTINUED...)skiltaonoreply@blogger.com