Anon tries watching nu-Trek
Anon tries watching nu-Trek
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Anon tries watching nu-Trek
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I find many of these shows and movies that are accused of being woke is because they create protagonists without flaws, out of fear of making non traditional characters look bad I guess? But protagonists without flaws are boring.
I'm trying to think what Burnham's fatal flaw is, or her deadly sin. It's mostly stuff that has happened to her and she has to overcome but that's not the same thing. Interesting protagonist have flaws like hubris, vice, hypocrisy, greed, something that makes them more real. You look at characters like Rey from star wars and again, flawless except for her past, which again is something that happened to her not something she is.
That's why people didn't like when Han Solo didn't shoot first. Yes Han Solo is overall a good guy, but he's also ruthless and a gangster when we meet him. If he's already a flawless good guy at the start,that just sucks. Anakin as well, good but arrogant and controlling
I think i agree with the general premise that flawed characters are more interesting, and i also feel (with no data to back up that feeling, so bear with me) that these 'woke' characters sometimes fall into a pitfall where they're just so boringly written that it does feel like the writers are either afraid of being perceived as 'punching down' or (edit: finishing this thought) want to misguidedly write a perfect character for the sake of superficial representation of some group.
That said, for this show in particular (i have watched TNG/DS9/Voyager but not Discovery), is it a valid criticism for this captain that couldn't be applied to the older series? Picard's flaws are heavily understated - sure, he was a violent little shit off screen when he was younger, and he can be a little more of a hardass than called for occasionally, but I always felt he was pretty consistently portrayed as the voice of reason, and his flaws were only relevant in a couple episodes. I think I would say that's also true of Sisko and Janeway, though Sisko has a lot more nuance to his pragmatism that is really interesting as DS9 continues.
You're not wrong. Picards biggest flaw that people point towards is either not being great with kids or just emotionally stunted. Janeway has so few flaws overall that the only one you'll hear follow her around is "Genocidal" because of Tuvix. Most of her other flaws are episodic like with hunting the Equinox.
Edit: Even then, her flaw in hunting the Equinox is that she cares too much about Starfleet to let them abandon their morals. She's so aggressively pro-Starfleet/United Federation of Planets that when tasked with not getting home for 200 years (it was 70 years at max warp without ever stopping) she put Starfleet morals first and stuck her crew in the Delta Quadrant. Multiple times. So her flaw is shes too Starfleet.
I think one of her key flaws is that she's so ridiculously stubborn. That's why the characterisation works in context. She refuses to give up but sometimes she probably should.
Picard doesn't have many flaws but the writing doesn't usually make him the main character. TNG is more a problem solving show than a character drama. When they have character drama it's usually the B story.
When we do have a Picard centered episode they usually remove him from the rest of the crew. So you could say his main weakness is dependency on a crew. (Diehard in space doesn't count)
No issue with what you're saying but I will say that Burnham does have some fatal flaws that are throughout the show and not past things she's overcoming.
So about point 3. Vulcans are more emotional. So much so they have to constantly control them. Being human should make it eaiser not harder.
That one can be handwaved with alien psychology. Aliens think just like humans, except for when the plot calls for them not to. Humans psychological damage from repressing emotions, and vulcans get pon farr.
I think pon far is just when they get super horney every 4 years.
Side note the AI summary for Kolinahr has what I hope is a mistake.
Kolinahr It is the Vulcan ritual that is to purge all remaining emotion. It's a ritual in which a Vulcan male shaves his balls for the first time.
The problem (at least during the first two seasons, after which I gave up) is that the show bends over backward to make her right in the end.
This again is one of those complaints thats constantly parroted but just isn't rooted in the reality of the show. It's not factually accurate by even the largest stretch of the imagination.
And those are just the ones I can think of off hand from the first two seasons. If I actually looked back at episode synopsis and jogged memory I'd find far, far more. A significant portion of her character is constantly being wrong and learning from those mistakes.
You can not like the show all you want. Not trying to convince anyone to like the show. I'm just tired of seeing complaints that just aren't based in what the show does or what happens in it.