Thirty Days of Star Trek: Least Liked Character

[selenak]

Day 21 - Least Favorite Character

Now here's a position that hasn't changed due to all the new canon Star Trek canon I've consumed since last doing a Star Trek meme: it's still an entire race of people, who, however, are presented without individual differences and uniform in mind, and no, I'm not talking about the Borg. My least favourite characters in all of Star Trek are still the Prophets from DS9, who win over characters actually designed as villains as well as other not-called-villain irritants by virtue of my loathing the s7 Sarah Sisko reveal and (Ben) Sisko subsequently dealing with it with basically a shrug and "oh well, that explains why she wasn't around". Where's your righteous indignation on behalf of your biological mother getting raped and your father, without him knowing anything about it, of course, being made into the instrument of that rape, Sisko? And then he ends up becoming a Prophet himself. Boo. Hiss. I mean, I wasn't that keen on the Prophets before s7, either. As long as the show played them as truly non-linear aliens who were simply having a different frame of reference, I was Prophet-neutral. Then during the last two or three seasons the Pah-Wraiths showed up, supposedly the Prophets' opposite number, in a good/bad, light/dark fashion. Which meant we were supposed to accept the Prophets as good without them actually having done anything to deserve that label. Plus Babylon 5 had just wrapped up, and B5's reveal that the Vorlons were just as bad as athe Shadows had effectively undercut this entire pseudo Christian angels versus demons set up. Episodes like The Reckoning deepened my Prophet dislike. And then came s7 which promoted them to the least favourite spot which they've remained on ever since.

If it can't be the Prophets because it has to be a distinct individual, I'm going with Voyager's Chakotay. Who isn't guilty of anything like this, mind. I just find him bland and boring, and it baffles me to this day on a Watsonian level that Seska, Be'lanna, Janeway and - pause for a special boo, hiss - Seven were all at different points shown to be into him. Archer at least had his devotion to Porthos and s1-s2 occasional sincere geeking out about space as saving graces; Chuckles hasn't anything like this. Get thee gone from my Star Trek, Chakotay.



Day 1 - Favorite TOS Episode

Day 2 - Favorite Federation Race

Day 3 - Favorite Starship

Day 4 - Favorite Captain

Day 5 - Saddest Event

Day 6 - Happiest Event

Day 7 - Favorite TNG Episode

Day 8 - Favorite Federation Enemy

Day 9 - Favorite Character

Day 10 - Most Shocking Moment

Day 11 - Crew Position You Would Want

Day 12 – Crew Position You Wouldn’t Want

Day 13 - Favorite DS9 Episode

Day 14- Favorite Time Travel Episode

Day 15 - Favorite First Officer

Day 16 - Favorite Voyager Episode

Day 17 - Favorite Trek Novel

Day 18 - Favorite Non-Aligned Race

Day 19 - Favorite Enterprise Episode

Day 20 - Character You're Most Like

Day 22 - Favorite Trek Film
Day 23 - Best Trek Tech
Day 24 - Best Overall Space Vessel
Day 25 - Favorite Discovery Episode
Day 26 - Planet You Would Most Like To Visit
Day 27 - Character You Would Date
Day 28 - Name Your Own Starship
Day 29 - Favorite Trek Quote
Day 30 - Favorite Trek Series

Comments

[lilacsigil]

Yes, what they did to Sarah Sisko was disgusting and they didn't seem to realise that in the slightest. The Prophets vs Pah Wraiths thing made no sense. It had the potential to be interesting for the Bajoran characters, especially Kai Winn, and Sisko - are the Prophets who do such horrible things actually good? Or just less destructive? Unfortunately, the way they just boringly settled for the obvious good vs evil made it far worse.

[selenak]

*nods* Quite. I mean, I'm quite capable of having sympathy for people doing terrible things for selfish reasons - as long as I get the impression the narrative knows they are terrible things. I just plain didn't, here.

[nostalgia]

Urgh, the Prophets. Is it canon that they're evolved Bajorans from the future or did I just make that up so they didn't seem racist?

[selenak]

It's definitely not tv canon. It might be in the tie-in novels, I have no idea?

[nostalgia]

Ahh, possibly it's just my own theory that I got confused about.

[labingi]

I don't remember the Prophets in anything like that detail. (I was pretty checked out by S7.) But I think I share your general sense that the whole plotline was trying to get us to buy into something that wasn't being shown/was creepy. As to Chakotay, I mildly liked him as an individual but am increasingly bothered by his use as "token Indian." Some handicap points for its being the '90s; dominant white society is generally, a bit, more aware of these issues today. But, dang, that was some stereotypical cultural representation.

[selenak]

dominant white society is generally, a bit, more aware of these issues today

That's true, but Sisko was the first black Commander (then Captain), and he was also a distinct individual, with his set of relationships, preferences, dislikes etc.; that he was keenly aware of poc history (see: the Las Vegas episode) was a part of him, but it wasn't his entire character. Or, if we say Sisko as the leading man is an unfair comparison because Chakotay was, after all, not the main character: they could have gone the way of Bashir with him. Who was not the main character on DS9, who was, going by his parents, also of British and Arabic descent like his actor, but who wasn't handed either British or Arab stereotypes in place of characterisation. He also was a distinct individual.

[beatrice_otter]

Chakotay never even got a named tribe. That speaks volumes.

Is Robert Beltran Native American? I know he's Latino, but part of the reason Sisko is such a great character is that they actively Avery Brooks what they should do/not do with Sisko to make him fleshed out and avoid stereotypes. They certainly did not do that with Chakotay, and I'm not sure whether Beltran is NA or if they just cast a "generic brown man." (Wiki calls him "son of Mexican-American immigrants" which doesn't answer the question; lot of Mexicans have Native ancestry.)

Things I never thought to wonder during the show's run ...

[selenak]

No idea re: Robert Beltran. To be fair to the writers and producers: in the one interview of Beltran's - during the show's run, no less - that I've seen, he sounds like a jerk. Highlights included saying he only took the job because he wanted to work with Genevieve Bujold, and what a let down when it was Kate Mulgrew instead, and that Garrett Wang was a total suck-up to the writers because he read the entire script (he, Beltran, only read the scenes where he had lines). This is not the kind of thing which encourages the creative staff to do more exploration of his character, or indeed his fellow workers. It's a two way street: as blogger Julia Houston pointed out at the time, the s1 writing for TNG was mostly dire, but the actors gave it their all regardless, and better writing plus fleshing out of characters ensued.

Still: the ultimate responsibility lies with the producers and headwriters who created Chakotay and should have put some thought as to his backstory from the get go.

[lizbee]

DS9 had the lowest percentage of female writers of any Trek, and no female writers on season 7 at all.

It showed.

[4thofeleven]

The other thing is that even if the Prophets had been portrayed as genuinely benevolent, it makes them a lot less interesting if they're forced into a generic Manichean good-vs-evil dynamic with the Pah-Wraiths. The Prophets in the early episodes were genuinely alien, and the Bajoran religion wasn't just Christianity with the names changed. It feels like the later episodes showed a real lack of imagination in where they took those concepts.

[selenak]

Indeed. I'm annoyed enough at the way Greek and Norse mythology ends up Christianized in US movies and tv Shows, I really don't need it in outer space, and I agree that early on, they tried something truly different with the Prophets - probably aiming at something like the Aliens from Arrival.

Mind you, I didn't understand until many years later that Winn's attitude in her debut episode - which was s1 - re: Keiko's teaching about the Prophets as wormhole aliens came across to US viewers as an allusion to Evangelicals re: Darwin. So that was there early on, too.

[nolivingman]

I have warmed up to Chakotay and Seven on rewatch. If it had not been shoe-horned in in the most half-assed possible way, I believe it could have been an awesome ship. The actors seemed to try hard to sell it - or at least she did - and I like it way better than any romance they would have formed between Seven and the Doctor. (That was a lot of caveats, so clearly I am not an actually shipper here).

[beatrice_otter]

On the whole Sisko becoming a prophet, here's my biggest gripe: Brooks famously insisted that his character HAD TO BE A GOOD DAD to counteract all the bullshit racist stories about how Black men are terrible/absent fathers.

So what's the capstone to his character as seen on the show? HE GOES AWAY FOREVER LEAVING HIS UNBORN CHILD WITHOUT A FATHER.

Also, I have many thoughts on the Sarah issue that I imagine align with yours.