Very belated episode related rant
Dec. 4th, 2010 08:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakRewatching some s7 of DS9, I noticed that while I have the same grudges (Prophets! Sarah! Prophets! How I loathe them, let me count the ways!) and delights (much of everything else) which I did the last times, a new grudge has been added when I rewatched an episode I skipped the last few times I was on a DS9 binge, Prodigal Daughter. In fact, I probably never rewatched it after the original broadcast, not because I had disliked it then - I remember being interested in Ezri's background - but because young me somehow didn't emotionally connect or find it otherwise fascinating. Now you'd think older me, with my thing for dysfunctional families, would eat it up with a spoon, but no. I'm sitting here silently fuming. Or not so silently. Cut for the spoiler-wary.
So, the Tigan family has: a bossy mother prone to smother and critisize her children, an older son who is trying to be a good businessman, a younger son who is an artist but trying to fit in the business context as well, albeit badly, and Ezri, who left years ago and hasn't seen them since her joining with the Dax symbiont. So far, so Tennessee Williams derived. Turns out I misremembered something about the episode. What I recalled was a bit of a noir plot wherein in turned out the entire Tigan family was involved in the death of the woman whose disappearance kicked off the episode's plot. Not so much. Turns out that Ezri's mother genuinenly did not know anything about what happened to the woman. Older brother Janel paid her blackmail money because the Orion Syndicate had a hold on him (which again wasn't something his mother knew about, but due to his own earlier action), younger brother Norvo was the one who decided she'd be better off dead and killed her. Now, guess whom the episode blames for all of this? That's right. The mother. Though Ezri in her last conversation with O'Brien also blames herself for not having gone home sooner and helped her oh so sensitive younger brother before he was driven to murder.
Now, yes, parents can warp children through the way they raise them, no question about it. But going by the information given in this episode, Mrs. Tigan, dominating or not, is someone who'd "rather burn the company than do business with the Orion Syndicate" (which Janel does) and who abhors murder. But younger son Norvo killing a woman is still her fault because clearly, having a nagging dominating mother robs you of a sense of right and wrong and makes murder the way to strike against maternal oppression. I mean, seriously, the last but one scene where Mrs. Tigan wonders "was it my fault?" and Ezri silently looks at her and turns away, with both Ezri and the episode itself implying yes, it was? What the hell, show? Is this the Norman Bates defense and did the scriptwriters watch Psycho once too often drawing the wrong lesson from it?
In conclusion, s7 is bad for mothers. First we find out Sisko's biological mother was bodynapped and raped by the Prophets, and Sisko's entire negative comment on this towards the Prophets is "no wonder she left my father" (when the Prophet withdrew from Sarah), never more than that, and then having a nagging mother is a perfect excuse for murder and the murder itself is less a crime than being a dominating mother. Bah.
So, the Tigan family has: a bossy mother prone to smother and critisize her children, an older son who is trying to be a good businessman, a younger son who is an artist but trying to fit in the business context as well, albeit badly, and Ezri, who left years ago and hasn't seen them since her joining with the Dax symbiont. So far, so Tennessee Williams derived. Turns out I misremembered something about the episode. What I recalled was a bit of a noir plot wherein in turned out the entire Tigan family was involved in the death of the woman whose disappearance kicked off the episode's plot. Not so much. Turns out that Ezri's mother genuinenly did not know anything about what happened to the woman. Older brother Janel paid her blackmail money because the Orion Syndicate had a hold on him (which again wasn't something his mother knew about, but due to his own earlier action), younger brother Norvo was the one who decided she'd be better off dead and killed her. Now, guess whom the episode blames for all of this? That's right. The mother. Though Ezri in her last conversation with O'Brien also blames herself for not having gone home sooner and helped her oh so sensitive younger brother before he was driven to murder.
Now, yes, parents can warp children through the way they raise them, no question about it. But going by the information given in this episode, Mrs. Tigan, dominating or not, is someone who'd "rather burn the company than do business with the Orion Syndicate" (which Janel does) and who abhors murder. But younger son Norvo killing a woman is still her fault because clearly, having a nagging dominating mother robs you of a sense of right and wrong and makes murder the way to strike against maternal oppression. I mean, seriously, the last but one scene where Mrs. Tigan wonders "was it my fault?" and Ezri silently looks at her and turns away, with both Ezri and the episode itself implying yes, it was? What the hell, show? Is this the Norman Bates defense and did the scriptwriters watch Psycho once too often drawing the wrong lesson from it?
In conclusion, s7 is bad for mothers. First we find out Sisko's biological mother was bodynapped and raped by the Prophets, and Sisko's entire negative comment on this towards the Prophets is "no wonder she left my father" (when the Prophet withdrew from Sarah), never more than that, and then having a nagging mother is a perfect excuse for murder and the murder itself is less a crime than being a dominating mother. Bah.
