Character Meme

[selenak]

Meme, copied from various places:

Name a character in any of my fandoms, and I'll answer these questions:

1. Do you love/hate/don’t feel strongly about this character?
2. What’s your favorite trait of this character?
3. What’s your favorite moment/event involving this character?
4. If you could have one power/attribute/etc. of this character, what would it be?
5. Have you ever pictured this character naked?
6. When did you fall in love/hate with this character? I you don’t have any strong feelings toward them, why not?
7. Who’s your OTP for this character, if any?

Comments

[selenak]

1. I'm very fond of him. Now bear in mind I started with TNG, so this means I feel about him primarily in a TNG context, though after an initial "what the hell?" I eventually got around to accepting him on DS9.

2. He was the first Trek character (after Spock, admittedly, but Spock leaving Vulcan for Starfleet was a big deal of who he was) whom we saw bringing his own cultural context with him which sometimes superceded the Starfleet one. Later day watchers will never be able to emotionally get how revolutionary it was when Worf killed Duras instead of listening to Picard, or that we saw Worf talk about Klingon mythology and try to practice Klingon customs as best was possible on the Enterprise, or the Klingon political storylines. This just had never happened before. (Spock returned to Vulcan during the show precisely once. There were no storylines on Vulcan.). I'd go as far as say that DS9, the Bajorans and the Cardassians would not have been possible in Trek if TNG hadn't gone there first with Worf and all things Klingon and if the viewers hadn't reacted positively to it. This larger historical context aside, I like that Worf, for all that he's having a hangup about being more Klingon than Klingon because he was raised by humans and thus misses the party going most other Klingons seems to indulge in, actually has a dead pan sense of humor if you pay attention. Favourite example, from when Q is temporarily human and everyone thinks he's faking it due to earlier mindgames:

Q: I'm really human! What do I have to do to convince you people?
Worf: Die.

3. On the humorous side, when Q has transported them to Sherwood Forest: "Captain, I am NOT a Merry Man!" (It's Michael Dorn's delivers that sells the line.) On the serious side, in First Contact, when Picard, at this point losing it due to Borg trauma, tells Worf he's being a coward. Worf's reaction, the dignity, quiet steel and awareness how ooc it is for Picard to behave this way is such a great character moment, and ditto for the way he responds to Picard's apology many scenes later.

4. He scored with three of my favourite women in Trekdom - K'eyhlar, Deanna Troi and Jadzia Dax - so his love life wouldn't be bad to have. :)

5. No.

6. My first moment of "aw, Worf" came in "Heart of Glory", TNG's season 2, when he brought the renegade Klingons down but performed the death cry for them nonetheless. I definitely loved him when he went through the ostracism by the Klingon Council, hugged and turned his brother around so his brother, who lived in the Klingon world, would not share his banishment. (The DS9 episode Sons of Mogh is such a stupid follow up on this with the mind wipe, I can't tell you.)

7. I don't have one, but in terms of Worf's canonical romances, I loved the one with K'eyhlar, was never quite sold on the one with Deanna, and liked the one with Jadzia from the moment they had their "But you are not in my shoes!" "Pity. You'd be surprised what I can do in a pair of eight inch boots" exchange.

[thirdblindmouse]

I'd go as far as say that DS9, the Bajorans and the Cardassians would not have been possible in Trek if TNG hadn't gone there first with Worf and all things Klingon and if the viewers hadn't reacted positively to it.

I'll keep that in mind next time I whine about Worf causing an increase in Klingon episodes of DS9. I wish Worf's deadpan humor had been featured on DS9 more than once in a blue moon.

I'll have to watch "Heart of Glory". I actually liked "Sons of Mogh" -- despite its awful ending, it is the one Klingon episode I've seen that made me care about Klingon tradition and the tensions between Worf's duty as a Klingon vs. Federation law. It's also one of the rare times we see the boundaries of Jadzia Dax's relationship with Klingon tradition. She may be able to participate in Klingon culture more relaxedly than someone obsessed with a heritage that was not part of his upbringing, but ultimately her participation is a factor of interpersonal bonds and a compatible disposition; for Worf, it is an integral part of his identity.

[selenak]

Well, the problem with s4 is that the Klingon storyline comes across as very artificial and an excuse for Worf to join the cast. And you can tell, because in s5 we're back to the Dominion storyline that was so rudely interrupted. But TNG was where the Klingons were actually developed for the first time from their Evil McEvil TOS days, so their politics and mythology there were all new and were among the first ongoing storylines.

Heart of Glory isn't the ep with Worf's brother, I phrased that badly, it was the ep where I had my first "aw, Worf" moment. The one with Worf's brother Kurn was Sins of the Father, which also basically introduces Klingon politics and their home planet, never seen before (this was also before ST VI).

Good Klingon TNG eps for Worf development to watch:

Emissary (The one which introduces K'eyhlar, played by the fabulous Suzie Plakson; she's flippant and sexy, and you can see how Jadzia would remind Worf of her)

Sins of the Father (introduces Kurn, Duras, Mogh's backstory and Chancellor K'empec, a wily old fox - also the Klingon banishment ceremony, and because the ending for Kurn and Worf is so different you'll see why Sons of Mogh struck me as an inferior remake)

Reunion (K'eyhlar comes back, so do K'empec and Duras, Gowron gets introduced, and so does Alexander; this is the one where for the first time a Starfleet regular character does something that puts his people's ethics above Starfleet ethics).

Bear in mind Worf and the Klingons actually weren't my favourites on TNG, just secondary interests, but still, I loved these eps.

[thirdblindmouse]

That makes me curious: who were your favourites/primary interests on TNG?

[selenak]

While I liked the entire crew and loved Q and Lwaxana Troi best as guest stars, I did have a clear favourite among the regulars. Which would be none other than my still favourite Starship Captain of them all. Jean-Luc Picard forever!

My last selective TNG rewatch, for which I posted reviews, happened after the ST reboot movie had been released and BSG ended. (I had done a complete DS9 rewatch when the dvds came out, and then some selective ones for ficathons. ) Mysteriously, the film invoked not TOS but TNG nostalgia, and so did laterday BSG.