![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmic_llinVoyager fans, does this bug anyone else?
There are a lot of things I really like about the episode Human Error. It’s nice that Seven is exploring her social skills more. I love to see Jeri Ryan play that sort of stuff. And it makes sense that she would use the holodeck for practice, since she still feels uncertain doing it out in the real world. I can even see why she would choose Chakotay as her fantasy romantic partner, at least for practice – wooden and boring as he is, of the main cast he’s the one who best fits the stereotypical idea of the male romantic lead.
The part that really annoys me is the stuff towards the end, about her cortical node. According to the Doctor, Seven has a Borg failsafe that means, if she reaches a certain level of ‘emotional stimulation’, her cortical node will shut down her higher brain functions, effectively killing her. This is in order to deactivate drones who have achieved individuality and are attempting to leave the Collective.
What this seems to mean in context is ‘Poor Seven can never love!’ It’s also suggested in the episode that the emotions Seven has experienced thus far have not been ‘deep’ or intense, and that her flirtation with a simulated version of Chakotay is more emotionally stimulating than anything else she has ever experienced.
This seems to me like a terrible insult, both to Seven’s character and to Jeri Ryan’s acting. Seven has grown up and evolved to a tremendous degree – she started out as a child, essentially, with no social graces, no empathy, no sense of self, no idea even how to do the most basic of things – she even had to be taught to eat. Over the years, and through a painful sort-of adolescence, she learned social niceties, loyalty, compassion. She developed a sense of humour, found hobbies, made friends and even came to consider some people her family. She became a well-rounded, lovable character.
So many of Seven’s scenes really affected me – her anguish when she believes Icheb is going to die, her resigned sadness at leaving the Borg children behind, her heartfelt – if drunken – professions of friendship at a party, her awed reaction to her first spiritual experience, her remorse over her accidental contribution to an innocent man’s death and her crimes as part of the Collective – I defy anyone to watch these episodes and tell me that this is a woman who cannot experience deep emotions. Perhaps she sometimes has trouble expressing them, but she certainly feels them.
I don’t understand why the cortical node storyline was even necessary. It’s not as if Seven would just be fine having a romantic relationship otherwise – she has enough issues that it would have been perfectly plausible for her to conclude that she wasn’t yet ready, even without the additional push of the business with the cortical node. To my mind this would have made for a more moving finish to the episode, and more or less everything else could easily have stayed the same.
Brannon Braga intended for this episode to be a lead-up to Seven dying in the finale. He said in a recent interview with SFX magazine: ‘Human Error [was] a heartbreaking episode in that Seven Of Nine learns, as she begins to explore her human emotions, that she can’t experience them’. He also calls her ‘a damaged woman who can’t get past what happened to her’ and says ‘this was a woman who knew she was neither here nor there. She couldn’t go back to the Borg, nor would she want to, but she could never be fully human, so she was doomed. And I wanted to have her sacrifice herself to get her shipmates home.’
That’s so at odds with the character I know that I almost don’t know where to begin. To me, Seven’s story is one of triumph – having been torn from her family, brainwashed, and forced to participate in atrocities, she’s managed to find a new family, successfully integrated with them, found her self again and become a productive and at least somewhat happy member of society, and all this she’s achieved in the space of only a few years, without any kind of formal therapy. The fact that she hasn’t quite got to the point where all facets of human interaction come naturally to her doesn’t mean that she’s failed. It just means that, like everyone else, she’s still learning.
There are a lot of things I really like about the episode Human Error. It’s nice that Seven is exploring her social skills more. I love to see Jeri Ryan play that sort of stuff. And it makes sense that she would use the holodeck for practice, since she still feels uncertain doing it out in the real world. I can even see why she would choose Chakotay as her fantasy romantic partner, at least for practice – wooden and boring as he is, of the main cast he’s the one who best fits the stereotypical idea of the male romantic lead.
The part that really annoys me is the stuff towards the end, about her cortical node. According to the Doctor, Seven has a Borg failsafe that means, if she reaches a certain level of ‘emotional stimulation’, her cortical node will shut down her higher brain functions, effectively killing her. This is in order to deactivate drones who have achieved individuality and are attempting to leave the Collective.
What this seems to mean in context is ‘Poor Seven can never love!’ It’s also suggested in the episode that the emotions Seven has experienced thus far have not been ‘deep’ or intense, and that her flirtation with a simulated version of Chakotay is more emotionally stimulating than anything else she has ever experienced.
This seems to me like a terrible insult, both to Seven’s character and to Jeri Ryan’s acting. Seven has grown up and evolved to a tremendous degree – she started out as a child, essentially, with no social graces, no empathy, no sense of self, no idea even how to do the most basic of things – she even had to be taught to eat. Over the years, and through a painful sort-of adolescence, she learned social niceties, loyalty, compassion. She developed a sense of humour, found hobbies, made friends and even came to consider some people her family. She became a well-rounded, lovable character.
So many of Seven’s scenes really affected me – her anguish when she believes Icheb is going to die, her resigned sadness at leaving the Borg children behind, her heartfelt – if drunken – professions of friendship at a party, her awed reaction to her first spiritual experience, her remorse over her accidental contribution to an innocent man’s death and her crimes as part of the Collective – I defy anyone to watch these episodes and tell me that this is a woman who cannot experience deep emotions. Perhaps she sometimes has trouble expressing them, but she certainly feels them.
I don’t understand why the cortical node storyline was even necessary. It’s not as if Seven would just be fine having a romantic relationship otherwise – she has enough issues that it would have been perfectly plausible for her to conclude that she wasn’t yet ready, even without the additional push of the business with the cortical node. To my mind this would have made for a more moving finish to the episode, and more or less everything else could easily have stayed the same.
Brannon Braga intended for this episode to be a lead-up to Seven dying in the finale. He said in a recent interview with SFX magazine: ‘Human Error [was] a heartbreaking episode in that Seven Of Nine learns, as she begins to explore her human emotions, that she can’t experience them’. He also calls her ‘a damaged woman who can’t get past what happened to her’ and says ‘this was a woman who knew she was neither here nor there. She couldn’t go back to the Borg, nor would she want to, but she could never be fully human, so she was doomed. And I wanted to have her sacrifice herself to get her shipmates home.’
That’s so at odds with the character I know that I almost don’t know where to begin. To me, Seven’s story is one of triumph – having been torn from her family, brainwashed, and forced to participate in atrocities, she’s managed to find a new family, successfully integrated with them, found her self again and become a productive and at least somewhat happy member of society, and all this she’s achieved in the space of only a few years, without any kind of formal therapy. The fact that she hasn’t quite got to the point where all facets of human interaction come naturally to her doesn’t mean that she’s failed. It just means that, like everyone else, she’s still learning.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-08-31 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-01 03:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-01 04:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-08-31 04:28 pm (UTC)Other than that, you know I agree with all of this! Brannon Braga fails everything he has ever done.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-01 03:36 pm (UTC)(I'm enjoying how many WTF-themed Trek icons I have...)
no subject
Date: 2010-08-31 07:14 pm (UTC)I think scifi often goes really wrong when it leans too hard on tech (or quantum mechanics, or ethnobiology, or whatever) to do metaphorical work – Trek is very often guilty of this. It seems like what's going wrong here is that the 'cortical node' is being asked to stand in for a set of psychological factors (filtering mechanisms, repressive tendencies, protective mechanisms, traumas, and so on) that usually form over time as human beings accrue emotional experience. In other words, instead of letting Seven have a complex emotional development process (e.g. develop her own emotional filters), the Voyager team have just given her one piece of tech that's supposed to stand in for all that. You can't ask metaphors to do that much work – they'll buckle under the pressure, as seems to have happened here. Add in some sexist, immature writing and hey presto: scifiFAIL.
Also, a BIG +1 to
no subject
Date: 2010-09-01 03:47 pm (UTC)And I definitely think you’re right, in terms of this particular episode (and yep, definitely a trend in Trek generally). What baffles me, though, is that up to this point, they’ve done such a good job of gradually and sensitively developing Seven’s character so that this sort of thing really isn’t necessary. I would have less trouble with it if this episode had come earlier in her stint, but by this point they’ve gone into Seven’s psychology and motivations enough times that this just seems like three steps backward.
As far as Braga goes, I think it comes across more in the full interview, but the thing that really bugs me is that he’s basically saying: ‘If something awful has happened to you, you may as well roll over and die, because you’ll never get all the way better.’ I mean, WTF? (Let’s see if I can find another WTF icon for this reply…) Not only is that a terrible message, it’s contrary to everything Star Trek is about!
no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 12:02 pm (UTC)The partner and I only got through the beginning of S3 before she moved three states away and took the Trek with her – some people would define this as grounds for divorce. I haven't gotten around to procuring VOY from another source. Mostly I was just really disappointed in the show (as I think I may have made clear...), and needed a break. But I'll get back to it, I think.
contrary to everything Star Trek is about!
Yes! Not to be a one-note fangirl, but this is another thing I love so effing much about DS9 – people address and cope with their traumas and have rich emotional lives that (usually) make (some) sense. I've been meaning to write a little disquisition on why it's awesome that Kira is emotional (especially early on) in the way that she is – scifi ladies don't usually get to be both tough and have fully-developed feelings and relationships. It seems like what you're saying about Seven here sort of exemplifies how the trope of the traumatized-into-emotionlessness scifi heroine can fail epically. Blorgh. Dislike.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 11:08 am (UTC)When
I will say that on the whole Voyager gets kind of better in the slightly later seasons, but some aspects of it get worse...
And yeah, exactly! Much as I love TNG, it was very reset-button-y. As long as everyone was in one piece by the end of the episode, however traumatic it had been it was pretty much never mentioned again, except for one or two notable exceptions.
And yeah, Sub Rosa creeps me the hell out. (Also OMG I never, ever noticed that was Shakaar! Eek... now I'm just... WTF...?) Although I do find it kind of hilarious that Beverly apparently grew up on a Scottish theme planet.
Ahahahaha, that's awesome.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-02 12:08 pm (UTC)But oh, Memory Alpha. I love René Echevarria for this: 'I can still reduce Brannon to shudders when I go into his office and say, 'I can travel on the power transfer beam'.' Oh, god. Yes. Trekwriter emotional torture. Love.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-31 11:00 pm (UTC)I'm with you on your interpretation. I think it's a definite lapse in continuity there. They had some good characters on Voyager, and they absolutely dropped the ball on a few of their plotlines.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-01 03:51 pm (UTC)… although, to be fair, that’s true of most of Voyager. I love when it gets it right, but oh, when it gets it wrong…
And yeah, that was the impression I got too. As though romantic love is the only ‘proper’ emotion.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-01 04:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-04 11:10 am (UTC)But yeah, rewatching is fun, even if it's for the LOLs. I've found that I have less respect for Chakotay this time and much more for Tuvok.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-16 03:03 am (UTC)I furthermore am of the opinion that ladyvivien is completely correct. He's a loser and we should no longer listen to him! If he had any insight into his own show whatsoever, he would have seen the chemistry between Janeway and Seven and made everyone happy by ending the show with THEM together! ^_^ *happy brain*
no subject
Date: 2010-09-16 10:25 am (UTC)As far as J/7 goes, although I can see the chemistry and I sometimes read the fic I don't actively ship it because it weirds me out that Janeway is such a mother figure to Seven, but I do think there were a million better ways the series could have ended. No ship closure at all would have been miles better than what we got.