VOY - Real Life (Torre's is sadistic) SPOILERS

[Sir Will]

I do think that his version was unrealistic, but agree that her edits to make things worse seem a bit petty and influenced by her own poor home life. I just don't think she's sadistic or intended to put him through what ultimately happened.

[Artabax]

1) Holograms are people too... rarely
EMH, Moriarty, Vic Fontaine and all the Rioses in Picard are shown to be people. EHM's family, Fairhaven etc are all toasters. Torres did not murder real people yet.

2) Torres broke EHM's toys, she broke his toys so thoroughly that he never played with them. That is the sadism.

[drewder]

Very few writers had happy childhoods. Torres doesn't believe in happy families because the writers don't. It's not some clever thing the writers are doing to explore her character they're trying to attack anyone who believes a happy family is possible.

[TrueMetis]

Torres didn’t do anything sadistic because she didn’t put real people in danger. The Doctor’s emotions were the only thing at stake, and he chose to go through with it.

You might want to look up, what sadism is and how it is defined.

True, but there is a difference. That’s why, for instance, the Fair Haven crisis of putting real people in danger for the sake of fake people was ridiculous. That same child is going to hurt even more if you kill the child’s dog. The Doctor is also not a child. If he is one, emotionally, that brings up a whole new set of problems.

The Doctor is certainly more like a child in terms of his emotional development and that can be seen in various instances. The "man" is two years old by the episode "Real Life".

Stories can make us cry, yell, scream, etc., and many writers enjoy that their work had such a powerful effect. By your reasoning, that’s sadistic? Boiled down, that is what happened in this episode. That’s a much broader take on the definition than I have.

Generally I'm aware of the emotional possibilities prior to reading the story. Whereas I don't think the Doctor had any idea that his daughter dying randomly was an option. So yeah I think that's sadistic.
Like there's powerful writing, and then there's bullshit out of nowhere. This falls into the latter category.

[CrashGordon94]

2) Torres broke EHM's toys, she broke his toys so thoroughly that he never played with them. That is the sadism.

That seems like a pretty fair assessment to me.

[Captain Crimson]

Are we doing this? Are we really going in to fan-theorizing here than the more likely probable explanation, the writers being their usual incompetent selves and not thinking this through? While interesting from a what-if perspective, it's still part of the same disconnect between writer intent and what shows up on screen week after week. Even in-verse, while possible, it's also possible Torres had nothing to do with that specific part of the newly revised program.

Very few writers had happy childhoods. Torres doesn't believe in happy families because the writers don't. It's not some clever thing the writers are doing to explore her character they're trying to attack anyone who believes a happy family is possible.

And that is why, even though I love reading great fiction, I have less writing skills than Mr. Braga at his worst, haha, since my area and immediate family were thriving in the Clinton-era New Economy back when I was a kid. Art comes from pain, and I never had that as a kid.

[Senko]

Oh lots of posts while I was away for work.

It is possible this is just bad writing I mean they wrote in those bio-neural gel packs. Any debate on their actual value aside who thinks its a good idea to make part of the ships main computer something that literally can't be replaced or repaired except by limited stores in a ship that from what I recall was meant to be a long range explorer i.e. something that operates well away from any resuply and deals with unknown situations. Nice handy plot hook, lousy ship design. Same with the doctors memories problems when he'd been operating too long why would you program an emergency medical program to just randomly overwrite old data with new when it fills up. Even our earliest floppy disks had a write protect if you put something on there you didn't want overwritten.

As for my question and laying aside the bad writing issue what Torre's did to the Doctors holographic family does seem very vindictive. His wife having a career she's busy with ok fine they need to time schedule, his son wanting to be a warrior, hanging out with Klingons and insulting him . . . that's a bit odd given that we don't normally see that many non humans in our glimpses of the federation (or humans in Klingon areas) they seem more work together than live together with everyone living with their own kind (for an elightened people they can be major bigots and xenophobes). I mean lets take the daughter that should not have happened the wife should have stopped it, the older kids should have stopped it, the parent/coach should have stopped it not just the doctor. If the sports that dangerous there's a lot of other people including basic health and safety that should have prevented her playing and thus her injury. I admit I didn't realize the sport was that dangerous and thought she'd be injured in a star trek version of hopscotch rather than full contact football.

Programming his daughter to die though that's going too far when the program is essentially the beginners course to human interaction and not all that much more idealized than what they were showing Naomi having and I'll note when the doctor made programs for Seven to learn about interaction he didn't repeatedly kill off crew members in them to ensure they weren't idealized. These are beings just taking the first steps in learning to deal with people you don't emotionally traumatize them to the point they never use that program again and for me its her responses to what he's going to through as much as her programming it in the first place that makes me view her as sadistic.

[Nevix]

I don't think it was Torres' intention/programming to kill the EMH's daughter. I think that was a possibility during the game, and it just happened by chance.

(I could be wrong about that. It's been years since I watched the episode.)

Well, okay, not by chance because the writers guaranteed it would happen, but that's the writer's hand showing on the edges of the fourth wall as the most "dramatic" choice was made while writing for maximum Dramorz.

BTW: Dramorz are the events in television series that are unnecessarily dramatic and often cruel to the characters. The EMH's daughter dying. A beloved character who is leaving for home after years on a warfront dying on the way home. The injured friend of the Detectives in the hospital dying at the end of the episode, even though the Detectives found the murderer. The endless hell that is ANY Soap Opera.

And yet, in spite of my loathing of the use of Dramorz in the episode Real Life, I still think it's quite a good episode. This is because Robert Picardo carries the episode very well, almost single handedly, with only some help from the script that makes the events of the EMH's plot work.

[CrypticMirror]

I don't think it was Torres' intention/programming to kill the EMH's daughter. I think that was a possibility during the game, and it just happened by chance.

Her death happened in a non interactive portion of the programme, while the Doctor could not be present, it was essentially a cutscene death. That was deliberate. The only way to prevent that story thread was the Doctor to not allow her to take part in the sport in the first place. Once he said yes, her death was inevitable by the programme. The other story fork to that thread was divorce and losing custody of the kids if he's continued to hold the hardline. It was 100% deliberate and cruel, with no "good" ending possible. It was either the daughter dies, or he loses the entire family to divorce. Torres is an asshole.

[FaxModem1]

I don't think it was Torres' intention/programming to kill the EMH's daughter. I think that was a possibility during the game, and it just happened by chance.

Her death happened in a non interactive portion of the programme, while the Doctor could not be present, it was essentially a cutscene death. That was deliberate. The only way to prevent that story thread was the Doctor to not allow her to take part in the sport in the first place. Once he said yes, her death was inevitable by the programme. The other story fork to that thread was divorce and losing custody of the kids if he's continued to hold the hardline. It was 100% deliberate and cruel, with no "good" ending possible. It was either the daughter dies, or he loses the entire family to divorce. Torres is an asshole.

Reminder that they had a whole family meeting, and the Doctor 'okayed' her competing with people three years older than her.

BELLE: Daddy! You changed Pareses Squares from Monday, Wednesday, Friday to Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. That puts me on the second team. I'm good enough to be on the first team.
EMH: You shouldn't be on the first team. You're not old enough. As I said, Belle, we must all make sacrifices.
JEFFREY: What sacrifices did you make?
EMH: I will make dinner on the nights your mother lectures.
BELLE: You do that anyway. That's not a sacrifice.
JEFFREY: What's this about no Klingon friends?
EMH: Exactly that. They're a bad influence on you. They're prone to violence, they keep you out till all hours. Why don't you find some nice Vulcan friends?
JEFFREY: You can't just decide who my friends will be.
CHARLENE: Hold on. Kenneth, that may be a bit unreasonable.
EMH: Charlene? You know very well how important it is to keep a united front. I expect you to support me in these decisions.
CHARLENE: Well, if that's what you expect then maybe you should have asked my opinion before you started unilaterally deciding things. I'm not one of the children, after all. I believe I should have some say in just what rules and regulations are established. And I think it's unfair for you to tell Jeffrey what friends he can and cannot have.
JEFFREY: Right. This whole meeting is a Vulky idea, and you can have it without me.
(Jeffery leaves.)
EMH: Jeffrey, you are not excused!
CHARLENE: You've upset him. Let him go. I don't want to argue this in front of the children. We'll discuss it later.
(Charlene leaves.)
BELLE: You really made a mess of things, didn't you, Daddy?
EMH: Apparently so. Although I fail to understand their reaction. I'm just trying to help the family function better.
BELLE: How does it make the family function better if I go to Pareses Squares Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturday?
EMH: Belle, you've been playing with children two and three years older than you. That's much too dangerous.
BELLE: But that's what's fun about it.
EMH: You're not old enough to realize how hazardous that game can be. It's up to me to keep you safe. I'm just trying to be a good father.
BELLE: If it'll help, Daddy, I'll be on the second team.
EMH: Thank you, Belle. That's very grown up of you.
BELLE: And I think you're a very good father.
EMH: Why, thank you.
BELLE: I love you, Daddy, even if you did make a mess of things.

The Doctor let his twelve year old daughter play a full contact sport, even noted by him as dangerous, against high schoolers. What did he think was going to happen?