Was Chuck Unfair on Suder?

[SpikePrime]

I'm going to give an explanation for folks who may not have seen the relevant Voyager episodes/reviews:

Lon Suder was one of the few recurring side characters of Voyager who appeared in multiple episodes prominently, similar to Barkley from TNG.

Unlike Barkley, Suder was not a loveable genius with social anxiety, but a sociopath, with possible neurological psychopathy. When first introduced, he had no understanding of the feelings of others, no empathy or the control to stop himself killing someone if he just felt like it (at least, not for long). This is extra notable since Suder is Betazoid, a race famous for being able to read the emotions and minds of others. Despite this, not only is Suder incapable of this, he can't even accurately gage his own feelings.

In the episode Meld, he murdered a member of the Voyager crew, without even remotely a justifiable reason;

"I just didn't like the way he looked at me."

It's clear based on this that Suder is mentally disturbed. Not in that fake way various disreputable news sources says that about any murderer, I mean the guy's neurochemistry was obviously out of whack. Even Tuvok has to comment on how amazing it is that Suder managed to go as long as he did without cold-bloodedly murdering a Voyager crewmember given his impulses.

Tuvok "mind-melded" with Suder, and an imprint of each person was left with the other. Tuvok's imprint on Suder left the latter with sudden guilt, understanding of his crime, and the control he'd always lacked before. Effectively, Tukok more-or-less cured Suder's psychopathy and sociopathy. This was followed up in "Basics," the season 2 finale with Suder hoping to become a productive member of the Voyager crew while in solitary confinement, asking the captain if he can contribute his newfound skills in botany to help the crew, to which Janeway is not especially receptive.

This, finally, is where Chuck's reviews come in:

He frequently mocks Suder as "The Homicidal Hamster" and even makes fun of his previous pathological issues (which he clearly could not help at the time). Very little is said of the struggles of this person finally awakening to realise what kind of a person he'd been after a lifetime of fundamental psychological issues. There's no real empathy for the kind of effect the mind meld with Tuvok had to change Suder's mental state. For one of the rare instances of Voyager addressing a very important previous story, I'm not sure Chuck quite gave credit where it was due, or was fair to the character of Suder.

It's an old review, and made during a time when Chuck was much more focused on mocking voyager rather than discussing it properly, but I wonder if I'm the only one who feels he was unfair to the character and episodes featuring Suder?

[stryke]

Stick this under the heading of different times and I think it'd be easy to be unfair to Chuck examining them as if they came out today. As you mentioned they're older reviews of his and it's important to remember that context.

Saying that and obviously YMMV I think that Brad Dourif can seriously elevate everything he's in, and that very much includes Voyager making him easily the highlight element of s2. He was great as Suder, served an important role allowing the Marquis to have some edge, and like Seska I'm still a bit grumpy about the road not taken for the show where they could have kept both characters and the people who played them around for when the show began to improve. Was never going to happen but a State of Flux where Seska goes 'I may be a Cardassian but I'll take the advanced Federation starship over those idiots', and it is Carey who is the traitor would have been a much more interesting show early on. Even more as then you do have a flashpoint of Maquis/Fed conflict by having an actual cardassion onboard seeing as how badly it went just having a hologram later on in the show.

[clearspira]

Time for my controversial take of the day: you can insult fictional characters as much as you like because they are fictional. No one real has been harmed. This idea that just because they have a "real" condition that somehow its wrong to make jokes about them is a modern take. The same kind of modern take that gets comedians punched on stage.

[TGLS]

Time for my controversial take of the day: you can insult fictional characters as much as you like because they are fictional. No one real has been harmed.

Yeah, I wouldn't be so sure about that. Like, if a hypothetical Star Trek reviewer kept making offensive jokes about Sisko being black, it'd still be offensive.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

meh

[Riedquat]

Time for my controversial take of the day: you can insult fictional characters as much as you like because they are fictional. No one real has been harmed. This idea that just because they have a "real" condition that somehow its wrong to make jokes about them is a modern take. The same kind of modern take that gets comedians punched on stage.

You can insult the character as much as you like. It's when doing that also involves insulting real people that you've got a problem. Are you insulting the character, or real people that happen to share traits that have been given to a character too?

Not that insulting is necessarily wrong, but being fictional doesn't mean anything goes that wouldn't IRL.

[Madner Kami]

You can't predict, whether someone identifies with something or not and with your line of arguement, you end up in a situation where nothing goes. It's a fictional character, not a person being targeted. Your arguement is the same that leads to people being incarcerated for jerking off to a "16 year old" cartoon-character.