Areas where you'd respectfully disagree with Chuck

[Steve]

I split off the Nazis and Evil posts to a new thread in the general forum.

[Robovski]

I split off the Nazis and Evil posts to a new thread in the general forum.

Thank you Steve!

[Steve]

I split off the Nazis and Evil posts to a new thread in the general forum.

Thank you Steve!

You're welcome. Sorry for the delay, but I've spent most of the week playing Kingdom Hearts 3.

[Dragon Ball Fan]

I am still sorry for my part in getting things off topic but to repeat just one small part of it, Chuck said in "Manorial" that a normal person knows that murder is wrong but in "Lethe" that belief systems that lead to murder aren't born of malevolence?

and about his claim that villains with shades of gray are better, Star Trek has had plenty of great or interesting villains that are what TV Tropes calls a "Complete Monster", Redjac, Doctor Tristan Adams, Melakon, Kivas Fajo, Henry Starling and Commander Dolim. and I still insist Dukat is a Complete Monster who was only pretending to have redeeming qualities.

but on another topic, not that I completely disagree but I think what happened to Ursula in Doctor Who's "Love and Monsters" may not be as bad as what happened in "The Five Doctors" Ursula can still move her mouth and Elton can still show her stuff she wants to see on a TV or computer among other things, so, she's have more options to pas the time and take her mind off of her situation then Borusa did.

[Yukaphile]

Me too. I'll be a big man and apologize. I'm sorry for my role too, even biggest role if you wanna argue that.

Dukat had genuine moments of good that weren't an act. Wanting to spare Bajorans unnecessary death. His failure is not in that he wanted to make life better for them, but that he saw them as inferiors, that he truly believed in the "Manifest Destiny" aspect of the occupation, that under their stewardship, if the Bajorans would only let them guide their world to fullest flower, it would become a paradise. And of course, he loved his daughter. That didn't change the fact he was a manipulative, self-serving tyrant.

[Deledrius]

Dukat had genuine moments of good that weren't an act. Wanting to spare Bajorans unnecessary death. His failure is not in that he wanted to make life better for them, but that he saw them as inferiors, that he truly believed in the "Manifest Destiny" aspect of the occupation, that under their stewardship, if the Bajorans would only let them guide their world to fullest flower, it would become a paradise. And of course, he loved his daughter. That didn't change the fact he was a manipulative, self-serving tyrant.

The tragedy in a character like Dukat is that he truly believed he was the hero, and yet he was very much the villain.

[Yukaphile]

Oh indubitably!

[Dragon Ball Fan]

I assumed that in the climax of "The Last of the Time Lords" was all that psychic energy going into the Doctor made all that possible.

similarly, is the "thoughts become reality" from TNG's "Where No One Has Gone Before" that bad, what happened to Clark's Third Law? also, I think it was just the Edge of the Universe where that was possible for everyone except the Traveler's species.

[Deledrius]

Because if the leaders of the bad guys are all women and the leaders of the good guys are all men, it subscribes to that ancient and awful stereotype that women are conniving, scheming liars and manipulators out to undermine and destroy powerful men. That view Shakespeare had, which you know, needs to fucking DIE already.

If you never show women as villains, then you're being just as sexist as always showing women as villains. One story where the villains are predominantly female is a perfectly fine thing, and is perhaps a sign that you're focused more on the specific characters than the generalization about whether or not they have a penis.

This is one of those ways in which "representation matters". The more of something (sex, race, etc.) you have in your story, the less any singular example can be taken as a stand-in for that group. Either extreme of all or nothing carries unfortunate implications. Presenting a larger diversity prevents such a reading of the text except where explicitly intended.

What is up with the whole Harry Kim hate? I mean, sure I get Neelix but why is he described as so useless?

I don't think useless is the right description, the joke is that Janeway sets him up to fail. The main theme regarding Kim (and a highly accurate one unlike Janeway being a supervillain) is that he is a closet. He is in love with Tom but because he can't have Tom thanks to the latter being firmly heterosexual he keeps going after completely unattainable women or makes excuses not to be with the ones that he can have just so he doesn't have to come out. ''Prime Factors'' is the ultimate example of this, where he has a willing and very attractive woman clearly begging for it and he just shrugs and runs off to talk about the foldspacing teleporter that isn't going anywhere.

See maybe I'm nuts, but I don't really see any issue with not having a one-night stand with someone you will never see again and instead working on something that might get me home. Like Kim's hardly the only one excited and wants to look into this.

When people say stuff like this all I can think is what is wrong with you? Are you unable to go 15 minutes without masturbating or something? Half of the "proof" Harry Kim is in the closet is "Harry Kim has basic self control and doesn't try and fuck everything that moves, he must be gay!"

I agree that it feels like a big jump from "Harry isn't a player like Tom" to "Harry must be gay". I still don't see it. Harry just seems like a perpetually (and perhaps unrealistically) naive and inexperienced Ensign, not someone in the closet (whatever that would even mean in Voyager's time). There is a lot of potential in the layers of friendship he has with Tom that don't require romantic or sexual interest, especially for someone as insecure as Harry, and that's how I always read it. It's assumptions (and the attendant judgements) like that which create the ridiculous "no homo!" protestations when guys are close.

Of course, the show has to deal with the dueling contradictions of giving the crew "someone back home" to make the distance poignant and to have motivation to get home, while also wanting to treat them as single so you can have the (never satisfying) romance-of-the-week plots. It makes everyone seem a bit uneven.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Not really a disagreeance in concept really, but I'm watching the Empire Strikes Back review, and I'm passing over again the part where Chuck talks about the dichotomy of complex and complicated. In application to concepts and issues, it seems he may be right in the difference in approaching them and also their basic sum composition (simple things with a lot to unpack). Though when looking into it a while ago, it seems the definitive difference has to do with intricacy vs differentiation. Programming a robot to perform a bunch of tasks proficiently, complex. Programming it to function in real world environment with unknown conditions put upon it, complicated.