Writing Sela Better

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Madner Kami
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Re: Writing Sela Better

Post by Madner Kami »

Voyager, where potential went to die a slow and agonizing death.
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hammerofglass
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Re: Writing Sela Better

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Chakotay was also a fourty year old man dating a woman physically in her mid-twenties and emotionally a teenager at best. It could have maybe worked and not come off creepy if handled well by the writers, but it was not.

Plus all the issues inherent in them being in the same chain of command, but Star Trek has always very pointedly ignored that.
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clearspira
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Re: Writing Sela Better

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hammerofglass wrote: Wed Jan 17, 2024 11:05 pm Chakotay was also a fourty year old man dating a woman physically in her mid-twenties and emotionally a teenager at best. It could have maybe worked and not come off creepy if handled well by the writers, but it was not.

Plus all the issues inherent in them being in the same chain of command, but Star Trek has always very pointedly ignored that.
I think silver catsuit Seven would have been creepy as she acted a lot like a child in woman's body. Brown catsuit Seven in my opinion was just inexperienced at life. Which is why i think an older man would be perfect for Seven. Someone with the life experience to continue to teach her about the world but also someone with a bit of authority about him who can handle her abrasive attitude and put her in her place occasionally. And yes, I know what the final part of that sentence sounds like, but I don't mean that in an abusive way. I mean it in the sort of way that Janeway would have to verbally slap her down for her own good whenever her bullshit got too much. Voyager-era Seven was not ready for life outside of this small community. She would act all superior to the wrong person one day and that would be that.
A greenhorn like Kim would have gotten eaten alive by her (you want to talk creepy, his attraction to her seemed to ease off after the silver catsuit era).

Actually, now Seven is bisexual, Janeway may actually have been a good match for her.
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hammerofglass
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Re: Writing Sela Better

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clearspira wrote: Thu Jan 18, 2024 3:34 pm
hammerofglass wrote: Wed Jan 17, 2024 11:05 pm Chakotay was also a fourty year old man dating a woman physically in her mid-twenties and emotionally a teenager at best. It could have maybe worked and not come off creepy if handled well by the writers, but it was not.

Plus all the issues inherent in them being in the same chain of command, but Star Trek has always very pointedly ignored that.
I think silver catsuit Seven would have been creepy as she acted a lot like a child in woman's body. Brown catsuit Seven in my opinion was just inexperienced at life. Which is why i think an older man would be perfect for Seven. Someone with the life experience to continue to teach her about the world but also someone with a bit of authority about him who can handle her abrasive attitude and put her in her place occasionally. And yes, I know what the final part of that sentence sounds like, but I don't mean that in an abusive way. I mean it in the sort of way that Janeway would have to verbally slap her down for her own good whenever her bullshit got too much. Voyager-era Seven was not ready for life outside of this small community. She would act all superior to the wrong person one day and that would be that.
A greenhorn like Kim would have gotten eaten alive by her (you want to talk creepy, his attraction to her seemed to ease off after the silver catsuit era).

Actually, now Seven is bisexual, Janeway may actually have been a good match for her.
I'm not against it in principle, I just think it's another way it was handled badly.

Third solution is polyamory with all three. I remember at the time a few people I knew who shipped Janeway and Chakotay were Very Upset when the show put him with Seven.
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Deledrius
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Re: Writing Sela Better

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clearspira wrote: Wed Jan 17, 2024 8:46 pm So I'm gonna say it... I think Chakotay on paper is a good match for Voyager-era Seven. Calm, patient, cultured, an expert in multiple fields *rolls dice joke*. All skills you would need dealing with her. And he isn't ugly by any means.

The problem is that Beltran had given up by season 7. Season 3 Chakotay may have been a better match.
That, and the fact that this particular relationship was literally invented out of whole cloth in the 11th hour doomed it.

Honestly the character of Seven of Nine probably shouldn't be having romance subplots on the show at all, given her backstory and the short length of time we saw her on the show. But of course that would fly in the face of one of the bigger reasons she was on the show (regardless of her talents) as far as marketing and executives were concerned.
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Re: Writing Sela Better

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I agree. Seven should have never been given any romance subplot. Especially one that literally happened out of nowhere on the last episode of the series.

Just leave her be and just keep the status quo like they did for the rest of the seven seasons.
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