(no subject)

[cimorene]

So we're watching Star Trek: TNG, and there's an American Indians episode. We immediately said "OH NO it's going to be full of fail, isn't it?"

It didn't really get off to a promising start when the Federation Council decreed over the protests of a colony world of American Indians that the colony was to be moved and the planet ceded to the Cardassians as part of a new treaty. The Enterprise was sent, over Picard's (and also Admiral Ncheyev's) protests, to relocate the colonists in what he pointed out unhappily was a disturbing historical parallel. In the first encounter, there was a mixture of a bunch of different Indian tribes represented, all wearing weirdly generic outfits and plastic beads, and we assumed that the painful badness was going to be about the honkies and Captain Picard saving the poor childlike Indians and reasoning with them...

BUT NO.

Then it turned out that this episode about white people relocating unwilling Indians isn't about the Indians at all.

In fact, it's about WESLEY CRUSHER'S MANPAIN.

The entire point of the Indians being present, we are explicitly informed by a Magical Indian possessed of psychic powers who approaches sulky!teenaged!Wesley at a banquet, is to HELP WESLEY. That's why the Enterprise REALLY came here! Luckily these Magical Indians are so mystical and can cure what ails sad white men of above average intelligence who have been gifted with every advantage in life up until they pissed it all away by participating in the coverup of an accidental death at Starfleet Academy, and are now butthurt because people for some reason censured them for that.

Comments

[ithiliana]

That is I think my single most loathed episode and when I decided that Wesley's "MarySue"ism had no bounds.

I didn't like Wesley at the start.

I great to hate him even more over the seasons.

And this ep made me want to rage and throw things, preferably at Wesley (not the actor though who I gather is pretty cool and was bummed out by the fan dislike of his character) But really, Wesley sucked in so many different ways, and this was the absolute fracking end.

Grargh.

[cimorene]

I hated Wesley as a child and teenager when I watched TNG on TV because of the Mary Sue treatment for the most part, but also the times when he's a spoiled little snot. But during this rewatch I've evaluated him from a more adult perspective and concluded that most of what's wrong with the character is wrong on a metatextual level. I mean, he IS still a spoiled child given to backtalk and sulking and also that coverup, but most of the problem is the ways in which he implausibly saves the Enterprise using apparently superhuman powers of prescience and/or the inexplicable mystical ability to manipulate reality like it's the Matrix if he closes his eyes and thinks about Kansas or something. And then the coverup plotline and that last episode of course, where first we are meant to feel sad for him and then root for him because peer pressure is sooooooo terrible and it's so incredibly big of him to admit to his wrongdoing after the fact... and then in Journey's End because his manpain and special sparkle princessitude is just so profound that his path leads him to a convenient colony of oppressed Indians solely so they can act as the backdrop to his ~epiphany~ that he should follow his own superior conscience and drop out of school to go on Bill and Ted's Excellent Slightly Gay Adventure with Dr "The Traveler" Who there. Again, he is a bit of a douche, but he's like 22, so that's more or less forgiveable. The Racefail is all metatextual.

I really did like the Traveler in his first episode, silly as it was, by the way, but almost all of his dialogue was reduced to "Look inside yourself"-type Jedi master pronouncements and eyefucking in the Racefail ep.

[pocketmouse]

This is the real reason Chakotay hates Tom Paris.

[ithiliana]

*sporfles*

**offers you internet for the win**

[ursamajor]

Ugh, I cannot rewatch that ep.

[lotesse]

What is with the 90s scifi "Indian episode" thing? It's never a good idea, you guys. TOS at least has the excuse of being Bloody Old - the SG1 Indian episode, twentyodd years later, was only more insensitive and fetishizing.

[phosfate]

It's not the Bloody Oldness -- fucking Get Smart did a more aware "Indian episode" than TNG.

[krait]

what ails sad white men of above average intelligence who have been gifted with every advantage in life up until they pissed it all away by participating in the coverup of an accidental death at Starfleet Academy, and are now butthurt because people for some reason censured them for that.

I... what... seriously?! That is Crusher's (back)story? o.O

I knew he was a disliked character, but as I've never seen any of TNG, I didn't know anything beyond the vague "he's a Marty Stu" accusations. No one backed that up by explaining that his epic manpain requires -- and receives -- whole planets of minorities to alleviate it. *boggling*

Remind me not to ever watch TNG, because I might spontaneously combust.

[cimorene]

Well, to be fair, he doesn't explicitly complain about the people who censured him for the coverup. It was one of his friends who was involved in it who mentioned that in a different episode. I think in "Journey's End" his complaint is at least on the surface about blindly following orders when you don't agree with them and his destiny being "greater" than Starfleet.

But yes, that is more or less his story, from season 1 through season 7. In Racefail, we first learn that they're with the Indians for him, and then he throws a tantrum about the Federation displacing the Indians so he can learn that he believes in his own conscience and stuff, and then the Magical Indian turns into a recurring shapeshifter who bonded with bb!Wesley (age 16) in season 1 and says he actually came there just to meet Wesley and encourage him to transcend himself, so in fact, nobody has any meaningful interactions with any member of the colony at all, and their problems are solved in the background by Captain Picard (they DID need a honky!!) convincing the Cardassians not to annihilate them after all by appealing to the Cardassian Gul's memories of the first war and reminding him that Bloodshed is Bad. And meanwhile, Wesley skips into the sunset with the Traveler to travel through time and space.

[kay_mulan]

I like this one. But what do I know, I like 'em all! Um. Thinky thoughts like the posted above might follow but far, faar into the future.

[kay_mulan]

Was seriously considering doing a "I am a person of color, thinking of minoring in Native American studies, Angry Little Asian Girl, who likes this episode" posted comment, but it just came out wheezy in my head so I didn't do it at all. But I am mentioning.