(no subject)
I have started to watch 'Enterprise' and, unexpectedly enough... I think I like T'Pol. T'Pol the (according to a popular opinion) un-Vulcan. T'Pol the disliked to hated by most of the fandom. T'Pol whom I, after a careful observation, am inclined to considered a perfectly normal Vulcan.
Vulcans, generally speaking, are a bunch of cool, logical, self-contained people who consider expressing emotions a sign of bad taste and aim at suppressing them, or even getting rid of them completely.
T'Pol, says the fandom, is none of the above. The fandom sees her as impulsive, emotional and utterly non-Vulcan. Boo for T'Pol.
The boos were all I heard/read about this character before I had a chance to take a look at her myself. I admit I was prejudiced. I begun watching the series, and T'Pol in it, ready to mock her and join the choir of T'Pol haters.
Well, it seems this is not going to happen.
Don't get me wrong. I like Vulcans. They're my favourite Trek species. I like their well-ordered, logical minds that keep their heads on their shoulders when everyone else gives in to panic and hysteria. The idea of Kolinahr is a bit of an exaggeration, but nobody's perfect, and personally, I prefer Vulcans with their obssession with logic and order (especially given their pacifist motives) than, say, Klingons or Romulans. To paraphrase my favourite poet, I prefer the hell of order to the hell of chaos.
My point, then, is that it's not like I look at T'Pol, see her showing emotions, and like it. On the contrary. I look at T'Pol, try to detect signs of this supposedly un-Vulcan behaviour... and fail. I think she's normal. By Vulcan standards, of course. She is not impulsive or excessively emotional - I wouldn't say she's emotional at all. I really don't know why people have a problem with her. I mean, I'm not particularly crazy about her, either, but to me, she's Vulcan enough.
Her eyebrows, however, totally aren't. v.v
I'd also like to talk about Hoshi. The first thing that drew my attention to this girl is the name - you see, she shares it with my cat. :P Apart from that, Hoshi might be the first specifically linguistic and literary geek that I came across in any kind of fiction.
I mean, I know Spock was familiar with Milton, and I think it can be safely assumed he wasn't completely ignorant of languages, either. The same thing can be said about many other geeky characters - the problem is that most of them are focused mainly on technology/sciences. A literary/linguistically oriented geek is a rarity.
So, I rather appreciate Hoshi's tendency to learn languages of alien species. Especially that, since electronic translators are in wide use aboard the Enterprise, she must be learning all those languages simply for the pleasure of it.
Vulcans, generally speaking, are a bunch of cool, logical, self-contained people who consider expressing emotions a sign of bad taste and aim at suppressing them, or even getting rid of them completely.
T'Pol, says the fandom, is none of the above. The fandom sees her as impulsive, emotional and utterly non-Vulcan. Boo for T'Pol.
The boos were all I heard/read about this character before I had a chance to take a look at her myself. I admit I was prejudiced. I begun watching the series, and T'Pol in it, ready to mock her and join the choir of T'Pol haters.
Well, it seems this is not going to happen.
Don't get me wrong. I like Vulcans. They're my favourite Trek species. I like their well-ordered, logical minds that keep their heads on their shoulders when everyone else gives in to panic and hysteria. The idea of Kolinahr is a bit of an exaggeration, but nobody's perfect, and personally, I prefer Vulcans with their obssession with logic and order (especially given their pacifist motives) than, say, Klingons or Romulans. To paraphrase my favourite poet, I prefer the hell of order to the hell of chaos.
My point, then, is that it's not like I look at T'Pol, see her showing emotions, and like it. On the contrary. I look at T'Pol, try to detect signs of this supposedly un-Vulcan behaviour... and fail. I think she's normal. By Vulcan standards, of course. She is not impulsive or excessively emotional - I wouldn't say she's emotional at all. I really don't know why people have a problem with her. I mean, I'm not particularly crazy about her, either, but to me, she's Vulcan enough.
Her eyebrows, however, totally aren't. v.v
I'd also like to talk about Hoshi. The first thing that drew my attention to this girl is the name - you see, she shares it with my cat. :P Apart from that, Hoshi might be the first specifically linguistic and literary geek that I came across in any kind of fiction.
I mean, I know Spock was familiar with Milton, and I think it can be safely assumed he wasn't completely ignorant of languages, either. The same thing can be said about many other geeky characters - the problem is that most of them are focused mainly on technology/sciences. A literary/linguistically oriented geek is a rarity.
So, I rather appreciate Hoshi's tendency to learn languages of alien species. Especially that, since electronic translators are in wide use aboard the Enterprise, she must be learning all those languages simply for the pleasure of it.