Applying Human character traits to aliens in scifi shows (long)
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drewblackNOS ...@alltel.net (Andrew Black)
Thinkum made a good point. Cultures (both alien and human) have different ways of psychological development. in fact, one of the biggest (and justifiable) arguments about freuds anaysis of human development was that all of his research was based on rich europeans.
That is why cultural anthropology was such a crucial endeavor into a better understanding of human relations, development, and growth. (for the record, im not a freudian per se, i follow more the theories of Erik Erikson, who expounded and perfected the theories introduced by freud) that being said, i think a human idea of psychology can be atributed to the characters of farscape. here is my reason They are written for humans to be understood by humans.
Granted, the creator and the writers (all of whom are excellent in most all the work ive seen) are human, thus they cannot escape completely from their human ideas of personality. I think they have done a supurb job creating an atmosphere and feel of a far off place with little in common with Earth and all its glories or lack of. This is NOT a critique, or an attempt to find fault in Farscape. In fact, it is what makes farscape so much fun. They use these aliens to demonstrate human emotional traits in a way that no human character can do. This is what good science fiction has always done.
That being said, I see a lot of psychological traits in the aliens that are very similar to human ideas. The idea of redemtpion being a big one. Zhaan is a good example. She feels dirty for her crimes, and is attoning for them. Rygel is very in touch with the human concept of greed. and his greed is easliy translated into human psychology, HOWEVER, Rygel is a good example of the human psychology not applying, or at least a cultural exception, in the area of personal development. his entire race has greed and self centeredness as a defining trait in personality development and growth. Im sure all of you can think of other examples of both of these ideas.
Chiannas race is apparently VERY interested in psychology, as a device for control. It takes TONs of research to come up with that level of psychological manipulation. A plan with the magnitude of the Nebarrie plan would take literally centuries to perfect. Therefor, developing carriers of the plague would be an early idea in the scheme. In chiannas world, every one is strictly controlled. and if every one is an emotional neuter like Solice was, then how can Chianna have developed the personality she did?
I offer the following hypothesis. I think that Chianna,her brother, and the others were traumatized on purpose from an early age to become the trollop she is, as a means to transmit the virus. For a personality to develop the way chiannas did, she would have to have a stimulus or stimuli in which to react from, and that stimulus would have to be constant And since she would have no role models (in a society of brainwashed, cleansed zombies, no britany spears on the radio to teach young girls to act like total sluts), she would have to be intentionally traumitized (use your own word here if it helps). so, that being the case, if chiannas past is anything like that, she is going to have many of the problems that humans have that survive sexual abuse. The main one being that one of the biggest ways to display both hate and love is through sex. I believe, and i may be wrong, that chianna found out she had the disease and still kept on screwing. if i remember that correctly, then it really fuels the idea.
Getting back to the actual show of Farscape and how these ideas are relevant to anything (im sure you are asking youself that VERY question by now:)...
so if chianna has only known sex to be the end all be all expression of love, her having sex with Dargo, or the allusions that she and Jothee may get it on at some point soon, are easily understood. She cares for them both, and wants to love them both. she is torn by what she was made into and what she is becoming ( i REALLY do believe that she is growing past what she was, and all involved have really done a good job demonstrating this). I think that chianna does love dargo, and she does care for jothee, but chianna only knows the one way to express love. and that is sex.
personally, i dont think chianna loves jothee in the way she loves dargo. I think chianna loves dargo as a fatherly figure (maybe the one she never had?). And Chianna does care for him very much. i do believe that. however, in Jothee, chianna may see a kindred spirit (they are pretty similar, she was on the lam, living like a rat at tiems, jothee was a slave, living in similar horrible conditions.) i dont think its to much of a stretch to ***ume that chiannas attraction to Dargo is that of a need for a father figure. Dargo is a pretty strong and fairly stable guy (heh.. all things considered of course).
and he is good to her. and he is at about the right age to be her dad.
now, of course, this is obiviously all just little thoughts ive had due to my training and fits of contemplation about a show i enjoy. It is really just a game i play to keep myself up to speed with the theories that i read about. more like a way to keep them from getting completely stale and lifeless to me (believe it or not.. freud and erikson are NOT a rollercoaster ride of excitement!!). If i can apply the cl***room to a TV show i like to help understand the concept, cool.
plus, i like to fully submerge myself into a show. If im going to get attached to something, i go all the way in. I grok it as best as i can.
at any rate, that is my idea of comparing human psychology to aliens on scifi. i think it can work to a point, unless there is a cultural difference. of course, the sci fi show usually points those out pretty clearly. and my ideas as to the development of Chianna. What do you guys think? Andrew aka WillBoone in #farscape on efnet
"Charybdis y La Zanahoria" JClay...@wam.umd.edu
You're also forgeting that Freud was a cokehead.
His research is unreproducable.
And he had 'issues'.
What is there to perfect?
Naturally. Otherwise we'd all be watchin something else.
<SNIP> I'm not sure his 'entire' race is greedy. He is royalty, and has probably lived in a certain lifestyle his entire life. He is the 'politician' in the show. He's slimy, sluglike, machiavellian, and will do what is in his best interests to survive. I also think he is over compensating since he 'allowed' his brother to take the throne from him.
You've got a one track mind and I think you lack objectivity.
In the outer territorities a few groups have the power; everyone else tries to survive .
If Chiana survived this long, it's because she's done what she needed to do to eat and keep living. I'm sure Jothee, Stark, and any other powerless person in that universe has.
I didn't see her ****ing anyone to death. At least not yet. I think her attraction to Jothee is because of both of their pasts...that they'll both do whatever to survive. Both of them are not physically strong and have to find other ways to get by. I also think she's got it for Jothee because they're both younger. Young people like to ****. Honestly, I think the only reason Chiana hesitates with Jothee is because she knows he'll kill Jothee or even worse...Her.
This is tiring. Are you saying that she's had sex with her brother?
Seriously. I think Chiana has problems expressing affection because either she has been using people, or they have been using her. In addition, she lives in a universe where if you don't cover your own ***, you end up dead, and she's seen plenty of people she could have cared for end up dead...or worse.
Chiana is a submissive character. Analyze the pyschology of Bondage and Discipline. It's the submissive, not the Dom, that actually has the power.
She's that way because it has served her well, as people tend to underestimate her....or think she's a sexual abuse survivor.
You really shouldn't see your work in everything.
Promiscuous, young, attractive, submissive, manipulative, survivor alien women do not equal sexual abuse survivor.
--
All women are in some way beautiful.
This is one of the wonderful things about being a man.
JeRC
markmorri ...@cableinet.co.uk (Mark Morrison)
They only stories I can remember reading in which the alien's are really 'alien' in thought and deed are 'Stranger In A Strange Land' by Heinlein and 'A Mote In God's Eye' by Pournelle and Niven (I think...). In both cases human motivation can't easily be attached to the aliens, or in SiaSL's case, a human raised by aliens.
We don't know all Hynerians are greedy and selfish as Rygel is the only example we've seen (and are likely to considered the cost involved in his 'puppet'.
However, his greed can also be attributed to the fact he was a dominar for a long time, with all the comforts complete leadership would imply, and later a prisoner, forced to look after himself to the exclusion of anyone else. In the last ep of Season 1John called him on this, and it briefly seemed to have an effect, with Rygel acting concerned for the lost crewmembers during Mind The Baby. Sadly, this was quickly forgotten Season 2...
Since people like Solice (sp ?) exist at all, ie tracking down Nebari who refuse to conform, we can ***ume it happens on a fairly regular basis. Perhaps this is one way for Nebari to express their independance ? Her brother seems a fairly straight, honourable person so Chiana's behaviour may not be indictive of all non-conformed Nebari. Or maybe Nebari are simply highly sexed ? Conforming by force may have once been a way to control population growth. We don't know Chiana has any feelings for Jothee at all. He spun her a line "Hey babe, ditch the square and come for a ride on my Harley...." Plus she was pissed at D'Argo for acting like an *** (in a radical departure for his character), and was in a state of shock after seeing D'Argo's marriage proposal. All in all, I personally will cut her a little slack. I think you're obsessed with Chiana.
(psssst, I have some fakes you may be interested in...) I thing you should change your name.
Is WesleyCrusher taken ?
"Tom Francis" t...@neca.com
He expounded on Piaget's ideas and adapted them to his world view.
But I won't quibble...........
Overstating the obvious.
Of course fictional characters are written for humans. I have yet to read fiction written for dogs and my dogs are pretty smart. Come to think of it, I haven't seen any fiction written for mules either and Ralph ain't no dummy either. I have seen articles written for my son's parakeet but he reads off the bottom of the cage and frankly, his opinion of the written word is fairly obvious.
<everything from here on is realted to sci-fi characters> However, be that as it may, your supposition would seem to imply that ALL characters must be placed within a human frame of reference with the resultant human motives and human failings.
I would state that the only thing with human reference is that a fictional character stands up right, walks on two feet, has opposable thumbs and speaks. Other than that, everything is up for grabs.
Huh?
On the one hand you are saying that the writers are incapable of not putting their own feelings, thoughts and humanity into a character and in the same paragraph are saying that they express human emotional states in an inhuman manner.
Which is it?
Are you confusing certain areas of human behavior to be similar to alien behavior? To wit: Battle Lust to Luxan Hyper Rage?
I would like a specific here.
I'm not at all convinced of this. Zhaan feels sorry for HOW she had to do what she did, not the fact that she did it. It was necessary - the actual workings of that necessity is what gives her grief and I'm not at all sure that is even true. She has demonstrated her ability to kill at several points in Season One and Two and it hasn't affected her ability to function at all.
Ever met a Venture Capitalist? Or a Finance Banker?
It would seem to me that greed is universal. Beyond the human scale, there is plenty of evidence in the animal kingdom that greed is a universal concept period. "I'll eat my fill, then you can have yours unless I change my mind" activity of lions and wolves come to mind here.
No, it takes very little to condition using physical stimulus of one sort or another. In particular, if your peers are involved in "acceptable" activity, the pressure to conform is trememdous. Add physical stimuli and it don't take much to create acceptable behavior.
Being psychologist, I would have thought you would have understood that.
Really? Didn't take much for HIV to spread beyond it's confines. It would be fairly simple to grab onto an idea of spreading a deadly virus to infect your enemies.
And if you think about it, what better way to deliver a simple virus than sexual contact?
Hmmmm- and this is a relevation? You have to have a delivery system for any weapon - a living delivery system is the most obvious.
You must have missed the part of the Nebari Underground. Apparently there are more than just Chiana and her brother involved in rebellion against the status quo. Your supposition here doesn't hold water.
Chiana is not unique- in fact, she is part of a larger environment in which there is an active revolution taking place.
I will grant you one point - she was used as a agent to deliver a weapon.
However, it may just have been a part of a scheme to use those who are determined to valueless to society or those who just won't fit in.
To ***ume that Chiana was deprogrammed or subjected to abuse of one sort or another to develop her behavior is solely supposition.
See above.
~~ snippies ~~ I asked myself that question about word one.
I disagree. Chiana has demonstrated in the past that she knows the difference between love and sex and has compartmentalized sex into the realm of the physical. Which is not to say that in her view love and sex can not be cojoined, but she understands that one is physical and one is of the heart. It is not complicated for her as it is for humans.
And now that I think about that, I know several people who have that same set of values - they can and do seperate the two and successfully.
Whoopsie - Freud leaking through here.
I think you are over thinking this.
I still think you need to get a life.
What am I talking about - I actually answered this.
Who's got the bucket? I really need the bucket................
Thinkum thinkumNOS...@snurcher.com
Hmm. Here's my take on it: the creative team is human, but they want the characters to be alien, so they try to introduce non-human approaches to things. I think you're approaching this issue as being constrained by the circumstances of production, whereas I'm seeing the opportunities granted by having freedom from constraints on the intent of production.
That's part of why I couldn't figure out why you wanted to ***ign a human framework to Chi's character. To look at humans in a different way, you have to step outside of the human box. Showing us a character who develops in a particular way, *without* any of the past experiences which might create a similar result in a human, gives us an opportunity to step back and examine ourselves in a new light.
I loved 'Mote', and the whole concept of Crazy Eddie.
Agreed, but I'm not sure they stem from the same causes.
I'm sure this group could come up with a half dozen altnerate explanations. We don't actually know how typical Salis is, of Nebari in general. Remember, while professing to be emotionally controlled, he still groped Chi in her cell.
There we go. ;-) That doesn't hold water, however, given that Salis et al were sent to track her down and bring her in for mind-cleansing. Why would they want to undo their own work?
I'm not convinced that trauma has to be involved, in order for Chi to develop such a casual attitude towards sex. Witness the PK mandate re: "recreating".
For that matter, as Joan said earlier in this discussion, witness the many, many humans who have developed a similar attitude, without being sexually traumatized.
Interesting idea...
But that's a mighty big "if".
My impression was that she was having a good time, then found out she was infected, got the cure, and only then returned to bed hopping.
Strong evidence for this point. But no need for it to stem from trauma.
No problem there. I'm pretty anal myself. But...
...I think you went a little beyond the point where it works, in this case. ;-) <smack> That was uncalled for, Mark.
--
Thinkum http://www.snurcher.com/
Grond o...@youdont.com
Didn't Freud die of oral cancer from smoking too many cigars?
Kinda sad he died of an oral fixation.
Thinkum thinkumNOS...@snurcher.com
I can't believe I actually wrote that awful sentence...
--
Thinkum http://www.snurcher.com/
larson_ ...@yahoo.com (Jim Larson)
Hey, I liked it. I didn't necessarily understand it, but I liked it.
--
Jim
"Tom Francis" t...@neca.com
Wha? Huh?
Made as much sense as anything whosis wrote...............
drewblackNOS ...@alltel.net (Andrew Black)
nice job Tom, i really saw a desire in a few places to discuss the topic underneath all that sarcasm.
On Wed, 14 Mar 2001 17:17:53 -0500, "Tom Francis" <t...@neca.com> wrote: i guess that is funny. actually the parrot part is quite witty.
this is a good point. there are plenty of differences. i believe i pointed that out at lenght in my writing of cultural differences and such. what part was i cloudy on? tell me and ill clarify.
you may be onto something with the Zhaan thing. id have to watch that episode again. But seeing as how zhaan is a priestess, im sure she actually feels quite a bit of pain everytime she kills someone. she just keeps that pain to herself for her meditations.
that is not the point of the paragraph. the writers, while doing a supurb job in creating an alien character, are still going to develop that character along a human type story line... actually, it can be much more profound than that. perhaps the collective unconciousness that Jung often wrote about applies to all sentient life. so, while there will be cultural differences in aliens and humans, the subconcious drives will be universal. that is completely within the relm of possiblity. if that is the case than while the cultural differences of an alien might differ from humans, the unconcious desires of sentient life to strike out and better itself (among other things) will still apply. and if this is the case, then human personality development and alien personality development may actually be more similar than you realise. yes.. i do understand. but the ideas i put forth later that she had few rolemodels to encourage rebellion in her culture (all have been mind cleansed.) didnt i mention that as well?
again. Im afraid youve missed a key point. the TONS of research i referred to is the nebarrie practice of Mental Cleansing, not trauma.
this would literally take hundreds of years of intensive research and study of inner psychology as well as the biology of the brain. I was not referring to the behavioristic modifications that i was theorizing may have happened to chianna. perhaps i wasnt clear on this. i shall check my origional post.
honestly, by some of your comments, it appears to me that you may have not read the entire post through and tried to understand it at all before replying. you may have simply cut and pasted points you thought you could use to blast me. I thought i allowed for many of your statements and quesions within the body of my origional post. of course, a few are just obivious slaps at me.
no.. i took that into account. i did mention chiana, her brothers, and others at least once. that is the thing about behaviorism, once a person realises you are conditioning them, they can voluntarily extinct a behavior. Free will is indeed a powerful thing. Chiannas brother is obiviously very strong in his will. i hope to see more of him. kind of reminds me of Marius in Les Miserables.
well yes.. this is all suppostion. and a very thought provoking one i think. didnt i make that clear in my previous post? towards the end?
again.. maybe it wasnt clear to you. try reading the very last of the post if you are not sure.
this was a very predictable quip, and one i added in just so i could see for myself that you would perform. thanks:) the above paragraph is mine.. the bottom 2 the other guys.. for those playing along at home.
now THIS is what im talking about!!! this is the conversation i was hoping for. why cant you skip all the snidness and just converse in this manner?
see, this is the thing. i dont believe that she has fully integrated the 2. the entire idea comes from the idea that chiana is quite a trollop, and this must come from somewhere. I have seen chiana grow quite a lot. I think we will see much more of this growth with Jothee. now granted, she may at times seem like she can seperate the 2, but chiana has had more than enough time to realise that Dargo is not happy when she gos around haveing sex with guys to get information and the like. Now, she did this to get information on Jothee, so that means that she does care for Dargo (like there is really any question about that). now.. if her and jothee go where it looks like they are going, i think it may show even more that chiana is was seeing dargo as more of a father figure than a lover or partner. someone that loves a man as a lover and partner doesnt try to have sex with his son. chiana, while physically mature and in many ways fully grown, is still a child when it comes to expressing love approprately.
sigh.. nothing wrong with freud logic here. Freud was right about this stuff:) all and all, nice post. you really had something going towards the end there.. but you lapsed into insults again. but, at least you realised that you were answering the post, so you are as "guilty" at over thinking the topic as i ...
Thinkum thinkumNOS...@snurcher.com
The sad thing is, that was the third or fourth revision of the sentence...
Oh, well.
--
Thinkum http://www.snurcher.com/
Thinkum thinkumNOS...@snurcher.com
Um, Andrew. That wasn't an insult. That was an opinion.
Here's some backstory: the bucket is standard issue in here, and is a shorthand way of saying, "hey, I've gone overboard on this topic, and I should go soak my head." When someone calls for the bucket, it means they're recognizing that it's time to back it off a bit. You don't need to yell at them, because they're already doing it for you.
That was kind of his point.
You're still taking it a little too seriously -- there really wasn't an insult in there. And, this place RUNS on one liners. ;-)
--
Thinkum http://www.snurcher.com/
"Tom Francis" t...@neca.com
No - don't wanna play no more.
drewblackNOS ...@alltel.net (Andrew Black)
On Wed, 14 Mar 2001 15:54:05 -0500, "Charybdis y La Zanahoria" sure he had issues.. he had a pulse. but as i said.. i go by eriksons model.. which is actually a much more positive one than Freuds. Freud was a pessimist. as far as perfecting Freud.. freud believed that all human development was due to sex. Erikson saw that freuds ideas where on the right trail, but sex wasnt the root, it was a need to grow and improve.
Freud also stopped his concepts of defelopment at adolescence.
Erikson continued on to develop stages of life up to the end of a mans natural life span (old age). its a pretty long explination. if you are really interested in knowing about it, i can recommend some books.
or we could correspond via email. its not really on topic here is all.
true. thats why i like him. he is an unapologetic bastard. it lends a certian charm after a while. at least from a character on a TV show. annoying as hell in real life.
i wouldnt say one track. just focused on this idea. yeah.. chiana did what she had to do to survive. i think she should be commended on staying alive and free as long as she did.
yeah.. that too!!
heh.. no.. i dont think incest is up chiana alley. doesnt seem the type. you actually did find what could be a weak link in the idea.
but i dont think that, if my idea is even close to being on target, incest would be an efficent thing to train her for. what good would it be to get her to have sex with someone who was already infected?
exactly. that goes right in with the idea of early trauma.
heh.. touche. actually, that is a pretty accurate idea. people do tend to treat people that were sexually abused differently, and in many cases let the victim get away with all kinds of things.
conciously or not. have you ever tended to look the other way on someone on some things because they have "had it rough" lately?
of course, this doesnt usually last, and you either get fed up with the person and call them on it or you dont hang out with them anymore.
nah.. i dont see it in everyting.. but applying it to a tv show i like is a great way of remembering how it works.. so long as i dont start thinking all sex abuse cases are chiana.. and all obsessive compulsives are, say, Pilot. lol no.. they dont. just an interesting excursion. all and all.. i think this idea might make a good fan fiction. like i said.. just some thoughts.
Nick nick_sim...@yahoo.com
Ummm, that is my life. You may NOT take it away from me.
--
Nick
Nick nick_sim...@yahoo.com
It is just as well. I probably would have neglected my posting duties.
Or maybe the country. One would have suffered. Maybe both.
--
Nick
larson_ ...@yahoo.com (Jim Larson)
May I be his court jester? I do so love playing the fool.
From Presidential candidate and running mate to this. How the mighty have fallen.
--
Jim
beneskitmN ...@earthlink.net (Mark)
/me hands Jim his cane.....
~ Mark
Thinkum thinkumNOS...@snurcher.com
Don't worry, Nick dearest, you will forever be our resident King of One Liners.
--
Thinkum http://www.snurcher.com/
lpeterson lpete...@bellsouth.net
I'll be honest, if the writers went in that direction, I think I'd scream.
Sexual abuse in fiction has become something of a cliche. Any time a writer wants to create angst in a character they drag that out. It's becoming tired, which is a shame because I think on some level it could desensitize people to the tragedy of sexual abuse. With a good actress and good writing, Chiana's character has plenty of depth without going that route. And I think that it has already been revealed that Chiana has had a very difficult life that she has had to survive that sexual abuse would, in a way, trivialize. IMHO
--Trulie
freight ...@hotmail.com (freightboy)
Timothy Zahn wrote a book from an entirely non-human perspective, but I cannot remember the name of the book. It was the second book in a trilogy that he wrote.
Rygel isn't greedy. Greed is a desire for wealth beyond ones needs or wealth for its own sake. Rygel doesn't care for wealth as wealth.
Rather Rygel sees wealth as a method for him to retake the throne and punish his cousin. And from what we saw of Rygel in Jeremiah Crichton, he might well have been a good Dominar.
[...]
freight ...@hotmail.com (freightboy)
I don't think that Zhaan is sorry that she killed her lover, that was a necessity. Rather, she is upset that it was necessary to kill her lover. The fact that her lover betrayed not only her but the entire Delvian race likely causes her as much sorrow as her having to kill him if not more.
Greed is an irrational desire for wealth. Rygel's desire is purely rational. He sees wealth as a means to an end, not the end itself.
If he wanted wealth for the sake of being wealthy, then he would be greedy, but if he desires wealth to bankroll a revolution in the Hinerian Empire then the wealth is only a means to an end and not a desire for the wealth itself.
[...]
drewblackNOS ...@alltel.net (Andrew Black)
well.. there is no real stem for anything with this idea. i see it as just an alternate take on a background we really dont know about and probably never will. see, people do this kind of stuff with shakespeare all the time.
analyse it in oodles of different directions. search around for some character studies of Hamlet sometime. they can be a pretty good read.
Its all strictly academic of course. Hamlet isnt real. also, i like to do this with TV characters because it opens up my mind more to alternate pathways of thinking. i mean.. i cant PROVE the idea anymore than anyone else can DISPROVE it (unless of course, they do something about it on the show. but since im not offering it really as fact, more as food for thought, that really wouldnt matter so much.
at least not to me.) its just observation based on what ive seen on the show, and what i know about psychology. yes.. its mental masturbation, completely and fully. it is thinking about a subject just for the sheer joy of thinking about it. i really cant see why that is so hard for a few people in the group to grok. but it is pretty interesting. and its different from what i tended to see in here well, chiana did break the cleansing, and get cured from the disease.
and she kinda knew about their whole plot. so best just to have her cleansed. their plot failed, at least with her and her brother.
becides.. like i said.. a race of people that would systematically traumatize its young to carry out a plot like the nebarrie have for the universe is pretty damn scarey. and i like my bad guys to be complete monsters.
markmorri ...@cableinet.co.uk (Mark Morrison)
On Wed, 14 Mar 2001 21:35:12 -0500, Thinkum From now on, I will envision Nick as looking like Chandler....
(I'll be kind - Season 1 Chandler, as opposed to Season 6 Chandler.
Pre-bloat, in other words.)
markmorri ...@cableinet.co.uk (Mark Morrison)
On Wed, 14 Mar 2001 20:33:27 -0500, Thinkum You revise your posts ?
I can barely remember to check for spelling errors...
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