This is not a place of honor

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L.I. Underhill is a media critic and historian specializing in pop culture, with a focus on science fiction (especially Star Trek) and video games. Their projects include a critical history of Star Trek told through the narrative of a war in time, a “heretical” history of The Legend of Zelda series and a literary postmodern reading of Jim Davis' Garfield.

3 Comments

  1. SK
    April 10, 2016 @ 10:36 pm

    What does it mean to be true to one's own self?

    Nothing. That's the point. It's just another in the string of meaningless platitudes and clichés, which are either contradictory or utterly meaningless, that Polonius spouts. The whole point of the line is to be the sort of thing that the idiot saying it thinks sounds profound, but the audience realises is totally meaningless, and so cue them in that this character is not someone whose advice on any matter is worth a single penny.

    People who think that Polonius's advice is actually meant to be taken are a bit like those who have Every Breath You Take played at their wedding.

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  2. Ross
    April 11, 2016 @ 3:51 pm

    I was always really bothered by the way that the point of the command test is "In this 30 second scenario, you have to sacrifice Geordi based on someone saying 'you've got to send someone to their death here'," with the assumption that if you don't kill your crewmember, but instead spend ANY TIME AT ALL trying to find another solution, you're not tough enough to command. When in fact we have spent seven fucking seasons at this point with it always being the case that there's another solution, and if you're going to have to sacrifice a regular, you spend all fucking episode agonizing about it and trying to find another way first. This isn't a command test, it's a sadism test pure and simple.

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  3. Froborr
    April 12, 2016 @ 3:31 am

    While Moore's particular notion of what a command test should entail are on him, ultimately a lot of the problem lies with the conflict between Roddenberry's military fetishism and the more progressive elements introduced by TOS' other major contributors, especially Coon and Fontana.

    Ultimately, the problem is that the concept of "Commander" exists at all. The Enterprise should be a team, not a hierarchy.

    Reply

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