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Originally Posted by persianmouse
Gee, when did playing a flawed, complicated, and compelling character become a bad thing? T'pol is not a traditional Vulcan, they've never played her as a traditional Vulcan, she's...a little nutty. And I really don't see anything wrong with that. Human beings aren't all the same, why should that be true for vulcans. She has some emotional problems (and from way before the whole trellium-d, that was a symptom of her emotional issues, not the cause), and bally-hoo for TPTB for showing that in the future, people still have issues. And yes, she's Vulcan, but there were bound to be Insane, mad, eccentric Vulcans out there. It would make sense for her to be one. A vulcan living on a human ship, forging new ground, being an explorer, a revolutionary, is probably not gonna be someone who never rocks the boat. Now I'm not saying I approve of her drug habit, but that's the thing, you weren't supposed to like it, that story-line was supposed to piss you off, nobody is going 'yay for drugs!' over there. She was inadvertantly addicted to a substance she was initially exposed to through no fault of her own, and once she realized that this was no longer 'social drinking', that she had a problem, she stopped, and she got help, and she hasn't relasped. That is strength of character right there, to not go back, it's not easy.
Oh, and about the whole eating with your hands thing and picking up other human habits, here's a little lesson anyone who's ever taken a Sociology course should know; When a person goes and lives with another group, another culture, they begin to pick up small habits of that culture, even subconsciencely. An American goes to Europe for a few years, they come back smoking their cigarettes like a European, calling an elevator a 'lift' and eating scones. Or you go to Japan, and start taking you shoes off when you walk into a home, and bowing slightly when shaking hands. It's the natural flow of things, to adapt to new surroundings, to become part of the pack. So therefor, T'pol would probably pick up a few habits, like eating with her hands, or saying 'thank you'. She's not rejecting being Vulcan, so she eats with her hands, whoop-piddee-freakin-doo.
Most of this is just because she's Vulcan, and there is a misconception that you can define that into one particular set of rules, and if you deviate from those rules in any way, you cease to be Vulcan. No one has that kind of predjudice when it comes to humans on the show. Define what it is to be a Human being, give me a set of rules and social mores and cultural ideals that all humans have, and if they don't, then they are not human. Can you do that? When Trip does something, does anybody ask "Is that something a Human would do?" No, they ask "Is that something Trip would do?" whenever T'pol does anything the first thing said is "that's not something a Vulcan would do" T'pol is not just a Vulcan, she is a person in her own right with her own flaws and attributes, her own ideas and principles.I think it is good of the writers to write a race on star trek like it is an actual race, with differences, and varients and devience. And yes admittidly, there is some T&A for no purpose other than T&A, but that's everywhere on TV, it's like commericals, and it should not distract you from the overall story.
It's often said that strife and conflict on the set creates something really wonderfull on camera, so i don't care what dumb-ass things Jo wants to say, so long as she stays with the show, and portrays T'pol as well as she does.
-c.
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