Pretty much my take the comments made followed by the smiley crossed the line from the discussion we were having -a valid enough discussion that comes up about once a year- into being down-right creepy.
The "Keiko situation" (Rascals)
- Thread starter Mach5
- Start date
Pretty much my take the comments made followed by the smiley crossed the line from the discussion we were having -a valid enough discussion that comes up about once a year- into being down-right creepy.
^ It's not even the devil emoticon that is freaking people out. It's the comments themselves.
Frankly, I took their reaction being more about what he did rather than his desires. Riker flirts with & likely beds multiple members of that crew. sexual desires of one another hasn't ever been looked down upon there. What Barclay did was analogous to photoshopping pornographic pics of your coworkers on your work computer
Pegged it.
That was not an attempt at humor, but a valid consideration. Keiko was once again a prepubescent female child, with everything that physically comes with it. No maybe involved.There's a vast difference between discussing the topic in an adult manner and saying "Maybe she grew her hymen back."
Your discomfort is your own affair, again I didn't create this thread, nor swing it (in the second posting) in the direction of sex with someone who had become a physical child. Actually, from what I recall from the episode, Miles wasn't struggling with the idea of sex with Keiko, he was having trouble with the idea of touching her at all. Initially he could not even comfort her the way anyone would comfort a child, which is commonly to embrace them.
The direction of this threat really is empty, I've see no indicate that Miles is sexually oriented towards prepubescent girls, the fact that the girl in question is his spouse with a adult consciousness is irrelevant. I truly believe that Miles would be psychologically incapable of sex with a ten year old Keiko.
*****
A (somewhat long winded) discussion on employing the holodeck for the purpose of sex, rape, torture and pedophilia can be found here ...
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=138741&highlight=rape
(Happy Halloween)
I'm sure the writers and producers considered themselves as "brave" for coming up with this angle of O'Brien confronted with a child bride, and presenting it full-on, and maybe they were, but ... it gave me the willies. It was completely unnecessary to have this kind of story, to begin with, much less presenting this type of angle. What audience are they aiming for, with that? There wasn't even anything "explored," really ... it was just there to creep O'Brien out - and apparently, us too! TNG seemed to be on this kid kick, for a number of episodes and I'm glad it ran its course, because they were all stand-alones and it just seemed like the show had stumbled, creatively.
A
Amaris
Guest
I always assumed it was more of a "how can we make Mr. Everyman O'Brien suffer this week?" kind of thing.
Unspeakable; said:That was not an attempt at humor, but a valid consideration. Keiko was once again a prepubescent female child, with everything that physically comes with it. No maybe involved.There's a vast difference between discussing the topic in an adult manner and saying "Maybe she grew her hymen back.
You must realize that following up every post with "
" makes it very hard to see your posts as being anything other than an attempt to stir up the pot, don't you?Exactly. The dilemma was "Can our relationship survive this?" -- something much more urgent than, "Will I be able to get off tonight?" That was the whole point of -- in the very same scene -- Molly refusing to accept Keiko as her mother. It was about continuing the family, not getting laid.
It might have been interesting to have had a mini-arc with some of the children being require for some (TECHNO-BABBLE) reason to remain children for weeks. Keiko and perhaps Ro. Have Miles and Keiko arrive at some kind of relationship compromise, have a discussion/debate about child brides and the social effect of what the transporter can do, and what it shouldn't do within the federation society.
But in the rush to hit the reset button, that never happen.
No, actually I don't. The explanation for my usage of that "smile" was surmised by another poster and confirmed by me.You must realize that following up every post with "
It's just a tag, nothing more.
Last edited:
Honestly I think they just liked the 'what if' scenario of adults suddenly becoming kids. And the premise they chose forced them them to deal with somebody the person is in a relationship with, which they couldn't really get any closer to than having an uncomfortable hug on network TV.
What I don't get is the way the crew was unable to take commands from child Picard. I liked the way Stargate handled the same premise better. At the beginning everybody was raising their eyebrows at taking orders from a child, but then when he started talking like O'Neall, all the men could immediately tell it was him and respected his authority. Picard should have been able to demonstrate his authoritative Picard-ness and immediately win over the raised eyebrows.
Of course Stargate ended on kind of a creepy note, where child O'Neall was actually a clone of O'Neall and ended up going back to high school with the clear intention of hitting on high school age girls, which I would argue is more wrong than any affection between Keiko and Miles.
Although I would argue the only thing immoral about the topic is the lack of ability of the person to consent.
What I don't get is the way the crew was unable to take commands from child Picard. I liked the way Stargate handled the same premise better. At the beginning everybody was raising their eyebrows at taking orders from a child, but then when he started talking like O'Neall, all the men could immediately tell it was him and respected his authority. Picard should have been able to demonstrate his authoritative Picard-ness and immediately win over the raised eyebrows.
Of course Stargate ended on kind of a creepy note, where child O'Neall was actually a clone of O'Neall and ended up going back to high school with the clear intention of hitting on high school age girls, which I would argue is more wrong than any affection between Keiko and Miles.
Although I would argue the only thing immoral about the topic is the lack of ability of the person to consent.
I can't remember how old young O'Neill was, but heck, let's say I were to be a 14 year old kid again (20 years younger). I'd have absolutely no qualms about going after girls my current age that back then I was too chicken to talk to, or whatever reasons.
I'm actually glad they went that route, as opposed to the route Trek (or most other Sci-Fi would have taken) which would have been to kill off the clone (by having him deteriorate, or die a hero, or some shit like that). Props to SG-1 for having balls to go different!
As for the "Keiko" situation, man you guys are really seeing into it! I never got from the scenes we saw, that O'Brien was thinking about how he was going to get layed again.
Like said above, he was basically weirded out that he felt this little 10 year old girl was not his wife, even though technically he knew she was. He had to force himself to hug her even though he felt he was hugging a kid who was a stranger. The same reaction her daughter had.
No sane person would be thinking at that moment "man! my sex life is over now!" or even "hmm, can I get myself to have sex with this 10 year old kid?"
Interesting how some of you do think it can happen.
I agree. By which I mean, I think you're right - I never read anything creepy into this scene before, although the biggest reason for that is because we know what kind of person Miles O'Brien is, and he's an honourable one.
On the other hand, now that it's been mentioned, it's easy to start reading way too much into the whole situation and scene. If you look at anything too deeply, you can read all sorts of weird stuff into it. Recently, I developed a sort of bizarre theory that a silly but otherwise innocent scene in a Disney film was hiding a much more disturbing subliminal message, but that's not relevant to this thread so I won't go into it here. The point is, anything can be analysed enough that something which may have been intended to be harmless can be perceived by some individuals as quite the opposite - or anything and everything in-between.
Most of this scene is, IMO, both played for laughs (O'Brien reminding Keiko that the coffee is hot in a manner he would to a child, then realising he's wrong when she says his name in an accusatory manner and apologising) and for slightly depressing drama (their disagreements about stuff plus Molly not recognising her mother). I think one thing that COULD be perceived as creepy is this exchange: (the key words here being 'could be perceived' - chances are it wasn't intended to be anything creepy at all)
Miles: "It's... I don't know, but this feels wrong somehow."
Keiko: "Miles Edward O'Brien, I am still your wife."
Miles: "- Technically, yes. "
Keiko: "- Technically?"
Miles: "No, I-I mean, of course you're my wife. But you're also ten years old."
Keiko: "Beverly said it's actually closer to 12."
Miles: "- That's not the point. -"
Keiko: "So what is the point? - Is our marriage over?"
Miles: "- I didn't say that. But until they find a way to reverse this effect, it's hard to ignore the fact that you're a little girl."
Again, as I said above, there's a good chance that there is no deeper, darker meaning behind this dialogue really, and that it's simply there to show how Miles (quite understandably) finds it impossible to treat their relationship the same way, because physically Keiko's just a little girl.
Now, that could potentially be perceived as implying something sexual, that's to do with Miles being unable to treat the relationship the same way for that reason. On the other hand, thinking that could just be reading too much into the scene again. Besides, the very fact that Miles clearly wouldn't treat their relationship in the same way when she's in this altered state basically eliminates any real creepiness, because we know Miles is an honourable character - it'd be wrong if he didn't behave somewhat differently.
Either way, an intriguing discussion. Reading too much into various scenes is always interesting, whether the conclusions one comes to are accurate or not.
Stasis isn't really an option when you're raising a child.
One thing is certain: had George Lucas penned this episode, Kid Keiko would've ended up with sole custody of Molly, Miles would've ended up getting burnt to a crisp during the transporter malfunction, ending up on life support in an Iron Lung Suit ... and exacting his revenge on the ship until Keiko died of a broken heart.
How very random. 
Gotta shake things up, Jim! 
Similar threads
