#dsc meta

[mswyrr]

thoughts on sarek and amanda

Sarek was born in 2165, just 10 years after the first official Vulcan/human couple was exposed and their hybrid baby died due to bigotry/terrorism. And just 11 years into the Reformation of Vulcan practices inspired by the discovery of Surak’s writings in the Kir’Shara. Prior to that a very conservative vision of their religion had developed based off interpretations of fragmentary accounts of his teachings. The writings would have taken decades to translate and then even more decades to consider and integrate, so he was born at a time of massive change into a very conservative society. The fact that he’s as much of a dreamer and visionary and as devoted to change as he is is actually quite impressive.

People at the forefront of change never have a map or help and so they’re often total weirdos who massively screw up, so he’s quite realistic from that pov. Particularly considering that the level of intense social control and uniformity on Vulcan is something we’ve never seen on Earth - so if Earth people who try to figure out new ways of being have struggled and been total weirdos, it would be even more true for this guy.

Sarek didn’t just need to stay on Vulcan because he thinks Vulcans are better: he’s devoted to transforming his home culture and society and he cannot do that on another planet. When Amanda isn’t totally pissed off at him, the fact that he’s so devoted to making change is probably one of the things she fell in love with.

When she’s not terrified for her child and furious with her husband, she probably also feels committed to the cause of promoting change. They got married 72 years after the first hybrid baby, Elizabeth, died. They would have known they were only the second open Vulcan/human couple in history and had to talk about what that meant, given what galactic bigotry did to T’Pol and Trip and their child. The line from TOS where Sarek tells Spock he married Amanda because “at the time, it seemed the most logical thing to do” - well, first off, LOL. But second... IDK how they didn’t have some deep convos and decide together to carry the burden of trying to make change in this society.

The fact that she feels, when she hits her limit, perfectly fine dragging his ass all over town and letting him know exactly what she’s feeling and he is like 😧😧 😧 but hearing her actually indicates how much deep love is there.

This is a guy who ripped off part of his Katra/soul and gave it to his daughter because he loved her so much he’d cause himself ongoing psychic harm (potentially ultimately leading to his Bendii Syndrome in later life) to preserve her life. I can totally see why long talks where Amanda came to understand the heart of someone who can be that giving and loving (and who loves his people so much and wants so much for them to change for the better) would lead her to falling in love with him.

Whatever they’re doing in the bedroom, the sex is probably mindblowing. Their physicality with each other is intense. I’m just saying ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

They didn’t fuck their kids up that much worse than a ton of people who highly value academic excellence and push their kids too hard, who have a fundamentally repressed home life where emotions aren’t welcome, and who demand the impossible of their kids without realizing how damaging they’re being.

IMO they’re at just the right spot of fucked up but still deeply loving to be powerful to me, both as a couple and a family. There’s no family that doesn’t screw up in one way or another. And no romance where everything is perfect. Loving people means they’ll break your heart. I really like them. And I like that they’re at the heart of Michael’s story, where she’s invested in her family and figuring herself out through them.

If they were perfect there’d be nothing for the narrative or Michael to work with in terms of figuring herself and the human condition out. When you make family the core of the story, you have to let that family be kind of messed up because you’re using them to talk about what it means to be a person in relationship to others. Which always has some pain in it, even in the healthiest relationships.

[mswyrr]

Here’s the thing: Michael is the lead character. And she’s treated like one. So giving her female coded (and undervalued) things, like, caring deeply for her family and spending a lot of emotional effort/focus on them (figuring out who she is through them, seeking understanding through them, caring for them), that is actually saying: these things have value because our lead cares about them. That’s not giving her undervalued girl stuff, it’s saying this stuff shouldn’t be undervalued.

And you can really see it in 2x07: the way the camera and lighting and music is saying This. Is. Important. about a young woman caring for her mentally ill brother, loving and relating with her mother, and coping with her parents’ deep relationship issues.

This is the center of Michael’s heart/universe so it’s the center of the heart/universe of the story - literally life and death for everyone hangs on this. Her emotional focus is followed by plot importance.

It’s not a diminishment of her, it’s a show brave enough to tell a story about the kind of love and care that is shunted aside as boring/ugly/gross/girl stuff and saying: NO WAKE UP. This shit *matters*.

I love that. It’s totally cool for female characters to get stories within the range of stuff we’ve gotten for men; I love some instances of that.

But Michael does things I have to do, in my life, because of the way the burden of care in my family falls on me and how I try to cope with my feelings/handle life. And that matters so much to me - that this story is not only seeing that labor and love, but saying: this is the whole world. This is the most important thing in the galaxy. Everything hangs on this. The journey into this emotionally is the journey to save nothing less than everyone.

Because, you know what? As shitty as the world is, we’d all stop surviving if the billions of women who invest in their families and communities and focus on that stopped doing what they do. There are men and other folks who do those things too, but the majority of keeping our species alive and functional is women. Damn right a Sci Fi show should treat that like it’s endlessly important, should film that love like it’s vital and grand.

Michael ended a bloody war last season! She has more to her life than family. But there’s nothing shameful about family and, done this way, it can be centered positively. I have zero problem with lush lighting and music and a lens flare being used to depict a sister caring for her ill brother. It’s being handled as if it’s just as important as Michael fighting hand-to-hand in a badass Mirrorverse fight because it is to Michael. And that’s cool.

Rock the fuck on, DSC! And thank you.

[mswyrr]

Michael takes on too much responsibility for the well-being of people she cares about. If she cannot care for them + make things better, then she has to blame herself - because feeling like she’s at fault is actually easier to cope with than accepting that she’s powerless. That bad things can just happen to people she loves and she doesn’t even get the security/certainty of being the one who’s to blame.

(This is why we see her desperate to help Ash and Tilly - because they’re people she loves who she can do things for, can try to fix things for)

So IMO sure I think she messed up with her brother. But I don’t think she’s objective about exactly what went down. And even as she’s explaining that she pushed Spock away in fear (and IMO self-blame over her parents dying: as a child she felt like *her love* was what brought peril upon people, so she pushed Spock away to keep him safe and to punish herself for being the bringer of bad things) ... she’s *pushing Amanda away* out of the fear of losing *her* and to punish herself.

Annnd Amanda is kind of super messed up herself right now so it hit her on the raw. But, you know... nobody is evil here. They’re depicting some real shit about how people flail and lash out and break under the pressure of someone they love being very sick.

[mswyrr]

DSC 2x12 “through the valley of shadows”

That came together so beautifully I am a little dizzy over it. Lemme see if I can break down the LOOOVE.

-Right, so Control tells us that it was created out of the Federation’s trauma over the Klingon War - they sought to have control by making Control, to prevent another war, a loss so terrible. To make things safe. Like Michael tried to make little Spock safe by breaking his heart. It’s an understandable reaction: loss is a terrible, terrible thing. But as Jett--who lost her wife in the Klingon War, and that is so important because of how it ties together the different responses to trauma and loss--tells Hugh: you can’t run from it. What the hell are you doing, running from it? This is what we have. This life, this loss, this death. You can’t take the parts you like and sanitize the rest. You can live or you can die, but you can’t live safe. Nobody is safe until they’re dead. Control is just following that traumatized logic to its natural conclusion: a world where nobody ever loses anyone again.

Because there’s no love, there’s no joy, no sapient life.

-Michael is the right person to fight Control because she, in the first half of the season, processed her own weakness in that area. She fought her way through, like Paul and Hugh are having to fight. Like Pike is having to fight. To say: this is who I am, this is what I love, this is the sorrow I am willing to bear for the beauty of that belief. For the joy I can have in my choices, the satisfaction of living my life on my own terms.

-Control saying "to prevent a war from even starting" - "with control it's not an impossibility" is in direct opposition to the surrender Pike chooses - surrender to the price of living as he wishes to live, in the beliefs he has devoted himself to. When he tells himself “You are a Starfleet captain. You believe in service, sacrifice, compassion... in love" it reminded me of reciting the Nicene Creed. In that sense of telling/speaking your belief to yourself.

-The writers clearly have some folks who know divorce/blended families imo. Ash and L’Rell were such a divorced couple trying to be decent but with all this damage between them and their love for their son, which causes as much conflict as it can give them common ground. Pike letting them know their boy grew up to be a good man--someone who has his own faith and principles and has fulfilled his part in the story of protecting life--was so kind and so heartbreaking.

-Michael and ASH. As part of this beautiful kaleidoscope of long-term relationships, broken and healed, as part of the idea that you never really stop loving someone, even as your life changes.

-SPOCK AND MICHAEL. They’re reconciled but that doesn’t mean they cannot be SPICY and SASSY and annoooyyyyed at each other LOL <333 He’s always gonna be her beloved, annoying little brother and she’s always gonna be his big sister who doesn’t want to listen to her little bro (but he’ll look out for her anyway as best he can!). The joy in their reunion (and the love of Amanda and Gabrielle) shows the very sweetness that everyone is fighting to protect.

Oh, it hurts like hell. Loving and living. It hurts like HELL. And sometimes, like, Hugh, we just need a freaking break. Time to heal. But it is so good. There is so much goodness there too.

-Gabrielle left and changed as a person, but her love didn’t leave Michael or Gabrielle’s heart. Tenavik has become a person L’Rell and Ash will never know, but he’s also the best of his parents. And the love in their hearts and in his hasn’t died, through time and change. We lose people but the miracle is in all the ways that we don’t when we might have.

Jett saying to Hugh: look at this chance you’ve got. What’s the matter with you??? You’ve got a chance. Grab it. Live your life. ;___;

Annnd then you combine all that with the worldbuilding--cool Klingon stuff, the fallout of the Federation lingering in a realistic sense through their Control mistake--and the beauty of the visuals and I just.... /hugs episode/ YEEESS.

[mswyrr]

When everyone comes together to tell Michael they’re making this sacrifice with her, I was reminded of these quotes from earlier in the season:

"And for the record, there is not a single person on this bridge who would abandon a Starfleet brother or sister sir." --Michael Burnham, DSC 2x01

“Starfleet is a promise. I give my life for you; you give your life for me. And nobody gets left behind.” --Christopher Pike, DSC 2x05

You give your life knowing that those around you would/will give just as much. I feel like the connective stuff between episodes and what exactly they were saying about faith could have been clearer, but they were working up to 2x13. We could have seen more of the crew, though we did see more than in S1, and they could have hit this stuff harder, but they were weaving it in clearly with a plan in mind.

[mswyrr]

philippa and redemption

I think there’s actually a ton of different ways to conceive of “redemption,” which is partly why discussions of it can become so heated.

Anyway, specific to DSC, a redemption arc usually works best for me when there is some “higher calling” a redeemed character can be converted to. And in S2 they made Federation humanism* so stunningly grand and beautiful that that love and ingenuity could actually birth an “angel.”

(Two if we’re counting Gabrielle too - but Michael’s angelic transformation is particularly shown to be the result of the efforts of the whole crew. She is surrounded by all their love and all their faith and knowledge. Whereas Gabrielle is more of a familial love born angel, even though she also works to save everyone)

And Philippa is the lone soul not with that party. Which adds bite to the narrative because not everyone is on board. But if they WANTED to, they could make S3 a kind of conversion narrative of her to that... in her own fashion.

Because they’ve upheld it as being just that spectacular.

That could be interesting - they could go another direction and keep her some darker shade of grey or whatever too. I’m not saying they HAVE TO do it, but they really have elevated their vision of humanism in the way that it’s a faith itself.

Though too radical of a transformation might not work because usually that’s for someone who is not intended to be a lead themselves...

But they could if they wanted to. It depends on what kind of lead they want Philippa to be. Is she someone still changing or someone who has had a Road to Damascus moment and is now working her butt off to do good? Or something else? IDK.

There’s a lot of options that could all be powerful, they just need to fully commit to one.

The only demand I do make of them is that they do something--pick one!--and show us exactly what’s going on inside her heart. How she got from where she was to where she is and why she’s headed in a direction that will start off with S1 of Section 31 after DSC s3 concludes.

They’ve got a season to do enough work to ground that, even if they intend her arc to be incomplete so they can keep working at her on her own show.

*It’s interspecies “humanism” based around IDIC but you know what I mean

[mswyrr]

DSC 2x14

That was GORGEOUS. And I felt like the epic visuals had deep emotional resonance, so it wasn’t just pretty for pretty’s sake. The vastness of space with Michael, protected only by the love and scientific knowledge of her parents (and her team), leading the charge of her people into the unknown like the archangel Michael is said to lead the hosts of heaven? COOOOL

It’s an embrace of her mother -- and her mother’s embrace of her -- but it’s also letting go. People come together in this episode, they hold on and let go. But never really let go? It made me think of the same poem last week did: i carry your heart with me(i carry it in / my heart). Acting in the manner that your love has brought you to (Spock reaching out to more people, finding his own path) means your path is walking in that love, even when the person isn’t with you. It was really great to see everything come together emotionally and plotwise

Michael + Spock’s relationship was really, really expertly pulled off. The strongest arc of S2 and kind of shockingly, that they could dance that line of old and new canon in a way that ultimately felt so powerful so often. Kudos to Sonequa and Ethan, who really sold it, but also to the directors who gave us a powerful sense of their bond visually and the writers ofc! They didn’t shy away from letting Michael and Spock struggle and hurt each other and strive together to love each other better. That grit made the joy all the more rewarding when it came. Like the sun rising after a long, cold night! Beautiful work. It’s so cool that the emotional core of S2 is a sibling relationship.

I’m hopeful that, of our two canon couples, Paul and Hugh are together (that scene was lovely!) and Michael and Ash are separated... that definitely will be reconciled next Season! We’ve got good set up for what they’re going to do in S3 in the emotional separations and questions left IMO.

I’m quite excited by the prospect of S3 generally. S2 has already been this huge, impressive improvement over S1 despite the BTS struggles they had. With a new showrunner steering the ship more steadily combined with that capacity for growth in the writing, there’s a lot to look forward to!

[mswyrr]

dsc 2x10

I saw it as being a kind of trust fall. Instead of Michael being responsible to take care of all the people around her, she let go and put her life in their hands, it became their responsibility to take care of her. So we get a lot of people showing her that they love her and then fighting over each other, how best to care for her life/catch her when she’s chosen to fall. It’s angsty and hurt/comfort-y but at heart it’s about how Spock, Ash, Philippa, Paul, Hugh, and everyone on the Discovery love and care for her and will catch her when she falls. And then ultimately the reveal that her mom loved her so much she brought through all of time and space to get to her.

IMO I don’t get the criticism that everything is too much “about Michael” - her parents were her universe’s version of the Manhattan Project scientists, with the kind of science-as-magic mad powers that Paul has. Paul can bring Hugh back from the dead, because he walks on that bleeding edge of science and tech.

And Michael’s mom can cross all of time and space for her daughter. Having parents who are science wizards and involved in the “dark side” of the Federation through Section 31 explains it just fine.