Doubts with a scene in "Harbinger"

[Escriba]

No, it's not the "post sex breakfast scene" It's the one about T'Pol and Amanda Cole, when Amanda goes to the Vulcan's cabin to receive a "corrective treatment". I like this scene, considering that T'Pol acts like a witch through most part of the episode, in this scene she shows real concern when she asks if Amanda had lost somebody in the Xindi attack. Yes, there is the "I pushed too hard" incident , but I think this is more an accident than a deliberate attempt to make Cole a tetraplegic (and I love Jolene's "ooops" face).

But anyway, straight to the point, I have a doubt with a part of the scene. You know that in some point T'Pol tells Amanda that Trip lost his sister in the attack and Amanda replies that yes, she knows, and that he always talks about her. And this seems to affect T'Pol. It can be for two reasons:

1- She's hurt because Trip has never told her anything about Lizzie.

2- She realizes that Amanda is a real rival, since Trip has only talked about his sister to her. She knows he doesn't talk about her with any stranger. And maybe she's a little hurt because she thought that was her privilege or their little secret.

I dont' know really which of these two is more accurate. What do you think?

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

I took it to mean the first alternative. That reinforced T'Pol's belief that Trip, being a human, would be reluctant to talk about such things with her, an emotionally suppressed Vulcan. That made her fear that Trip had gone to Amanda to seek out someone he could talk to about such emotional matters.

[Aquarius]

Why couldn't it be a little bit of both?

[Kevin Thomas Riley]

Well, either he talked to T'Pol about Lizzie or he didn't. So both alternatives cannot be true.

[Aquarius]

Sorry, I didn't read that statement to be quite so literal. You know, as in "next to nothing," since it's obvious that T'Pol has some of the details.

[Alelou]

I have to admit I read it more as KTR did.

If Trip were talking to T'Pol about Lizzie, T'Pol wouldn't have any reason to assume that he wouldn't talk to anyone else, including Amanda, about it.

But if Trip doesn't talk to her about Lizzie, it could really distress her to discover that he does talk to Amanda about it.

And she looked pretty distressed.

[Elessar]

I would prefer to imagine alternative #2 because the look on T'Pol's face just spoke more of "I thought I was special if he shared that with me", but given the significance and gravity of the way it came up when he DID get comfort from her about it in "Damage", it seems to suggest that he hasn't been opening up about it.

If you accept condition 1 though, you could read further into it though. Maybe T'Pol is not only upset by the prospect that Trip's talking to Amanda about it (something she thought he just wasn't talking to ANYONE about), but also, perhaps she has occasionally attempted to engage him on the subject and he has evaded and avoided the attempts. That would be the "T'Pol's more into him at the time" option over, 'she's just upset he is talking to Amanda about it but hasn't volunteered anything to T'Pol about it', if she were actively trying to get him to talk about it and he had been avoiding it.

[Asso]

Mh...
Do you know what a man does when he has a dream that he believes too unreal so as to be able to become real?
That man ignores that dream. He searches something else or someone else.
He searches the reality, maybe the reality of a person who is far from that dream.
And, sometimes, that dream (the person who is that dream) realizes this, and perceives that he's a dream, and nothing else.
And that person wonders: why? what have I mistaken? why not me?
And that person becomes sad.
And, sometimes, is spurred to act.

Romantic, isn't it?

[Aquarius]

Okay, on re-reading the question after some sleep, I realize that what tripped me up yesterday were the pronouns in Option 2--I got which "her" was referring to which character confused, so I also got goofed up on Option 1. So the way I kind of zeroed in on it was either T'Pol was hurt at being excluded from a part of Trip's life (which I didn't think she was, in a strictly literal sense), or she saw Amanda as a threat, and I didn't see either of THOSE notions as being mutually exclusive.

So now that I understand the whole question, I've only seen the scene in question twice, but this is how it came across to me (and consider that I'm not looking at the scene as an isolated incident, but also in the context of the rest of T'Pol's behavior in the episode): While I haven't seen all of Season Four yet, it seems to me that Trip and T'Pol talk a lot, especially during the neuropressure sessions. I have the impression (right or wrong) that T'Pol was privy to all or at least most of what Amanda knows about Trip, his sister, etc. So from that aspect, to me it isn't so much one woman having more information than the other, but maybe it was a red flag to T'Pol how quickly Amanda was getting some of this information.

What comes across in the scene to me is T'Pol begins to feel threatened by how much Trip and Amanda have in common. T'Pol has the same information Amanda does, but for T'Pol, it's all places she's never been, people she doesn't know, things she's never done, etc., so maybe that makes her feel like an outsider and she feels like she's really at risk of losing Trip, even though she doesn't actually "have" him yet. So maybe she wonders why Trip would want her if Amanda is so comfortable and familiar to him because she's had so many of the same experiences. To me, this seems like a perfectly reasonable springboard for the conversation T'Pol has with Trip later and her subsequent sexual advance. At a time in her life when she's struggling to keep her emotions in check and whatever she's done to herself by deliberately accessing them, I think it makes sense that in a moment of weakness she tries to up the "familiarity" thing a notch by impulsively going to bed with him.

The truth is, each of us is probably going to look at that same scene and see it a little differently. If these details are important to a story you're writing, then I say go with what your gut tells you about T'Pol's motivations and run with it, because that's how you're going to get the best story any way.

[Alelou]

A reasonable point of view (both about T'Pol's thought processes and about having your own interpretation). After all, we can run with whatever we want between the lines ... or go AU if we feel like it. Particularly true for you, Escriba, if this is for Disruption, which is already AU.

(I hope it IS for Disruption!!!)

[Escriba]

After all, we can run with whatever we want between the lines ... or go AU if we feel like it. Particularly true for you, Escriba, if this is for Disruption, which is already AU.

Yes, you've caught me

There is a first interaction between Amanda and T'Pol and, although it isn't world shaking, I wanted to have some type of planification before. How they could communicate (or not) and what was their relationship toward Trip. That scene in Harbinger is the only one with the two females, a pity, really.

Good points all of you. They've helped me a lot

I think that Trip and Amanda are very alike, that's why Trip feels so comfortable with her. Not just in their taste of music or the fact that they lived in the same area, but in personality. Amanda seems a tough woman that hides her vulnerability with a mask of good humor and flippancy. Maybe it's easier for Trip to talk to her because she will listen to him, but won't make a big deal out of it (T'Pol is more extreme: or she ignores him, or she takes it so seriously that she wouldn't let him go without a third grade)

[Asso]

I think that Trip and Amanda are very alike, that's why Trip feels so comfortable with her. Not just in their taste of music or the fact that they lived in the same area, but in personality. Amanda seems a tough woman that hides her vulnerability with a mask of good humor and flippancy.

Really did you see all this in Amanda?
Well! I know I can sound a little bit cynical now (But you must understand that men ARE cynical, after all, even if they are romantic like me).
In Amanda I saw only a pretext, a fun way (in authors' head) to take T'Pol toward her "advances".
That's the why Amanda deserves a better destiny than she had on the screen, I think.

[Alelou]

She definitely should have been a continuing character, if only so SHE could be that brunette MACO (Kemper?) who managed to get shot in practically every fight for the rest of the season. It didn't make any sense that she just disappeared. Not to mention it could have been fun torturing T'Pol and embarrassing Trip with her.

[Asso]

She definitely should have been a continuing character, if only so SHE could be that brunette MACO (Kemper?) who managed to get shot in practically every fight for the rest of the season. It didn't make any sense that she just disappeared. Not to mention it could have been fun torturing T'Pol and embarrassing Trip with her.

I agree absolutely.

[Zane Gray]

Personally, I think it's a little bit of both. She's been spending hours a week with Trip and he hasn't spoken of some of these things with her, but here's Amanda who he's just started to get to know with whom he's opened up about these things. That bothers her, as I think she's started to think of him as hers. Also, I do think she's threatened by his apparent closeness with Amanda, so she realizes that she needs to up her game, and stake her claim on Trip unless she wants to lose him. Which she clearly doesn't. She's not quite sure how to move forward with him, and she's scared of her feelings, but she doesn't want to lose what she has with him either.