Character Flaws

[WarpGirl]

Well the title is pretty self-explanitory. All good characters have flaws that they wrestle with. They can be overcome or lead to downfall. So take any character from Enterprise and list their flaws. And note if you think which is more likely, downfall or triumph. I'll go first in rank order...

Archer: Hubris, Prejudice, and a compulsive need to be proven right.

T'Pol: Needs to learn that a great deal of so-called "logic" is subjective.

Trip: He's too quick to assume, and judge things that he doesn't understand.

Malcolm: He's too hung up on following orders, even when he knows they're wrong. "Hatchery" was an exception to that rule.

Hoshi: She's very condesending, but she's so young that experience will probably take care of it.

Travis: He wasn't explored enough for me to have an opinion. But I'd say he's to gullible. Not to mention boring!

Phlox: He can compromise his principles too easily. No ethical doctor would have created Sim. But I still argue coercion could've been a factor.

I think these flaws can lead to both depending on the writer.

[Aikiweezie]

Phlox: He can compromise his principles too easily. No ethical doctor would have created Sim. But I still argue coercion could've been a factor.[/color]

I had moral issues with the creation of Sim all around. Unless the simbiot was to have no consciousness, then I'd be fine with it, it would basically just be like tissue growing, but since iy was self-aware - no, no, no........

Sorry, that's off topic.

[Linda]

I had moral issues with Phlox withholdig the cure he discovered for those people who were dying out on a planet and had asked for help. Phlox seemed to think he would be interfering in the natural evolution of species on that planet if he cured those people, because a borderline sentient species was up and coming and would inherit the dominance of the planet one day. I forgot the name of the episode, but I think it was in the first year. Yeah, creating Sim also was morally questionable.

[panyasan]

Maybe in season 1 and 2 Trip jumps more quickly to a conclusion, but I think he grew out of this (is this correct English) in the rest of the season.
Phlox - he is a confusion character. Sometimes he takes a ethical stand that is alien to me (pun intented), but other times he tries to be caring and understanding.

[Asso]

I think I have said this somewhere, in the past.
Frankly, I don't like Phlox. At least not too much.
Well, maybe this has something to do with the fact I share his profession, but somehow I'm cut to the quick.
He's rough-and-ready, not rarely cold, often inclined to not act as his profession requires.
And never I will be able to forgive him for the fact that he liquidated in a flash Trip's love for T'Pol, when he had a not too much slight culpability with regard to their relationship.
It seems to me he is double-faced.

[panyasan]

And never I will be able to forgive him for the fact that he liquidated in a flash Trip's love for T'Pol, when he had a not too much slight culpability with regard to their relationship.
It seems to me he is double-faced.

When? Where? I am preparing my Phlox-chapters, so I am interested in every view of Phlox.

[Asso]

And never I will be able to forgive him for the fact that he liquidated in a flash Trip's love for T'Pol, when he had a not too much slight culpability with regard to their relationship.
It seems to me he is double-faced.

When? Where? I am preparing my Phlox-chapters, so I am interested in every view of Phlox.

The Aenar
[Sickbay]
(Trip whispers to Phlox, supposedly out of earshot of T'Pol)
TUCKER: She wants to try again. You think it's smart?
PHLOX: You know the risks. So does Commander T'Pol. Commander, she's doing her job.
TUCKER: She's going to hurt herself.
PHLOX: Take my advice. Don't interfere.
TUCKER: I can't believe I'm getting this from you now. Has everyone on this ship gone crazy?
PHLOX: Not everyone.
TUCKER: Oh, I'm crazy?
PHLOX: It's not your fault. As far as I know, there are no species in the galaxy that have mastered the art of mixing romance and vocation.
TUCKER: You're the last one that should be giving me a lecture. Vulcan neuro-pressure was your idea.
PHLOX: You were having trouble sleeping.
TUCKER: What the hell am I going to do?
PHLOX: This is the one ailment that is universally untreatable. You'll have to suffer through it.

You'll have to suffer through it!

Perfect, Doctor Phlox. Do you know what it means "doing the fish in the barrel"?

[Aikiweezie]

Thanks, Asso.

Suffer through it, indeed. Why is he so glib?

Phlox really came off sounding bad in that exchange. He knew EXACTLY what he was doing when he pushed the two together. Methinks he doesn't fully understand human or Vulcan feelings about intimacy or love. The Denobulan version of marriage is waaaaaaay different. Three wives, their three husbands each, etc. I remember Phlox saying (I think in Terra Nova) that he was happy to get away from the chaos of the Denobulan family.

My poor Trip.....

[Aquarius]

I think that the "suffer through it" thing is being blown a little out of proportion,. For one thing, Phlox is absolutely right there: there is no cure for being lovesick, you just have to ride it out.

For another, keep in mind that there are cultural differences here. Remember, this is the same guy who asked Trip in one of the earliest episodes if he thought a couple of the crew would mind if he observed them "mating." Yeah, he comes off glib here and at other times, but that's because he's an alien and obviously his people don't quite have the same world view we do. Yeah, it would suck to be Trip and have to hear that (the truth often sucks any way, doesn't it?), but whether or not Phlox did anything "wrong" there would depend on if you were asking a human or a Denobulan...much like how I was saying in another thread that I have very little sympathy for Koss, but if I were a Vulcan male looking at his situation, I might be sympathizing all over the place. It's all just a matter of perspective.

[WarpGirl]

Phlox isn't anymore human than T'Pol so he isn't going to see things the way humans do. So I always thought he was just being Denobulan. The episode where he goes all evolutional is a joke, it is a theory not a fact. Albert Einstine was a creationist, so was Newton, and they're ST's go to scientists. Sim was another joke, where the B's were just being idiots.

But the "You'll just have to suffer through it" I always thought was supposed to be a joke or a way of injecting humor into a stressful situation. But at leat you have to give Phlox credit when he admits in "Damage" that he has indeed gone against ethics. And twice in 40 years is a good record.

[Alelou]

Evolution is a theory?

I guess all those generations of fruit flies they can get to evolve certain genetic traits over a period of weeks are just being continuously created by God in the scientists' lab, then. And those flu viruses that keep changing -- that must be God doing that too. Too bad He doesn't write down the recipe every year on a tablet of stone so we can always have the perfect vaccine.

[WarpGirl]

I'm not sure this is the place for that. But just because something is created doesn''t mean it doesn't develop on its own. Just that it was made to begin with.

[Aquarius]

Okay, seriously, I don't want this to explode into a whole Evolution vs. Creationism debate. I know firmly where I stand on the subject, but this is one of those hot-button issues that generally serves only to ruffle feathers and cause hurt feelings and frustration once it crosses a certain line. I'd prefer not to see us go there in the first place, even though right now we generally seem to be in safe territory.

[WarpGirl]

Agreed.

[Asso]

I think it's better. Yes.