this post was submitted on 22 Nov 2024
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I think i agree with the general premise that flawed characters are more interesting, and i also feel (with no data to back up that feeling, so bear with me) that these 'woke' characters sometimes fall into a pitfall where they're just so boringly written that it does feel like the writers are either afraid of being perceived as 'punching down' or (edit: finishing this thought) want to misguidedly write a perfect character for the sake of superficial representation of some group.
That said, for this show in particular (i have watched TNG/DS9/Voyager but not Discovery), is it a valid criticism for this captain that couldn't be applied to the older series? Picard's flaws are heavily understated - sure, he was a violent little shit off screen when he was younger, and he can be a little more of a hardass than called for occasionally, but I always felt he was pretty consistently portrayed as the voice of reason, and his flaws were only relevant in a couple episodes. I think I would say that's also true of Sisko and Janeway, though Sisko has a lot more nuance to his pragmatism that is really interesting as DS9 continues.
You're not wrong. Picards biggest flaw that people point towards is either not being great with kids or just emotionally stunted. Janeway has so few flaws overall that the only one you'll hear follow her around is "Genocidal" because of Tuvix. Most of her other flaws are episodic like with hunting the Equinox.
Edit: Even then, her flaw in hunting the Equinox is that she cares too much about Starfleet to let them abandon their morals. She's so aggressively pro-Starfleet/United Federation of Planets that when tasked with not getting home for 200 years (it was 70 years at max warp without ever stopping) she put Starfleet morals first and stuck her crew in the Delta Quadrant. Multiple times. So her flaw is shes too Starfleet.
I think one of her key flaws is that she's so ridiculously stubborn. That's why the characterisation works in context. She refuses to give up but sometimes she probably should.
Picard doesn't have many flaws but the writing doesn't usually make him the main character. TNG is more a problem solving show than a character drama. When they have character drama it's usually the B story.
When we do have a Picard centered episode they usually remove him from the rest of the crew. So you could say his main weakness is dependency on a crew. (Diehard in space doesn't count)