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Tuvok is an interesting contrast to Spock, when you think about it.

Strip away Spock's emotion control, and what did we get? Basic, normal Human emotions. In This Side of Paradise, when Spock loses control he falls in love, he lies in grassy fields seeing pretty patterns in the clouds, he climbs trees.

Strip away Tuvok's control... and we have a monster. We have the man who kills holograms of his shipmates on the holodeck for fun; who wants Sudor killed for vengeance. What we've seen of his inner emotions looks like something out of Hellraiser!

Even with their respective emotion controls in place... Spock would make little jokes, trade semi-friendly barbs with McCoy, sit on the recreation deck and play chess with Kirk, or play his harp so that Uhura could sing. Tuvok... apart from Janeway, Tuvok basically takes every chance he can to radiate contempt and derision for every single member of the crew. To the extent that one episode showed that he makes a point of attending social functions so that he can deliberately sit in the corner and not take part, just to rub everyone's noses in the fact that he thinks that what they are doing for fun is stupid. The man is an unpleasant, mean and nasty individual.

And of course, as you say he was a prototype for Enterprise, where MOST Vulcans were like that.

GrahamKennedy wrote:We have the man who kills holograms of his shipmates on the holodeck for fun

Given that said shipmate was Neelix, can you blame him?

who wants Sudor killed for vengeance.

Having mind-melded with said psychopath, and therefore had some of Suder's somewhat deranged approach to life rub off on him.

Tuvok... apart from Janeway, Tuvok basically takes every chance he can to radiate contempt and derision for every single member of the crew. To the extent that one episode showed that he makes a point of attending social functions so that he can deliberately sit in the corner and not take part, just to rub everyone's noses in the fact that he thinks that what they are doing for fun is stupid. The man is an unpleasant, mean and nasty individual.

Or he's simply contemptuous of the rest of Voyager's crew specifically. This would not exactly make him an unusual individual, in-universe or out - the curious part is the fact that he exempts Janeway. The Doctor had a similar attitude much of the time, albeit he was somewhat better at hiding it.

I'm not disputing that Spock was considerably more laid-back than Tuvok, but I consider that to be a) simply different personalities and b) Spock wasn't cooped up on the far side of the galaxy on the same ship as an Academy dropout who famously couldn't identify shit with a tricorder, a failed terrorist who should have been locked up at the time, a green ensign on his first trip and Neelix. Given the circumstances, I think he deserves to be cut a bit of slack.

I admit, being on Voyager would be enough to give most a reason to be unhappy - one of my favourite characters in Harren, specially because he wasn't like anybody else, but was just perfectly happy sitting playing with his PADDs on deck fifteen.

And yes, they are different character types, the point is that Tuvok's character is rather surly and unpleasant, something which most Vulcans would come to be on Enterprise.

Bear in mind that Spock was also only half Vulcan.

Mikey wrote:Bear in mind that Spock was also only half Vulcan.

Beat me to it. There's a lot of influence from Amanda, there.

A B5 episode review?! I am SO there... (Lon Suder in B5 trappings... should be neat...)

GrahamKennedy wrote:I admit, being on Voyager would be enough to give most a reason to be unhappy - one of my favourite characters in Harren, specially because he wasn't like anybody else, but was just perfectly happy sitting playing with his PADDs on deck fifteen.

Was that the guy who openly challenged Janeway on her incompetence and then senibly tried to shoot an alien which wanted to kill them? If so, that was the only guy I could vaguely identify with on that ship.

Yeah. He had the temerity to not want to be an explorer, you see. As SF Debris put it, Janeway's reaction was along the lines of "How DARE you not like the things I like?!?! I'll soon put a stop to that!"

Yeah, I remember. I found it ironically that the character acted completely as an average, non-moronic-person would react to the Voyager enviromnent. All I thought was Jesus Christ why won't you leave that guy alone for crying out loud. Well I guess one trooper not willing to fall on his own phaser on the whim of his mad captain was just to much to ask.

On that note I just had the strangest thougt of a futurama/voyager crossover with Janeway meeting Zap Brannigan..........be afraid...very!

Atekimogus wrote:Yeah, I remember. I found it ironically that the character acted completely as an average, non-moronic-person would react to the Voyager enviromnent. All I thought was Jesus Christ why won't you leave that guy alone for crying out loud. Well I guess one trooper not willing to fall on his own phaser on the whim of his mad captain was just to much to ask.

On that note I just had the strangest thougt of a futurama/voyager crossover with Janeway meeting Zap Brannigan..........be afraid...very!

Oh my god... they'd probably ending up sleeping wtih each other, Janeway commandeering his ship and making him her b*tch, then going to wipe out anybody who dares to challenge her moral superiority.

And forcing Kif to make coffee from his fingernails.

Kif and Harry Kim would probably merge into a single entity, the living avatar of beleaguered underling.

And then Kif would reel away, realising that he achieved more character development than Kim ever did.

...ugh, you're right.

SolkaTruesilver wrote:Kif and Harry Kim would probably merge into a single entity, the living avatar of beleaguered underling.

And then Kif would reel away, realising that he achieved more character development than Kim ever did.

... and interestingly, had more backbone despite being an invertebrate.

They fucked Garret Wang coming and going didn't they?