r/interestingasfuck • u/Pepper_Kalaki • 16d ago

/r/all Why yo my dino nuggets spinning?

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u/OvidianSleaze 16d ago

It makes sense that Tori’s empathy makes her a good therapist and she is shown being good at that often, but it’s unfortunate that they also introduced Guinean as the resident wise person on the ship. Guinean ends up giving the best advice to people most of the time.

What makes less sense is that she had a seat on the bridge like she was a key advisor to the captain.

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u/xopher_425 16d ago

How else would tell them that she senses something on that ship? You can't expect her to use her comm badge, cause then the captain can't see her dramatically grab her head.

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u/skylarmt_ 16d ago

Guinan isn't seen in TNG very often because Whoopi Goldberg is a busy woman lol

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u/OrigamiMarie 15d ago

I think she actually did discover several useful things for them, like the presence or lack of presence of somebody in a place, so they didn't have to waste resources (and plot) looking in the wrong place. Also she turned vague suspicions of lying by every kind of sentient being (including ones that didn't have very readable faces) into concrete reasons to look into the situation. And a couple times she discovered thought in unusually shaped space beasts, and I think at least once saved the ship by figuring out how to help one of them (instead of letting it eat the ship because of its hunger and distress).

At the very least, she was an accurate lie detector (and as my autocorrect proposed, life detector) on feet.

And anybody who's that plugged in to the universal vibe is gonna get kinda confused and freaked out sometimes. Unless they're a sociopath, and I think we saw that a couple times on the show in other temporary characters.

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u/OvidianSleaze 15d ago

Out of universe I agree that Troi serves a plot function a lot of the time. The whole “this space phenomena or weird alien is a conscious being” or whatever. She is kind of serving a similar function that Spock’s mind meld did at times, which is useful in terms of the writing as you mentioned.

In universe the implication that the counselor is a regular fixture of the bridge crew is still kind of silly, though, and is something that Lower Decks poked a bit of fun at with their ship’s counselor character being obviously ridiculous and useless and sitting in Troi’s spot on their bridge.

I like the interpretation/implication that the third seat is a “guest seat” much more, and that Picard must choose to regularly give it to Troi because of her abilities and not as a matter of fact of her position. Iirc this is supported by it being used that way much more as the seasons go on, with guest stars often being seated there.

The existence of Betazoids as a Federation species has some messy implications in universe too though it’s best to just avoid thinking about overall.

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u/OrigamiMarie 15d ago

Yeah that makes sense. If she had a more obvious role as a counselor who's keeping the bridge crew all consistently companionable, I think her frequent bridge location would make more sense. But as you said, that role is clearly shared with Guinan, and we don't see Deanna doing a lot of the actual in-ship counselor work.