Character discussion: Erek

[buffyangellvr23.livejournal.com]

Late post is late. I somehow forgot last night :(

I'm still fascinated by the holographic stuff with the Chee, and how they can hologram the feel of skin.

I can see some debate over the whole nonviolence thing...I've heard some fans say that giving info still is fighting, or facilitating violence...IDK myself. What do you think?

Comments

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

I hated the whole "nonviolence" thing because, really, when you think about it, there is no way to define the term "nonviolence" in any concrete sense. So the fact that he was programmed with "nonviolence" is not only stupid but impossible. Technology and robots need to be given concrete, precise instructions. Yes/no, not something so abstract. And the real kicker is--does Erek have free will? I mean the Chee can have opinions, they can disagree with each other, and yet this "nonviolence" clause (whatever that means, the authors sure don't) stumps them all. I mean, for 12-year-olds it's kind of a brilliant plot device because it's one of those non-barriers that is only a barrier when it needs to be, and 12-year-olds don't know anything about philosophy or the morality of violence, so yay! Kind of lazy storytelling!

I think, to be totally frank, the nonviolence thing was consistent up until book 53. Up till that point it is pretty concrete--we can't directly hurt anything. They were pacifists--that is, they're not allowed to get involved in any direct conflict. So in 53, if we'd stayed with that, the Chee would have just stayed out of the fight like they always had, but in that book we're suddenly given this "well you can't let me hurt anyone either, right! I can totes manipulate you!" It made no sense. It contradicted the rules we'd gotten earlier, which were there for good reason. The second the Chee can do anything substantive, the war is over. Look what fucking happened.

So overall, "nonviolence" is a cool thing to play with if you're actually going to play with it and not just have it mean whatever you need for the current plot.

And yeah, their holograms were pretty inconsistent. In AppleGrant books, I think they mimicked not only the look, but FEEL of human skin, but there were a couple of books in there (I think 45 specifically) where people reached through the hologram and felt skin. IDK, STAR TREK VS. FIREFLY HOLOGRAMS

[anijen21.livejournal.com]

*felt robot, whoops

[lisacharly.livejournal.com]

The obnoxious thing is that the non-violence thing could have been totally passable if it was just "cannot cause direct physical harm to another being". It would have been simple and it would have worked within the context of the series (except for the final arc but WHAT is up with Erek and the Chee in general at the end I mean really). It definitely would have been a simplified, distilled version of pacifist morality, but it is a kid's series and it still brings up interesting conversations about the nature of free will.

Also, UGH THE HOLOGRAMS. I always tried to justify it to myself that the Chee had little personal force-fields that could be turned on and off at will, that they used to make their hologram more tangible, but...yeah, totally lazy writing. Ghostwriters dropped the ball on that one, I think, because IIRC it was never contradicted in the KA books, but ugh. The Chee got so massively convoluted and contradictory after #26.