spacefungusparty | Discovery 1x11: The Wolf Inside

Here is your episode discussion post for Discovery 1x11: "The Wolf Inside."

Please be aware that there will be spoilery comments on this entry. As always, I'll be back later this evening to join in the party once I've had a chance to watch the episode, and if the conversation hasn't gotten too far without me I will add some discussion starters or other remarks behind a cut.

So, wow, I have to admit I did not expect shit to go down quite this quickly! I admit, part way through the episode I started wondering wtf the last four episodes were going to be about, but, well, I have a theory about that after the end of this episode.

First off, I think we can now safely say that if this episode had a moral, it might be "Don't put the weight of your entire sanity and ability to function as a human being on one person, no matter how much you love them." Ash, baby... my dear Lt. Bambi and also you goddamned face-eating Klingon... you could have avoided all of this to some extent if you'd just admitted way back when, "Hey, I might need help. I am probably not safe to be on duty in my current mental state. I should seek therapy. And not kill the doctor who grounds me out of concern and compassion."

Another good moral might be "When you're in an alternate universe, don't fuck up and call people by names they haven't told you yet," BURNHAM. "I've decided I'm going to call you that," says Burnham of Saru's actual name. Not like he's going to be at all suspicious about that one!

"Tell the people you trust the full truth," might also be a lesson to take from this. Burnham, maybe tell Saru!Prime that you did indeed find him on the Mirror Shenzhou. Saru!Prime, maybe tell Burnham that Culber is dead. You don't know if this information might turn out to be important. And the very fact that you left it out just basically ensured that it will be.

"When your friends start acting erratically, give them a break and encourage them to step back from stressful responsibilities that seem to be taking a toll on them." Hey, Burnham - notice how Ash is having a real hard time coping with this mission all of a sudden? Maybe send him outside to get some air rather than assuming he can handle it when you know damned well that's a 50/50 proposition. That way maybe he won't attack ~~himself~~ the dude you're trying to have peace talks with.

"No good deed ever goes unpunished," as Burnham learns that while she can trick the crew of the Shenzhou into believing that she's just really into hands-on management methods in the destruction of the rebel base (...man, what fandom am I in right now?), there are other people who are less easily fooled.

And of course, the ever-popular "Shoot first, ask questions later." If your boyfriend says that he's a Klingon who killed Dr. Culber and remembers you killing his lord and trying to gouge his eyes out back at the beginning of the season, consider shooting him before he tries to finish you.

For the fans, "Be careful what you wish for" would seem like it might be appropriate wisdom to take to heart. Oh, have I wished for Georgiou back. So many times. As soon as I heard there was going to be a Mirror Universe episode, my first response was "I want Mirror!Georgiou." And I still do. But holy freaking hell is Emperor Georgiou going to be terrifying. I'm not sorry I wished for this, but... well, ask me again next week.

Lastly, a moral purely for me: "When one fan theory turns out to be 100% correct, don't dismiss the next you run across as unlikely." Because I am starting to seriously fall in line with this whole "Lorca is from the Mirror Universe" thing, and I think right now that it might be the best possible explanation of where the next episodes are going to go.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

cheyinka

Well, Shazad Latif described it as a love triangle with four people and three bodies, and Ted Sullivan suggested "love rhombus", so...??

From:

kore

....oh man, that is the outcome I most don't want. sigh.

From:

rivendellrose

Yeah, I'm afraid my theory is exactly the outcome you have most not wanted from the beginning. You said it and I was like "Well, that sounds deliciously full of angst and also likely."

Sorry about that.

The nicer way to put it would be "the Ash personality reasserts itself enough to be re-integrated somewhat with Voq, and Ash/Voq winds up developing a respect for Burnham." Maybe that's more palatable than the love rhombus version?

From:

kore

Yeah, I'm afraid my theory is exactly the outcome you have most not wanted from the beginning

Ahahaha. Well that's what makes /horse/ tardigrade races....

"the Ash personality reasserts itself enough to be re-integrated somewhat with Voq, and Ash/Voq winds up developing a respect for Burnham."

Yeah, I think I was hoping partly for Ash+Voq, rather than Ash/Voq (OK that looks weird), although "love rhombus" sounds more like the Ash and Voq personalities are still pretty different. And Ash loves Michael, and Voq loves L'Rell. Ordinarily I do love identity mashups like that, but I just personally dislike love triangles.

From:

monanotlisa

I usually abhor love triangles with a passion, but is this really one? Rhombus terminology aside; on a purely sentient!being level, Ash comes from having zero romantic feelings for L'Rell, and Voq comes from having zero romantic feelings for Michael.

So if we think of Ash's body (oh, poor bb) as being more of a time-share, either occupied by Ash Tyler or by Voq, Son of None, it is not really one person torn between bae 1 and bae 2. It is two persons, one into bae 1, and the other into bae 2.

...of course, Tyler is experiencing some bleed-through, thus his interactions with L'Rell. But THEN it stands to reason Voq will experience some bleed-through, too. Whether that really makes for an integrated personality, we will see.

From:

rivendellrose

Yeah, this is my take. Even L'Rell (who is undeniably the grumpy, delusional wild card of this rhombus) is really only in love with Voq. She's just... sort of in love with Ash by extension, almost, because she doesn't conceptualize him as a person separate from Voq but rather only as a Voq-vessel.

Which, let's just get right out there that based on the flashbacks and on Ash's memories she definitely had sex with him after his transformation and personality implantation, which was therefore rape, regardless of what the subsumed Voq-personality would have thought of those encounters. He wasn't there. Ash was.

Which just brings us back to "oh, poor baby." *hugs Ash*

From:

conuly

Assuming those memories and flashbacks are accurate. It's still possible that he was remembering being Voq but not understanding it, and therefore translating it into him being Ash Tyler on that bed.

From:

selenak

Or it could even be part of the artificial memories. After all, Ash Tyler needed to be able to give a reason for surviving as a Klingon prisoner for seven months when Lorca asked him, and it had to be a reason he himself sincerely believed was true.

Incidentally, that he told Lorca he had been L'Rell's prisoner since the Battle of the Binary Stars was an early massive hint something was wrong, since the audience knew L'Rell hadn't been in charge of a prison vessel for six of the seven months that had passed, she'd been stuck on the Ship of the Dead with Voq and a crew whose food was rapidly becoming non existent (not the situation where you could keep a human prisoner alive as your personal sex toy).

Otoh, that still leaves one month, depending how look the operation and immediate recovery period took - since I assume post massive surgery TylerVoq would not have been immediately capable of taking beatings, springing into action etc., which he needed to be in order for the "escape" to work. And L'Rell had to find a vessel she could command, find another human prisoner (since the set up was bad unreliable prisoner versus good sympathetic prisoner), and find an opportunity to kidnap Lorca, all of which had to happen without alerting Kol, who couldn't know about the plan. So: it's entirely possible Ash in real time was "only" a prisoner for ten days or therabouts. During which he certainly was beaten up enough to fool Mudd (who I don't think was lying and truly thought this "choose your pain" thing was real), and it's possible that he then had non-consensual sex with L'Rell to confirm his fake memories of this having happened throughout the "seven months".

From:

conuly

Or it could even be part of the artificial memories. After all, Ash Tyler needed to be able to give a reason for surviving as a Klingon prisoner for seven months when Lorca asked him, and it had to be a reason he himself sincerely believed was true.

True, but I think giving somebody artificial memories of being raped is... pretty much the same as raping them? So now we're back to "Yup, rape happened".

So: it's entirely possible Ash in real time was "only" a prisoner for ten days or therabouts.

Unless the real Ash was a prisoner in the same place.

From:

selenak

I doubt that, since no one would have had any reason to keep the real Ash alive. And again, L'Rell wasn't in command of a prison ship for six of those months, and however she (or rather the surgeons she used) transfered some of Real Tyler's memories on TylerVoq - they specifically had her as his captor. Which meant those memories were (at least largely) fake.

As to memories of rape being the same as rape: well there's the added complication of Voq having consented, not just to the sex with L'Rell, but to receiving memories that would make him believe himself to be a human tortured and having forced to sex. "I gave my body and my mind" does cover that. It all depends whether we see Ash Tyler (not the original one, the current one) as a separate sentient entity who has to consent (or not) on his own, doesn't it?

Meanwhile, here's another consent problem if we do accept Tyler as a separate sentient being from Voq: they share a body. And Voq did not consent to sex with Michael. Again, you could say him volunteering to the entire operation in the first place sort of covers that. But I doubt L'Rell and Voq when hatching out the "infiltrate Discovery, find out about mysterious tech" plan covered "artificial human personality may feel attracted to/fall in love with other humans". And Voq as he was pre-Tyler, as a firm believer in T'Kuvma's "purity" doctrine, would not have wanted to have sex with a human.

From:

conuly

I doubt that, since no one would have had any reason to keep the real Ash alive.

They wouldn't have any reason to keep Mudd alive either, collaborator or not, and yet there he was, alive and kicking. (And collaborating, but whatevs.)

As to memories of rape being the same as rape: well there's the added complication of Voq having consented, not just to the sex with L'Rell, but to receiving memories that would make him believe himself to be a human tortured and having forced to sex. "I gave my body and my mind" does cover that. It all depends whether we see Ash Tyler (not the original one, the current one) as a separate sentient entity who has to consent (or not) on his own, doesn't it?

Current Ash Tyler is definitely a separate person. However, because he had no reason to believe he was actually a Klingon named Voq, he's not responsible for any actions he did with their shared body that might've offended/upset Voq. Voq, unfortunately for him, doesn't get that benefit of the doubt. Neither does L'Rell. (And does subsuming the Ash Tyler personality count as murder?)

From:

selenak

That's a ST worthy dilemma. Not just because of the intent question - very clearly L'Rell and Voq don't think of Ash as a separate sentient being, but as a mask made of data, which now has served its purpose. Otoh if Ash is a separate sentient being, when did he achieve sentience? The moment those articifial memories were implanted into Voq? And given they share a body, which was originally Voq's, how can, if we accept them as two people (as opposed to, say, different manifestations of one person, i.e. something like someone suffering from multiple personalities who are distinctly different), anyone ever prioritize one over the other when it comes to who gets to do what with that body?

Since Bates Motel is one of my fandoms, and I assume everyone knows the basic premise of Psycho via pop culture: Norman Bates developes due to terrible experienes a secondary personality modelled after his mother. This personality, however, isn't his mother, nor is she Norman, who can truthfully disclaim responsibility. Except, of course, they share a body, and she came from his trauma, so of course she is Norman, and he's responsible.

Incidentally, since I doubt the show will create a separate body for either Ash or Voq to inhabit, I suspect the resolution to all this will be Ash and Voq integrated into one personality by the end of the storyline.

From:

nenya_kanadka

(*on the way to bed*)

I see what you're saying, while at the same time finding it extremely difficult to give more than half a fuck about Voq's distress if in fact Ash is a separate sentient personality, because Voq may have consented to this clusterfuck (at least on the "you chose an action, you choose its consequences" level) but Ash sure as hell never did.

IDK, man. It's definitely not unprecedented in Trek, of course--Tuvix comes to mind--though usually not quite as dramatic as this!

(*is really going to bed*)

From:

conuly

Tangenty tangent: The thing is, there are real people who have* multiple personalities, not all of whom identify as mentally ill**. There is no way this storyline is going to be done well by their lights. And I'm too used to seeing autism completely misrepresented to enjoy seeing other conditions misrepresented.

* Or claim to have, but as a general principle I assume people are honest about their own mental experiences. I don't need to understand it on a personal level, no more than I need to understand being transgender or gay or NT or whatever.

** That is, they function well in the real world and don't want to be fixed.