The negative effects of Michael Burnham heritage on worldbuilding (spoilers, obviously)
Heavy DIS spoilers and some very vague and minor Last Jedi spoilers ahead.
Just to be clear: The intent of this post is not ranting about Discovery or the depiction of Michael, but specifically how this connection weakens the worldbuilding of DIS. There is probably nothing that hasn't been said before on the topic, but it is something that I think requires more in-depth discussion.
So recently there was a post praising DIS writing and saying that all the people saying that all the twists are too predictable are not exactly right. I agree with that – I don't think that twists should be very unpredictable. DIS writers gave fans clues, and they were able to figure a lot themselves. It's good writing. We can see how trying too hard to make every twist unpredictable affected The Last Jedi – in my opinion, it lowered the quality of the story overall.
The writing in DIS and characters are good. I initially disliked Burnham, but then I changed my opinion on her. Now I think she is one of the strongest characters on the show. I also strongly relate to some of the aspects of her characters.
But there is one thing that weakens the worldbuilding in DIS, and we've seen it happen in Star Wars prequels as well. I'm going to quote David Louis Edelman from his Dune Prequels review: "Probably the greatest sin that the Dune prequels commit is the same sin that The Phantom Menace committed by revealing C-3PO’s creator: they’ve made a much-studied and richly detailed universe a smaller place."
The fact that Michael is Spock's sister creates the same effect. I'm not saying it's illogical or implausible that she is. Some people said something like "why Spock never mentioned his half-sister in TOS?", and there was a very accurate explanation from another user: he didn't even tell his best friends who his father was until he had to. It's just how Spock is.
Spock's half-sister started the biggest war between Klingons and Federation. She started to date first mutated Klingon (I'm assuming that it's a backstory to why some Klingons look like humans. I may be wrong). She went to mirror universe, and it just happens that her mentor in her universe is the emperor of the mirror universe. Lorca's motivation is also directly connected to Burnham – he was affectionate towards her other version in the mirror universe.
It feels like there are too many connections to Burnham. It feels like the whole world revolves around her. Which is fine by itself, she is an important person, this is okay. But then we have connection to Spock, who is one of the most important characters in the series.
It changes a lot – instead of just being an important person, Burnham is also accidentally connected to Sarek and Spock. This is where everything falls apart for me – it doesn't feel serious anymore because they connected everything, and now the world of Star Trek feels incredibly small. There are thousands of planets and species, but everything is always coming to a small group of characters and their connections to each other.
And again, the way they handled the connection of Burnham and Sarek is nicely done, but I never can get rid of the feeling of how "fanficky" it feels. This is the mistake that many fantasy and SF writers do – they try to connect everything, while it's not how it works in reality. Yes, it's not supposed to be realistic, but the world should FEEL real. It should feel like it's the world that actually exists, and such inter-connectivity greatly weakens the feel of the world.
I don't like any prequels in general, I feel like they're unnecessary most of the time, but let's not pay attention to this, because then it turns into a rant. But the ways they could have handled Burnham heritage is so vast – she could be anything in the world, but she is a close relative of two of the most important characters in Trek.
Strangely for me, the direct connections to TOS are something that makes it feel less like Trek. I don't care about visual style and don't see a problem in the fact that it looks more modern than TOS, but this small detail always echoes in my mind.
What are your thoughts on this matter?
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