After her fantastic guest post on Keiko O’Brien, the wonderful cosmic-llin and I decided to have a chat about Keiko - it ended up spanning everything from her relationship with Miles to her career to what we would have liked to see more of for her, and everything in between. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed having it. :)
thevalkyriedirective: Oh, wow, I googled her to bring up her Memory Alpha article (never know when you need reference or an episode name) and after suggestions like ‘keiko o’brien actress’ or ‘keiko o’brien star trek’ we have ‘keiko o’brien annoying’.
How sad is that?
cosmic-llin: Ugh, that infuriates me. :( Keiko gets so much stick and I can’t work out what the problem is. I think people see her as shrewish because she and Miles fight, but to me it seems like they both give as good as they get.
Also I’ve seen her get hate from Miles/Julian shippers for being in their way, but canonically we’ve seen Keiko actually encourage Miles to spend time with Julian.
thevalkyriedirective: I’ve never been able to figure it out either! She’s labelled the ‘nagging wife’ but I think the problem is that unless she’s a passive, dull, unemotional woman, it doesn’t matter what she does, it’s seen as ‘nagging’ or ‘annoying’.
I’d be pretty pissed off too if I moved to a run down old space station and had to give up my career and raise my daughter there.
But the strangest thing is, she isn’t always nagging or annoying or anything like that - sure she gets exasperated sometimes (it’s called being human! and being in a relationship!) but she’s the one who thinks to set up a school for the kids on the station, she makes the most of a difficult situation!
And as for the Miles/Julian shippers… There were more than a few episodes where she very actively encouraged them to hang out, sometimes even without them realising it.
cosmic-llin: Yeah, I think it’s significant that they’re basically the only married couple we see on a regular basis long-term.
I think if Keiko was in the show just as a cool botanist/teacher, without a connection to Miles, perceptions of her would be different, but because she’s in the box marked “wife”, people interpret her character in certain ways that they wouldn’t otherwise. Any conflict she has with Miles is assumed to be her fault, when actually half the point of the O’Briens was that they were a realistic couple who DID fight sometimes but resolved their differences because they loved each other.
I see a lot of people claim that they fought ALL the time and that Keiko basically never gave Miles a moment’s peace, but actually watching their episodes together that couldn’t be further from the truth.
thevalkyriedirective: You’re absolutely spot on - they’re probably one of the most realistic couples in Star Trek.
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