First off, I am referring to the character portrayed by John DeLancie, not to any other Q or the Q continuum as a whole.
Secondly, for purposes of this discussion I would like to ignore Star Trek: Voyager, both because it is so contradictory of TNG in general and because it was, despite occasional moments of grace, breathtakingly stupid. My personal fanwank is that Voyager and Enterprise take place in a timeline created when the Enterprise-E went back in time to save Zephrem Cochrane from the Borg.
Anyway …
What brings this to mind is a recent re-watching of the 2nd season TNG episode in which they encounter the Borg for the first time. It occurs to me, despite some protestations to the contrary, Q did not accelerate the meeting between the Federation and the Borg. Data notes that the planets they encounter in Borg space have been raped the same way as planets they have seen closer to home; we’re clearly meant to think the Borg have already been skirting the borders of Federation space. As Picard notes at the end of the episode, Q gave them a much-needed kick in their complacent ass. He thinks it was unintentional; I do not. I further think that, without that warning, the Federation (or at least Earth) would likely have fallen to the Borg in short order.
Second there’s the episode in which Q gives Picard a vision of what his life would have been life if he had never had to get an artificial heart because of his own foolishness. What he did in that episode only looks cruel if you see it in parts; as a whole, I think Picard overall benefited.
And then there’s the series finale, “All Good Things.” Laying aside the central paradox of the episode, I’m willing to take DeLancie’s Q at his word when he says that the test the Continuum began in the series premiere never truly ended, and that the Q we know had been working in subtle ways to prevent humankind’s extermination by his brethren for the past seven years.
But that’s just me. Anybody else want to chime in?
Well, I’d say that the Q have precisely as much claim to being gods as the Aesir. More, really, except that they don’t care about being worshipped one way or the other. (I know Q once claimed to be God, but that was just teasing Picard.)
As for Q being akin to Loki, I’d say that depends on what part of the Norse mythic cycle you’re talking about. In the mythological past and early mythological present, Loki definitely does more good than evil. It was through his machinations that the Aesir got Mjolnir, Gungnir, Skidbladnir, Draupnir, and Freyr’s magic boat, which seems more than just compensation for the lost of Sif’s hair (which he replaced anyway–and her hair was the ONLY thing he was obligated to replace). And I strongly suspect that the reason he was able to steal Sif’s hair in the first place was that was cuckolding Thor with him at the time, which puts the matter in a somewhat different light. Sleipnir and the very wall around Asgard are also largely due to Loki’s machinations.
(Why, yes, I do have Norse mythology on the mind this decade. Why do you ask?)
Q’s always been fascinating to me. I always thought Picard’s greatest flaw in TNG was being so uptight that he couldn’t ever play along with Q even for a little bit. Granted, being put on trial will do that to you, but I always thought first season Q was a different animal than in later seasons, which is where I like Q the most.
Q’s a trickster god. He’s kind of a dick, but pretty amiable when you play along with him. Depending on what you accept as canon, he’s done evil things (if you accept the novels as canon, there’s one where Q recounts posing as a random mortal’s God and ordering him to jump off a cliff. The mortal does, falls to his doom, and Q has a hearty laugh about it), but it’s hard for me to impose mortal morality on an omnipotent immortal, especially when I’ve fucked with ants for my own amusement.
On the whole, though, I’ve only ever seen him as harmless as long as he has fun, and that’s all he ever wants to do is have fun. He only gets irritated and potentially dangerous when someone coughPicardWorfcough insist on being stuffy wet blankets.
I can’t say that he’s a good being who just looks like he’s dicking people around, though. At best, he’s an amoral prankster whose pranks sometimes bear unintended fruit. For an omniscient being, he’s surprisingly flighty and never seems to understand all possible consequences of his actions. He can if he bothers to think about it, but he rarely does bother.
This is a good thread to recommend Spock vs. Q. It’s an engaging performance by both de Lancie and Nimoy, and is a great example of what happens when someone wiser than Q chooses to play him at his own game. It and its sequel are really fun to listen to.
Wasn’t there an episode that showed Q getting chastised by his parents for screwing around with humanity? I was under the impression he was like a kid with a magnifying glass over the humanity insect. Not really good or evil, just a punk.
ETA: I remember the episode now. His parents punished him by forcing him to experience life as a human, and he was appalled at things like falling asleep.
There was an episode where Q lost his powers for screwing with an incorporeal race the humans had never encountered. I don’t believe he was ever said to have parents, because he just “is”; however, the rest of the Q Continuum appears to be able to exert some power over him when they decide he’s crossed the line, and they seem to have a better sense of responsibility than he does.
In other words, he was exiled by his peers, not punished by his parents.
In the episode where Q lost his powers, he did have a freak-out at falling asleep. He wigged when he’d discovered he’d “lost consciousness” for several hours, and it took a bit of questioning before the officers realized he’d just fallen asleep.
One thing I always wanted to know about Q is what the hell was that exchange all about when Q and Gynan (SP?) first crossed paths? (on the show)
I can’t remember the exact episode it was, but Q was acting like he was scared of Gynan. (Gynan held her hands up to him like she was going to do some weird voo-doo stuff on him)
Why the hell would Q be scared of anybody?
As to the OP:
I’d say Q is like a two year old. He’s OK as long as he’s entertained, but man, you don’t want to be around when he starts to throw a temper tantrum.
Going to have to go with Bosstone’s assessment. Trickster entity with juvenile tendencies. Not mean-spirited, just cranky and spoiled brattish when Picard doesn’t want to play.
I know Skald asked us not to include “Voyager,” but I have to go there. I think the Q episodes were above the quality of the average Voyager episode. I also like to think Q was supposed to be a bit immature for one of his species. The other Q have to hold him in check and punish him once in awhile, by making him mortal, for example. Then there was the Voyager episode in which the fellow Q wanted to commit suicide and Q made every effort to prevent him, but then came to sympathize with him and helped him to take his life. He did eventually take a mate (the first Q in several thousand millenia to do so, IIRC) and had a son in the process, so i think that fatherhood would represent a step in his “growing up.”
In the beginning, Q is just playing games. Introducing the Enterprise to the Borg is just playing. Discussing whether he is good or evil would be like tri-dimensional pawns discussing whether Spock is evil for the wars he makes them fight. After the episode where he becomes human for a time, he becomes more benevolent, trying to help Picard.