She has repeatedly teased Picard and Riker for impure thoughts. Was that considered rude by Betazoids? You’d think civilized telepaths would have some sort of non-interference or at least etiquete policy for non-telepaths.
I seem to recall her daughter chastising her on a number of occasions.
Betazed society as a whole tends to be pretty self-promoting, what with their various useless ranks and royal items. I’d imagine a “usual” Betazoid would tend to think that it was Picard/Riker/whoever’s fault, rather than the telepath - and if they did, they’d certainly never say it.
Well, to a certain extent, it might depend on which tack you take of those scenes. If you think that they were harboring impure thoughts and Lwxana just called them on it, then I’d agree that the openness and ‘don’t get so uptight’ impressions of Betazoid thought would indicate that she wasn’t being rude by Betazoid standards… at most, she was being impolite in not assuming human standards of behavior to put them more at ease.
I always got the impression, though, that a lot of the time she was just making it up to have fun with them, and I think that would not be considered as appropriate by other Betazoids.
Not so much rude as… anoying.
She was just one of those characters who didn’t work. We were obviously SUPPOSED to love her for being such as free spirit, but I found her hard to tolerate, let alone love.
I felt the same way. Despite Picard’s obvious attempts to avoid her, I can’t recall him ever saying anything negative about her. On the contrary, he often praised her, though not enthusiastically. I’d always hoped she’d run into one of the more acerbic characters (Ensign Ro on NextGen, Major Kira on DS9) who’d say flat out “Lady, you’re pissing me off. Get lost.” At most, Worf expressed mild irritation at her, but not actual hostility, and let himself be won over to the point of taking a mudbath with Lwuxana, Deanna and Alexander (yet another incredibly irritating recurring character). Even tough-guy Constable Odo got all mushy (in more than one sense) in her presence.
Oh, for a mirror-universe episode in which her counterpart was horrifically murdered…
Since others here don’t think Betazoids would care so much, maybe Deanna would chastise her because she has been around humans long enough to respect the privacy of their thoughts. Or, maybe as chrisk suggests she’s telling her mother off for lying.
Put me down as another Lwuxana hater. She was pretty much the only one that really bugged me eveytime I saw her, out of all the Star Treks.
Hijack, grovelling to the OP:
How many telepaths have conscious control over their powers and are able to shut themselves off, avoiding that kind of situation altogether?
Jean Grey and Emma Frost, for example, would be able to turn off their powers if they don’t want to hear something. River Tam, on the other hand, wouldn’t be able to avoid hearing people’s worst thoughts.
Eccentric and egotistical.
Some would consider her rude. Or at least innapropriate in behavior.
Oddly, I got the opposite impression – she was intended to be a colossal pain in the tuckus, and the comedy came from watching how everyone else has to deal with her in a diplomatic fashion.
That said, the best use of Lwuxana Troi by far has to be in the Trek novel “Q-In-Law.” That’s right, kids, Lwaxana meets Q… just imagine the possibilities! 
Laugh-out-loud funny from beginning to end, highly recommended.
I thought she did well in Half a Life in a rare dramatic turn for the character.
A society of telepaths might have very different ideas about “politeness”; if it is impossible for them to conceal their thoughts and feelings from each other, they would have no reason to develop the habit of concealing or dissembling them.
Then again, if they should encounter a race of sapient non-telepaths – and if they can read our thoughts and emotions – then they should know how we think about “courtesy” and exactly how displays of “impolite” behavior make us angry or uncomfortable; so they would have no excuse for not learning.
Also, remember Troi is supposed to be a diplomat.
Actually to me it seems that the intended reaction to Lwuxana was a synthesis of what astorian and rjung described: She’s a pain in the ass, the comedy comes from everyone trying to deal with her politely, but you weren’t supposed to be able to stay mad at her for long because she’s such an original.
From the reactions in the show, it seems that her conduct is not the norm among telepaths/empaths in that universe. In the end, it doesn’t work, because there’s only so far we can empathize with the idea of not accommodating ourselves to the expectations of others. The public is left with an intense desire to see someone, ANYONE tell her off.
In “Encounter at Farpoint” Deanna says she is consciously avoiding opening her mind to the impressions she had been receiving in the vicinity of Farpoint Station. This suggests that it’s possible for Betazoids to refrain from receiving thoughts and feelings from others. Of course Deanna’s a half-breed (her father being from the race known as “Starfleet”) and this was a pilot episode (in which non-contraction-using Data used contractions) so who the hell knows.
Not to mention that no one in their right mind would knowingly sit down at a poker table with an active empath. Although that same game included a guy who could tell you were lying just by looking at you, so the Enterprise poker crowd may just not have been that bright.
On that note – in his “Sector General” universe, James White had a race of “Kelgians,” who look like giant woolly caterpillars. They are not telepathic, but their long, stalky hair moves this way and that to reflect their emotional state, and that movement is involuntary and the Kelgians cannot consciously control it. Consequently, Kelgians cannot conceal their emotions from each other. Thus, they never tell lies – they have never learned how. And they appear “rude” to other races because they have never developed any code of “politeness,” to the extent politeness involves concealing one’s emotions of the moment.
Kelgians, take me away!
The TNG episode “Tin Man” includes a Betazoid named Tam Elburn, who is unusual in that he has had his telepathic powers from birth and cannot block out the thoughts of others. Most Betazoids are said to develop their powers in adolescence and can and do block out any thoughts they don’t want to hear. Betazoids like Elburn are said to suffer from mental problems brought on by the constant unstoppable onslaught of outside thoughts (in fact, in that episode Deanna Troi says that she was once Elburn’s therapist).
Not only that, but in one episode La Forge says that he can look straight through the cards to see what they are, but promises that he never looks until he’s out.