Watching Star Trek: TNG; What other characters in popular culture are simuilar to Q?

[Find_Friends]

@Push_You_Down

From Marvel- The Impossible Man is far closer to Q than the other cosmics.

He’s playful and annoying like Q and is obsessed with Earth heroes --especially the Fantastic Four like the way Q is obsessed with Picard.

If we want to get into the playful, annoying, obsessed types, let’s not forget Bat-Mite.

Unlike “Supie’s” Mr. Mxyzptlk, Bat-Mite is full of admiration for Batman. (In fact, Mr. M once showed his skill in selective button-pushing by challenging him with the single sentence “Aw, Batman’s not so hot!” )

So, what’s the problem? Or, at least, would he not be as much a pest?

Bat-Mite was never content with merely showing up at random to lavish his hero with praise.

He had to use his magic to help him and Robin.

So, what’s the problem? (I’m assuming that some of you have never read a traditional Bat-Mite story.)

Here’s how Bat-Mite would “help” Batman and Robin.

In the pursuit of criminals, they would run into some difficulty requiring their athletic prowess to overcome. Usually this was something managed by their foes.

In the midst of overcoming such, Bat-Mite would ADD to the difficulty. But not out of malice, as Mr. M would have.

Bat-Mite had so much confidence that he was sure his friends would still overcome obstacles or traps that were now even harder to deal with. Much, much harder.

So as to show the world just how great the Batman and his partner were.

At the end of the team-up with Mr. M, Batman managed to show a pained look through his mask as he pleaded for Bat-Mite to find someone else to admire.

“-- Please!”

[Terminus_Est]

@Trans Fat Og

{emphasis added}
Hardly a fair comparison, since “poor” Elmer (and others, such as Wile E. Coyote) come after Bugs, who would seem to prefer to be left alone to contemplate life and enjoy carrots.

I dunno. I seem to recall several cartoons were Bugs would get lost on the way to Albakoikey, er, Albuquerque, stop at some place where Elmer Fudd (or Yosemite Sam or Daffy Duck) is hanging out, and consequently make his life miserable.

[Bryan_Ekers]

In The Wacky Wabbit of 1942, Elmer is prospecting the desert for gold, minding his own business. Bugs goes out of his way to be kind of a jerk.

[Trinopus]

Bugs Bunny got wiser as time went by. In the early years, he would prey on others, seeking them out and making life hell for them.

But in later years, he adopted a more reasonable approach: only when someone trespassed against himself would he take up arms in retaliation.

The old “Ain’t I a stinker?” mentality was discarded, into a “I’m willing to leave you alone, if you leave me alone” ethic. The Roadrunner, too, mostly followed that. If you don’t try to kill him and eat him, he’s perfectly happy to share the road with you.

[Balance]

@amorali

John what’s his name voiced a character in My Little Pony that was quite Q like.

Yes I’m sad that I know that.

Tch. Don’t be sad. It’s a good connection, and it was fun listening to him perform an homage to his own character. You might also consider–in light of my suggested interpretation below–comparing Q with Celestia.

@Terminus_Est

Dopers are only considering Q’s power rather than his personality. Remember that there’s supposed to be a whole Q-dimension of beings with Q’s level of power, but only one of them meddles in human affairs. I consider Q to be a trickster archetype - a god, person, animal or other being that doesn’t play by the normal rules.

I argued in a post last year that not only is Q of the Trickster archetype, he is specifically the Trickster-as-Teacher. I compare him to Coyote in that aspect.

[BigT]

@Balance

/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15910980&postcount=61]post last year that not only is Q of the Trickster archetype, he is specifically the Trickster-as-Teacher. I compare him to Coyote in that aspect.

I hate that I apparently missed that thread. Not only are you correct, but I think the series pretty much spelled it out in “All Good Things,” the last TNG episode. Why else is he constantly helping Picard pass the test given by the Q continuum? He genuinely likes Humans and thus wants to help them improve.

And thanks for introducing me to the god Coyote. Too bad Wikipedia is so sparse.

[Athabasca]

@amorali

John what’s his name voiced a character in My Little Pony that was quite Q like.

Yes I’m sad that I know that.

And he crashed a couple planes in Breaking Bad. Thats pretty godlike.

[Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor]

@Trinopus

The kid in Jerome Bixby’s “It’s a Good Life” perhaps?

First thing I though of.

[msmith537]

@MsWhatsit

Gandalf comes to mind. Seemingly all-powerful from the perspective of the main characters; flits in and out of the story at will; sometimes gets the characters into problematic situations but then sometimes gets them out again.

But Gandalf isn’t a jerk. The defining characteristics of Q is that he a) has godlike powers (at least compared to those he torments), b) is a jerk but c) isn’t actually evil (at least not in a power-mad “destroy the universe” sense).

Basically a godlike being that torments humans for fun or to teach them life lessons.

Wikipedia actually has an entire category of “trickster gods” from various mythologies.

The Great Gazoo was a good one.
Bruce from Bruce Almighty (perhaps God as well since he’s basically just playing a big trick on Bruce and later Evan.)
Rumpelstiltskin
Puck (particularly as portrayed in A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Metatron from Dogma (not so much a “trickster god” as an powerful angel with a sense of humor)
Count Iblis from the original Battlestar Galactica.
The Devil in Bedazzled
From a certain perspective, every single Starfleet captain ever, whenever they fuck with the Prime Directive.