# When Demystification is a Bad Thing **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 5, 2004, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200 "2004-09-05T10:48:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2004, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/41 "2004-09-09T16:48:40Z")
In reply to Tracer, whom I quote|: “To be fair to George Lucas (ack!), the midi-chlorians didn’t demystify the Force, they merely demystified why some people are more sensitive to the Force than others. Qui-Gon said that midi-chlorians “communicate” with the Force and “speak to” their owner about the Will of the Force, but they do not actually create the Force and are not synonymous with it.” Sorry, but that’s still really lame. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2004, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/42 "2004-09-10T19:20:56Z")
**The Demysticiation of Cecil Adams** : scared you there for a second, didn’t I? :eek: ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2004, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/43 "2004-09-10T21:51:13Z")
“Demysticiation”? ---
**Author:** ![capacitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e47774/32.png) [@capacitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capacitor)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2004, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/44 "2004-09-10T23:52:23Z")
Why, in the new Star Trek series _Enterprise_ do we have a Vulcan as amorous as T’Pau, who actually likes being touched? It’s wasn’t even Amok Time. And if she was so amorous, why she didn’t become an advocate of tantric exercises for all Vulcans when she became leader? ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/45 "2004-09-11T00:22:50Z")
T’Pau has never (as far as I know) appeared on Enterprise. T’Pol never, as far as we know, becomes a leader of the Vulcans (she is something of an outcast, last I saw, actually…). ---
**Author:** ![Meros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Meros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meros)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/46 "2004-09-11T00:47:18Z")
Just too take the hijack a little further on… It’s been a while since I’ve watched Enterprise but wasn’t it revealed at one point that she used to be a member of a group of Vulcans who were focused on experiencing their emotional side? ---
**Author:** ![Ephemera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8baadc/32.png) [@Ephemera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ephemera)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/47 "2004-09-11T01:16:26Z")
_Amok Time_ was the name of the TOS episode where Spock experienced _pon farr_ (heat) and under went\* plak tow\* (blood fever) and T’Pau, the matriarch in that episode, is not the same woman as T’Pol, the science officer on the Enterprise. And so far as I know, T’Pol’s just fucked up in the head and was never a part of any emotional Vulcan sect. She was mind raped by one if I remember correctly though. She’s just a poorly written character but doesn’t desmystify much, if anything, about the Vulcans. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/48 "2004-09-11T03:31:12Z")
> [@tracer](#): > > To be fair to George Lucas (ack!), the midi-chlorians didn’t demystify the Force, they merely demystified why some people are more sensitive to the Force than others. Qui-Gon said that midi-chlorians “communicate” with the Force and “speak to” their owner about the Will of the Force, but they do not actually _create_ the Force and are not synonymous with it. This is my interpretation of it. The midichorions are a sensory organ. Your eyes allow you to sense light energy, your ears allow you to sense sound waves, and midichlorions allow you to sense The Force. Still, Lucas should never have brought them up. The Force was so much cooler when it was mysterious. And the whole bit about Anakin being a virgin birth was a _huge_ mistake. Now, instead of Darth Vader being a former Jedi who was tempted away by the Dark Side, he’s some kind of Evil Messiah. Allowing us to see what Boba Fett looked like (via Jango and the clones) was also a mistake. I always suspected that Boba was probably just some normal guy under that mask, but the mystique came from the fact that you didn’t really know. I will conceed, however, that having the stormtroopers be clones makes a lot of sense. It’s the perfect way to create a plentiful supply of troops who are totally expendable. ---
**Author:** ![shy\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@shy\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shy_guy)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/49 "2004-09-11T04:24:50Z")
Heck, as far as Star Wars goes, I’ll add the showing of Darth Vader’s face in _RotJ_. When I saw the first two movies as a kid, I imagined his face as something too horrible to show… then he turns out to look like Egg Head from Batman with a skin rash. Oh, and the same goes for Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget, who ended up looking even lamer than Darth Vader, if that’s possible. ---
**Author:** ![Duderdude2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/cdc98d/32.png) [@Duderdude2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duderdude2)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/50 "2004-09-11T06:53:01Z")
> [@shy guy](#): > > Oh, and the same goes for Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget, who ended up looking even lamer than Darth Vader, if that’s possible. Wait, are you speaking in reference to the action figure? As I doubt the creators had anything to do with it, i shall continue to deny its existance 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BraheSilver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@BraheSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BraheSilver)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/51 "2004-09-11T07:34:24Z")
Regarding midichlorians: I didn’t think that they created the Force as much as were just an indication of its presence. Something like “this soil has a lot of nitrates because plants thrive,” so “you have a lot of Force because the mids thrive in you.” Why everybody forgot about them twenty years later is a mystery. A different demystification I first thought of was from Stephen King’s _Dark Tower_ series, from a single sentence. The main character, Roland, has been on an epic quest for who knows how long and almost everything he’s ever cared about has been destroyed (some by his own hand) before the books catch up to him. One line goes: “Had not Alain fallen under his and Cuthbert’s thundering guns?” This is a big thing because Cuthbert, Alain, and Roland were best friends and the surviving gunslingers of his nation. They started out on the quest to the Tower as ka-tet. What happened on the journey to make Roland and Cuthbert kill their friend? Had he turned on them? Had his psychic power made him into a monster? Turns out in the sixth book that:Alain was on point during a battle and came back to report. R and C were on edge from nerves and gunned Alain down as he rode toward them before they recognized him as one of their own. That’s it?! Mistaken identity? That’s the second time that’s happened to Roland, and he didn’t have any witches to blame this one on.Total disappointment. ---
**Author:** ![shy\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@shy\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shy_guy)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/52 "2004-09-11T21:08:22Z")
> [@Duderdude2](#): > > Wait, are you speaking in reference to the action figure? As I doubt the creators had anything to do with it, i shall continue to deny its existance 😉 Yep. Whether it’s canon or not, I can’t see Claw’s hand without picturing it attached to some nutty old man. ---
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/53 "2004-09-12T03:26:40Z")
> [@shy guy](#): > > Oh, and the same goes for Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget, who ended up looking even lamer than Darth Vader, if that’s possible. I didn’t see every single episode, but they showed this? I don’t remember Gadget ever getting close to Dr. Claw. ---
**Author:** ![shy\_guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@shy\_guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shy_guy)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/54 "2004-09-12T06:28:01Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t remember Gadget ever getting close to Dr. Claw. They never showed his face in the show. The only way we know what he looks like is, as Duderdude2 said, from the Inspector Gadget action figure line. The Dr. Claw figure came with a sticker hiding his face, and you found out what he looked like upon opening him up. I’m not going to provide a link to a picture just because I want people to be able to hang onto the mystery as long as they can. Although if you really feel like being dissapointed, you can Image Google “Dr. Claw” and the figure is one of the first matches. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2004, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/55 "2004-09-12T20:26:00Z")
Re Dr Klaw The whole figure disappointed me. All those years watching the show, I wondered if he wore some kind of Doctor Doom style armor, or a black labsmock and mad scientiest goggles, or a modified SS uniform, or a black doublebreasted trenchcoat, or an exquisitely tailored black suit. The action figure fit none of those expectations. If not for the label on the package, and the steel hand, you would never know it was Klaw. ---
**Author:** ![Dragonblink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Dragonblink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragonblink)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200/56 "2004-09-13T00:56:50Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > The next complaint is ‘Night Watch’ by Terry Pratchett. […] I appreciate that the Discworld evolves over time, but it should only have gone forward. I’m also going to have to disagree with you on this one. One of the best things about the lack of a need to read the Discworld books in order, and the high rereadability of them, is that you can not only see the development of the characters by, say, reading all the Watch books in order, but by going back occasionally and seeing where they were. After reading _The Fifth Elephant_ or _Jingo_ or whatever, it’s still enjoyable to read _Guards! Guards!_ and see/remember how the Watch when Carrot came to Ankh-Morpork. _Night Watch_, along with being a good book about Vimes in Action, is extra fun because you see people even _earlier_ in their development. You get to see a living Reg and a non-Patrician Vetinari (whose Assassin backgrounds have already been mentioned on more than one occassion). You get to see the Bad Old Days that have been alluded to. You also get to see an Ankh-Morpork that has yet to undergo the quality-of-life improvements such as a competent Night Watch, Vetinari’s refinements of the guild system, the advance of technology, etc etc. It’s kind of like reading C.S. Lewis’ _The Magician’s Nephew_ when it was _meant_ to be read – not as the first book, laying a foundation, but as the sixth book (I may be remembering that number wrong, don’t have my copy in front of me), after you’ve already seen the Lamppost and the Wardrobe and all of that without any explanation as to why they’re there. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-demystification-is-a-bad-thing/263200.md?page=2)