Synopsis: While in negotiations for a badly needed vaccine for a plague on a Federation planet, Lt. Yar is kidnapped.
Depth psychology is defined as any psychology that examines the unconscious, and the depth psychological theme that I would like to discuss in this episode is the concept of projection. Projection involves the undeveloped or negative traits we all carry in our unconscious, which Carl (C. G.) Jung called the shadow.
Projection is the idea that those traits which individuals, or societies, find most distasteful in themselves, their shadows, they tend to project onto others. Another label that has been put on this process recently is “othering.”
Projection and othering are deeply imbedded in “Code of Honor.” Most striking is how the culture on Ligon II is portrayed. In stark contrast to the mostly white crew of the Enterprise, all the individuals we see from Ligon II are portrayed by black actors and the costumes they wear harken back to stereotypical tropes of Western vision of tribal finery.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard refers to it as a “highly structured society” (Powers, et al., 1987) at the beginning of the episode, which seems relatively neutral, but later on in the story he remarks how it resembles a pompous charade that humans on Earth moved beyond hundreds of years before. This manifests as a projection because as a quasi-military organization, Starfleet would most definitely be a highly structured organization itself quite rife with its own pompous displays. In fact, it is one of the structures that Starfleet is built on, namely the Prime Directive of non-interference, that forbids Picard and the crew of the Enterprise from taking aggressive actions against the Ligonians.
As for Lutan, the leader of the Ligonians, he does his own bit of projecting onto the crew of the Enterprise. Because on Ligon II the women own the land but the role of the men is to protect it, he is fascinated by Lt. Natasha Yar, the Chief of Security. He projects his ideal independent warrior woman fantasy onto her, a projection that she is not comfortable receiving. In Yar, he also sees a way in which to gain more wealth and power. He kidnaps her, but when Picard comes to reclaim her, in the customary way on Ligon II, Lutan breaks with tradition and refuses to give her back. Because of this, Yar is forced to fight to the death Lutan’s number one spouse, Yareena. Yar and the crew figure out a way out of the situation, theoretically without breaking the Prime Directive, and Yareena’s life is saved. She no longer wants Lutan and he loses his claim to all her possessions and his position of power.
Reference:
Powers, K. (Writer), Baron, M. (Writer), & Mayberry, R. (Director). (1987, October 12). Code of honor (Season 1, Episode 4) [TV series episode]. In G. Roddenberry (Executive Producer), Star trek: The next generation. Paramount Television.
Original post created 10 May 2021
mydailysoultrek 