Synopsis: Ensign Kim, Lt. Torres, and Captain Janeway come across Fear when they try to rescue individuals from a computer program initiated to keep them alive while they were in a stasis chamber.
This episode, like many others I have posted about recently, can be seen as yet another illustration of how the Logos-driven rational conscious ego tends to approach things differently than the Eros-driven unconscious, yet when the conscious ego acknowledges that there are other ways of perceiving the world, it makes the ego stronger and the psyche more whole.
In “The Thaw” the crew of Voyager come across a planet that’s only living population are individuals who have been in stasis chambers for 19 years. Two of the individuals in the stasis chambers have died, but the three survivors have been kept alive by their brains being connected into something akin to a virtual reality, or holodeck program. Using the stasis chambers of the deceased individuals, Ensign Harry Kim and Lt. B’Elanna Torres enter the program to try to find out what happened. They discover a bit of a carnival-like atmosphere populated by performers and the embodiment of Fear. Fear runs the place. Fear holds the three survivors hostage. Because Captain Kathryn Janeway doesn’t want to risk anybody else being taken prisoner, she sends The Doctor hologram into the program to negotiate on her behalf. But Fear just wants to be assured that he can continue to exist, and for this he needs hostages. Janeway agrees to enter the program as his hostage if he lets the others go. Fear tells her that he is the most honest of emotions. Janeway tells Fear that fear is a healthy thing most of the time, but its reason to exist is to be conquered. Then she tells Fear that she tricked him and the program ends.
This episode contains not only the embodiment of the emotion, Fear, but also Janeway can be seen as a representation, or embodiment, of how the rational ego may respond to it. Janeway tries to understand what Fear wants, and acknowledges its existence, even admitting that it can be a good thing. But she also realizes that in order to conquer it, which is a very ego-centric way to look at fear, she must not approach it rationally, but instead trick it to win her crew’s freedom from it. Facing Fear and recognizing its existence and healthy aspects, allowed her to conquer it. Which, although an ego-centric way of putting it, can be compared to how when the conscious ego acknowledges bits of material from the unconscious and integrates it into itself, it becomes stronger and the psyche more whole.
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