Our canon and taboos.

[laurenthemself]

I was just discussing this with new member jennorhbc on her LJ and I'm copying it here, because I think we should talk about it more.

The thing is that if you think about it, the show's totally fucked up in terms of potential romantic interests. Lister/Kochanski? Incest. Lister/Rimmer? Necrophilia. Lister/Cat? Bestiality. Lister/Kryten? Robophilia. Lister/Holly? Don't even go there, I don't know what the hell you'd call that.

And GO. I want to know what people think about this stuff, especially the part where Kochanski is Lister's mother and he still pursues her even after he knows this.

(Yeah, I know they're not all slash pairings, but the holy word of mod decrees that what the hell, let's talk about it anyway.)

Comments

[veronica-rich.livejournal.com]

It depends on what you'd call "necrophilia," I think. You could regard Rimmer's hologram as a dead man - or you could look at it as the consciousness divorced from the corporeal body. Possibly if there's a soul that exists, it hung around and waited for the hologram to be brought online to inhabit ... but even if that's NOT the case, Rimmer's holographic self grows and learns and changes. Whether A.I. that can become sentient would have the same rights and standing as people is a debate that's been going for some time.

Good way to bring up a science-fiction discussion! Rob Grant might well be proud. :-)

[jennorhbc.livejournal.com]

hi, the new person here :). I posted part of this comment in the original discussion thing on my journal but I thought I'd put it here to. I don't know if I'd view the Lister/Rimmer thing as necrophilia since he's not like a reanimated corpse, more like an electronic version of someone but maybe that's just me. But, with Kochanski, I always get the feeling with that they tried to focus more on her being his ex and barely even glanced on her being his mom but if they had, I don't know, treated it more... realistically, I guess? it's hard to think someone wouldn't have a problem hitting on their own mother. I like to think that maybe Lister couldn't deal with the fact he was picturing an alternate version of his mom on a white horse and that it was such a big coping mechanism for him, being the last man alive and all, eventually getting her back, that he suppressed the knowledge into a little ball until he could pretend it wasn't real. And, really, wanting to delude yourself into thinking you finally have a chance at everything you think you've ever wanted isn't too hard to believe someone would delude themselves over. Though, it seems like it would just have to bug him at some point and he'd get over it.

[amy-wolf.livejournal.com]

The thing about Kochanski being his mother is that he is also his own father. So technically, he's committing incest every time he masturbates. I don't blame him for choosing not to think about it.

(Personally, those things don't bother me. Rimmer isn't a reanimated corpse, Cat is sentient and approximately human-shaped, robot sex doesn't actually bother me, and the whole "Kochanski is his mother" thing happened under weird sci-fi circumstances and didn't involve her actually raising him or anything.)

[pheonix-iz-me.livejournal.com]

I ship Lister/Rimmer so that's not an issue for me to be fair I hadn't really thought about it but as Veronica point's out,Rimmer grows as a person. Plus he was alive in S8.

The incest thing is a more interesting argument to me (as a predestination paradox it's far to convoluted and relies too much on very specific event's, so I'm not going there.)
For me I see them as 2 very different Kochanski's, outside the obvious reasons. C.P.!K is a Native of Dave's universe, she is the girl with the pinball smile he fell for she is the one he truly pines for.
Chloe!K is a separate woman, Born of another womb in a different dimension. It is this woman/individual that Dave shared 'Raw material' with in order to create a child. A concious act to help out a woman whom, in this specific form, he's only known for about a day. He did a good thing which had weird consequence's.
Short version Chloe!K is Dave's mum, But if C.P. were to return as the actual home universe Kochanski, I would have no issues with Dave pursuing her.

As for the other ships, I have never really thought much about them, Not my OTP's.

Peace, Phe

[missflibble.livejournal.com]

This might sound odd, but I've always seen RD (slashy elements and not) as an exploration of who or what you really are and what matters.

With the last survivors of a dead race picking up rogue creatures and beings as friends and fellows, I think the idea of 'normality' has long been abandoned. They're forced to cobble together a sense of normality through the pieces left behind. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Basic instincts such as sex and survival are felt much stronger.

....and I'm not even drunk. Honestly.

[nice-girls-play.livejournal.com]

I think it's interesting that all the taboos we're specifically talked about here are attached to a pairing with *Lister*. Rimmer, Kryten and Holly are all electronic entities. Does that make a pairing among any combination of the three less taboo?

[beetle-breath.livejournal.com]

Well the original Kochanski isn't Lister's mom, and that's the Kochanski he's in love with, so I don't really see it as incest. To me, the "new" Kochanski, the one he fathers himself with, she's not even a good replacement (to him) for the original Kochanski.

The original Kochanski is portrayed as flirty, the new Kochanski is portrayed as um, kind of a bitch, really. (for fair reasons anyway; losing your ship & your Dave and stuck with a bunch of strange bums would make anyone cranky)

Despite the events of BtE, I really can't see Chloe!Kochanski & Lister working at all, except out of extreme desperation & loneliness.

[jameta4all.livejournal.com]

Lister/Cat is no more creepy than the whole Avatar thing. At least Cat looks mostly human.

Seriously, am I the only person in the world who wouldn't touch a giant blue cat thing with a bargepole?

[afullmargin.livejournal.com]

My feelings have been pretty well covered, but I'll just say it's part of why I adore everything about RD & the delightful fandom.

Really, what other fandom can have a discussion like this?

[diminua.livejournal.com]

To be honest, back when watching the shows (I've watched the early shows again recently but not series 7 or 8) I did find it weird Lister was still interested in Kochanski after finding out she was his mother. In fact I still do - but at the same time I can see that the simple fact that she was the only other human being alive would be more important than the fact she was his mother, and how the need for human intimacy, and the knowledge no-one was around to judge, might overrule those other considerations.

As far as Lister/Rimmer goes I'm with Lister - as in 'But you're not dead dead are you?' Rimmer is more sort of differently alive.