First of all, this thread was never intended to be a discourse on the TnT relationship as a whole, but more of a way for me to vent over the continuing "T'Pol pulls the 'Come Here, Go Away' crap. Again." cliche of recent post-Terra Prime fics. It has morphed into something else however.
Distracted wrote:All "Bound" proved is that she was willing to go to extreme lengths to prevent him from leaving. It said nothing about her readiness to pursue a relationship.
So ... it meant
nothing when T'Pol told him, point-blank "
I want you back." And Trip's comment about having a lot of work to do was entirely based on the work on
Enterprise, huh? From a cinematic standpoint, it's obvious what the subtext was from that scene. I don't understand how someone can interpret it otherwise. Simply having T'Pol utter those words were more than a step forward, and given the importance of the mating bond in Vulcan culture, I also don't get how you can argue that she isn't willing to being ready to pursue a relationship. According to Vulcan tradition,
they're already married.As a matter of fact, their interactions in Terra Prime were NOT those of an established couple until after Elizabeth's death forces them to comfort each other. They were obviously NOT together before then despite Paxton's assumptions and despite their obvious desire to protect each other. Their relationship was still at the "good working team" stage, in my view, and was not that of a couple.
I guess if you see it that way, then you see no problem with the absurdities of *the_abomination* and the "break-up". What was the point of the entire TnT subplot throughout seasons 3 & 4 if they're "not together" at that point in the series? It might as well have been discarded entirely since it apparently had no actual resolution and served no purpose beyond taking up time for needless angst. Wow. That's a romance for the ages.
Yes, they had problems with interacting, but they've had problems doing that since the show started and, based on Lorian's comments, will likely continue to do that for many, many years. It's
obvious what the cinematic subtext was in
Bound - hell, I think it was actually in the fricking script too. What was the point of the entire
Bound episode and the "I want you back" if not to say "Look. They've got issues, but they
are a couple." I don't think that they tumbled into bed that night and it's obvious that they
do have some continuing issues to work out (hence Trip's "Guess we've got a lot of work to do" comment and their issues in Demons/Terra Prime), but, from the previously mentioned cinematic standpoint, the subtext is obvious.
Based on your reasoning,
Dis, I find myself viewing T'Pol with a little bit of contempt since, in your theory, she's (once again) playing the stupid "Come Here, Go Away" game and is in the "Come Here" zone. That's the definition of a tease and does
not make me like her. Trip has adjusted his career
twice because of her and saying that she's "not ready" really irks me. She's 67 fricking years old! Ostensibly, that means she's an adult, right? Why do we have to continue the motif of her acting like a teenager who is dating for the first time? Throw in the fact that, had Tucker
not given her advice back in mid-season 1, she would have been
married to Koss for over three years now. She has over
twice the life experience of anyone (except Super!Archer and maybe Phlox) on
Enterprise, yet because she's Vulcan and "confused", we're supposed to just give her a pass. Blech.
I personally don't think that being confrontational and demanding is in Trip's character based on the series. The series paints him, as others have pointed out on this thread, as a man willing to forgo his own needs to avoid hurting someone he cares for.
It also paints him as something of a pushover when it comes to people he cares about. Look at how
both Archer and T'Pol can treat him poorly (
Cogenitor immediately springs to mind in regards to Archer the Hypocrite hurling verbal abuse at Tucker and Tucker just ... taking it.) If nothing else, the primary thing we've learned about him is that he is too damned reactive, and not proactive enough.
And
that is my not so humble opinion on the subject.