Voyager's Nines (Part 2)
"I never felt like I deserved that kind of devotion. I didn't see what was so special about me."
--Harry Kim in Favorite Son
Thomas Condon describes a certain variety of Nines -- almost always the social subtype -- that he calls the "Prince or Princess Nine." In their family backgrounds, these Nines were the model child, idealized by their parents. They were given protection from a harsher reality -- given a free pass, but also kind of ignored. They felt neglected and celebrated at the same time.
When grown up, they expect life to be cushy, but in an easygoing Nine kind of way. They can be prissy and demanding, throwing fits every once in a while. But in general, they continue to be the model child.
Harry Kim fits the profile of the "Prince Nine" quite well. In the episode Favorite Son, he pretty much spells out Condon's scenario of the pampered child who nevertheless holds the Nine belief that "I don't count": "That's what my parents used to say to me -- how special I was. They'd been trying to have a baby for years until I came along. They called me their miracle child. ... They spoiled me rotten, making sacrifices so they could give me everything I wanted. ... But I never felt like I deserved that kind of devotion. I didn't see what was so special about me."
To briefly stray off-canon, Jeri Taylor's book Pathways elaborates on this background. Harry has an idyllic childhood, is given that free pass, until he gets to Star Fleet Academy. He has an instructor who hounds him, making life particularly difficult. It's not until graduation that Harry realizes the instructor had recognized him as someone who had had it easy all his life, and so was trying to toughen him up. At graduation, Harry is caught in Niney indecision about what posting to accept -- Voyager or a job on Earth. He consults everyone he knows and is given conflicting advice. He even considers tossing a coin. Finally, he asks the instructor who had persecuted him, who says, "I didn't spend four years on you so you could sit at a desk, Ensign."
"And thus was Harry's decision made," Taylor writes -- an interesting use of the passive voice that typifies Nine-ness. The decision is made for him, and Harry joins Voyager.
On the show, Harry has been known to throw little fits now and then. A recent example came at the beginning of the episode Memorial -- Harry is cranky at the living conditions on an away mission and gripes at Tom for leaving a dirty dish out. "It's a biohazard!" he complains. (His neatness, pointed out here and in Ashes to Ashes, is related to his 1-wing.)
Most of the time, though, he has been the "model child" version of a crew member. Part of this draws on the Nine's connection to 3 -- playing out a role based on the expectations of others. The difference is that, unlike a 3, the Nine knows perfectly well he is not the same as his image.
In The Disease, Harry says, "Every time I break a rule, I feel like my skull is going to decompress. I'm like some kind of Borg drone -- programmed. Except I was designed to be the perfect Star Fleet officer."
The concern with rules also reflects his 1-wing. A Nine with a 1-wing tends to be virtuous and orderly and very little trouble. The Disease found Harry rebelling against the model child image. He seems to especially resent that Janeway says his behavior is "not like the Harry Kim I know." Social Nines will disappear into a context, be exactly what the group expects, then secretly resent the consequences -- being overlooked, taken for granted. Some of this resentment seems to be under Harry's rebellion in The Disease.
However, Harry has been making efforts to stand out a little more. In Demon, Tom is amazed at Harry's assertiveness. Harry explains that when he came on board, in his very first assignment, he was nervous about giving his opinion, and he "behaved that way for so long, it became a habit." Then he recently realized that he had gained a lot of experience, and wanted to try speaking his mind more. His assignment as night-crew bridge commander in the past year or so may have sprung from this resolution.
Sometimes Harry can show a negativity, a feeling of powerlessness, that is related to the low side of 6. In The Caretaker, for example, he starts to lose hope of being saved, saying, "On my very first mission, I'm going to die."
In Timeless, he is obsessive about changing the past and saving Voyager, but his attitude is marked by a 6-ish pessimism and sarcasm. And when his plan fails, he gives up, unable to see any other options, until the Doctor forces him to come up with a plan B.
The kind of despair Harry shows in Timeless is something found deep at the core of Nines. An unhealthy Nine's belief that "I don't matter" can lead to a very bleak worldview, that nothing matters, and "I can't do anything right." There can be a deep-seated hopelessness.
Timeless brought those feelings of fatalism to the surface, but it was an alternate timeline. The current timeline Harry is probably a little healthier -- but we've also seen the buried anger and resentment bubble up in episodes like The Disease and Memorial.
Harry's friendship with Tom Paris is his prime relationship on Voyager. In some ways, Tom fulfills that role of the stronger personality who gives the Nine definition. Harry rarely develops his own interests -- he just gets swept along with Tom's (the Delaney sisters, Captain Proton, Fair Haven, etc.)
On the high side of Nine, though, the friendship began thanks to Harry's Nine predisposition to see the best in people. In The Caretaker, Harry learns of Tom's troubled past and is warned off befriending him by superior officers. He doesn't protest or defend Tom to the officers -- he just looks cowed -- but when he talks to Tom, he offers sympathy and acceptance. "I don't need anyone to choose my friends for me," he tells Tom. Janeway may think of Tom as her "personal reclamation project," but the lion's share of the credit for Tom's reformation belongs to Harry. By his simple offer of unconditional friendship, Harry became the first person Tom does not want to let down -- rather, he's given a reason to live up to Harry's best expectations of him.
--Teresa Malcolm