Voyager's Seven:
Restlessness and responsibility
"They're not like us. They're trapped by rules and regulations. Velocity, freedom -- they'll never understand these things the way we do."
-- "Alice" to Tom Paris
In the character of Tom Paris, we have seen the basic compulsion of Sevens played out - a flight from pain and obligation. His story has been a mix of progress and missteps as he has learned to make peace with commitment and his own vulnerabilities.
Sevens escape their fears by focusing on the positive and seeking out various stimuli - interests, people, adventures - to distract them from their anxieties. This makes Sevens fun-loving and resilient people, but on the other hand, they can also be superficial, glib and highly unreliable. They can glide over the surface of life, fearing that if they stop, they will be confined - their greatest fear.
Let's take a brief overview of the various people, activities and interests that have caught Tom's attention: piloting (including crossing the warp threshold, building the Delta Flyer and repairing the ship Alice); Captain Proton; B-movies; oceanography; cars; 20th century history; the Delaney sisters; Klingon rituals; Talaxian geography; sailing; skiing; pool and good company at Sandrine's; rock 'n' roll. I'm sure I'm missing some.
In the episode Alice, we see that this tendency has not gone unnoticed by his friends. His girlfriend B'Elanna complains to Harry that "every time he finds a new hobby, I go right out the airlock."
Harry compares it to the Ferengi five stages of acquisition: "Infatuation, justification, appropriation; obsession - and resale. It seems like you've only got one stage left before he loses interest in that ship, then he's all yours again."
"Until the next infatuation," B'Elanna adds.
What they're describing is a typical Seven compulsion. Sevens fear getting stuck, and so skip from one interest and experience to the next. They try to avoid boredom - but what boredom means to a Seven is that there is not enough to occupy his mind to take his mind off his fears.
Tom found himself getting too close to that anxiety in Thirty Days, "going crazy" in solitary confinement, he said, stuck in one place alone all day, with nothing to do. How did he fill his time? "Thinking ... and thinking. Trying not to think," he told Harry. And, of course, writing a letter to his father, the man who personifies the confinement Tom is trying to escape.
What we know of Tom's past has given us a glimpse of how low Sevens can sink in their desire to escape. An unhealthy Seven equates commitment with confinement, and will do anything to avoid taking responsibility. They degenerate into self-destructive behavior and addictions, resisting all restraints on their behavior. It becomes up to outside forces to put any limits on them - sometimes bringing the force of the law down on their heads. That's the spot where we first meet Tom - in prison.
While I'm trying to stick to "canon" information about characters, I have to recommend Jeri Taylor's book Pathways for its vivid depiction of Tom's descent in the events that lead to his incarceration. From the point of the accident that killed three pilots - an accident caused by Tom's irresponsible risk-taking - and his lie to cover it up, Tom sinks into alcohol abuse and promiscuity, trying desperately to deaden feelings of pain and guilt.
On the show, we see this side of Tom briefly in the alternate timeline episode Non Sequitur, where a paroled Tom spends his time drunk and playing pool at Sandrine's. Sevens who are this unhealthy no longer take any joy in their dissipations. They are hostile and bitter, and as obnoxious as Tom is to Harry in this episode.
The Tom we know best, though, is the one who joined the crew of Voyager, and has struggled to find some sort of balance between the need for adventure and taking his responsibilities seriously. This tug of war is particularly acute for Tom as a social subtype Seven. Social Sevens, with an orientation towards the group and their place in it, feel a tension between their duty to others and the need to escape. They feel guilty about living up to their responsibilities, and feel it as a great weight of obligation on their shoulders that they may occasionally rebel against, seeking variety and change.
We saw this restlessness in Tom in Vis a Vis and Alice. "Alice" tries to seduce Tom away from his crewmates, telling him, "They're trapped by rules and regulations. Velocity, freedom - they'll never understand these things the way we do." On the other side, Tom feels the pull of his responsibility to the Voyager family, and his protests to Alice are framed in those terms. Alice is arguably a creation of Tom's mind, making this a pretty clear dramatization of the social Seven's internal conflict.
Social Sevens often have a childhood background in which they were given too much responsibility at an early age. Tom's background seems to fit this profile. His career in Star Fleet was chosen for him, great things were expected of him, he was told to put away toys and get busy studying - all this from a father who insisted that it be done right.
At their best, social Sevens willingly take on commitments. They find fidelity and steadiness to give their life form, and find variety within that. They become very stable, loyal and generous. Tom's pursuit of B'Elanna, not as a sexual conquest but in hopes of a real relationship, shows him reaching for the high side of his character. And despite some rocky moments, he has stuck with the commitment he made to her. We've seen similar dedication to his duties as an officer on Voyager.
From time to time, Tom has shown aspects of the Seven's connection to 1. On the low side, he can be cynical, irritable, and blame others for preventing him from having fun.
In Threshold, he pursued what enneagram writer Thomas Condon calls the Seven's obsession with a "Big Idea" that is related to the low side of 1. With the Big Idea, Sevens look for a notion that will save them - one blazing success that will redeem all past failures. (This is the thinking of compulsive gamblers - another activity Tom has been known to participate in.) Tom's desire to break the warp threshold becomes the Big Idea for him. He says as much to Janeway - that it will make up for all his lost potential.
In the end, he comes to some kind of realization that this one Big Idea is not going to wipe out the past. In fact, it's his day-to-day service on the ship, one little step at a time, that redeems Tom's reputation. That's hard for a Seven looking for a quick, painless fix to realize, but it is what worked for Tom in the long run.
In Thirty Days, we have the irony of Tom back in jail again - but this time for going to the high side of 1. He defies orders and risks his life, but in the service of a cause. At the beginning of the episode, it's just another adventure, living a childhood fantasy, exploring the ocean planet. But when he learns the ocean is endangered, the idealism and seriousness of his 1 connection take hold. He does take a big risk, but not as some kind of thrill ride (the goal of an unhealthy Seven), but in order to do what he thinks is right. He sacrifices his rank and 30 days of freedom. He realizes that this incident is not just one more screw-up to add to his resume. When Janeway says she thought he was beyond this kind of behavior, he says, "At least this time I broke the rules for a reason - for something I believed in."
An interesting aspect of Seven's connection to 1 is that in fiction, Sevens are often paired with Ones, in a classic conflict of the pleasure-seeking hedonist versus the rule-bound scold. Star Trek has paired up all its major Sevens with a One to try to keep them in line: Q and Vash both had Picard, and Jadzia Dax even went so far as to marry her One, Worf.
With Tom Paris, it's more implied, but it's there nonetheless. All the evidence strongly suggests that his father, Admiral Owen Paris, is a One - a One with a lot of rules and standards that Tom never felt he could live up to. In Thirty Days, Tom writes a letter to his father, fully expecting his demotion and jail time will bring more crushing disapproval. But he is trying to explain events that are rooted in the same kind of principled action that his father, as a One, might be able to understand. When Tom gives up on the letter, Harry reminds Tom that Admiral Paris always said Tom "never finished anything" - a distinct failing of Sevens when their restless desire to escape takes hold. In Thirty Days, Tom not only follows through on his impulse to do what he can to save the ocean planet, he finishes the letter to his father, too.
Tom's problems with authority, represented by his relationship with his father, are related to his 6-wing. Sevens with a 6-wing are good at evading and finessing authority, but are still aware of it, like a 6 would be. The 6-wing also adds a degree of insecurity and vulnerability not as evident in a Seven with an 8-wing. With a 6-wing, Sevens are more sensitive to comparisons and care more about what other people think of them. Despite a general façade of careless bravado, Tom has shown again and again that he wants people to have a good opinion of him. Other aspects of the 6-wing Tom has shown are the use of humor as a defense, and his loyalty to his friends.
--Teresa Malcolm