History Recap / StarTrekTheNextGenerationS1E3CodeOfHonor

-->'''Picard:''' And for other things too. Commander Riker, perhaps you and Counselor Troi can demonstrate.\\

* AccidentalInnuendo: Almost certainly accidental, but after the Ligonians express an interest about how the holodeck can be used for training purposes, Picard says this lining veritably ''dripping'' with innuendo:

* InformedAbility: Lutan goes on and on about honor, but he kidnaps a foreign dignitary, holds her hostage, wants to force her into marriage, and the only reason the other side puts up with his crap is because he's got something the other side wants that can save millions of lives, and they're at least nominally not the kind to engage in plunder on an inhabited planet even though the Enterprise ''alone'' may be more powerful than his entire civilization. He's little more than a bully and only gets by because the other side has honor, and not a warrior code kind of honor. If he tried to pull this crap with the Romulans, Cardassians, or Klingons, he's either be assassinated and replaced with someone more pliable, or they would conquer him and chop his head off with a bat'leth. It's a different form of honor, external reputation instead of an internal code. Sort of like the difference between normal Klingons and Worf. For instance, Data compares the kidnapping to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_coup counting coup]]; it's ''supposed'' to be a ballsy act against a superior opponent to prove his courage. The forced marriage is a bluff (after the fight Yar turns him down with no fuss), it's just that his current wife is so incapable of believing anyone wouldn't agree to marrying him that she falls for it.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: This is the first time we see the holodeck in its off mode. Here, the floor is a gray carpet rather than the yellow grid.

* InformedAbility: Lutan goes on and on about honor, but he kidnaps a foreign dignitary, holds her hostage, wants to force her into marriage, and the only reason the other side puts up with his crap is because he's got something the other side wants that can save millions of lives, and they're at least nominally not the kind to engage in plunder on an inhabited planet even though the Enterprise ''alone'' may be more powerful than his entire civilization. He's little more than a bully and only gets by because the other side has honor, and not a warrior code kind of honor. If he tried to pull this crap with the Romulans, Cardassians, or Klingons, he's either be assassinated and replaced with someone more pliable, or they would conquer him and chop his head off with a bat'leth.
** It's a different form of honor, external reputation instead of an internal code. Sort of like the difference between normal Klingons and Worf. For instance, Data compares the kidnapping to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_coup counting coup]]; it's ''supposed'' to be a ballsy act against a superior opponent to prove his courage. The forced marriage is a bluff (after the fight Yar turns him down with no fuss), it's just that his current wife is so incapable of believing anyone wouldn't agree to marrying him that she falls for it.

-->'''Picard:''' By our standard, the customs here--their [[TitleDrop code of honor]]--is the same kind of pompous, strutting charade that endangered our own species a few centuries ago. We evolved out of it because no one tried to impose their own set of... I'm sorry, this is becoming a speech.
-->'''Troi:''' You're the Captain, sir. You're entitled.
-->'''Picard:''' Hmm, I'm not entitled to ramble on about something everyone knows. Carry on.

* SchizoTech: Ligon II looks centuries less advanced than current day, but it's capable of creating a vaccine that the Federation desperately needs.
** Less unrealistic than it may appear, given that many of our modern medicines originated with herbal preparations (aspirin from willow bark, for example). The ingredients must be native plants unique to their world; maybe to them it's a simple headache remedy and the life-saving properties vs. Anchillean fever are a side effect. The Ligonians were explicitly compared to the ancient Chinese so perhaps they have a similar system of herbal and natural medicine.

* InformedAbility: Lutan goes on and on about honor, but he kidnaps a foreign dignitary, holds her hostage, wants to force her into marriage, and the only reason the other side puts up with his crap is because he's got something the other side wants that can save millions of lives, and they're at least nominally not the kind to engage in plunder on an inhabited planet even though the Enterprise ''alone'' may be more powerful than his entire civilization. He's little more than a bully and only gets by because the other side has honor, and not a warrior code kind of honor. If he tried to pull this crap with the Romulans, Cardassians, or Klingons, he's either be assassinated and replaced with someone more pliable, or they would conquer him and chop his head off with a bat'leth.\\\

* RevivalLoophole: Yar must kill her opponent, but no one said she has to stay dead. As a bonus, this invokes the "'til death do us part" clause of Yareena's marriage, and she promptly picks Hagon as her "first one" instead.

It's a different form of honor, external reputation instead of an internal code. Sort of like the difference between normal Klingons and Worf. For instance, Data compares the kidnapping to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_coup counting coup]]; it's ''supposed'' to be a ballsy act against a superior opponent to prove his courage. The forced marriage is a bluff (after the fight Yar turns him down with no fuss), it's just that his current wife is so incapable of believing anyone wouldn't agree to marrying him that she falls for it.

* AngstWhatAngst?: Considering her backstory involved dodging rape gangs on a hellhole colony, Tasha takes being kidnapped and forced to marry remarkably well.

* LargeHam: Lutan. [[WorldOfHam On a planet where everyone is at least a little hammy]], Lutan is clearly the king.

* AbsenteeActor: Worf doesn't appear. While this was simply because Creator/MichaelDorn was unavailable -- he also didn't appear in "Haven," the next episode in the filming order -- fans like to joke that this is because he would have instantly deflated Lutan's pretensions to honor and killed the story.

* DuelingScar: As might be expected given their dueling tradition, Lutan has a large scar on his right cheek, while his subordinate Hagon has a slightly smaller one on his left.

* AbsenteeActor: Worf doesn't appear. Fans like to joke that this is because he would have instantly deflated Lutan's pretensions to honor and killed the story.

!'''This episode contains the following tropes:'''

* CaptainObvious: Data, who says that the weapons to be used by the women were designed...to be used by women.

* ExactWords: The fight was "to the death". Not necessarily to the permadeath. Yay for Crusher, she class-upped to Necromancer.
* HumorDissonance: Poor Levar Burton tries so hard to sell Data's "slip of the tongue" as the funniest thing ever.

* InformedAbility: Lutan goes on and on about honor, but he kidnaps a foreign dignitary, holds her hostage, wants to force her into marriage, and the only reason the other side puts up with his crap is because he's got something the other side wants that can save millions of lives, and they're at least nominally not the kind to engage in plunder on an inhabited planet even though the Enterprise ''alone'' may be more powerful than his entire civilization. He's little more than a bully and only gets by because the other side has honor, and not a warrior code kind of honor. If he tried to pull this crap with the Romulans, Cardassians, or Klingons, he's either be assassinated and replaced with someone more pliable, or they would conquer him and chop his head off with a bat'leth.
** It's a different form of honor, external reputation instead of an internal code. Sort of like the difference between normal Klingons and Worf. For instance, Data compares the kidnapping to [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counting_coup counting coup]]; it's ''supposed'' to be a ballsy act against a superior opponent to prove his courage. The forced marriage is a bluff (after the fight Yar turns him down with no fuss), it's just that his current wife is so incapable of believing anyone wouldn't agree to marrying him that she falls for it.

-->'''Picard:''' By our standard, the customs here - their [[TitleDrop code of honor]] - is the same kind of pompous, strutting charade that endangered our own species a few centuries ago. We evolved out of it because no one tried to impose their own set of... I'm sorry, this is becoming a speech.

* SpecialEffectFailure: A bystander catches a poisoned gauntlet in the gut. Immediately after the camera focuses on his grape-jelly bloodstain, it disappears as he keels over.

* CreatorBacklash / OldShame: Several of the cast members have expressed regret over the episode, particularly regarding the DarkestAfrica aliens. Wil Wheaton has said this can be blamed entirely on the original director, who was such a horrible racist (including insisting that the aliens all be played by black actors, when nothing about their appearance was specified in the script) that he quickly got replaced.

* RecycledScript: Katharyn Powers, the writer of this episode would later reuse this story for the third episode of ''Series/StargateSG1''. Somehow it ended up being even ''worse''.

* CreatorBacklash / OldShame: Several of the cast members have expressed regret over the episode, particularly regarding the DarkestAfrica aliens. Wil Wheaton has said this can be blamed entirely on the original director, who was such a horrible racist that he quickly got replaced.