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overheard-at-star-command · 9 months

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'Daddy's Little Princess'

I want to play Dr. Animus for a moment and analyze Mira Nova’s daddy issues. And take a closer look at her dad himself.

(I meant to write this essay for Father’s Day, btw)

In most cases, interpretations of stories are not about what is literally in the text but what is drawn on from the cultural and social experience of the society that created the text. Thus, it’s a stretch to suggest that the writers and creators of Buzz Lightyear of Star Command deliberately wrote Mira’s relationship with her father to be deep or complex. On the other hand, you would be forgiven for thinking that King Nova is just a stock “mean dad” character for a kids’ show.

But, believe it or not, King Nova has a character arc: it’s about a father who goes from being hostile towards his adult daughter to supporting her.

As an adult who has struggled with her own daddy issues, and as someone who has dabbled in the social sciences, psychology, and mythology, I see a much deeper story in the series about the stress of parent and adult child relationships and how the two parties negotiate a new balance between them.

To be up front, I’ve been listening to lectures and podcasts by Jordan Peterson recently, and I will pull interpretive material from his sources. (I understand that Peterson is a controversial figure. If you don’t like him, then go read something else.)

During my first semester of college, a very long time ago, I took an introduction to family studies course. One topic that the got discussed briefly in class was that of family transitions: that is, the question of how families deal with changes such as birth, marriage, divorce, and death. Family transitions bring about changes in how the individual members perform their roles in the family system or relate to one another. The lack of clarity or communication about what these new roles look like creates stress between family members as they try to figure it out on their own. One of the most difficult types of transitions is when an adult child moves out of the household, which my professor referred to (appropriately for this discussion about a kids’ sci-fi show) as ‘launching’.

Launching creates friction in the parent-child relationship because the parent(s) and child need to redefine the terms of their relationship but will have differing opinions on how to do so. The adult child how has autonomy over their own life. They now set their own boundaries and create their own identity without input from the parent. The adult child either does not fulfil their parent’s expectations for them or outright reject them. The parent wants to support the child but has to let go of providing for most or all of their needs. Social and political differences or even just personal disagreements can cause distance in the relationship and even outright resentment. If not resolved, conflict can lead to one party cutting off the relationship with the other. According to the notes I have saved, my professor remarked that it is the parents who suffer more during launching rather than the adult children.

Father and Daughter

Let me address the elephant in the room: Mira Nova is never mentioned as having a mother. Considering that Mira is a Disney ‘princess’ this is hardly a surprise, since many Disney protagonists, and fairy-tale characters in general, have one or both biological parents missing. Absence or separation from parents requires the hero or heroine of a given story to act as an adult and take responsibility for their own survival. A child missing one or both parents must learn the rules of life by themselves because the parent is not there to teach them. In many cases, absence or separation from parents/parent figures initiates the Hero’s Journey. The archetypal adventure story is a symbolic journey into adulthood itself. Luke Skywalker’s arc in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is about how he gets off his aunt and uncle’s moisture farm where he spent his childhood and dedicates his adulthood to becoming a Jedi.

Assume, for the sake of argument, that Mira did have a mother, but she is absent because of some unnamed circumstances. She may even be dead. Mira and her father are emotionally close because each is the only nuclear family member the other has, and that closeness gives their disagreements higher stakes and greater potential for damage. If Mira’s hypothetical mother was lost or even killed in some tragedy, it would give King Nova a stronger desire to control and protect his daughter.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention “The Lightyear Factor”, which presents an alternate universe where Mira has lost EVERYTHING including her father. The alternate-universe Mira blames Buzz Lightyear for the crimes committed by his evil doppelganger, including the ones that hit closest to home:

Mira: This is for what you did to Tangea, for what you did to my father! I never got the chance to tell him that I loved him. Buzz: See? For all your rebellious fights with your father, you still cared deeply and you should’ve told him.

As Buzz assumes, the same is true for the Mira in the first universe. Deep down Mira still cares about her father, and even the risk of losing him pains her, as hinted at in ‘The Planet Destroyer’.

Flashbacks: ‘Star-Crossed’ and ‘First Missions’

King Nova is a single father and the monarch of a planet with an insular culture suspicious of outside forces. His go-to parenting strategy is lecturing and discipline. He uses Tangea’s genteel society as a box within to contain and protect his daughter. Without a mother figure in her life, Mira has nothing to mitigate or balance out her father’s absolute control over her. To paraphrase Jordan Peterson, then, instead of being the ideal Wise King and encouraging father, King Nova is the Tyrant over both his planet and his daughter’s life.

The flashbacks in “Star Crossed” tell us that as a teenager, Mira snuck out of the royal palace to explore the outside world, thus starting the journey to adulthood in absence of a mother’s guidance and in defiance of a tyrannical father. It was during these excursions that she met and fell in love with Romac, a Grounder. Mira dating a grounder was the manifestation of King Nova’s worst fears: she had gone into the dangerous outside world and betrayed his expectations for her. Her forced separation from Romac traumatized her, and it is not unfounded to conclude that this incident became a source of hostile feelings towards her father.

An archetype that Jordan Peterson refers to in his lectures is that of the monster parent that devours their own child: think of Kronos in the Greek theogony. The monster parent eats their offspring because they are jealous of the child, either for their potential to surpass them or for having other friends and guardians besides the parent. King Nova ‘swallowed’ his daughter in order to protect her from the dangers of the outside world, those ‘dangers’ being independence, romance, and mingling with ‘common grounders’. In this sense, he is on par with fairy tale parents who attempt and fail to protect their children from the chaos of adulthood, notably the father of Sleeping Beauty or Rapunzel’s ‘Mother’ Gothel.

It's ironic: no solid walls can hold Tangeans, and yet the king of that species expects his own daughter to stay inside the palace.

A few years later, as we learn in “First Missions”, the Galactic Alliance approached King Nova about bringing the planet Tangea into their organization. He was not in favor of accepting the offer. He only changed his mind because the Evil Emperor Zurg literally invaded his house, forcing him to see the political necessity. In the process of that home invasion and rescue, Buzz Lightyear came into Mira Nova’s life as an alternative parental figure and a mentor. So Tangea gained membership in the Galactic Alliance, but its king lost his daughter in the bargain.

‘The Planet Destroyer’ (episode 7)

The first time we meet King Nova in the release order of the series is ‘The Planet Destroyer’. This is what happens in his first scene with Mira:

Mira: That laser webbing will prevent even a speck of cosmic dust from entering Tangea’s atmosphere. King: This is all much ado about nothing. Tangea can take care of its own. We certainly don’t need monkeys in space suits to protect us. Mira: 'Monkeys in space suits?' King: Mira, you know how much I disapprove of you being part of that space club. Mira: It is not a club, father. It’s Star Command. King: Mmm, yes. Whatever you call it. I don’t like it. It’s beneath us. Mira: Why, because we’re royal? King: Because we’re Tangean. This diversion is keeping you from the proper development of your powers. Besides, if you consort with monkeys. You’re bound to start acting like one.

They have had this conversation before.

Mira returns to her crew feeling absolutely LIVID. “He’s the most vain, egotistical, conceited man to ever walk Tangea!” she mutters.

I think King Nova feels like he is losing control of his life, and he is: his planet’s political status has changed and his daughter has left home. In response, he doubles down on his controlling speech and attitude towards his daughter. He invalidates Mira and her life away from home.

It is my personal headcanon that the lowest point in Mira’s relationship with her father was when she decided to join Star Command. They may have had terrible arguments. She might have left for the training Academy without saying goodbye. He might have not called her or answered her calls while she was at the Academy and perhaps not even after she graduated (or if he did, it was to ask when she was coming back to Tangea). This could be the first time they’ve seen each other and even talked since she left home.

After Mira graduated, she became partners with Buzz Lightyear along with Booster and XR, and Team Lightyear became her new family. Mira has likely talked to her father about her teammates, so I think the king takes Mira finding an alternative family as a betrayal of their relationship. Therefore, he has no qualms about calling them ‘monkeys’ and ‘inferior’ to specifically insult them.

Zurg’s ‘planet destroyer’ device makes Tangea disappear. But Mira, strangely, is not upset about it. I would argue that this bit of exposition could have been written better. However, when Team Lightyear goes to search for Zurg’s weapon, Mira asserts that Tangea isn’t really destroyed because she still has a mental connection to her planet and her father. She doesn’t know how this connection is possible—and then she admits that if she understood her supernatural powers more then she would have a better idea of how and why the connection worked. What Mira really acknowledges is that her father is partly right about needing to develop her powers.

Mira’s intuition leads Team Lightyear to the alternate dimension where Zurg transported the planets he ‘destroyed’. King Nova appears and Mira is grateful to see him alive. But how to reverse the effects of Zurg’s weapon?

King: With my enormous mental powers, I might be able to penetrate the trans-dimensional hull of this so-called ‘planet-destroyer’” Mira: Mm-hm, okay. And what will you do when Zurg’s killer robots attack? King: Oh. Well, I…hadn’t really thought of that.

Now it is her dad’s turn to realize that he does not know everything he needs to save the day. The king has expertise that Mira does not have, and Mira has the combat skills that the king lacks. With Buzz Lightyear’s encouragement, father and daughter compromise in order to carry out the next part of the mission. They succeed, and Mira gets a few tutorials on more ways to use her ghosting powers besides breaking and entering. King Nova does acknowledge that his daughter being a space ranger does have its benefits—but he is not about to give her his stamp of approval.

‘Mira’s Wedding’ (episode 16)

This brings us to episode 16, “Mira’s Wedding.” King Nova admits to Mira when she comes home to Tangea that her betrothal to Fop Doppler was not his idea, but he is one hundred percent in support of the match. At a later moment, King Nova very rudely informs Buzz, Booster, and XR—her other family—that they are not invited: “You. No go. Wedding.” For the king, the forced marriage of is daughter is an opportunity to bring her back into the protective sphere of the Tangean royal court and their father-daughter relationship at home. This is his chance to ‘swallow’ her again after she escaped.

According to Jordan Peterson, the role of the ideal parent is to encourage their child to be strong and independent. The child that is not allowed to leave home because of overly-attached parents can become ‘a crippled monster’. If you want a monstrosity, look at Mira’s so-called wedding dress (*scream*). Thankfully, the whole engagement and wedding is revealed as a plot to destroy the king, and it is duly foiled. Mira is allowed to return to Star Command. The hostility level between Mira and her father returns to its level of grudging respect.

‘SuperNova’ (episode 23)

Now we get to ‘SuperNova.’ Mira discovers ghosting through energy sources amplifies her Tangean powers and gives her more extraordinary abilities. After the first time she does this, she calls her father to brag about it. King Nova, however, sees Mira’s ‘achievement’ for what it really is.

King: Forget this feeling, Mira. Let it wear off. And never think of it again. Mira: *laughing* You’ve got to be kidding! This is so great! King: Listen to me, child: Tangeans absorb the energy we ghost through. It’s invigorating at first, but— Mira: But what? I feel awesome! King: Of course. Until you can’t stop. Mira: Aw, c’mon! I can handle it!

King: Listen to me, daughter: no good can come from this power ghosting. It can destroy you. It WILL destroy you. Mira: You just can’t stand to see me succeed!

Someone watching ‘SuperNova’ for the first time might think that the king is reprimanding his daughter for no reason, as usual. But this time the king is in the right.

The problem with Mira’s relationship with her father is that she cannot tell the difference between her father (or anyone else) criticizing her wrongly and genuinely helping her because the discord between them has lasted for so long Mira accuses him of being jealous of her independence—right assumption, wrong time. After this conversation, Mira doubles down. She becomes addicted to power ghosting through restricted energy sources in order to keep up her ‘high’ and her amplified powers.

As for the king, his parenting style has come back to bite him. It’s a twisted parallel to the proverbial boy who cried wolf.

Mira’s bad behavior gets her a serious reprimand from Commander Nebula. “You sound like my—father!” she says just as her father himself enters the Star Command hangar.

In The Adventure Begins, it was the Commander who recommended Mira to be Buzz’s partner. My personal headcanon is that Mira saw Commander Nebula as another alternative parent figure: the ‘cool dad’, if you like. Commander Nebula chewing her out for her energy addiction and being in cahoots with her real father against her is a huge betrayal.

What’s more, if King Nova is so attached to Tangea, then seeing him away from his homeworld and at Star Command means that this issue is serious. This is him starting to cross over to her side of their divide, even if he himself does not see it as such. He tells her, “If I don’t do everything Tangean-ly possible to stop you from this, I’ll never forgive myself.”

Mira, of course, won’t listen to either her father or her commanding officer. Instead, she decides that she needs to use her enhanced powers to destroy Emperor Zurg once and for all. Buzz, Booster, and XR agree to go with her, but she sneaks out alone for Planet Z: partly to protect them, yes, but running away is a usual way for her to rebel.

The Evil Emperor Zurg had been keeping track on the wayward princess, and when she arrives to destroy him, he has a trap waiting for her. When Mira exhausts her powers fighting him, he puts her in a dungeon cell adjacent to a waiting energy core, a core that fuels a weapon that will destroy Star Command. The rest of Team Lightyear arrives to join Mira, but Zurg springs a cage on them as well.

Enter King Nova. He walks up to the bars of Mira’s prison cell.

King: Don’t do it, child! Don’t give in to your cravings! Mira: What gives you the right to tell me what to do? King: Because I know how it feels! I, too, once ghosted through energy. I felt its power. And it took me to the brink of destruction.

Then, in what is perhaps one of the rawest lines in the whole series, Mira tells him, “Well, I’m not you!”

With that, she ghosts out of her cell and into Zurg’s waiting power core. But then, to Zurg’s dismay, she ghosts right back out of it.

The Evil Emperor is confused. Isn’t Mira so hopelessly addicted to power that she can’t live without it?

Mira’s next line is the moral message of the episode:

“But there are other kinds of strength, like being able to say enough is enough, or helping someone who’s too stubborn to realize she needs help.”

And she looks at her father and her friends as she says this.

Running through the whole scene again, Mira’s statement about learning her lesson seems to contradict the ‘I’m not you’ line. But let me break down the scene from before that moment. When her friends come to save her and get captured, Mira recognizes that their capture is a consequence of her poor choices.

She tells her father “I’m not you” moments after his big confession, which means she is still processing it when she walks away. I believe that while getting a final charge from Zurg’s power core, Mira comes to terms with what has just happened: her father has confessed that he is not perfect.

Up until this point, Mira’s image of her father was that of a stern tyrant who embodied his own ideas of Tangean perfection. King Nova has now left his homeworld in defiance of his ego and come to Planet Z (Hell) to save his daughter from Zurg (more or less the Devil, horns and all). He has revealed to her that he had the same weakness that she struggles with currently. He wants to help her overcome it not just out of duty but out of compassion. The king’s actions destroy the false image that his daughter had of him. It can be seen as a symbolic death, in Mira’s mind, of the person she thought her father was.

Mira Nova then undergoes her own symbolic death. She comes out of Zurg’s power core no longer glowing like she did when she was supercharged, meaning that she only absorbed enough energy to get out and fight to save her friends. She leaves her spacesuit inside the energy core, rigged to self-destruct in order to destroy the core, and she is armed with a big blaster. Leaving her spacesuit behind to detonate is her way of shedding her ordeal with her addiction; destroying the core itself is ending her physical dependency on it and similar power sources. Both father and daughter have killed their egos.

In the final scene of the episode, Mira apologizes to her friends for her recent behavior. She even informs Commander Nebula that she is willing to resign from Star Command. She holds herself accountable for her recent actions. In contrast to the start of the episode. Mira admits that she isn’t perfect, either as a person or a space ranger. Buzz intervenes and informs Commander Nebula that in spite of her weakness Mira is still good enough to be a space ranger: her actions after leaving Zurg’s dungeon cell prove as much.

And then, at the very end of the episode, King Nova finally tells Mira that she can stay at Star Command. Because of these events, he is finally willing to let her choose her own path for her adult life. Mira has demonstrated to her father that she can do what is morally right for herself.

The entire incident is the turning point for Mira’s relationship with her father. That is why I believe ‘SuperNova’ is one of the best episodes of the series. In spite of how hard it is to watch Mira mess up, she recognizes her mistakes and makes amends, and in the process, she makes up with her dad. The episode’s emotional payoff is sincere.

‘The Starthought’ (episode 48)

King Nova enters the scene in “The Starthought” on a completely different footing. He offers Star Command a high-tech spaceship to add to its fleet—on the condition that Mira pilots it. He is willing to support Mira as a space ranger now, but she has to do it in a way that displays Tangean superiority—his way.

At first, Mira is not down to be the Starthought pilot. “Can’t you accept I am not a princess here? I’m a ranger, like everyone else.” In spite of now allowing Mira to stay at Star Command, the king and his daughter have still not figured out the boundaries of their relationship. As her father, he wants to still provide support for her, but in an environment where she is an independently functioning adult this is inappropriate. Mira keeps her work life and her home/royal life separate. She does not want special royal treatment as a space ranger, but she’s happy to live and work as an equal to her colleagues. It looks like she tried to tell her father about this but he failed to understand.

What pushes Mira to take the bait, however, is a snide remark from rival ranger Rocket Crocket. Mira might not be as arrogant as the average Tangean, yet she still has an ego problem. The need to prove herself is normal and healthy, but she is willing to do stupid or risky things to one-up her critics. Mira does pull off some heroics with the Starthought. However, her showing off results in the Starthought being captured by Zurg.

By far, my second favorite scene with Mira and her father is at Cosmo’s diner after the capture of the Starthought. King Nova isn’t angry with Mira for losing the Starthought. “The important thing is that you’re all right,” he tells her.

Mira: I was showing off, and that was wrong. King: Wrong runs in the family.

It’s a very interesting admission. King Nova is admitting that as her father, trying to prop Mira up with the Starthought was a poor decision. He was showing her off just as much as she was using the Starthought to show herself off. He does not excuse himself for this or for any other mistakes he has made in the past.

Team Lightyear goes to Planet Z, and thanks to some clever shenanigans from Mira the Starthought is destroyed before Zurg can use it for evil. Buzz makes the following statement to the evil Emperor, but he may as well have also said it to the king:

“It’s not the spacecraft of Star Command that wins battles, it’s the space rangers—and we’ve got the best.”

And as he makes that statement, Buzz is holding Mira’s shoulder, showing her off for who she is.

Speaking of Buzz Lightyear, one thing I’ve noticed about Buzz in these episodes is that he acts as a mediator between Mira and her father. It was Buzz who encouraged Mira to seek her independence and her identity in “First Missions’. He encourages Mira and the king to compromise with each other, as in “The Planet Destroyer”, and in that episode and in “Mira’s Wedding” he prods the king to acknowledge that it was Star Command’s intervention that saved the day. In “SuperNova”, Buzz uses persuasion to try and talk Mira out of her addiction before the King resorts to calling Commander Nebula. Buzz later affirms her capability as a space ranger to save her from expulsion. In “The Starthought,” finally, Buzz, Booster, and XR sneakily followed Mira to Cosmo’s with the king (they may have brought him there), but they offer silent moral support while the king and his daughter talk it out. Buzz ensures that King Nova plays the appropriate part of the supportive parent that Mira needs. Buzz can be seen as an alternative dad figure—but I think he brings a whole new level of meaning to the phrase ‘mom friend’.

The final scene at Cosmo’s is an apt finale for King Nova’s arc.

King: I guess I just need to get used to the fact that you don’t need your father’s anymore. Mira: Well, actually…I do. The bill? I left my unibucks in my other spacesuit. Thanks, Daddy. King: *laughs* Of course you did. My treat.

Father and daughter are still connected, even though their roles in relation to one another are now those of hands-off parent and independent adult child. The king has also accepted Buzz, Booster, and XR as Mira’s new family away from home.

Mira’s arc in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command is the story of a young woman stepping into her new life as an adult. I conclude, then, that King Nova’s arc is the story of a father who at first refuses to allow his adult child to grow up, but then learns the hard way to let his daughter decide her own future.

I apologize for this being such a long essay but there was a lot I wanted to say. If you are more informed on the subjects of mythology, anthropology, psychology, and family studies or you’re just a fan like me, feel free to add constructive comments or corrections.

My personal takeaway: if Mira Nova can figure out her daddy issues, then mine aren't hopeless either.

Video Sources

(Wish I had more, I put this together on somewhat short notice)

Dr. Joshua Coleman On Family Estrangement

Dr. Jordan Peterson

Pinocchio and Leaving Your Parents

Mother's vs. Father's Roles

Tyrannical Fathers

Saving the Father Figure

Conversation with Jonathan Pageau about AI and Fairy Tales

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