That’s a big stretch, considering she wouldn’t even be old enough for middle school when she died of old age. She aged faster than a dog. Her entire character was originally developed to give viewers a new perspective on the concept of time. She was portrayed by (and acted as) an adult even though the character was only 2 years old. She was inexperienced and naive due to her age, but that was also largely due to the fact that she (along with her entire race) was kept as part of an uneducated slave society for her entire childhood.
Neelix was possessive and jealous, (which are perfectly valid criticisms by themselves), but calling him a pedo is difficult. There are several age-related criticisms you could make without resorting to outright pedo accusations. For instance, Neelix appeared to be in his late 20’s/early 30’s (by human standards) when the series started, and Kes was only ~19-20 (again, by human standards). And most people would cringe at seeing a 19 year old dating a 29 year old. So there was a marked age difference between them, even if she was above the age of majority for her race. But again, her character was meant to age extremely quickly. IIRC the writers original concept was for her to age the equivalent of one human year every two or three episodes, but that was scrapped due to the actress developing an allergy for prosthetics, (which meant they wouldn’t have been able to do proper age makeup in the later seasons). So by the time they actually started dating, it’s possible that the relative age gap would have been closer.
kieron115@startrek.website 1 day ago
Come on, don’t water down that term. For her species she was fully developed. He was a possessive creep but not a pedophile.
Zorque@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s not the internet if we don’t make broad generalizations for the sake of moral pseudo-superiority.
Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
She was 2 years old.
kieron115@startrek.website 1 day ago
Saying “she was 2 years old” would only mean something if she had a similar developmental cycle to humans.
Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Pedophilia is an age thing. You can try to normalize it all you want, but it just comes off sounding like a Lolicon argument. “She’s physically mature at that age”, sounds a lot like “But she only looks like a child…she’s actually 200 years old.”