What I want is to run and hope it falls away

[sovay]

The majority of my day so far has been emotionally and physically excruciating, but I want to appreciate spatch for listening to me speculate this morning on the subject of whether Voyager's Doctor is Jewish. Obviously the question itself presumes some biographical facts on the part of his creator-template, but I feel the odds are better than not in the case of an AI designer named Lewis Zimmerman who does most of his communicating via sarcasm: "Congratulations. The first trans-galactic phone call." So how does patrilineal descent work when it's photons? Fortunately, since I do not have the space in my life to explore the argument seriously, I am confident the answer is covered by either golem minhag or the same kind of fannishness that runs with the halachah of descent from Magneto. I did check rabbinical opinions on the Jewishness of robots and was entertained that professional-type people also think of Star Trek and whether a golem counts in a minyan. Personally I think that in the era of Zoom shivas and services, a sentient hologram would at least know how to dial in on time. Did this train of thought cross my mind in time to exploit it for Purimgifts? Nope. But it's one of the few things I did with my brain today that didn't make me miserable. And a package from minoanmiss arrived for my niece, who I will be seeing tomorrow. And that's really nice.

Comments

[kathmandu]

...I had never previously considered that Magneto might ever have had children. He doesn't seem like good husband material or good father material.

(I have followed the link and read the essay, so I understand now that's not quite the idea, but it was my first reaction when I read your commentary.)

[sovay]

(I have followed the link and read the essay, so I understand now that's not quite the idea, but it was my first reaction when I read your commentary.)

The family lives of Marvel characters are complicated. I believe he got the kids in a retcon.

[julian]

Yes, and then they were re-retconned later as not. I don't know the current status.

[dhampyresa]

Until a recent retcon, Magneto was the (genetic) father of both Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. They were raised by a Romani couple, hence the last name. Pietro has a daughter (Luna Maximoff, she lives on the Moon). To make a very, very long story* short, Wanda had twins who were raised by other people: Billy Kaplan was raised by a Jewish family. Tommy Shepherd's family is never mentioned either way that I know of. Billy is married? Or possibly just engaged? to Billy Altman.

But now Magneto has been retconned as not being related to Wanda or Pietro or any of these people**, so his only (genetic) child is Lorna Dane, also raised by other people.

* It is very long and very bonkers, but details available on request.

** It's a movie rights issue. Magneto goes with the X-Men but Wanda and Pietro go with the Avengers (ex: Cap's Kooky Quartet) -- so they ended up with Pietro/Quicksilver in the X-Men movies and Wanda/Scarlet Witch in the Avengers movie.

Or at least that is the state of things as I understand it.

[sovay]

so his only (genetic) child is Lorna Dane, also raised by other people.

I knew about the Maximoffs, but where did Lorna Dane come from?

It's a movie rights issue.

That remains nuts.

[dhampyresa]

I knew about the Maximoffs, but where did Lorna Dane come from?
Well, she has the same powerset as Magneto (iirc she went by "Magnetrix" for a bit before the current "Polaris") so it was a suspiscion for a while, but I think it got confirmed in X-Factor (possibly around the same time Theresa became the Morrigan?).

Basically her mom had an affair with Magneto, her mom and step-dad died, and Lorna was raised by her step-dad's sister and brother-in-law.