Zachary Boudreau

December 13, 2023

Computers 10

USS Callister

Sympathy is when you feel bad for a person that is going through a hard time, but you

don’t fully understand what they are going through. For example, if a person’s house has

burned down, you will feel bad for them but not fully understand how they are feeling because

you (I’m assuming) have not had your house burn down before. Empathy is when someone is

going through a hard time, and you feel bad for them, but you fully understand how they are

feeling because you have been in the situation before. For example, if someone you know has

lost a family member and you understand because you have also lost a family member before.

At the beginning of USS Callister, you feel sympathetic for Captain Robert Daly because he is

portrayed as an introvert with very few friends. He is shown as a loner at the start of the

episode. This can also be an example of empathy for all the viewers that are introverts. Later,

you do not feel any sympathy for Daly when you find out that it is sick in the head. You instead

start to feel sympathetic for the crew in the USS Callister. Even though they are genetic clones in

a digital world, they are treated like garbage and exist for Daly to boss around. He gets to abuse

the version of his coworkers that he wants them to be. The crew doesn’t deserve to become

faceless or even another creature just for doing small things to Daly. You can be sympathetic for

the people in the real world, since they work in a place where the boss is a creep. While small,

you have to feel a little empathy for the guy delivering the pizza. He didn’t deserve to be treated
the way he was, and he probably gets a lot of his income from tips, which Daly refused to give

to him.