Q and his Insecurities

Q often molds himself to others standards and expectations, therefore a very strong characteristic Q hold is his insecurity.

The extinction of dinosaurs greatly effected Q, aside from the fact he was left to be the only one left of his kind, it also made him very cautious and untrusting. "I would have never imagined it possible to talk like that with nondinosaurs, and I was tense and mostly silent." (page 98) Q's distrust lies mainly with the evolved creatures, commonly know as the "New Ones". There are the creatures that he was conversing with in the pervious quote. Not only is Q a very insecure creature in general but also being the last one of his kind probably brings out emotions such as: why am I not like anyone else, what is wrong with me, and to a greater extent why me? All of these conflicting emotions lead to Q's demise later seen in the story "The Dinosaurs". Another trait Q acquired is his survival mechanisms. He first notes the "New Ones" mannerisms and stays quiet to insure not saying something that would displease them. He is very careful and remains tense through out the conversation to not say something that would displease them and creating conflict between the two species. Adapting to to what he has observed he actually convinces the "New Ones" that he is one of them, just ugly. After he is accepted into the New One's culture he is deemed the "Ugly One" and becomes an important figure in their community. All except for Zhan who discriminates against Q for being an outsider.

Another personality trait Q naturally has is how polite he is. In the story The Dinosaurs Q has a new love or romantic partner, Fern-flower. One night they were walking and discussing one of her many dreams when Q tells the audience about their relationship, "[It was] Nothing to intimate: I had never dared touch her.." (page 101) I was wondering id this was Q's natural response or if he was raised in this manner. In the story The Aquatic Uncle there was no evidence to suport this hypothesis on his bringing up, I also had another theory of his fear of being rejected. Maybe the reason Q was so quiet and polite was actually because he was afraid of getting rejected which would also be in tandem with his insecurities, looking even deeper into Q's psychological mind set her could also be afraid of someone being intimate with him because to feel love and have it taken away-like how it was in The Aquatic Uncle- would be unbearable.

The last dominant personality trait Q displays in The Dinosaurs is his tendency of being bipolar. In the scene where Q and Fern-flower were talking about another one of her dreams. In this dream Fern-flower watches a dinosaur acting foolish playing with his tail and being "ridiculous" but when she says that the dinosaur "cried a river of tears from his yellow and red eyes" he lost his temper. His response was: "I had a burst of pride; I stiffened and hurled a few contemptuous phrases in her face, 'Why fo you bore me with theses dreams of yours?...You can't dream of anything but sentimental nonsense!'". He displays these angry emotions because he feels that Fern-flower is seeing what he is so desperately trying to hide thorough her dreams-Q could also be showing signs of paranoia. I feel that because of all of Q's insecurities and "differences" from what he wants to be, he predominately shows anger in his defensive mechanisms if he cannot control what others see in him.