Unreadable Goodbye
Plot Beats
The narrative micro-steps within this event
Riker enters Troi’s office to say goodbye, his formal farewell masking deep emotional undercurrents as he prepares to leave the Enterprise.
Troi resists the finality of parting, redirecting goodbye into a hopeful 'until next time,' revealing her evasion of emotional closure.
Troi struggles to maintain professional distance, offering a formal farewell that cracks under the weight of unspoken emotion.
Troi breaks her guard, confessing she can't read Riker’s emotions—a rare failure that exposes her personal investment and inner turmoil.
Who Was There
Characters present in this moment
A steady professional exterior that gives way to candid sadness and longing—controlled vulnerability beneath a facade of formality.
Riker enters Troi's office to deliver a formal farewell, keeps a professional tone at first, then takes tentative physical steps toward Troi, admits sadness, and ultimately pulls her into a firm, caring embrace that dissolves protocol into intimacy.
- • Offer a courteous, career-appropriate goodbye without creating drama
- • Test whether Troi shares or will acknowledge his emotional state
- • Secure a moment of human connection before departing
- • Preserve dignity while allowing honest feeling
- • Feelings are essential and honest signals of being human
- • Professional ritual should protect personal boundaries
- • Troi, as counselor, can and should understand him
- • A final, composed farewell is the responsible course before taking command
Conflicted and exposed—initial professional restraint gives way to personal hurt and yearning; embarrassed by her failure to read him, yet relieved to share feeling.
Troi receives Riker with an attempt at professionalism, then admits embarrassment and a rare inability to read him. Her composure fractures: a tear appears, she names shared sadness, and she allows herself to reciprocate his embrace, shifting from counselor to emotional equal.
- • Maintain professional boundaries while honoring her own feelings
- • Avoid making the goodbye irrevocably final
- • Understand Riker's inner state despite her inexplicable inability to read him
- • Preserve connection and emotional honesty
- • Her role is to know and name others' emotions accurately
- • Personal feelings are supposed to be secondary to professional duty
- • A mutual acknowledgment of feeling can soften painful separation
- • If she cannot read him, the problem may be her own involvement
Location Details
Places and their significance in this event
Troi's office functions as an intimate, private container for the exchange: a professional setting that quickly becomes a sanctuary for confessed vulnerability. The office's privacy allows the ritual of farewell to break and be replaced by unguarded emotional truth between two officers.
Narrative Connections
How this event relates to others in the story
"Troi’s evasion of 'goodbye' mirrors Riker’s habit of deflection — she’s afraid of the emotional openness she’s been encouraging. But when she admits she can’t read him, it’s the reversal: the professional reaches the edge of her own walls. Their embrace is mutual surrender."
"Troi’s evasion of 'goodbye' mirrors Riker’s habit of deflection — she’s afraid of the emotional openness she’s been encouraging. But when she admits she can’t read him, it’s the reversal: the professional reaches the edge of her own walls. Their embrace is mutual surrender."
Key Dialogue
"RIKER: "I didn't want to leave without saying good-bye.""
"TROI: "I'm supposed to know how everyone feels... but I... I can't read you right now.""
"TROI: "Are you feeling sadness?" RIKER: "Yes.""