When I first set out to write this article, I intended to write about the many loves of Will Riker, TNG’s resident skirt chaser. I’ve always felt that when they were coming up for the show bible for TNG, they knew that they had to have one male crew member who was a big hit with all the ladies. Someone to fill Captain Kirk’s womanizing boots. Will Riker, with his attractiveness and charm, managed to fill that role quite nicely.
In one of the very first episodes of season one, we happen to catch a glimpse of Will enjoying the company of some very attractive holographic ladies in his quarter. Later, he falls in love with another hologram named Minuette. And of course there was Ro Laren, Soren from the J’naii, Etana from Risa (in the episode “The Game”), scientist Lanel (in the episode “First Contact”), Mistress Beata on Angel One, Carmen from the Earth-like colony that was obliterated by the Crystalline Entity and of course there was always Deanna Troi hovering in the background.
Will Riker was the kind of guy who would screw anything that didn’t run away from him fast enough but always in the background was his first love, Deanna Troi. Deanna often called him “Imzadi” which is a Betazoid term that, like many words, can have multiple meanings. Imzadi can mean your first love, the first person you ever slept with OR the person who is your soul mate. I think that for Deanna, Will is all of these things. No matter how many women he slept with, she was always willing to overlook it because she still loved him so much.
Deanna Troi, on the other hand, was much more discreet. While she did have several love affairs throughout the run of TNG ( the oily Devonani Ral in “The Price” comes to mind) she didn’t parade them around for everybody to see the way that Riker often seemed to do. He wore his heart on his sleeve and she was the more private of the pair. I think this is one of the reasons why Riker and Troi were so good together–he was gregarious, outgoing and devil-may-care while she was more cautious, not as quick to run into a situation which she knew nothing about.
In the book “Imzadi” (written by veteran Trek novelist Peter David), the author crafts a back story for why Deanna and Will are Imzadi. Will and Deanna meet on her home planet of Betazed and have a tempestuous affair that threatens to consume them both. Eventually, of course, those passions cool and they are able to serve together on the Enterprise as good friends even though memories of that passionate time still linger in their minds. However, during a delicate negotiation with a warrior race called the Sindareen, Deanna suddenly falls ill and it is up to Riker to bring Troi’s mind back, to save her because, as her Imzadi, he is the only one who can reach her.
Peter David also wrote the sequel “Imzadi II: Triangle” which takes place shortly after the events in the “Generations” movie. In this well-crafted sequel, Deanna has moved on and initiates an affair with Worf, supposedly with Will’s blessing. But secretly Will is upset that he let her get away. A Trek novel isn’t a Trek novel without conflict however and Peter David provides it in the form of the Romulan commander Sela and Will Riker’s accidentally created clone Tom. Although Worf loves Deanna very much and cares for her and wants to make a family with her and Alexander, he’s not Imzadi. He cannot reach her the way that Will Riker can and only Will Riker can again, save the day because of his special connection to Deanna that can’t be broken.
I think that people have a particular idea of what a soulmate is. A soulmate is supposed to be your perfect other half, the one who completes you. A soulmate is supposed to know you better than you know yourself and Will certainly has that with Deanna. With her empathic abilities, she can get inside his head the way nobody else can and that brings them closer than an ordinary couple might be. Whenever there is a problem, whether they were together or not, I think that Will relied on Deanna to help him keep his head on straight and on the right path. And in the end, Will realized that he would be a complete idiot if he didn’t win Deanna back, which culminated in their eventual marriage.
I think that despite being a notorious skirt chaser, Will Riker really was just trying to ignore the fact that after all that time, he still had a deep passion for Deanna Troi that he couldn’t hide though he tried to desperately. Sometimes people are just meant to be together and they’re going to end up together no matter what. Certainly that was true with Will and Deanna. No matter what happened, fate just kept throwing them back into each other’s arms.
