8. Naomi Nagata
Naomi Nagata. Grabbing the eighth spot on my list, let’s be real – she’s not everyone’s cup of tea, and she definitely isn’t mine.
Sure, she’s this super-smart engineer with a backstory that could make a rock cry, but there are a few things about her that just get on my nerves. For starters, she can be really intense. Like, we get it, the universe is a tough place, but sometimes her seriousness is just too much. It’s like she’s carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders, and after a while, you just want to tell her to go run out of oxygen somewhere take a chill pill.
Then there’s her tendency to go rogue. Naomi has this habit of making big decisions on her own, thinking she knows best, which can be pretty annoying. Did nobody tell her that teamwork makes the dream work? Sometimes, it feels like she doesn’t trust her crew enough to let them in on her plans, which can create a ton of drama – and not the fun kind. And let’s not forget her romantic drama – it’s like a soap opera in space. It can be a bit much, especially when you’re just trying to enjoy some sci-fi action. So while Naomi definitely adds a lot to The Expanse with her smarts and complicated past, she’s got these little things about her that make her a bit of an eye-roller for me most of the time.
Also, let me just get this off my chest for a hot minute: there’s that one scene where Naomi literally runs out of oxygen in space and still, somehow, survives. It’s one of those moments where you’re on the edge of your seat, thinking, “Okay, this is it,” but then she pulls through. It’s a bit of a stretch, even for a sci-fi show. You’d think in such a realistic setting, running out of air in the vacuum of space would be a guaranteed ticket out of the story. But nope, Naomi defies the odds, which kind of messes with the show’s otherwise pretty solid sense of realism. Don’t get me wrong, I love a good survival story, but this felt like pushing it a bit too far. I credit her survival to good ol’ Plot Armor.