Was Kivas Fajo a better "merchant villain" then the Ferengi?

[davisn456]

JRoss wrote:

---

Kivas Fajo worked well because Saul Rubinek was playing him.

Definitely. My jaw still drops in the scene near the end of that episode where he fires the disruptor at Varria. She's screeching in agony and he simply says, "Well, there's always another Varria." Wow....

[Eckauskas]

I read this thread the other day and couldn't remember who Fajo was, but then it came to me in a flash haha!

The Ferengi were laughably bad for a Trek villan, while Fajo was more of a cold, calculating kind of villan. The Ferengi reminded me of Dick Dastardly actually.

[Trekker4747]

Saul Rubinek is a gifted actor and he really made Fajo, who could've been a really bad villain, work.

One wonders though how he managed to get the Mona Lisa?! You'd think that'd be just one of those valuable things Earth would've held onto with an iron grip and would still be in Louvre under transport inhibitors or something. How the hell did Fajo get it?!

[22 Stars]

See, but just because both Fajo and the Ferengi like 'things', their motivations were entirely different. Fajo is sinister because like the Borg he just collects things, to improve his collection and at any cost. The Ferengi are not interested in things beyond the 'value' of the thing, to make a profit. It is entirely different.

[Tina Lawton]

Fajo was well played. Was a decent episode. I liked Data too. Four word sentences rule.

[TommyR01D]

The Ferengi were always going to be the clowns of the franchise (like the Raxacoricofallapatorians in Doctor Who). Kivas Fajo was more serious, if a little eccentric. The way he talks to Data makes him sound rather like Willy Wonka.

[Trekker4747]

No, the Ferengi were originally supposed to be one of the other "heavy" villains in the show since the Klingons were now our friends. They were never intended to be a joke but more of the humans having to look at themselves in the mirror and see their own past which is why the Ferengi are greedy predator capitalists. Not to mention stuff like Picard suggesting in EaF that the Ferengi "eat" their enemies and the Ferengi having played a role in the destruction of Picard's previous command.

It's just that their execution didn't play out right and they became jokes.

[Dr. Crusher]

I thought the Ferengi were a little two-dimensional. They weren't very convincing as villains, although some of the episodes they were a part of were interesting.

Fajo was a lot more three-dimensional, and if the writers/actors/directors had infused the Ferengi with the same qualities Fajo had, they really could have been "the bad guys" in a very unique way.

I don't think it helped that they decided to make the Ferengi look really ridiculous (I am sure many will disagree). They don't exactly inspire fear based on how they look, no matter what the storyline is.

[Mojochi]

GNDN wrote:

---

While Bok was the stronger villain, I found Kazago to be the far more interesting character.

They do that a lot actually. Have the villain be somewhat one dimensional, but someone else in the episode be a bit more fleshed out. All in all, the Bok two episode arc worked really well for being Ferengi centric

I will admit that Fajo still made for a more compelling villain, overall... & yeah.... Rubinek. He's what made it so