Dukat going to the top?

[Tallis Rhul]

Just wanted to say that the old video game DS9: Dominion Wars if you play the Cardassian storyline Dukat eventually turns against the Dominion and you are sent to kill him.

That's one of the reasons I opened the thread, I think Dukat had enough about him to play the game, ingratiate himself with the Founders, make Weyoun look like a complete arse, and then turn on them when he was ready. It would have been really interesting to see what would have happened if he'd had the chance.

If Dukat had resigned, the Bajorans would be left with someone who'd probably be a good deal worse in his place. He did what he could to make life better within the confines of his position.

How on Earth could you know that? What if they'd got Tekeny Ghemor? I don't think given his portrayal on screen that he would have handled things in the same way as Dukat. Dukat could have implemented policy far leniently than he did, but apparently because he smiled while he was doing it you got suckered in. Lucky you weren't really there

He even admitted to himself that he wanted to drive the Bajoran species into extinction for daring to resent him.

Am I right in thinking that was in Waltz?

 

[JustKate]

I don't know, Tullis. I see what you mean, but it's hard for me to imagine Dukat patiently waiting his chance, at least for very long. He was always just so sure he was right and that he was born to command and that he was superior to...well, pretty much everybody, really. To envision him kowtowing to the Founders, not to mention Weyoun, for months and months or years and years, accepting what ever sh*t they dished out...

I just can't see it - not with Dukat as I came to know him. But with good enough scripts and with Alaimo's fab acting...who knows? They might have been able to sell it to me.

 

[DevilEyes]

Do we really need another discussion about Dukat's actions during the Occuparion of Bajor? Haven't we debated that in a bunch of threads already? It really feels like

The original question of this thread is far more interesting, and has not been discussed that much before, to the best of my knowledge.

Yeah, bullshit. Even if he was only implementing policy -- and I don't buy that for a second, considering that he himself was depicted as ordering numerous murders by the Cardassian military -- that still makes him guilty of collaborating with and implementing acts of mass murder, forced labor, genocide, massacres, rape, and oppression. Even if he didn't set the policies, he implemented them. And as the Nuremberg trials established, "Just following orders" isn't an excuse.

Dukat was a war criminal, pure and simple.

If Dukat had resigned, the Bajorans would be left with someone who'd probably be a good deal worse in his place.

1. Bullshit. Dukat was the single most amoral, self-serving, bigoted Cardassian we ever met. He even admitted to himself that he wanted to drive the Bajoran species into extinction for daring to resent him. The idea that he would have been replaced by someone worse is laughable; there was no one worse.

Now you're talking bullshit. He may be the the most self-serving Cardassian we've met. However, "amoral" he is not, and neither is any other Cardassian we've met: amoral implies a lack of morality, and they all have their moral principles, whatever they are - despite what we think of their ideas and beliefs, and while I find the ethics upheld by most of the Cardassians we've met very disturbing, they definitely do have them, including Dukat. But the most bigoted? Oh come on. Did you forget the show completely, or are you just using strong words to convey that Dukat is an awful man, without thinking what the words actually mean? Dukat certainly is bigoted, but every Cardassian military person we've seen, with the exception of Tekeny Ghemor, Daro and possibly Macet (but we don't really know what the latter two thought about the Bajorans, even though Daro was not prejudiced towards Humans or the Federation, so Ghemor is really the only Cardie soldier we know for sure not to have been prejudiced towards the Bajorans), has been at least as bigoted, if not more. Rusot, Damar before season 7, Gul Jasad, Gul Danar, Legate Parn (the station has become a much less pleasant place, said he looking at the Bajorans passing by...), Gul Madred... need I go on? And yes, we do know at least one Cardassian gul who was worse than Dukat - Gul Dar'heel.

And it's not just the military, either - people like Natima Lang were hardly the mainstream. This is the society which claimed to uphold family values, but where a Cardassian who has had a child with a Bajoran was supposed to kill the child, and one who did not do that was treated as a pariah and disowned by his own mother.

Dukat is what he is, but to try to make him into the sole epitome of all evil that somehow sprung out of nowhere, while ignoring the ruthlessness, authoritarianism and racism fostered by the Cardassian society as a whole, is utter rubbish. Apart from showing more initiative and being more self-centred, more articulate, charming, intelligent and sly than an average Cardassian soldier, Dukat is pretty much a typical product of the Cardassian system as we know it. Ruthlessness, ambition, belief in the superiority of the Cardassian Union, racism towards the Bajorans - these are all the staples of the Cardassian military and the values that were considered desirable in an officer.

Not that this is any kind of excuse for his crimes - it is just the way things are. Maybe someone else as Prefect of Bajor would be worse than Dukat, maybe someone else would be better. Who knows? What we do know is what he is responsible for, either directly or indirectly, and as the prefect of Bajor he had the responsability for everything that the Cardassians did under his rule. "I was following orders" does not cut it as a defense. For the same reason, his subordinate officers and soldiers carry their own burden of responsability for what they did, under orders or not. And the people in the Central Command who participated in decisions about Bajor have their own share of responsability. One does not negate the other. Just because someone else is also guilty of the same crime, does not make you less guilty. And just because someone else might be a bigger arsehole than you, does not make you good.

 

[JustKate]

^ To be fair, DevilEyes, it wasn't Sci who started beating that poor ol' dead horse. He merely responded to someone else's post.

 

[Tallis Rhul]

Do we really need another discussion about Dukat's actions during the Occuparion of Bajor? Haven't we debated that in a bunch of threads already? It really feels like

Does the character flogging the dead horse there look like a Ferengi to anyone else?

 

[DevilEyes]

^ To be fair, DevilEyes, it wasn't Sci who started beating that poor ol' dead horse. He merely responded to someone else's post.

That part wasn't directed at Sci, it was a general comment. I only quoted him afterwards (yes, I know, I said 'do we need to discuss that again' but then I joined in myself... oh well... ).

Do we really need another discussion about Dukat's actions during the Occuparion of Bajor? Haven't we debated that in a bunch of threads already? It really feels like

Does the character flogging the dead horse there look like a Ferengi to anyone else?

The smiley comes from http://www.startrekmovie.com/forums, so it may very well be.

 

[JustKate]

^ I didn't even notice it, but yeah, it definitely looks Ferengi-like. He's even wearing those odd, high-waisted pants that Quark and Rom wear.

 

[Kegg]

I'd just like to say thargument here is exactly why Dukat character was thoroughly ruined by the seventh season.

Wait, what?

Well, the DS9 writers set out to craft a credible, interesting and to a degree multifaceted villain with Gul Dukat, and they succeeded pretty well over the years. Problem is, they succeeded too well, with many fans actually defending the character as a good guy (such as in this thread.)

Their response, as they admit, was to pretty much beat the audience over the head about how evil he was. This began in "Waltz", which was admittedly a good episode, but from that point on Dukat switched into red-eye supervillain mode and never looked back.

Basically, they pushed moral ambiguity to the point where character assassination was the only way to make people get the memo. A real shame, to be honest.

 

[apenpaap]

IMO they did a pretty good job of showing how nasty Dukat is in the occupation arc without resorting to character assassination.

Though in the end, if he hadn't gone mad and remained Cardassia's puppet leader, we would never have had Damar in the spotlight, so I guess we should be partially happy.

 

[JustKate]

I know I am. The Evil Dukat arc wasn't perfect, but we did get some great episodes out of it, and we got Damar. Hooray!

 

[Kegg]

IMO they did a pretty good job of showing how nasty Dukat is in the occupation arc without resorting to character assassination.

Yeah, that's why I dated it to "Waltz", which is post-occupation. I thought his occupation stuff was rather excellent, actually.

Though in the end, if he hadn't gone mad and remained Cardassia's puppet leader, we would never have had Damar in the spotlight, so I guess we should be partially happy.

That's true - even still, I would have liked to see Dukat doing something else. Anything else. Damar killed his daughter, it'd actually make far more sense for him to want revenge on Damar rather then revenge on Sisko for kinda sorta being responsible for the actions of Damar (not really).

His role in the end came down to simple Manichean dualism: Sisko is the good guy on the show, Dukat is the bad guy, Sisko is empowered by the good godlike aliens, ergo Dukat is empowered by the bad godlike aliens. Whether or not this makes sense with anything Dukat did before is regrettably besides the point.

 

[Thor Damar]

^^I'll second that

 

[apenpaap]

Damar killed his daughter, it'd actually make far more sense for him to want revenge on Damar rather then revenge on Sisko for kinda sorta being responsible for the actions of Damar (not really).

Or they could've at least had him blame it on Kira. IMO that would've been more interesting then Sisko, and at least have made some sense.

 

[Nightdiamond]

According to some dialogue, Dukat was to have "unchallenged" control over the entire Alpha Quandrant.

Weyoun offer Sisko something similar too....

Dukat's character is so complex that we forget how sinister he can be - like when he transported Sisko and his crew disguised as Klingons to Klingon territory- he seemed like a 'good guy'.

Or when he helped saved the Detapa Council - you just let your guard down.

But then, notice how he behaves in the episode where it is revealed that he had an affair with Kira's mother, the manipulation, the rehearsed routine, just to bring the women's defenses down.... he was behind the whole scheme in the first place. ... sick! lol

 

[DevilEyes]

According to some dialogue, Dukat was to have "unchallenged" control over the entire Alpha Quandrant.

Weyoun offer Sisko something similar too....

Dukat's character is so complex that we forget how sinister he can be - like when he transported Sisko and his crew disguised as Klingons to Klingon territory- he seemed like a 'good guy'.

Or when he helped saved the Detapa Council - you just let your guard down.

But then, notice how he behaves in the episode where it is revealed that he had an affair with Kira's mother, the manipulation, the rehearsed routine, just to bring the women's defenses down.... he was behind the whole scheme in the first place. ... sick! lol

Dukat never seemed like a 'nice guy' even in the episodes like "The Maquis", "Return to Grace", "Apocalypse Rising" when he was an ally rather than a villain... We got to see different sides to him and that's what made him interesting and complex, but he was always true to himself, and the episodes never let us forget how ruthless he is, and that his value system is incompatible with the one of the Federation - as when he blows up a ship full of Klingons just to be on the safe side, without as much as blinking (both in "Return to Grace" and "Apocalypse Rising").

His scheming, manipulative character is also something we've known since season 2, long before "Wrongs Darker...", even though that episode presents in the most obvious and chilling way... I would argue that he was never painted in a more unsympathetic light than in season 2 "Cardassians". (Not even in season 7 - you might argue that he was insane by that point.)

 

[Nightdiamond]

Correction-he was just a sick guy, period. I take back the 'good'.....

In "Wrongs Darker.. he was behind the whole action of rounding these poor women up to be exploited- in exchange for 'mercifully' giving food to their families..

But really, he was slick enough to almost fool Sisko and Kira at one point-Sisko himself said he thought Dukat had changed, and at times, of all times- during the Dominion occupation, there's that scene where Kira was starting to fall for his charm, before she snaps back to her senses.


He even tried to charm the Founder, for whatever it was worth.


As far as any other Cardassian, Dukat was at the top- but bring another Vorta into the mix, and then it becomes complex- although Dukat seemed better at putting Weyoun off than Damar.

But by the time we get to Damar and especially Broca, the Dominion did exactly what everyone feared they would they would do; do this and if you don't, here's a veiled threat, and a not so veiled threat.

Broca was even worse than Damar a total puppet, and even that did him little good...

 

[Myasishchev]

Kind of a shame Dukat wasn't the leader of the resistance against the Dominion; yet this is a qualified shame, since with Dukat around, Casey Biggs might not have come into his own with the Damar plotline. I'd like to have seen both developed--and not just one flattened into caricature.

 

[Tallis Rhul]

Dukat as the anti-Dominion resistance leader would have been poetic justice. Shame they didn't think of that, it would have been genius.

 

[DevilEyes]

Dukat as the anti-Dominion resistance leader would have been poetic justice. Shame they didn't think of that, it would have been genius.

They did think of that, but they didn't do that because Ira Steven Behr did not want Dukat in a somewhat heroic role again, he wanted to shove it down people's throats that Dukat was eeeevil and that took precedence over good storylines or characterization.

 

[Anwar]

I dunno, I think him trying to get the Pah Wraiths freed would have worked better in the overall plot if they had just toned down the "Antichrist" elements of it and made him less of a nutbag.