Withers
Captain
I sat down to the episode Waltz last night just before I went to bed. As I watched I read a few pages on Memory Alpha about the writers, producers, and the actor who played Dukats feelings on the character. Obviously, they'd taken the character on a long, curvy road, from being antagonistic, to being more ambiguous bordering on being a protagonist, to truly being the evil man he became as the series concluded. They modeled his rise to power on Hitler's. Ira Behr described the character as “the Richard Nixon of Deep Space Nine.” In Waltz, as the writers intended, any ambiguity about the character is more or less cast aside as he finally declared to Sisko that he should have turned Bajor in a grave yard the likes of which the galaxy had never seen, after beating him what looked like a pipe. It's pretty hard to view Dukat in any light but a truly sinister one after hearing him say such a thing and do something like that to an already injured man. But back up to the beginning of the rant that became and play devils advocate for just a moment;
Dukat brings up some fairly solid points. One is that the Occupation had been going on for forty years once he became the Prefect. He also mentions steps he took like abolishing child labor, increasing food rations, and providing more adequate health care. The death toll dropped by 20% after his first month as Prefect. (Of course, he could be lying about all that, but why? I mean Sisko would know the truth so it would be pointless to do so.) Does that excuse the Cardassians being on Bajor in the first place? Of course not. But in Dukat's head he wasn't an unreasonable man. He went so far as to describe his idea of justice (essentially an eye for an eye) in a way that makes one think that's just what Cardassians think justice means (and there's some pretty compelling evidence that their system of justice is pretty skewed by comparison to the Federation but it still seems like their way of doing things not just Dukat's craziness.)
Dukat's points and his feelings about his own motives aren't really the point though. The point I really wanted to write about is this;
Dukat was obviously mentally unstable. After his daughters death he obviously didn't really get any better. He was hallucinating for crying out loud. Now, while he demanded Sisko participate in his “trial on the spot,” Sisko didn't hold back in pushing Dukat. He held off as long as he could given his condition but ultimately he played Dukat's game and fed into his...unraveling. Who hasn't been there? You're in a fight with someone you have deep personal history with, they say things, you say things, and it goes over board. That's where that phrase “We all say things we don't mean” comes from. Go to the mat with a sociopath who is hated in an entire ¼ of the galaxy and what do you get? Dukat... probably meant what he said about the Bajorans. Knowing that he'd be treated (by everyone who wasn't a Cardassian) like he had exterminated the population of Bajor he probably wished he had at that point. Here we have a guy who has been (perhaps justifiably) vilified for the past six years in spite of the way he sees himself (a reasonable guy, just following orders). When you're told over and over again that you're a villain, doesn't it make it easier to just be a villain? It's like when someone tells you to 'calm down' and you feel compelled to shout that you are calm. And I think Sisko walks him to that cliff and then shoves him over the edge with statements like “And you hated them, huh?!” and “You should have killed them!” If you really listen to the progression of the conversation it really seems like there was one guy with a short fuse on a stick of dynamite and another guy with a lit match.
Dukat was an evil man. There's no real way to get around that. But I think a lot of him going from ambiguous to irredeemable has to do with Sisko's conversation with him in Waltz. It's the classic conundrum; would Lex Luthor be Lex Luthor if Superman didn't exist? The actor who played Dukat also never gave up on the idea of the character being decent underneath it all. The writers did such a good job weaving different threads into the character that I'm left with the ambiguity they wanted to eliminate from the character altogether. Sure, he was a bad guy, but if the actions of the hero caused him to transform in to true evil, who is to blame for what comes of the transformation?
(I just wanted to write about Dukat. I don't really have a position on him I guess. Regardless, I really, really like the character the more I think about him. He's so intricate and multifaceted. What would it take to get a villain of the caliber into a movie? Anyway, just me pontificating, no real... ya know, “point” to any of it really.)
Dukat brings up some fairly solid points. One is that the Occupation had been going on for forty years once he became the Prefect. He also mentions steps he took like abolishing child labor, increasing food rations, and providing more adequate health care. The death toll dropped by 20% after his first month as Prefect. (Of course, he could be lying about all that, but why? I mean Sisko would know the truth so it would be pointless to do so.) Does that excuse the Cardassians being on Bajor in the first place? Of course not. But in Dukat's head he wasn't an unreasonable man. He went so far as to describe his idea of justice (essentially an eye for an eye) in a way that makes one think that's just what Cardassians think justice means (and there's some pretty compelling evidence that their system of justice is pretty skewed by comparison to the Federation but it still seems like their way of doing things not just Dukat's craziness.)
Dukat's points and his feelings about his own motives aren't really the point though. The point I really wanted to write about is this;
Dukat was obviously mentally unstable. After his daughters death he obviously didn't really get any better. He was hallucinating for crying out loud. Now, while he demanded Sisko participate in his “trial on the spot,” Sisko didn't hold back in pushing Dukat. He held off as long as he could given his condition but ultimately he played Dukat's game and fed into his...unraveling. Who hasn't been there? You're in a fight with someone you have deep personal history with, they say things, you say things, and it goes over board. That's where that phrase “We all say things we don't mean” comes from. Go to the mat with a sociopath who is hated in an entire ¼ of the galaxy and what do you get? Dukat... probably meant what he said about the Bajorans. Knowing that he'd be treated (by everyone who wasn't a Cardassian) like he had exterminated the population of Bajor he probably wished he had at that point. Here we have a guy who has been (perhaps justifiably) vilified for the past six years in spite of the way he sees himself (a reasonable guy, just following orders). When you're told over and over again that you're a villain, doesn't it make it easier to just be a villain? It's like when someone tells you to 'calm down' and you feel compelled to shout that you are calm. And I think Sisko walks him to that cliff and then shoves him over the edge with statements like “And you hated them, huh?!” and “You should have killed them!” If you really listen to the progression of the conversation it really seems like there was one guy with a short fuse on a stick of dynamite and another guy with a lit match.
Dukat was an evil man. There's no real way to get around that. But I think a lot of him going from ambiguous to irredeemable has to do with Sisko's conversation with him in Waltz. It's the classic conundrum; would Lex Luthor be Lex Luthor if Superman didn't exist? The actor who played Dukat also never gave up on the idea of the character being decent underneath it all. The writers did such a good job weaving different threads into the character that I'm left with the ambiguity they wanted to eliminate from the character altogether. Sure, he was a bad guy, but if the actions of the hero caused him to transform in to true evil, who is to blame for what comes of the transformation?
(I just wanted to write about Dukat. I don't really have a position on him I guess. Regardless, I really, really like the character the more I think about him. He's so intricate and multifaceted. What would it take to get a villain of the caliber into a movie? Anyway, just me pontificating, no real... ya know, “point” to any of it really.)
-Withers-
I think before he went nuts, Dukat actually had SOME decency and some limits as to what he would and wouldn't do but by the end he was totally evil, although it wasn't entirely his fault.
He deludes himself into thinking he is a benevolent, caring, heroic individual- and that's far more dangerous and twisted than simply being malevolent, uncaring and villainous. He turns himself into the victim- no-one understands him, the Bajorans won't love him despite "all he's done for them" (he abolished child labour and shortened work hours or whatever but did the Bajorans fall at his knees and love him for that, nooooooo, they selfishly wanted the occupation to end and turned his benevolent hand aside), neither will the Cardassians love him (Cardassia invaded? Who cares? I've got pah-wraiths), it's Sisko's fault Ziyal died and not Damar's or mine because I like Damar and I really like me and I need to blame someone and I hate Sisko for getting my office anyway so it's his fault...
