What's your opinion of Gul Dukat?

[Dale Sams]

Yeah sorry. Being crazy doesn't give you a pass on being evil. The crazy guy that thinks the birds talk to him usually isn't hurting anyone. Good and evil are based on what you do.

And what he did exactly is never resolved, all we have are his insane rantings. Sisko hasn't learned anything new except for everything Gul Crazypants admitted too after being led by the nose in that direction by Sisko. So what makes Dukat 'pure evil' now, and not before the episode?

 

[R. Star]

Yeah sorry. Being crazy doesn't give you a pass on being evil. The crazy guy that thinks the birds talk to him usually isn't hurting anyone. Good and evil are based on what you do.

And what he did exactly is never resolved, all we have are his insane rantings. Sisko hasn't learned anything new except for everything Gul Crazypants admitted too after being led by the nose in that direction by Sisko. So what makes Dukat 'pure evil' now, and not before the episode?

Come on, you watched DS9... what did he do? Despite all his rantings about being "unappreciated" and "gentler" he was the tyrant who oversaw the occupation of an entire world, that employed slave labor working people to death, and routinely retaliated against the civilian populace when the resistance had the nerve to fight back.

He basically destroyed a child's life(Rugal) just to discredit a political enemy, not to mention his adoptive and biological families.

He was willing to execute his daughter just to maintain his position. And don't tell me he spared her for noble reasons, Kira had to threaten him to do it and even then I think it just fed his need to be admired by her and Ziyal.

Not to mention the whole... negotiating Cardassia's entry into the Dominion and attempting to launch an attack that would destroy all of Bajor and his daughter who he disowned because she "betrayed" him.

Oh yeah, then starting the largest conventional war in Trek's history after that failed in textbook revanchist style.

If you only want to go after his "breakdown" okay... plenty of material there too. Letting a pagh-wraith occupy your body to destroy the Prophets and incidentally murder Jadzia qualifies. Also making a call to mock Kira about sleeping with her mom was deliberately cruel and malicious.

Then starts a whole religion with is rooted on wanting to be admired and loved by Bajorans. Oh and tries to get them all to commit suicide when they start doubting him because he sleeps with one of his married followers.

Oh and then there was that little plan to team up with Kai Winn to release the pagh-wraiths who would then kill everyone they don't like.

You can argue if he's crazy or not, it doesn't matter. He was evil. Being crazy doesn't excuse that.

 

[Dale Sams]

Yeah sorry. Being crazy doesn't give you a pass on being evil. The crazy guy that thinks the birds talk to him usually isn't hurting anyone. Good and evil are based on what you do.

And what he did exactly is never resolved, all we have are his insane rantings. Sisko hasn't learned anything new except for everything Gul Crazypants admitted too after being led by the nose in that direction by Sisko. So what makes Dukat 'pure evil' now, and not before the episode?

Come on, you watched DS9... what did he do? Despite all his rantings about being "unappreciated" and "gentler" he was the tyrant who oversaw the occupation of an entire world, that employed slave labor working people to death, and routinely retaliated against the civilian populace when the resistance had the nerve to fight back.

He basically destroyed a child's life(Rugal) just to discredit a political enemy, not to mention his adoptive and biological families.

He was willing to execute his daughter just to maintain his position. And don't tell me he spared her for noble reasons, Kira had to threaten him to do it and even then I think it just fed his need to be admired by her and Ziyal.

Not to mention the whole... negotiating Cardassia's entry into the Dominion and attempting to launch an attack that would destroy all of Bajor and his daughter who he disowned because she "betrayed" him.

Oh yeah, then starting the largest conventional war in Trek's history after that failed in textbook revanchist style.

If you only want to go after his "breakdown" okay... plenty of material there too. Letting a pagh-wraith occupy your body to destroy the Prophets and incidentally murder Jadzia qualifies. Also making a call to mock Kira about sleeping with her mom was deliberately cruel and malicious.

Then starts a whole religion with is rooted on wanting to be admired and loved by Bajorans. Oh and tries to get them all to commit suicide when they start doubting him because he sleeps with one of his married followers.

Oh and then there was that little plan to team up with Kai Winn to release the pagh-wraiths who would then kill everyone they don't like.

You can argue if he's crazy or not, it doesn't matter. He was evil. Being crazy doesn't excuse that.

I mean OTHER than that.

 

[RXTT]

The reason I love Gul Dukat as an villain, and DS9 as a story, is that every single character changes. There are no static characters.

Gul Dukat over the series run became my favorite villain in all of television. he realistically went from a pompous bureaucrat to a sadistic egomaniac to a megalomaniacal despot to straight up EVIL incarnate. In all these aspects he felt justified in himself and his own actions and decisions and was willing to explain why.

That to me is so much more interesting than a 2-dimensional villain like the Borg. Once you know the basic Borg qualities, you know everything about them, and their motivations. That is boring.

Gul Dukat also came to see The Sisko not only as his antithesis, but also as his equal, in a weird, warped way. He actually wished for Sisko's understanding, for Sisko to admit that they were not dissimilar, which is insane of course, but Dukat slowly sank into insanity!

 

[bbjeg]

I think R. Star nailed it petty good there. Dukat is evil.

That to me is so much more interesting than a 2-dimensional villain like the Borg. Once you know the basic Borg qualities, you know everything about them, and their motivations. That is boring.

I always considered the Borg as a perfect use of a 2D character. There more of a force as opposed to a species, a unrelenting dispassionate force. When it comes to pure evil, Dukat has nothing on the Borg.

>

 

[Charles Phipps]

And what he did exactly is never resolved, all we have are his insane rantings. Sisko hasn't learned anything new except for everything Gul Crazypants admitted too after being led by the nose in that direction by Sisko. So what makes Dukat 'pure evil' now, and not before the episode?

I took it as Dukat regrets nothing and would have done WORSE if he could.

 

[Dale Sams]

And what he did exactly is never resolved, all we have are his insane rantings. Sisko hasn't learned anything new except for everything Gul Crazypants admitted too after being led by the nose in that direction by Sisko. So what makes Dukat 'pure evil' now, and not before the episode?

I took it as Dukat regrets nothing and would have done WORSE if he could.

Possibly. But again, he's insane. Why is all the usual 'just following orders, I tried to be nice (at least relative to other Cardassians)" stuff'...BS lies he tells himself.

But the 'regrets nothing and wishes he could kill them all' stuff is THE TRUE DUKAT?...other than the fact that Sisko (and hence us) like it when things are black and white?

The ironic thing is Sisko is saying half the episode 'What are you wanting me to say? What is it you're wanting to hear'...but as soon as he gets Dukat to say what Sisko wants to hear, he knocks him out with a pipe.


tl;dr....Dukat is insane and anything he says that does or does not confirm whatever narrative we want to create for him should not be trusted.

edit: And why would a guy who wanted to murder billions regret killing one Trill woman?

 

[RXTT]

I think R. Star nailed it petty good there. Dukat is evil.

That to me is so much more interesting than a 2-dimensional villain like the Borg. Once you know the basic Borg qualities, you know everything about them, and their motivations. That is boring.

I always considered the Borg as a perfect use of a 2D character. There more of a force as opposed to a species, a unrelenting dispassionate force. When it comes to pure evil, Dukat has nothing on the Borg.

>

a dispassionate force is not evil. Is not evil by definition passionate?

The Borg are more like what humans are to ants. The ants do not understand our motivations. They just see us stepping where we want killing whatever ants we want. The ants can do very little but annoy us humans. (of course there are serious amazonia ants to deal with, and fire ants are no joke, but you know what I am saying)
The Borg do not act due to inherent malice. They see a problem (disorder) and they impose their solution (order by assimilation).

man I love Trek. DS9 4 EVAH!

 

[R. Star]

I mean OTHER than that.

Other than that? What else is there? Do you want me to say he's not evil when he's sleeping or something?

Possibly. But again, he's insane. Why is all the usual 'just following orders, I tried to be nice (at least relative to other Cardassians)" stuff'...BS lies he tells himself.

But the 'regrets nothing and wishes he could kill them all' stuff is THE TRUE DUKAT?...other than the fact that Sisko (and hence us) like it when things are black and white?

The ironic thing is Sisko is saying half the episode 'What are you wanting me to say? What is it you're wanting to hear'...but as soon as he gets Dukat to say what Sisko wants to hear, he knocks him out with a pipe.


tl;dr....Dukat is insane and anything he says that does or does not confirm whatever narrative we want to create for him should not be trusted.

edit: And why would a guy who wanted to murder billions regret killing one Trill woman?

Just following orders is an excuse to cover the deed. So is being insane. Other than his breakdowns in Favor the Bold and Waltz he was always calm, collected and in control. So the insanity bit is really just an excuse too.

As for Waltz? It's obvious that Sisko was baiting Dukat to say what he wanted him to say. Either for his own black/white simplicity or maybe just to work him up so he can club him while he's in distracted in a megalomaniacal rant, who knows?

Dukat is a liar, and revisionist in his own head. He's literally the hero in his own story. I don't think he regrets anything he does, he just says that because it makes him look good. I don't think he regretted killing Jadzia, he just said that for the same reason(obviously there was a security camera in there he was speaking for the benefit of, because even though he beamed in/out with no one but Jadzia there, everyone knew it was him that killed her).

Maybe he tricks himself into believing these things, maybe he just spouts it out knowing it's bs. Who knows? Really that's part of what makes him such an interesting character.

 

[Sci]

In TNG's "The Wounded", though it's a different Cardassian played by the same actor as Dukat, the episode sums up what I think of Cardassians. From the start they were devious with an ulterior motive.

That's an awfully bigoted statement. There are plenty of honest and honorable Cardassians, too -- not the least of whom would be Gul Macet, Marc Alaimo's character in "The Wounded," who clearly realized that he had a lot in common with and respected the Federates aboard the Enterprise, and who was clearly uncomfortable with his government's covert re-arming program.

I didn't mean to come off as prejudice but with every Star Trek race, there is a fundamental distinction between each, like Klingon honor and Vulcan logic.

Every culture has its traits, but species essentialism is just silly.

When it comes to Cardassians, I generally think of the word suspicion.

Which is silly, because the Cardassians are no less "suspicious" or "treacherous" than the Romulans, or even the Klingons.

From the beginning, with Picard warning Gul Macet at the end of that episode that he knew of the high-powered subspace field that shielded the cardassian cargo ship from scans (where Picard knew they would be warring if he boarded the ship due to what's on it), to the back-stab of the federation,

The "back-stab of the Federation?" Dukat led a coup d'état. He overthrew the Detapa Council and installed himself as dictator with Dominion military support. And you're going to try to characterize the entire species based on that?

I mean, that would be like trying to claim that Humans are inherently treacherous because of some Humans' actions trying to start a war and assassinate the Federation President in Star Trek VI, or to overthrow the Federation government in DSN's "Homefront" two-parter.

and later double back-stab of the Dominion.

Whaaat? You can't "back-stab" a foreign occupying army, because you never owed them any loyalty in the first place.

There were good Cardassians but history would paint them as ruthless from the Setlik III massacre, to the Occupation of Bajor.

I'm going to play a little game. I'm going to replace the nouns in your sentence with analogous nouns, and see if it changes the meaning:

"There were good Americans, but history would paint them as ruthless -- from the Mi Lai massacre, to the Occupation of the Philippines."

Now do you see why it's absurd to stereotype an entire culture?

 

[sonak]

That's an awfully bigoted statement. There are plenty of honest and honorable Cardassians, too -- not the least of whom would be Gul Macet, Marc Alaimo's character in "The Wounded," who clearly realized that he had a lot in common with and respected the Federates aboard the Enterprise, and who was clearly uncomfortable with his government's covert re-arming program.

I didn't mean to come off as prejudice but with every Star Trek race, there is a fundamental distinction between each, like Klingon honor and Vulcan logic.

Every culture has its traits, but species essentialism is just silly.



Which is silly, because the Cardassians are no less "suspicious" or "treacherous" than the Romulans, or even the Klingons.



The "back-stab of the Federation?" Dukat led a coup d'état. He overthrew the Detapa Council and installed himself as dictator with Dominion military support. And you're going to try to characterize the entire species based on that?

I mean, that would be like trying to claim that Humans are inherently treacherous because of some Humans' actions trying to start a war and assassinate the Federation President in Star Trek VI, or to overthrow the Federation government in DSN's "Homefront" two-parter.

and later double back-stab of the Dominion.

Whaaat? You can't "back-stab" a foreign occupying army, because you never owed them any loyalty in the first place.

There were good Cardassians but history would paint them as ruthless from the Setlik III massacre, to the Occupation of Bajor.

I'm going to play a little game. I'm going to replace the nouns in your sentence with analogous nouns, and see if it changes the meaning:

"There were good Americans, but history would paint them as ruthless -- from the Mi Lai massacre, to the Occupation of the Philippines."

Now do you see why it's absurd to stereotype an entire culture?

in fairness, Star Trek does this to simplify storytelling and to use metaphor. The Ferengi are greedy capitalists taken to the extreme, the Klingons are honor-obsessed warriors, etc. Sure, the show always throws in enough exceptions to not seem too absurd, but it's the show that does this.

 

[publiusr]

Dukat was an interesting character--rather mature in some respects.

 

[Ln X]

Also making a call to mock Kira about sleeping with her mom was deliberately cruel and malicious.

That was one of the most douchiest things a villain has ever committed on Star Trek. It's a low blow even for Dukat what with the 'Happy birthday to your mother, oh yes I screwed her and we liked it'. I felt like punching Dukat right in the face for messing up Kira like that.

So yeah, when Dukat wasn't busy with seeking the admiration of others he spent the rest of his time taunting and eliminating his enemies. A nasty piece of work indeed.

 

[Dale Sams]

Also making a call to mock Kira about sleeping with her mom was deliberately cruel and malicious.

That was one of the most douchiest things a villain has ever committed on Star Trek. It's a low blow even for Dukat what with the 'Happy birthday to your mother, oh yes I screwed her and we liked it'. I felt like punching Dukat right in the face for messing up Kira like that.

So yeah, when Dukat wasn't busy with seeking the admiration of others he spent the rest of his time taunting and eliminating his enemies. A nasty piece of work indeed.

I'm preeeeettty sure this falls under the trope of "Genocide, rape and...jaywalking."

 

[Dale Sams]

And re: his war crimes?

I'll bet that lawyer that got Baltar off could have gotten Dukat exonerated.

 

[Sci]

And re: his war crimes?

I'll bet that lawyer that got Baltar off could have gotten Dukat exonerated.

Baltar was tricked into giving the Cylons the access codes for the Twelve Colonies' computer defense systems, then failed to take responsibility for it; he then deliberately sabotaged a Cylon detector, and then submitted to and was complicit in Cylon war crimes during the occupation of New Caprica due to threats against his life from the occupiers. Afterwards, he abandoned the Colonials during the evacuation of New Caprica.

A terrible person, sure, but not exactly the same as someone who actively initiates and engages in war crimes.

 

[Dale Sams]

And re: his war crimes?

I'll bet that lawyer that got Baltar off could have gotten Dukat exonerated.

Baltar was tricked into giving the Cylons the access codes for the Twelve Colonies' computer defense systems, then failed to take responsibility for it; he then deliberately sabotaged a Cylon detector, and then submitted to and was complicit in Cylon war crimes during the occupation of New Caprica due to threats against his life from the occupiers. Afterwards, he abandoned the Colonials during the evacuation of New Caprica.

A terrible person, sure, but not exactly the same as someone who actively initiates and engages in war crimes.

(whispers: "We'll just forget about that whole giving an atomic warhead to a Six and her killing some 3,000 people")

But seriously, I loved how he probably took that to his grave. No TV justice.

And yeah, I wasn't saying he was the same as Dukat, just that I'll bet his lawyer could have got Dukat exonerated. A good starting point would be finding some War Crimes commited by Feds who 'just followed orders'. Otherwise known as Victor's Justice.

Or all the terrorism acts against Bajoran citizens by Bajorans, including the ones who just happened to be stationed at Cardassian sites.

 

[Sci]

And re: his war crimes?

I'll bet that lawyer that got Baltar off could have gotten Dukat exonerated.

Baltar was tricked into giving the Cylons the access codes for the Twelve Colonies' computer defense systems, then failed to take responsibility for it; he then deliberately sabotaged a Cylon detector, and then submitted to and was complicit in Cylon war crimes during the occupation of New Caprica due to threats against his life from the occupiers. Afterwards, he abandoned the Colonials during the evacuation of New Caprica.

A terrible person, sure, but not exactly the same as someone who actively initiates and engages in war crimes.

(whispers: "We'll just forget about that whole giving an atomic warhead to a Six and her killing some 3,000 people")

Fair point! I did forget about that part.

 

[DalekJim]

The most fascinatingly complex character in all of Star Trek being reduced to a 2-dimensional, pantomime cartoon in the final season is my single biggest beef with DS9.

 

[Peach Wookiee]

About Kira Nerys... it's even grosser that Dukat goes after her... He had to have known that Kira Nerys was the daughter of Kira Maru...