Dukat's Character Arc

[Tosk]

What did Khan do? Just take over the Enterprirse for a while, and then try it again in TWOK. Well, Chekov's earworm.

That. And the thing about taking over a quarter of the Earth. Being a dictator and whatnot.

 

[Uxi]

Season 7 in general seemed to make caricatures of what had before been far more shades of grey. Weyoun and the Dominion, of course, usually were using veiled iron first in a velvet glove type diplomacy in his interactions with Dukat as leader of Cardassia as Damar talked about moving on to Bajor, for example. I might expect a Founder to be bluntly threatening, but Weyoun's dialogue with Legate Damar later on is far less subtle. Perhaps that's the way it went, but the writing in Season 5 was better and seemed like they weren't given it as much thought since it was all going to be wrapped up.

Dukat turning completely evil after insanity does make sense, but it doesn't explain Kai Winn, either. She was always an antagonist, of course, though puts Bareil's throwing the race to her in a different light in retrospect. Leaving characters in the grey and debatable would have been better and having antagonists remain antagonists with at least a few redeeming qualities and/or justifications (however flimsy) without them being completely evil was a regrettable change. Even villains are the heroes of their own story.

 

[fireproof78]

What did Khan do?

Attempted murder. Being a dictator. Torture.

To borrow a quote from another show, "You think because he is friendly he is less evil but he is evil nonetheless."

 

[Honshu]

As much as I love DS9, the one thing that always intensly bothered me was the handling of my favorite character Gul Dukat, in season 7. His character progression was so natural, and to me his best moment was in the episode Waltz. He seemingly rips his mask off and admits that he never cared about the lives of bajorans and wished he was worse to them. He even tells sisko that he's glad for making him embrace his true repulsive feelings. With the season finale of season 6 (Tears of the Prophets) he tells Damar that he doesn't blame him for killing Dukat's daughter (Even though he did) and that he blames Sisko and wants to "destroy him." He then involves himself in this bizzare plotline with the pah wraiths, which as a concept didn't bother me, but why were they involving 2 plotlines that had absolutly nothong to do with one another? To me the worst season of DS9 is arguably season 7 because every single scene with my favorite character is brainless and boring. You essentially watch him for several episodes either cuddle with kai winn or try to read a book. How riveting. When he finally summons the demon monster's in the fire cave, it feels like a three dimensional show has turned into something more simplistic than even star wars or super heroes (Even the effects of the fight look laughably awful). I felt like they ruined Dukats character and his conclusion with Sisko by taking the 2 most realized, interesting, and dynamic characters and reducing them to 'good guy and bad guy." Did this plotline bother the hell out of anyone else? I almost never see anyone talk about this blatant character assassination and lazy writing, everyone just says how the finale is so amazing. Thoughts?

I agree, from early on it seemed that Dukat would be a complex, evolving character, bringing the gravitas of tragedy into a show that could otherwise slip into a rather dowdy shade of feuilleton. It didn't hurt that he was played with the requisite subtlety by a great actor. Then all of a sudden he is turned into this cartoonish villain who predictably escapes to be kept in reserve for some nefarious follow-ups. The rest is more drama slop.
If anything, the clumsy assassination of Dukat's character demonstrates how psychologically awful, brutal and insensitive the character of Kira Nerys is by contrast, behaving like a bratty, gossipy high-school teen, devoid of curiosity, empathy, creativity or compassion outside the strictures of her mainstream culture.
So, there you have it, yes I think that the writing was quite a bit conventional, lazy, and eager to latch onto coarse archetypes. Oh well.

 

[Honshu]

Also with your last point, I think most people that defend the end of Gul Dukats story fundamentally misunderstand the ending of Waltz. It's not as black and white as "Im crazy and im gonna go blow up bajor." It was a clear headed full admission of guilt, and acceptance that he is who he is and no longer cares about changing how others see him. In a way, Waltz really could have been the last Dukat episode because it completes his character arc. The conclusion of the episode is not about Dukat giving into madness and becoming overt supervillain that wants to blow everyone up. He's admitting he has zero regard for the lives of others and the things he's done. When he's ranting and making further threats to bajor he's saying that he would do all his past misdeeds all over again and could do worse. He then thanks Sisko, not because he's "crazy", but because he finally made him destroy his sociopathic insecurities and finally be honest with himself.

In Cardassian reasoning, it could also be that Dukat took on the whole of the occupation responsibility and guilt, on behalf and in service of Cardassia.
It seems to me that of the preceding 40+ years of occupation, and especially upon the initial conquest of the planet, things must have been much worse and turbulent for Bajor than when Dukat was sent there as a prefect. In fact he does go on to point that he tried to soften the occupation for bajorans, inasmuch as his military duty allowed (and it did not allow much).
It could well be that Dukat was never the master of his destiny and because of that, always tried to find a "true" role, wherever that led him. That would have been rich grounds for an elaborate, complex character development, but alas...