Garak and "In the Pale Moonlight" (*Spoilers*)
- Thread starter Too Much Fun
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Did you ever meet an android who had issues with his 'daddy', his mom who was not really his mom but another android, his evil brother, and his other, mentally challenged/bad brother?
That's a bit of a bizarre thing to expect though in these days.
Isn't that not surprising considering the general stance on generic manipulation at the moment and that it's still a young science. The only people around who may be genetically engineered would be 5-10 at most and still it'd be incredibly rare.
Did Sisko have psychological issues stemming from the relationship with his mother? No, he didn't even know about her until season 7.
Kira was psychologically scarred but not by the actions of her parents. She didn't find out about her mother until season 6.
His parents died while he was a child, and he has very loving human parents. No psychological problems there.
Yes, Bashir does have daddy issues. Psychologically scarring? Possibly.
It has been a while since I've seen Prodigal Daughter so I'm not going to dispute this, Ezri's problems could have stemmed from her mother.
Agreed, this probably is the cause of his introversion.
Psychologically scarring?
Jadzia? No indication.
O'Brien? He once mentioned a dispute he had with his father when he enrolled in Starfleet, but that was resolved long before the show.
Jake? Well rounded individual.
Nog? I suppose he felt ashamed by the fact that his father was a bartender, but he was also a well-rounded individual.
Martok? He was proud of his father.
Dukat? His father was executed by the Obsidian Order, but that was never indicated as being the reasoning behind his madness.
Damar? No. Weyoun? Female Changling? No parents. Ziyal? Not really. Bariel? No. Winn? No. Ross? No. Eddington? No. Kassidy? No. Leeta? No. Keiko? No. Morn? Who knows?
So lets see, we have Garak, Bashir, Ezri and Odo out of over 20 characters. Seems fair to me.
Besides which, for most people the people they will be affected by the most are their families. Why? Because that's who they have the most consistent history with in a lot of cases. Not only do they have the most history with their families, but their families are the ones who were around them in their formative years. Maybe I have odd friends or bad luck, but practically everyone I know has at least one major family issue that had a strong impact on them growing up and to some degree shapes an aspect of their personalities to this day.
When developing a character, I personally think it's helpful to get into some family background now and then. It keeps them from looking like complete cyphers or as though they sprang fully formed from the forehead of Zeus, so to speak, and it helps to give some insight into motivation. I don't think it's lazy, and I don't think it's hackneyed, particularly when it's done in a logical manner.
As for Garak being perfect, I never saw him that way. I saw him as a desperate individual who stayed five steps ahead of everyone else because he felt like he had to, that if he didn't, his very life was at stake. He was raised by Tain to view the world that way, and to me that's a terrible way to have to go through life, never being able to let your guard down and never being able truly to trust anyone, not even yourself. That doesn't look remotely like perfection to me.
When developing a character, I personally think it's helpful to get into some family background now and then. It keeps them from looking like complete cyphers or as though they sprang fully formed from the forehead of Zeus, so to speak, and it helps to give some insight into motivation. I don't think it's lazy, and I don't think it's hackneyed, particularly when it's done in a logical manner.
As for Garak being perfect, I never saw him that way. I saw him as a desperate individual who stayed five steps ahead of everyone else because he felt like he had to, that if he didn't, his very life was at stake. He was raised by Tain to view the world that way, and to me that's a terrible way to have to go through life, never being able to let your guard down and never being able truly to trust anyone, not even yourself. That doesn't look remotely like perfection to me.
Damar? No. Weyoun? Female Changling? No parents. Ziyal? Not really. Bariel? No. Winn? No. Ross? No. Eddington? No. Kassidy? No. Leeta? No. Keiko? No. Morn? Who knows?
So lets see, we have Garak, Bashir, Ezri and Odo out of over 20 characters. Seems fair to me.
Damar, Weyoun, the Female Changling, Ziyal, Bariel, Winn, Ross, Eddington, Kassidy, Leeta, Keik and Morn weren't primary characters so they don't count.
And yeah, Garak's insufferable smugness frayed the nerves after a while. He needed to get beat up a bit more.
Neither was Garak.
By the end of the show about six of those characters were getting about the same amount of screen time that other primary characters such as Jake, O'Brien, Bashir were getting. Ziyal had plenty of screen-time for a character who was only on the show for two seasons. The rest are arguable. Adding Morn to the list was a joke.
Neither was Garak.
Garak's like Tara from Buffy, should have been in the credits but wasn't for some reason. So yeah he counts as a primary as the show went on.
I'm confused as to why Jake was even *in* the credits in S7. He appeared in 9 out of 25 eps (counting WYLB as one ep) - and wasn't even a major character in several of those.
Neither was Garak.
Garak's like Tara from Buffy, should have been in the credits but wasn't for some reason. So yeah he counts as a primary as the show went on.
Garak was in 37 episodes during the show's run, including 8 out of 25 in the final season. So, no, he wasn't a regular, either.
Exactly, Garak really wasn't in the show all that much, it just seems that way because he had so much presence. In the final season the recurring characters appeared in this many episodes (according to MA):
Damar: 11
Dukat: 7
Female Changling: 8
Vic Fontaine: 6
Garak: 7
Martok: 11
Nog: 11
Rom: 6
Admiral Ross: 8
Weyoun: 10
Winn: 5
Kasidy: 8
The only reason why Garak has more appearances overall is because he was in the show since the second episode, a lot of those other characters only showed up in the later seasons. If Garak is to be considered a main character then most of those do too.
Did you ever meet an android who had issues with his 'daddy', his mom who was not really his mom but another android, his evil brother, and his other, mentally challenged/bad brother?
once...didn't really know what to talk about with him, ended up chatting about the weather
Well, Damar, Martok, Nog and Weyoun all have better calls on being a main character than Jake in S7, you must admit - both by number of appearances, and by the importance of those appearances (And you can add one apiece to both J.G. Hertzler and Jeffrey Combs' number as actors, for Laas and Mirror Brunt respectively).
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