Gul Dukat is a good guy

[Tosk]

We should ask ourselves if Dukat is within the parameters of accepted Cardassian morality and ethical values, or whether he's violated the values of his own people. It's perhaps not helpful to judge him by human values, as he isn't human, nor was he raised on Earth or within the Federation. I'll hazard a guess and say that he was probably was, for the most part, until he went off the rails and became crazy.

I disagree that we have to judge him by Cardassian moral standards, but just for the heck of it...

Shamefully, Dukat embraced and brought home to Cardassia the fruit of one of his indiscretions. He was subsequently disgraced and shunned. He lost his family and and was demoted.

 

[kkt]

From a Cardassian point of view, Dukat was a pretty lousy prefect and a disaster as head of state.

- Failed to win over any hearts and minds of Bajorans during the occupation, and his harsh methods also failed to get the resistance under control
- Lots of Cardassians had Bajoran mistresses, but they don't parade the results of those unions down the streets of their capital. A good father's job, from the Cardassian point of view, is taking care of his family. His legitimate family, not the child of an affair with some Bajoran. His actions greatly hurt his wife and their children. He wouldn't have even had to kill Ziyal, he could have just not gone on Kira's quest to find the Ravinok. Or not mentioned her and allowed her to be cared for as an unknown orphan.
- Speaking of the Ravinok, she was a Cardassian ship. Wasn't it Dukat's job to make sure there was a thorough investigation into what became of her? If Kira could find out just by calling in a few favors, Dukat certainly wasn't trying very hard since he failed with all the resources of Cardassia available to him.
- The alliance with the Dominion that he engineered, umm, didn't work out so well. Even if the Dominion had somehow won the war, it's clear Cardassia would have lost. That was completely predictable to anyone but Dukat. How many Dominion worlds in the Gamma Quadrant have any independence? Umm, none.
- When returned to command of the station under the Dominion, his superiors told him very forcefully to get the mine field taken down as soon as possible. He worked on it some, but made other things his priority, strutting about in front of Kira and competing with Weyoun for the Founder's attention like a preschooler.

 

[kkt]

with asinine writing is quite tragic.
How so? IIRC he didn't commit any war crimes. He was just an administrator. IIRC the Federation didn't even have any grounds on which to take him prisoner, yet they did so anyway.

You mean aboard the Honshu, at the beginning of Waltz? He was a prisoner because he was a military officer of the Dominion, and the Federation and the Dominion were at war. He was just a POW, not being tried for war crimes, is my understanding.

 

[Paradise City]

Dukat as prefect inherited an impossible position given the savagery of his predecessors. There was only ever going to be two outcomes. If Dukat had been savage, he would've incurred the wrath of the Bajorans, if he had been nice, that would've incurred the wrath of the bajorans - as leniency would be interpreted as a sign of weakness. I actually think that his stint as prefect was probably as good as he got. He was nuanced enough, for example. to understand that Odo would make a good appointment to win the confidence of the Bajorans. It's that kind of nuance that is missed in late interpretations of that character.

 

[Amaris]

Dukat as prefect inherited an impossible position given the savagery of his predecessors. There was only ever going to be two outcomes. If Dukat had been savage, he would've incurred the wrath of the Bajorans, if he had been nice, that would've incurred the wrath of the bajorans - as leniency would be interpreted as a sign of weakness. I actually think that his stint as prefect was probably as good as he got. He was nuanced enough, for example. to understand that Odo would make a good appointment to win the confidence of the Bajorans. It's that kind of nuance that is missed in late interpretations of that character.

It's what made him a terrific villain. He didn't just chew the scenery (though Alaimo was excellent at it), he added his own shade of gray to the moral dilemma, and it enhanced the overall episode. In later seasons, he was just a generic megalomaniacal supervillan.

 

[Capn Nick]

It's what made him a terrific villain. He didn't just chew the scenery (though Alaimo was excellent at it), he added his own shade of gray to the moral dilemma, and it enhanced the overall episode. In later seasons, he was just a generic megalomaniacal supervillan.

I agree absolutely. But the old Dukat (maybe just because Alaimo is so talented) sneaks through from time to time. I always thought it was sheer genius of the show to have the scene in that last season when he tries to talk demoralized and drunk Damar into being a Cardassian patriot again and it inadvertently plays as a part of the lead up to Damar's rebellion. There is something touching and honest about the exchange and you remember through Damar's hero worship that Dukat used to be more complex.

 

[Amaris]

I agree absolutely. But the old Dukat (maybe just because Alaimo is so talented) sneaks through from time to time. I always thought it was sheer genius of the show to have the scene in that last season when he tries to talk demoralized and drunk Damar into being a Cardassian patriot again and it inadvertently plays as a part of the lead up to Damar's rebellion. There is something touching and honest about the exchange and you remember through Damar's hero worship that Dukat used to be more complex.

True, there were moments, I just get frustrated because they did take so much richness from Dukat's character in order to make him into a cardboard cutout.

 

[Sophie74656]

I loved Dukat. My favorite moment of his is when he's trapped in the cave with Sisko and loosing his mind. When he's halucinating those people around him. Amazing scene, amazing actor.

I think Dukat legit thought he was helping the Bajorans, or at least making things better for them and he was legit upset that they didn't thank him for it. He was expecting gratitude for reducing the number of bajoran deaths and slightly improving the conditions in the camps.

 

[UnknownSample]

I loved Dukat. My favorite moment of his is when he's trapped in the cave with Sisko and losing his mind. When he's hallucinating those people around him. Amazing scene, amazing actor.

I think Dukat legit thought he was helping the Bajorans, or at least making things better for them and he was legit upset that they didn't thank him for it. He was expecting gratitude for reducing the number of bajoran deaths and slightly improving the conditions in the camps.

Well, there's a difference between well-intentioned, misguided sincerity, and self-serving, rationalizing self-delusion. I think Dukat's attitude in "Waltz" (my favorite episode) was the latter.

It was possible to read into Dukat's character, early on, a soft side, a nice side. If you're looking for that. That's what "character development" means for many Trek fans... showing that we're all nice underneath. Dukat isn't, and never was. He so desperately wants everyone to think so, though. Sometimes, character development means exploring the dark side of a character in more depth, if that's the core of the character. In seasons six and seven, DS9 continued to flesh out and develop Dukat further, in a fascinating way. They did have him uttering a few cliché villain lines right at the start of s7, but mostly, they revealed the blackness in him that had always been there, which came to the surface as everything was taken away from him, and he disintegrated as a result. We're not all nice underneath.

 

[Spot261]

I think that's often one of the things that makes Dukat so appealing, the fact that he genuinely seems to see himself in a positive light and can't understand why others do not. There's almost a sense of persecution about him, of being the victim who perseveres in spite of it all. He honestly sees his efforts to help the Bajorans as being humanitarian.

Had he been an uncaring brutish character who simply brutalised his thralls as a matter of course, he wouldn't be anywhere near as scary. What marks him out is that he actually sees himself in an almost messianic light because he brutalised them slightly less than he could have. That bizarrely screwed moral compass could lead him pretty much anywhere, still looking around bewildered at other's failure to see the efforts he is making on their behalf.

 

[publiusr]

There are times I think that the universe needs its monsters. A Stalin to stop a Hitler.

 

[Triskelion]

They destroyed themselves.