Gul Dukat was a good guy

[DevilEyes]

EDIT: And to agree with Anwar as a second time, after Waltz it was only fitting that the Sisko/Prophets storyline came to a resolution with a battle with Dukat as the Emissary of the Pagh-Wraiths!

In theory, perhaps.

My rant from another thread:

Dukat and Winn and Dukat's Pah-wraith alliance. It makes perfect sense that Dukat would use the Pah-wraith to destroy the Bajorans, as well as giving him the power he also craved.

The most serious problems with that storyline:

- it is a plot device rather than something that flows organically from the characterization, so Dukat is made to do and say things that make no sense, just in order to set up a Sisko/Dukat conflict: forgiving Damar completely for killing Ziyal, while blaming Sisko of all people. WTF? What did Sisko have to do with it? At least if he blamed Kira or Garak or anyone who was either 1) at the station at the time of the Occupation, or 2) was close to Ziyal, it could have made some convoluted sense - at least you could say that he blamed that person for influencing her and making her "betray" him. But Sisko?

About the only way I could have made sense of it would've been if it hadn't really been Dukat, but Damar's hallucination of Dukat, just like Damar, Kira and Weyoun were Dukat's hallucinations in "Waltz", since the whole thing is just like wishful thinking by Damar. "Hello, Damar, old friend. Oh, I don't worry, I don't hold any grudges for you murdering my beloved daughter right in front of me! We're still pals and I'm totally supportive. I'll just choose to blame someone else who's got absolutely nothing to do with it."

And how weird is it that Dukat - just like the writers, apparently - seems to have completely forgotten by season 6 that he has 7 other children? Even though he used to talk about them in season 2, 3, 5... Now they just don't matter to him even to warrant a mention?

The only explanation of his behavior I can see is that he was insane at that point - but it is very lame when a TV show has to resort to "oh well, he is insane" as an excuse for making characters act in any absurd manner.

- the whole storyline was set up as being huge and incredibly important, with Dukat established as the main villain of the show again (according to the writers, that was what they were trying to do); but in the end, it had absolutely NOTHING to do with the Dominion war, nothing to do with Cardassia... and heck, it even didn't manage to do anything to Bajor, apart from killing Winn. And after all the build-up, it ended with a 2-minute first fight - what an anti-climax.

- the whole thing represented a shift from the intelligent treatment of religion and from the layered, complex storytelling and characterization that DS9 was known for, into a black-and-white supernatural tale of Good vs Evil, complete with demonic possessions and red-eyed maniacally laughing villains. Which I found really sad and disappointing. To quote Confused Matthew: "Come on! You are better than that!"

- The Pah-wraiths are never really explained - we don't get any insight into their motivations, they are nothing but boogey-men, or should that be boogey-beings. We're just supposed to think that they're eeeevil, so they'll naturally be allied with the eeeeevil Dukat. And I understand wanting to get back to the Celestial Temple, but WTF was that about "ending all life"? Why would they want that? Were the writers just wrecking their brains, trying to think of something that sounded eeevil enough?

The Pah-wraiths and Dukat in the end just served as a device to make the Prophets and Sisko look like a force of Good. But that just does not work, because...

- ... there is no reason to see the Prophets as Good; and it was OK as long as the show did not try to manipulate the viewers into feeling differently. But once they did, the Prophets just came off as arseholes who don't really care about the humanoids, but are ready to manipulate and use them for their ends. Did the writers ever realize just how creepy and disgusting what the Prophets did to Sarah and Joseph Sisko was?

- Maybe Ira Steven Behr should have just kept his mouth shut and pretended that he had always planned the Anti-Emissary plot, even though we know they just came up with stuff as they went along. But since he had to go on in public about how upset he was that Dukat was popular with the fanbase and how it was OMG oh so wrong! and OMG sending the wrong message! and OMG why did Marc Alaimo had to try to understand his character and play him as a multi-dimensional, realistic person rather than a caricature! and OMG why did he, Behr, allow Dukat to actually become an interesting and complex character! and OMG, we can't have people think that war criminals and despots are human and perhaps similar to the rest of us, can we! and OMG, that mistake had to be rectified!... I can hear very little in seasons 6 and 7 over the sound of Behr preaching and telling me what I am supposed to think.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

One small point...about his other children, I thought his wife walked out on him and took them all? Something tells me she got sole custody and a restraining order. Given that, I think Dukat started fixating even more on Ziyal, which explains the way he was by the time "Sacrifice of Angels" came around

 

[DevilEyes]

One small point...about his other children, I thought his wife walked out on him and took them all? Something tells me she got sole custody and a restraining order. Given that, I think Dukat started fixating even more on Ziyal, which explains the way he was by the time "Sacrifice of Angels" came around

She did leave him, but I don't see why you think would get a restraining order... if there is such a thing in Cardassia. And if it had happened, I doubt that it would have stayed that way after he became the supreme ruler of Cardassia. He also mentioned his son in his speech when Cardassia joined the Dominion, which seemed to imply that he still had a relationship with his children, or in any case that the public thought so.

 

[Odo You Didn't!]

I'd also like to question whether anyone condones rape?

You obviously haven't had a discussion with someone claiming that it's okay to fuck a girl who is unconscious, or that a given girl was "asking for it" because of how she dressed.

Some people do condone rape.

Actually that's a good point, I have, while at university. I'd therefore like to change my question to "I'd also like to question whether anyone with any form of moral fiber condones rape". Because I don't believe they had any. And back on topic...

Mmhm. Anyone who isn't wrong in the head then.

DevilEyes, I'm not a fan of the Pagh Wraith plot. So, was Behr trying to ruin him in Season 7 to get people to hate him? Hadn't realised that, but it suddenly makes sense.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

One small point...about his other children, I thought his wife walked out on him and took them all? Something tells me she got sole custody and a restraining order. Given that, I think Dukat started fixating even more on Ziyal, which explains the way he was by the time "Sacrifice of Angels" came around

She did leave him, but I don't see why you think would get a restraining order... if there is such a thing in Cardassia. And if it had happened, I doubt that it would have stayed that way after he became the supreme ruler of Cardassia. He also mentioned his son in his speech when Cardassia joined the Dominion, which seemed to imply that he still had a relationship with his children, or in any case that the public thought so.

I'd figure that for the time when he was in disgrace, there would've been a restraining order--he was pretty much persona non grata.

Afterwards, perhaps it was lifted, yes--but I imagine that from his twisted perspective, she had already "damaged" the relationship enough...so I think from that point on he only used her and his legitimate children as political pawns, just keeping up the illusion of a relationship. Personal theory, yes, but I think it makes sense.

 

[DevilEyes]

DevilEyes, I'm not a fan of the Pagh Wraith plot. So, was Behr trying to ruin him in Season 7 to get people to hate him? Hadn't realised that, but it suddenly makes sense.

In Behr's own words:

http://trekweb.com/stories.php?aid=SdNrK8202hgIc&mailtofriend=1

In the May 2002 issue of Star Trek: The Magazine, former DEEP SPACE NINE executive producer Ira Steven Behr talks at length about the decisions behind the development of Marc Alaimo's 'Gul Dukat', the major villain throughout the series's run.

Behr remembers how in the pilot, the character was originally played by another actor: "Let's just say we all agreed that perhaps we had made a less than perfect choice and that the part had to be recast. Someone said 'What about Marc Alaimo?' because he had done TNG, and there you go... From that point on my model for Dukat was Alaimo. That's a real compliment; He presented us with so many opportunities."

Behr explains that the character as he conceived him was to be ruthless and without sympathy, a characterization difficult to maintain through the seven seasons: "The problem I find with a lot of writers, including myself, is that once you get involved with a character you start to get to know him and you humanize him. Michael Piller did the rewrite of 'Defiant' where he had Dukat talk about his children; My reaction was, 'Uh oh, we've crossed the line.' I realized that he was going to lose all credibility as a villain; we were going to shower him with our usual writerish empathy, and, like all good liberals, we'd see him as neither fish or fowl." "I really responded against that. Here was the guy who had been in charge of Bajor, and right away we were looking for excuses for him."

Behr continues, saying there was always a tension between romanticizing 'Dukat' as a villain and paintaing him as a sort of war-criminal: "I had certainly done my bit in making Dukat a kind of swashbuckling villain, but I always thought the Cardassians were horrific; I think anyone who doesn't is obviously confused. They did a horrible thing, and I have little sympathy for that."

But actor Marc Alaimo, who had become quite popular with the show's fans, had a different view of the character, seeing him as ultimately redeemable. Behr explains how this actually helped feed into creating the character the way he wanted: "What made it perfect, what made it beautiful, and that no writer could have conceived of, was that Alaimo took it in his head that he was the hero of the series - that Dukat was really just misunderstood; that he was sweet and kind. *

"Whenever I think of the character, I think of Renoir's line from 'The Rules of the Game': 'The tragedy of life is that every man has his reasons.' Dukat could logically explain away everything he did, he could find justifications for all of it, and that's the horror; that's the thing Alaimo and I were always in disagreement about. His attitude was, 'We all have this inside of us, we're all many different people, and no one is truly evil.' Then I'd say, 'OK, if you take that to its conclusion, then no one has to stand accountable for their actions.'"

Much to the producer/writer's chagrin, many fans began to see the character and the Cardassians as "sexy" rather than horrific: "We'd sit in the writers room and laugh about it sometimes. We'd get the Cardassian newsletter and look at it and think, 'What has gone wrong?' of course it's science fiction; you put makeup on and suddenly it's OK. If it's Idi Amin or Pol Pot no one's thinking of spending a romantic weekend in his arms; but you give him a bony neck and a rubber outfit, and it's a whole different thing."

In the latter seasons, as the writers began mapping out how the Cardassians would eventually overthrow the Dominion's yoke, Behr says he intentionally steered away from the temptation to valorize 'Dukat' and turn him into the hero that evetually became of actor Casey Biggs's 'Damar'.

"We were able to have a guy (Damar) who had been pushed too far. That was something you could never really get from Alaimo's character, because he would never allow himself to be subjected to that kind of treatment in the first place. I couldn't accept that Dukat would become the savior of Cardassia," he said. "I'm sure his fans would have adored it, and Alaimo would have loved it, but there were too many instances where he was false. It wasn't credible, and I know the man who had to be there at the very end to speak for Cardassia was Garak, as the true outsider.

"If it had been Dukat, it would have been too romantic. We went that way with Damar to an extent, which is why we killed him the way we did - fast, and before the end of the show. I know people felt that he deserved something better, but that was a very calculated move. Imagine if we'd done that with Dukat? I mean, forget it."

In the end, Behr says he's mostly pleased with how the character met his end fittingly: "I think he got what he deserved, let me put it like that. I can't say I feel sorry for him, I really don't. He and Winn were two characters I just could not sympathize with. Though we tried in all fairness to give them their points of view and give them their attitudes, they were very deluded, and they did horrible things."

And here's what I think about it.

Check the rest of the posts on the thread - it was a good discussion.

 

[Odo You Didn't!]

^ Thanks, DevilEyes - that's shed some light on it for me. 'Preciate it

 

[PSGarak]

As I've said before, seems like many times now, there was NO NEED for the supernatural pagh wraith possession crap. What's wrong with just having the guy have to watch the fruition of the terrible mistake he made in allying with the Dominion, watching Cardassia go down in flames, and end up reviled and forgotten on some prison planet to cool his heels for his crimes? That's realistic. Or even have his own people turn on him and execute him. It doesn't excuse anything he did. It doesn't make him any less despicable for his crimes, but it keeps the character intact and believable instead of devolving into a ham fisted morality play that would've gone down perfectly in the Middle Ages, but not so much today.

 

[DevilEyes]

Although I have already ranted about everything that I disagreed with in Behr's statements, I just want to add something that occured to me:

It wasn't credible, and I know the man who had to be there at the very end to speak for Cardassia was Garak, as the true outsider.

We'd get the Cardassian newsletter and look at it and think, 'What has gone wrong?' of course it's science fiction; you put makeup on and suddenly it's OK. If it's Idi Amin or Pol Pot no one's thinking of spending a romantic weekend in his arms; but you give him a bony neck and a rubber outfit, and it's a whole different thing."

Didn't it occur to him that this could be applied to other characters as well? I can't help but notice an astonishing double standard when it comes to Dukat and Garak. We're talking about someone who was a high operative of an ominous secret police-type organization, responsible for assassinations, torture and what not. But (and I am saying this as a big Garak fan, BTW), Behr thought it was allright to romanticize Garak as a cool spy, "true outsider" (he had bad luck - but that's not all that different from Dukat's loss of power ostracism in season 4 after the Ziyal revelation) and have him ultimately end up as as a good guy?

Maybe Behr and the other writers just weren't really all that knowledgable about world politics and 20th century history. Therefore, Prefect of Bajor = figures like Pol Polt, Idi Amin, Hitler = kneejerk reaction: we're used to think of those guys as epitomes of evil; Obsidian Order = Gestapo, KGB, Stasi, UDBA/SDB etc.= no kneejerk reaction? Why? Because those guys operate in secret and we don't know most of their names, and they and their crimes don't get to be in headlines? Are Behr and co. aware of the terror that various secret police/state security organizations represented, especially in authoritarian or totalitarian states, not to mention the role in engineering and organizing state-sponsored crimes domestically and abroad, including war crimes?

 

[Sci]

Although I have already ranted about everything that I disagreed with in Behr's statements, I just want to add something that occured to me:

It wasn't credible, and I know the man who had to be there at the very end to speak for Cardassia was Garak, as the true outsider.

We'd get the Cardassian newsletter and look at it and think, 'What has gone wrong?' of course it's science fiction; you put makeup on and suddenly it's OK. If it's Idi Amin or Pol Pot no one's thinking of spending a romantic weekend in his arms; but you give him a bony neck and a rubber outfit, and it's a whole different thing."

Didn't it occur to him that this could be applied to other characters as well? I can't help but notice an astonishing double standard when it comes to Dukat and Garak. We're talking about someone who was a high operative of an ominous secret police-type organization, responsible for assassinations, torture and what not. But (and I am saying this as a big Garak fan, BTW), Behr thought it was allright to romanticize Garak as a cool spy, "true outsider" (he had bad luck - but that's not all that different from Dukat's loss of power ostracism in season 4 after the Ziyal revelation) and have him ultimately end up as as a good guy?

Maybe Behr and the other writers just weren't really all that knowledgable about world politics and 20th century history. Therefore, Prefect of Bajor = figures like Pol Polt, Idi Amin, Hitler = kneejerk reaction: we're used to think of those guys as epitomes of evil; Obsidian Order = Gestapo, KGB, Stasi, UDBA/SDB etc.= no kneejerk reaction? Why? Because those guys operate in secret and we don't know most of their names, and they and their crimes don't get to be in headlines? Are Behr and co. aware of the terror that various secret police/state security organizations represented, especially in authoritarian or totalitarian states, not to mention the role in engineering and organizing state-sponsored crimes domestically and abroad, including war crimes?

Maybe they honestly believed that being an operative in a secret police, while still awful, was still less morally reprehensible than being directly responsible for the murders of millions of people?

I for one do believe that a torturer, however bad, can still be more redeemable than a mass-murdering dictator.

 

[DevilEyes]

[
Maybe they honestly believed that being an operative in a secret police, while still awful, was still less morally reprehensible than being directly responsible for the murders of millions of people?

I for one do believe that a torturer, however bad, can still be more redeemable than a mass-murdering dictator.

Regardless of what a single operative was or was not involved with, in real life, the secret police/state security services as a whole, especially in authoritarian states, is a force that can in some cases be at least as powerful, if not more, than the miltiary or civilian government, and influence, if not create, a lot of its domestic and foreign policies (not to mention engineering coups, arranging assassinations, in some cases - as linked above - organizing paramilitary units, etc.). While they may not be in the limelight, chances are that such an organization is very much responsible for the murders of millions, even if it is not directly. The Obsidian Order certainly seemed to be a that kind of powerful organization, one which had an agenda of its own and that was feared by everyone on Cardassia, including the military and civilian authorties (just like the Romulan Tal Shiar).

Dictators make fine hate-figures, but it's very often those in the shadows who are pulling many of the strings.

 

[Tallis Rhul]

Mmhmm. Just like in World War II, where Hitler's cabinet made all the calls, and it was no way the fact that he was just a teeny bit bonkers and pulling the strings himself that caused the trouble... o.O

Be that as it may, I'd quite like to ask this to those people who didn't like the Emissary of the Prophets vs. Emissary of the Pagh Wraiths final battle... how would you have brought a resolution to Sisko as the Emissary? If it had just been left alone then it would have been a wholly pointless character aspect, and if he'd just been taken back to his people it would have been rather anticlimactic - what would you have done differently?

 

[DevilEyes]

Mmhmm. Just like in World War II, where Hitler's cabinet made all the calls, and it was no way the fact that he was just a teeny bit bonkers and pulling the strings himself that caused the trouble... o.O

Oh for the Prophets' sake, can't people lay off Hitler for once? What does his cabinet have to do with anything? We're not talking about any freaking cabinets, we're talking about the secret police/state security in authoritarian states. Read something from the more recent history, for instance the links I provided above. Sorry for sounding rude, but it's really getting annoying to me - is there no other real life example anyone can ever think of but Hitler?

And anyway, if you want to talk Hitler, Hitler was some 500th - some number like that - member of the National Socialist Party; it existed without him, and if it hadn't been for him, the Fuhrer would have been someone else. That other guy might have been as successful and the Nazi party wouldn't have come to power... or he might have been more successful. Maybe he'd have been more competent and less crazy, and managed to win the war for the Third Reich. Who knows? People seriously need to drop the idea that one person, however powerful, ever controls everything, and that getting rid of one guy, however notorious, will solve all the problems - it is naive, silly, and can allow the corrupt and totalitarian systems to remain intact despite the change of head of state and the government. I've learned that the hard way.

 

[Tallis Rhul]

Dictators make fine hate-figures, but it's very often those in the shadows who are pulling many of the strings.

Oh for the Prophets' sake, can't people lay off Hitler for once? What does his cabinet have to do with anything? We're not talking about any freaking cabinets, we're talking about the secret police/state security in authoritarian states.

Alright, so I got the wrong end of the stick. But yes, I can think of another obvious example, Saddam Hussein. Dictator, yes. Cliché, yes. But the fact actually remains that these people (secret police etc.) are still taking orders from the head of state, even if they're the sort to be wanting to do it anyway, and he is the person who is culpable. However...

If the secret police were carrying on and murdering people/making people disappear etc. against the will of their head of state then it'd be a bit different as you say, especially if they were bullying the civilian government or military in any capacity (as we saw Korinas do to Gul Dukat, and she rather enjoyed it XD)

Basically they can be as dangerous as people who read posts and respond while half asleep... *points to self*

Sorry

 

[DevilEyes]

Dictators make fine hate-figures, but it's very often those in the shadows who are pulling many of the strings.

Oh for the Prophets' sake, can't people lay off Hitler for once? What does his cabinet have to do with anything? We're not talking about any freaking cabinets, we're talking about the secret police/state security in authoritarian states.

Alright, so I got the wrong end of the stick. But yes, I can think of another obvious example, Saddam Hussein. Dictator, yes. Cliché, yes. But the fact actually remains that these people (secret police etc.) are still taking orders from the head of state, even if they're the sort to be wanting to do it anyway, and he is the person who is culpable. However...

If the secret police were carrying on and murdering people/making people disappear etc. against the will of their head of state then it'd be a bit different as you say, especially if they were bullying the civilian government or military in any capacity (as we saw Korinas do to Gul Dukat, and she rather enjoyed it XD)

Or... there is a third scenario: they are taking the orders from the head of state, but once he's gone, they go on doing the same (assassinations, etc.). Because that's what they have always been doing, under the former head of state and under the one before him.

Case in point: Milosevic, who was certainly the main person giving the orders in Serbia in the 1990s, was ousted from power, he even got arrested and shipped off to the ICT in Hague - and what happened? The power structure that supported him, including the congomerate of the state security service, its paramilitary units and the crime world it had ties to and used for its ends, remained in place for a long time afterwards. They, as well as the heads of the military and the police, had simply realized that Milosevic was finished and they needed to "side with the people" - not because they had a change of heart, but because it was a pragmatic thing to do, with almost a million people protesting in the streets. So they changed sides and decided to back the new democratic government - providing they are left alone. The new democratic compromised because that was the only way to avoid bloodshed. But in doing that, they made a deal with the devil, and allowed it to remain strong, way too strong. As soon as the state security service (SDB) and its main paramitary unit (JSO, the so-called "Red Berets') become afraid that they could lose their positions or even get indicted for their crimes, they started by trying to stop the government from making any more extradictions to Hague, and by showing off their strength by an open rebellion; and ended by assassinating the Prime Minister, in an attempt of a coup. That's what it took for the new government to finally realize that it had to take harsh measures and dismantle JSO and the old state security service itself.

 

[PSGarak]

Also, let's not forget that when Dukat was Prefect of Bajor, he was not calling all the shots in the entire Cardassian government. He was following orders, the same as every other prefect before him. I know that following orders has been used throughout history to excuse a lot of things, but look at what happens to people in totalitarian regimes who don't follow orders. Look at what happens to their families and loved ones. It's very easy to sit outside of a situation like that and get on a moral high horse, claiming you wouldn't do the same thing in their place. It's much harder to be a dissident if your life and the lives of your loved ones are in jeopardy for it. If you're raised with all of that as cultural norms, it's not even very likely you're going to see anything wrong with the point of view.

When making the distinction between a torturer and a mass murdering dictator, I also think you're not taking into account that a dictator can direct others to do his dirty work for him without ever getting his hands dirty. He has emotional and intellectual distance from the crimes, and if he's deluded, as many dictators are, he even has the luxury of believing that what he is doing is good for the people on the whole.

A torturer does not have the luxury of distance. A torturer is right there in the trench with his or her victim, turning the screws, peeling back the layers, creating the agony. Perhaps that individual torturer doesn't have the sheer number of victims as the dictator, but delivering pain and death on a very personal level to me takes a much more depraved and "inhuman" individual than being in a position of power and calling the shots from a distance. Number of deaths doesn't automatically trump manners of death when it comes to measuring who is redeemable and who isn't.

I wouldn't have been bothered at all by a somewhat anti-climactic Sisko getting "called home" to his Prophet peeps. Nothing the Prophets did made much sense, not from the very beginning of the show. We never understood their motives or their methods. That would've made more sense to me than what they came up with and would've been far more satisfying. It would've remained in the shades of gray where most of the show dwelt rather than a sudden black and white must beat you over the head with "teh eeeeevil"!

I personally think if a writer doesn't have the stomach to make a complex villain and understand that there are some people who will identify with that villain more than he intended, he should leave the villain writing to somebody else. The instant a writer takes control of a work to hammer his own pet point home, it ceases being entertainment and becomes a didactic morality play. What I didn't appreciate was the bait and switch. It starts out as entertainment and then devolves into a morality play. At least have the decency to let people know from the get go what they're getting into. That way they can say thanks but no thanks and find something that will treat them like the thinking adults they are from start to finish.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

PSGarak--That argument could easily go to far, though...to suggest that anytime you show clearcut good and evil, it's somehow beneath something more ambiguous doesn't hold water. Though it's very popular these days to go with the relativistic morals and deconstructionist attitudes towards old archetypes, I still think there is a very legitimate position for older traditions. To me, I think there's a point where if a society HAS lost the power to call out evil in its midst for what it is--evil, not simply "misunderstood" or something of that nature, then that society has lost an important part of what gives it its strength and moral standing.

I don't agree that, for instance, if I DO wish to deal with clearer themes of faith or of the battle between good and evil, that it makes me less of a writer than someone who writes something that is always skirting the fine line.

There IS still grey for me--how does a person get to that tipping point where they become irredeemable? Where is that critical moment, that decision? We are not God and we can't say with authority where, for sure, that moment is, but just because I believe it is there somewhere doesn't make me any less of a thinking adult.

Now I know you, and I don't think that's at all what you meant to say. But I just felt it should be out there as food for thought given today's cultural prejudices.

 

[PSGarak]

PSGarak--That argument could easily go to far, though...to suggest that anytime you show clearcut good and evil, it's somehow beneath something more ambiguous doesn't hold water. Though it's very popular these days to go with the relativistic morals and deconstructionist attitudes towards old archetypes, I still think there is a very legitimate position for older traditions. To me, I think there's a point where if a society HAS lost the power to call out evil in its midst for what it is--evil, not simply "misunderstood" or something of that nature, then that society has lost an important part of what gives it its strength and moral standing.

I agree. I don't think that every story dealing with the concepts of good and evil as archetypal concepts is automatically simplistic and didactic. It very much depends upon the author's approach and the tone. The reason I disliked it so much in DS9 is that it was a very jarring change in tone and seemed to be a knee jerk reaction on the writers' part to a villain getting more popular than they liked. It wasn't commentary on Cardassian society as a whole, or the totalitarian system as a whole. It became about one person, Dukat, and their frustration that not everyone saw him the way they wanted him seen. I don't remember who said it on here, but it was close to the breaking of the fourth wall, the writers' reaching out through the vehicle of the story to smack wayward viewers into submission.

I don't agree that, for instance, if I DO wish to deal with clearer themes of faith or of the battle between good and evil, that it makes me less of a writer than someone who writes something that is always skirting the fine line.

There IS still grey for me--how does a person get to that tipping point where they become irredeemable? Where is that critical moment, that decision? We are not God and we can't say with authority where, for sure, that moment is, but just because I believe it is there somewhere doesn't make me any less of a thinking adult.

No, not at all. You know I like your writing. Your stories don't start out seeming as though they are about one thing or taking one approach and then swerving drastically toward a different sort of style or theme altogether. I've never gotten the sense that you're playing "gotcha" like I did with Behr and company. Nor do you take a preachy tone or seem like you're trying to manipulate your readers into seeing things your way. If you did, I wouldn't enjoy your stories nearly as much as I do.

Now I know you, and I don't think that's at all what you meant to say. But I just felt it should be out there as food for thought given today's cultural prejudices.

It's a good point to make. Some people aren't comfortable with anything that isn't relativistic.

 

[Nerys Ghemor]

PSGarak--That argument could easily go to far, though...to suggest that anytime you show clearcut good and evil, it's somehow beneath something more ambiguous doesn't hold water. Though it's very popular these days to go with the relativistic morals and deconstructionist attitudes towards old archetypes, I still think there is a very legitimate position for older traditions. To me, I think there's a point where if a society HAS lost the power to call out evil in its midst for what it is--evil, not simply "misunderstood" or something of that nature, then that society has lost an important part of what gives it its strength and moral standing.

I agree. I don't think that every story dealing with the concepts of good and evil as archetypal concepts is automatically simplistic and didactic. It very much depends upon the author's approach and the tone. The reason I disliked it so much in DS9 is that it was a very jarring change in tone and seemed to be a knee jerk reaction on the writers' part to a villain getting more popular than they liked. It wasn't commentary on Cardassian society as a whole, or the totalitarian system as a whole. It became about one person, Dukat, and their frustration that not everyone saw him the way they wanted him seen. I don't remember who said it on here, but it was close to the breaking of the fourth wall, the writers' reaching out through the vehicle of the story to smack wayward viewers into submission.

I can definitely see where people get that view...but frankly, too, I REALLY get why Behr was upset about the way people were taking Dukat, the way they were excusing his behavior. Heck, I've even seen some stuff in this thread that I find pretty deplorable. But...I still do see where both the ambiguous Dukat and the anti-Emissary can be reconciled.

I don't know who here has read Paradise Lost, but the way Satan is characterized in Milton's epic is very interesting. There are times when his version of Satan manifests guilt, ambivalence, even seeming sometimes to sorrow in his actions, and his bad choices, but never truly accepts responsibility for them (because remember, if he fully accepted, he'd have to plead forgiveness which his pride will not allow him to do). And there comes a point where he decides he's going through with it all anyway, and he's condemned...because in the end, he could never swallow his pride, never become better, and it caught up with him: yes, he might've seemed sympathetic at times, even like he could turn around, but because of his choices, he was condemned.

That characterization reminds me a LOT of the fall of Dukat. Indeed, Dukat seems to have decided by "Covenant" that "'tis better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven."

The funny thing is, there are some critics of Milton's to include William Blake, who actually thought Milton's writing was practically Satanic in nature because of the fact that there was any ambiguity at all--though to my personal reading, while there's the ambiguity that is very accurate to how sin and evil present themselves in real life (i.e. they try to appear attractive to hide their ugliness), in the end one cannot help but recognize that evil is evil...no matter how slick it is.

So while in the end, evil could've been recognized differently (such as the ending some have suggested of Dukat seeing Cardassia broken and being reviled, or perhaps taking his own life or just finally breaking completely), I can't help but think "Paradise Lost" or Dante's Inferno.

(Man...I really need to read Paradise Lost again...)

Now I know you, and I don't think that's at all what you meant to say. But I just felt it should be out there as food for thought given today's cultural prejudices.

It's a good point to make. Some people aren't comfortable with anything that isn't relativistic.

Indeed--I think a lot of times people conflate clarity with simplicity, if that makes sense, and it creates a falsely-grounded disdain of that which is not relativistic. Something can be very clear in what's good and evil and still do a thorough presentation of it.

 

[Tallis Rhul]

Gul Dukat was following orders from Central Command, but the question is, did he do it grudgingly or willingly? And if it was willingly then did he make it look like it was against his will so that the Bajorans would think more of him?

I wish I was a Betazoid XD