"Initiations", what actually happened at the end?

[Lynx]

I recently re-watched the episode Initiations and I started thinking about how weird the end was.

Spoiler alert!







The story in short: For some strange reason, Chakotay is in a shuttle in space to celebrate a day of memory of his father, something he obviously could have done at the ship in his own quarters.

But never mind, a Kazon ship attacks. Chakotay manages to destroy the ship and capture the pilot Kar who are attacking Chakotays ship in order to destroy it and "win his Kazon-Ogla warrior name".

Chakotay's shuttle is then taken by the Kazon-Ogla. The Kazon-Ogla Commander Jal Razik informs Chakotay and Kar that Kar has failed and never will earn his name.

Chakotay manages to escape and Kar decides to follow him, realizing that he has no future among the Kazon-Ogla, however asit turns out later on when Chakotay and Kar are stranded on a Kazon-Ogla moon, he has no future in any other Kazon sect either since they would regard him as an outcast.

But then it becomes weird. At the end of the episode, a rescue team from Voyager led by Janeway and a team of Kazon-Ogla led by Jal Razik and the second in command Jal Haliz encounters Chakotay and Kar in a cave where Kar seems to have captured Chakotay, a plot made up by Chakotay to make Kar look more acceptable in the Kazon-Ogla eyes.

Then all of a sudden Kar exclaims to Chakoyay that "You are not my enemy!" Then he turns to Jal Razik and exclaims "You are!" and blast Razik with a lethal phaser shot.

Then he declares his loyalty to Jal Haliz who accepts it and gives him the Kazon-Ogla warrior name Jal Karden.

Isn't that weird? Kar actually murderers his Commander for no obvious reason than that Jal Razik wouldn't give him his Kazon Ogla warrior name and gets away with it?

I've started to wonder if it was some sort of panick solution from the writers of this episode. That they had written themselves into a corner and couldn't find the way out.

The other solution which was discussed in the episode was that Kar should kill Chakotay in order to escape from him and earn his name and then Chakotay would be beamed to Voyager and brought back to life by The Doctor.

Did the writers realize that it was a "too risky and no good solution" and in some desperate attempt to avoid that but still be able to give Kar his Kazon-Ogla name then came up with the other solution, to let Kar shoot Jal Razik and get away with it?

Very weird!

 

[at Quark's]

I always assumed that this was 'simply' due to the Kazon culture and values being so very different from our own. Perhaps shooting your own commander because he refuses to give you your warrior name is seen as a redemptive act, showing that you are worthy because you had the guts to shoot your own commander, and the other solution would have been viewed as a despicable way of cheating.

In the Terran empire in the mirror universe, the usual way of getting a promotion is by betraying and/or killing your superior officer, after all. Challenging your superior to (lethal) combat is even an acceptable way of promotion in the Klingon Empire in the prime universe, if I recall correctly (if you feel your commanding officer has acted dishonourably).

Also, even some real life cultures attach far more weight to 'a good name' than our Western world usually does.

 

[WarpTenLizard]

With how stupid and violent the Kazon are, I don't see that being too unusual. They probably kill each other to the derpy applause of their dumb-muscle crews all the time.

Far stranger to me is why Janeway would let anyone, never mind the first officer, go on such a dangerous endeavor for such a trivial reason.

 

[Lynx]

With how stupid and violent the Kazon are, I don't see that being too unusual. They probably kill each other to the derpy applause of their dumb-muscle crews all the time.

Far stranger to me is why Janeway would let anyone, never mind the first officer, go on such a dangerous endeavor for such a trivial reason.

The Kazon were primitive to say the least.

As such, they were actually interesting because we have had similar people and similar events here in the "Gray Universe", resistance movements who overthrow a dictator or an occupation force and then split up or start to fight one another.

Or certain "gangs" in certain cities which fight each other for territory or drug markets.

But kill a leader of the own "clan"? Even in such organizations, it'soften regarded as a violence to the "gang code".

But such thigs actually happen. I guess it was the same here.

 

[Timo]

A successful kill isn't the only way to get a name, it seems: Chakotay suggests dying in battle against Razik's ship would suffice, and Kar doesn't outright contradict that (he just complaints that since they never fired back, it didn't count as a battle). And it appears Kar dying in Chakotay's hands in the initial engagement would also have sufficed.

So apparently the one big wrong here was Kar allowing himself to be captured, and the big counterindication to redemption was that he got delivered directly to his boss in captivity. Basic warrior code there. All that talk about being an "outcast" would just refer to the fact that Kar then ran away with the enemy, and would be nullified if he instead killed this enemy. Except, and it's the big except that Kar explicates, Razik personally doesn't want to forgive the initial capture. So Razik has to go, and Kar can kill two birds with that particular stone by creating his first-ever corpse as a side product...

It's not honor logic through and through, but politics, and since Haliz is the only witness, it's his acceptance Kar has to lobby for. What happens in that cave stays in that cave, and the Kazon ethos is not weakened by Razik happening to die.

Timo Saloniemi