Klingons in the TNG Era Treks

[M.A.C.O.]

The honor obsessed Klingons who from the lowly soldiers, to the members of the High Council, frequently act dishonorably. I've read on this board that RDM is the one we can attribute the honor based society of Klingons to. However, it should be apparent to everyone, that RDM's Klingons are not honorable, and Moore gets the concept of honor wrong. The concept and demonstration of what the producers and writers called honor in Trek, resembled the concept of 'kleos' (glory) in the classical Greek literature. Kleos being a combination a person's own renown/reputation, and victories in battle (quantity and famous warriors). With kleos, it has nothing to do with honor, and that fits the way the Klingons act in the TNG era and ENT.

Look at Achilles from the Iliad for example. Achilles is a great hero, not because he helps others, but because he has a string of victories and has defeated other warriors of renown. There is nothing honorable about him though. See the instances of when he took female slaves after a battle in Troy, when he struck down supplicants who begged for their lives (the most famous being Hector and Penthesilea), his disrespect to the gods who oppose the Greeks, and how he treated Hector's body after he killed him.


Then you look at instances of Klingons being dishonorable in Trek and you see the examples.

Like Kang stabbing the Albino in the back in "Blood Oath" and declaring victory.
Kurn being jumped and nearly killed in "Sins of the Father".
3 Klingons (one being Martok's son) ganging up on Garak and beating him down in "Way of the Warrior".
The many transgressions of the House of Duras to better their station in the empire.
etc

I think they touched on this in ENT episode "Judgement", where the character played by J. G. Hertzler said something to the effect of 'my people are obsessed with victory, any victory'. But there was no honor in taking a career (like a lawyer, which J. G. Hertzler's character was in this story) that was not a warrior.

Not trying to condemn RDM and the TNG era's treatment of the Klingons. I just wanted to point out how TPTB really missed the mark on the concept they instilled in one of Trek's most prominent species.

 

[Timo]

I'd be interested to hear how you define honor, then. How does it differ from kleos?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[matthunter]

In Kang's case, I doubt he would have seen it as honorable under normal circumstances, but here it was done to spare Jadzia a moral loss - and, probably, death when she couldn't kill and the Albino gutted her instead. The honor in helping a friend cancels the dishonor of a surprise attack.

That is, if Klingons consider a knife in the back dishonorable if it's part of an ongoing fight - a coward's strike from the shadows, yes, but this was simply that the Albino had counted Kang out of the fight.

 

[The Wormhole]

Isn't the fact the Klingons aren't really honourable kind of the point? That they don't live up to their society's ideals?

I think they touched on this in ENT episode "Judgement", where the character played by J. G. Hertzler said something to the effect of 'my people are obsessed with victory, any victory'. But there was no honor in taking a career (like a lawyer, which J. G. Hertzler's character was in this story) that was not a warrior.

Again, a plot point in that episode, not everyone can become a warrior, as Klingons have a caste based society, individuals take the careers available to their caste.

 

[DarKush]

I wonder if it is in part an issue of who Klingons consider are worthy of being treated honorably. I mean for some of the examples the OP mentioned.

• I could see Kor having zero respect for The Albino and giving him a dishonorable death as a sign of disrespect.
  
• As for Kurn, maybe those guys were just hired guns? I don't think every Klingon ascribed to a rigid sense/code of honor, just the warrior caste which we often were exposed to the most.
  
• With Drex and company beating up Garak, perhaps they saw him as part of an enemy race and not deserving of their respect.
  
• It gets tricky, but if we now consider Enterprise's contributions there were contradictions even in the 22nd century. Like Duras's shady actions. And we saw the devious Arne Darvin and General Chang along with other Klingon conspirators in the 23rd century. To be fair, the idea of this rigid kind of honor developed or well developed during TOS and in the TOS movies, though I do consider Kruge a forerunner to the 24th century (Moore) Klingons.

The OP raises a good question and I do think it is one that 24th century Trek was aware of. I vaguely remember Ezri's talk with Worf about how the Klingons had lost their way, prompting or resolving him to take down Gowron. So I do think the writers realized the difference between the Klingons' professed ideals and their actual actions. I do find it interesting that it was basic outsiders to the Klingons like Worf (who grew up more with an idea of what a Klingon was than actual experience in being part of a living, breathing Klingon culture) and Dax who saw the contradictions whereas many other Klingons didn't or were willing to live with them, like I think Martok was at first.

 

[M.A.C.O.]

I'd be interested to hear how you define honor, then. How does it differ from kleos?

Timo Saloniemi

I think I defined kleos pretty well using my Achilles example. Define honor though, I would use Worf as the standard of how a person conducts themself honorably. It's in the action, character and conduct of a person. Worf lives by a code of very complex rules and principles. At his core though, all of Worf's best traits are things we consider virtues. Things like bravery, honesty, loyalty and selflessness. I would consider Kurn, Martok and Gorkon as honorable Klingons as well.

To make a comparison to another series, look at Ned Stark from Game of Thrones and his friend Robert Baratheon. Everyone knew Ned was an honorable man. He was a lord and a knight, who always told the truth and always strived to do the right thing, over the politically smart thing. Compared to Robert, who would claim his virtues but would break his vows later in the same day. Ned and Robert fought in the same war together, but how they conducted their lives during and afterward highlights the difference. Robert wrapped himself in glory over his victories and and proclaimed himself king of the 7 kingdoms have he overthrew the previous king and dynasty. Robert helped himself to the spoils of war, and would constantly talk about his glory days. Compared to Ned who took no lands or spoils after the war was won, and went home to focus on his family. Ned even defeated an famous knight (Arthur Dane) who had a rare and coveted sword (made from Valyrian steel). Ned did the honorable thing and returned the sword to Dane's family, as a sign of respect to a fellow knight. If a person was more focused on glory (kleos) they would have kept the sword and paraded it around as a trophy to their victory.


This really stuck out to me when I was watching VOY as well. In the episodes where they tried to build up B'Ellanna's Klingon heritage and backstory. Most notably in the episodes "Barge of the Dead", where B'Ellana's mother said she tried to "give her daughter honor". Also the episode "Prophecy" where a Klingon tries to inflate B'Ellana's credentials so she more closely fits the prophesied figure from their faith.

Personal glory seems to be what the show runners were talking about in all these instances and not honor.

 

[Timo]

Thanks for the thorough clarification! I can see your viewpoint well now.

Worf lives by a code of very complex rules and principles.

...Or then just makes it up as he goes. After all, these complex rules and principles only arise as a story point when they hinder Worf from doing what he thinks is the right thing. And when that happens, Worf doesn't play by the rules - he plays the rules. Defying your superior is dishonorable, but so is letting the killer of your beloved live, so Worf elevates himself into the position of choosing, ignores his oaths to Starfleet, and commits murder.

At his core though, all of Worf's best traits are things we consider virtues. Things like bravery, honesty, loyalty and selflessness.

Worf is certainly honest to a fault, but loyalty? He is always getting Picard in a jam by being disloyal. He grabs more power than ought to be his, trying to do Odo's work for him. He engages in personal vendettas that may be part of the honor code but nevertheless are just personal indulgence in practice. And bravery is more or less the opposite of his cowardly adherence to a code dictated by his superiors. Except, of course, when he shies away from his duties for personal reasons. I wonder whether Worf is torn by his contradicting his inner honor codes there, or just thinking that he's the ultimate judge of that stuff?

Worf is our very own Alonso Quixano, a nutcase who reads too many pseudohistorical stories and decides to become virtuous, in terms of his personal interpretation of those works of fiction. His self-elevation to sainthood wins him no points from real Klingons across the spectrum: free thinkers like K'Ehleyr, opportunists like Gowron, hard-working disadvantageds like his brother, sympathetic bluecollars like Martok. That he relentlessly fights his windmills and promotes his fictional honor code has the incidental effect of him doing some good, but his virtues are not those of the western humans, any more than they are those of the Klingons. Which is the great tragedy of his life, as no matter where he goes, he is forced to live with people who find his antics tedious rather than virtuous.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[BillJ]

I've read on this board that RDM is the one we can attribute the honor based society of Klingons to.

Honorable Klingons were around before Moore. They talk of honor in Star Trek III and "A Matter of Honor" TNG episode. Moore just went overboard with it.

 

[TheSubCommander]

Actually, I liked how Klingons were depicted in TNG & DS9. The only issues I really had was the flip-flop of Romulans being the honorable enemy in TOS and becoming the duplicitous, sneaky villains in TNG, whereas the Klingons made the exact opposite change. I think where TNG could have done a better job was show that some Romulans were honorable, and the Romulan Captain (Mark Lenard) wasn't just a fluke. We sort of get that from time to time (IE individual characters in The Defector, Reunion, Face of the Enemy, Nemesis), but most often the Romulans were depicted as an almost irredeemable and unsympathetic people. Romulans were one of my favorite aliens of TOS, particularly because of the Vulcan connection, and while TNG\DS9 had some good Romulan episodes, I largely didn't like how they were portrayed in most of the TNG\DS9 era. And don't get me started on their uniforms!

Also, I would have liked to see the Klingons depicted a little bit more diversely. Yes we had the Duras family, and the often contradictory honor of Klingons. But I think if the Klingons had been depicted as a diverse, maybe even multi cultural civilization instead of a homogeneous monolithic culture, where they weren't all the same (some were non-ridged like TOS, others were ridged like TNG, some were followers of honor codes, other Klingon cultures disregarded honor), it could have gone a long way to resolve (of resolve in a better way) these inconsistencies of Klingons.

 

[Timo]

I still can't fathom what was "honorable" about the TOS Romulans. Klingons paid at least lip service to the treaties they signed - Romulans in TOS and TAS were defined by their repeated betrayals, treaty violations, and general backstabbing nature, and their sole TOS movie appearance followed the pattern.

Mark Lenard's Romulan doesn't strike me as an exception at all. The plot called for a Nazi submarine commander, even if (as the cliche went) he wasn't an eager Nazi himself, and that's what was delivered: a villain serving the goals of the villains, doing nothing but dirty underhanded things to defeat the heroic heroes. If anything, he was a bastard of a villain, talking treason against his superiors on top of everything else!

"Romulan honor" sounds like a concept introduced in TNG because there was so much of it in the Trek novels in the intervening years, not like something that could have been adopted from TOS.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Vandervecken]

The Duras are a good example of a truly dishonorable House, with their smears of the House of Mogh and bringing the Romulans in, even knowing that this might make the Klingon Empire to some extent puppets of Romulus, all for nothing but their own aggrandizement.

But I don't see too much else done by various Klingons that I think would be dishonorable by Klingon standards. Even Kempek's suppression of the truth can be interpreted as honorable (and I am sure he saw it that way, not as a stain on his honor) because it is a distasteful action done for the greater good--just as Worf's acceptance of Discommendation was, although a suppression of truth, also an action he saw as for the greater good of the Empire, and for Kurn's protection.

Kruge sees the most honor in victory, and I rather like him for that viewpoint. But I don't recall him doing anything I would consider dishonorable, particularly when viewed in a military context.

Is Kor using the mind sifter on a foeman he considers honorable dishonorable all by itself? Not at all--it's a legitimate part of warfare. So were Koloth and Darvin poisoning the quadrotriticale. Having honor doesn't equal stupidity and hand-tying.

It's also a concept open to some flexibility and subjective interpretation. For example, if you believe that ensuring that truth being known and defeating deception comprise the honorable course, then Kempek is dishonorable--and so is Worf! But if you believe that sometimes the truth can be too damaging to too many people, then they are of the highest honor.

 

[Shawnster]

I thought it was terrible that the Duras family was portrayed throughout history as dishonorable. One of my complaints about ENT. Really it was a symptom of the brain trust in charge of the franchise....

I don't understand how a cloaking device is honorable. Especially a cloak that remained active while weapons were fired.

Kruge was a fool according to the Klingon proverb "only a fool fights in a burning house." Genesis was exploding all around him, literally burning, yet he kept fighting Kirk.

 

[Vandervecken]

I thought it was terrible that the Duras family was portrayed throughout history as dishonorable. One of my complaints about ENT. Really it was a symptom of the brain trust in charge of the franchise....

I don't understand how a cloaking device is honorable. Especially a cloak that remained active while weapons were fired.

Kruge was a fool according to the Klingon proverb "only a fool fights in a burning house." Genesis was exploding all around him, literally burning, yet he kept fighting Kirk.

The Duras were portrayed that way because that is what they were, what they were written to be. It's not like these are real historical characters whose portrayals we can say are true or not true to.

In a military sense, a cloaking device is no more dishonorable than good cover, or using cover for an ambush. Just an extension of that idea. I think maybe you're thinking honor requires a fair fight in battle. I don't think that's so at all. You'd take full advantage of any superiority you have in combat.

That last could be a good point about Kruge (for the subject of honor) if we believe that foolhardiniess automatically equals dishonor. No question he did go a little off the rails there.

 

[Kemaiku]

Hiding like a coward is something Klingons would spit on before adopting. Not TOS Klingons, they'd do literally anything to win a fight no matter how underhanded, but TNG onwards it was a massive contradiction but hey, it's fictional as you say, so it's ultimately irrelevant anyway.

 

[Longinus]

Honour is a muddy concept and has meant different things in different societies across the history. Many people here seem to think it means just modern (well, Victorian really) western concept of honour. Family honour is and has been a huge deal in many cultures. Hell, think about honour killings of women which (unfortunately) still happen in some Islamic cultures. That's pretty damn terrible and does not really seem honourable to me, but to those people it is. And as for less horrible example, Japanese Samurai honour may occasionally seem pretty weird to westerners as well.

 

[Vandervecken]

Hiding like a coward is something Klingons would spit on before adopting. Not TOS Klingons, they'd do literally anything to win a fight no matter how underhanded, but TNG onwards it was a massive contradiction but hey, it's fictional as you say, so it's ultimately irrelevant anyway.

So if they were on a battlefield on solid ground, and used some rocks and bushes as cover to attack or for an ambush, that would be hiding like a coward? Sounds like fighting like a live person.

 

[Shawnster]

The Duras were portrayed that way because that is what they were, what they were written to be. It's not like these are real historical characters whose portrayals we can say are true or not true to.

It became an unrealistic cliche. Any time we saw a Duras, we knew the character was evil.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Honor is to Klingon politics as family values are to American politics. Something you talk about to get elected but never demonstrate.

 

[MacLeod]

Cultures can change over time and we are talking a century or so between TOS and TNG.

As for the Duras being a family of traitors, Like father like son. All it takes is one, and they teach they kids, who teach their kids and son on.

 

[INACTIVEUSS Einstein]

The honor obsessed Klingons who from the lowly soldiers, to the members of the High Council, frequently act dishonorably. I've read on this board that RDM is the one we can attribute the honor based society of Klingons to. However, it should be apparent to everyone, that RDM's Klingons are not honorable, and Moore gets the concept of honor wrong. The concept and demonstration of what the producers and writers called honor in Trek, resembled the concept of 'kleos' (glory) in the classical Greek literature. Kleos being a combination a person's own renown/reputation, and victories in battle (quantity and famous warriors). With kleos, it has nothing to do with honor, and that fits the way the Klingons act in the TNG era and ENT.

Look at Achilles from the Iliad for example. Achilles is a great hero, not because he helps others, but because he has a string of victories and has defeated other warriors of renown. There is nothing honorable about him though. See the instances of when he took female slaves after a battle in Troy, when he struck down supplicants who begged for their lives (the most famous being Hector and Penthesilea), his disrespect to the gods who oppose the Greeks, and how he treated Hector's body after he killed him.


Then you look at instances of Klingons being dishonorable in Trek and you see the examples.

Like Kang stabbing the Albino in the back in "Blood Oath" and declaring victory.
Kurn being jumped and nearly killed in "Sins of the Father".
3 Klingons (one being Martok's son) ganging up on Garak and beating him down in "Way of the Warrior".
The many transgressions of the House of Duras to better their station in the empire.
etc

I think they touched on this in ENT episode "Judgement", where the character played by J. G. Hertzler said something to the effect of 'my people are obsessed with victory, any victory'. But there was no honor in taking a career (like a lawyer, which J. G. Hertzler's character was in this story) that was not a warrior.

Not trying to condemn RDM and the TNG era's treatment of the Klingons. I just wanted to point out how TPTB really missed the mark on the concept they instilled in one of Trek's most prominent species.

Nice post!

I like how you have drawn a similarity with the ancient Greek notion of glory.

Klingon society has ortho-praxy, like the Spartans or Vikings or Chinese or Romans or Japanese, rather than ortho-doxy like the Israelites or Arabs. But there is elements of both; like their veneration of Kahless sometimes seems almost like an orthodoxy at times - I think it was taken too far.

It seems that most Klingons in the series were written to be deliberately hypocritical, with a few notable exceptions like Worf (who follows a code of honor in a nuanced way), and Martok (who doesn't seem to care much for the Klingon social system; maybe because he came from the lower classes and so knows its all a bunch of fluff). I think people have generally suggested this was Ronald D Moore critiquing societies that oppress people through collective bullying, shame and guilt (i.e. like modern day middle-easterm extremists). Or just showing a currupt society in general.


I also think they underwent some kind of revolution during TOS, similar to the French Revolution, where most of the traditions were dropped in favor of rapid progress. I like the description of Klingon society given by the ship's computer in Star Trek: 25th Anniversary and Star Trek: Judgement Rites - their society follows "survival of the fittest; moderated by a code of honor that keeps them from killing themselves entirely" - a nice description of how they may have appeared to outsiders in the TOS era.

The Klingon honor code may not be so bad when followed the way Worf does it, informed by humane concerns, but like someone pointed out to me in this thread, Ezri Dax pretty much tells Worf he is the only one following it in good spirits - and perhaps it just needs to die. Most Klingons seem to have forgotten what ever compassionate basis it may or may not have had - so just let it die off. Most Klingons do seem to be more concerned with glory and reputation - and the avoidance of shame, which I'm not sure is the same thing as an honor code - but it seems they often can devolve into this - perhaps Ezri saw this.