Or at least they were nowhere to be seen. But naturally they would give the two fighters the room they needed; perhaps we just missed them, for the same reason the duelists' blades missed them?
Backing out of a fight wouldn't win any points for K'Ehleyr. If she doesn't defend herself, again it's her own damn fault for dying, in the general case. But clearly there are rules to this kill-your-boss-for-promotion thing that allow the boss to turn down the challenge or it wouldn't work in practice: presumably you need to climb up a hierarchy ladder with duel after duel before you get to challenge the Big Boss directly.
That is, if the Gunner's Mate 3rd Rate, rather than the XO or the Second Officer, challenges the Captain directly, or lowly Worf marches to the Chancellor himself with a blade drawn, the boss must have the option to delegate the fight to bodyguards without losing honor himself. It's in special circumstances only where the boss will benefit from humoring the challenger - and I'd think those situations where the accusations of the challenger are true usually warrant the "humoring" simply so that the accusations can be silenced. Merely having the bodyguards beat the offender to death, either en masse or in a series of honorable duels, might leave lingering doubt, but in a "proper", trial-by-God duel the truth of a weakling dies with the weakling.
The people watching over the quarrel of Quark and D'Ghor in "House of Quark" were initially happy to have truth settled by sword, say. Quark had to find just the right mixture of not-quite-surrender, not-quite-fight to convince the court otherwise. K'Ehleyr couldn't have weaseled out of it that way.
As for fighting skills, hard to tell. Worf uses the clumsy bat'leth which really puts the fighter at a disadvantage ("Birthright" sorta suggests it's a farming implement turned into a weapon by the downtrodden serfs or something, and then beatified because Kahless and legend and tradition), while Duras chooses what's basically a single-edged broadsword with greater reach and ease of offensive use. Worf wins by parrying, the fight being a contest of endurance first and foremost. I'd think Duras would have the endurance advantage over K'Ehleyr if the two dueled the same way, or in fisticuffs or wrestling or whatever; K'Ehleyr might have the advantage in a knifefight. But backstabbing? I don't see evidence for this being Duras' style. Sure, he's a politician, but even his exact counterpart Gowron ultimately yields to dueling tradition, at least in public. And K'Ehleyr's quarters are as public as the Great Hall in practice.
Timo Saloniemi
Backing out of a fight wouldn't win any points for K'Ehleyr. If she doesn't defend herself, again it's her own damn fault for dying, in the general case. But clearly there are rules to this kill-your-boss-for-promotion thing that allow the boss to turn down the challenge or it wouldn't work in practice: presumably you need to climb up a hierarchy ladder with duel after duel before you get to challenge the Big Boss directly.
That is, if the Gunner's Mate 3rd Rate, rather than the XO or the Second Officer, challenges the Captain directly, or lowly Worf marches to the Chancellor himself with a blade drawn, the boss must have the option to delegate the fight to bodyguards without losing honor himself. It's in special circumstances only where the boss will benefit from humoring the challenger - and I'd think those situations where the accusations of the challenger are true usually warrant the "humoring" simply so that the accusations can be silenced. Merely having the bodyguards beat the offender to death, either en masse or in a series of honorable duels, might leave lingering doubt, but in a "proper", trial-by-God duel the truth of a weakling dies with the weakling.
The people watching over the quarrel of Quark and D'Ghor in "House of Quark" were initially happy to have truth settled by sword, say. Quark had to find just the right mixture of not-quite-surrender, not-quite-fight to convince the court otherwise. K'Ehleyr couldn't have weaseled out of it that way.
As for fighting skills, hard to tell. Worf uses the clumsy bat'leth which really puts the fighter at a disadvantage ("Birthright" sorta suggests it's a farming implement turned into a weapon by the downtrodden serfs or something, and then beatified because Kahless and legend and tradition), while Duras chooses what's basically a single-edged broadsword with greater reach and ease of offensive use. Worf wins by parrying, the fight being a contest of endurance first and foremost. I'd think Duras would have the endurance advantage over K'Ehleyr if the two dueled the same way, or in fisticuffs or wrestling or whatever; K'Ehleyr might have the advantage in a knifefight. But backstabbing? I don't see evidence for this being Duras' style. Sure, he's a politician, but even his exact counterpart Gowron ultimately yields to dueling tradition, at least in public. And K'Ehleyr's quarters are as public as the Great Hall in practice.
Timo Saloniemi
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