Why did people dislike the Bajorans?

[UnknownSample]

Navaros said:
I hate Bajorans, here are my reasons.

In my view their noses are hideous, their clothes are hideous, their earring is hideous, and their customs nauseate me (Ie: the "preganancy ritual" scene with O'Brien dinging the bell and all that never fails to make me gag). Plus I don't respect them because the abandoned the original morals of their religion and now practice a false version of it, as stated by Dukat in Covenant. Their priests fornicate and do not exhibit any discernable priest-like qualites to set them apart from any other "normal" Bajoran.

Worst of all, they are always whining about the occupation constantly ad infinitum even though everyone they are whining to already gets it; talk about beating a dead horse. Best to keep the mute button close at hand whenever a Bajoran other than Winn is on-screen, lest have one's ears assaulted by hearing whining about the occupation for the 100 millionth time.

In summary, Bajorans in my view are very unpleasant to look at, very unpleasant to listen to, vastly uninteresting & boring, and have no redeeming qualities whatsoever to make them likable.

Big Dukat fan, are we? I find Navaros extremely unpleasant, myself. But then, talk of "whiners" is a big tip-off for me, of someone who's pointlessly contemptuous of other people's troubles.

Dukat said they abandoned their morals? Which ones? How the f would he know? Are they supposed to be Catholic priests who abstain from sex? Why? This is, you know, another planet, another culture.

A slight difference in their noses makes them hideous? You're kidding, right? You'd better be perfect yourself, with your exacting standards...

i think you're just generally nauseous. Get a checkup.

I'm getting morally outraged over criticism of a people who don't exist. Yes, I'm going to go lie down now.

 

[BigFoot]

While I do like Bajorans, there are definitely certain races that I prefer.

 

[LiquidCougar]

Navaros said:
Worst of all, they are always whining about the occupation constantly ad infinitum even though everyone they are whining to already gets it; talk about beating a dead horse. Best to keep the mute button close at hand whenever a Bajoran other than Winn is on-screen, lest have one's ears assaulted by hearing whining about the occupation for the 100 millionth time.

I'll agree with this also.

It's not that I hate Bajorans, it's just that they have so many annoying characteristics. Really, there's some I just dislike more than others. Kai Winn Adami, for example. She was just a bitch. Vedek Bareil on the other hand, I thought was a decent guy. Nerys was pretty cool too, but she whined about the occupation too much.

 

[Lookingglassman]

They had ugly noses and they were annoying.

 

[blockaderunner]

sbk1234 said:
I think the difference is that the Bajorans sought military targets with some kind of tactical importance.

Has that been explicitly explained on the show? Because the show, I think, implied that Bajoran freedom fighters targeted anyone who was a spoonhead (as they affectionately called them), regardless of gender or age or social status. In fact, I'm sure that during the Occupation, Kira would have blown up a busload of Cardassian children, and not bat an eye, in the likely event that one of them would have grown up to be the next power mad Gul.

And to the poster who said that they grew tired of the Bajorans' "whining" about the Occupation, is it any different from the Jews reminding us of the Holocaust? In both instances, people who didn't experience that kind of horror need to be reminded of it by those who did so the same mistakes won't be made again. Those who don't learn from history....

 

[Sec31Mike]

I wouldn't go as far as equating the Bajorans with the Jewish population. During DS9 the occupation had just ended, of course it is going to take some time for them to heal. I found most of the Bajorans to be kind and worthy people.

Remember Kai Opaka, she was freaking awesome as Kai.

Kai Winn, on the other hand was a conniving, scheming bitch who ended up sleeping with Dukat of all people. Serves her right, I think the Prophets sent Dukat to her for punishment, not the Pah Wraiths for glorification.

 

[Nebusj]

Well, and I don't mean to sound confrontational (goodness knows I sound confrontational enough around here), but what are the cool things about Bajorans?

Vulcans it's obvious: that powerful emotional control and wry humor, the intelligence, the super-strength, way cool.

Klingons: mighty warriors, rituals based on showing how you can take a beating and come back for more, heroic macho posturing.

Romulans: everything about Vulcans except they whip up 400-year-long conspiracies and can be total drama queens.

Bajorans: ... ... they have not terribly excessive latex appliques obstructing their ability to act.

I want to be sympathetic, but, what's to find exciting and worth fantasizing about? That they have religious rituals that look an awful lot like Christmas just in time for a late December episode? That they have a process for the selection of new religious leaders? That they have a provisional government far advanced in the process of ratifying a constitutional framework? That's nice enough, but the Vulcan Mind-Meld is dozens of times cooler.

 

[CommanderRaytas]

The thing about the Bajorans that seems to turn so many people off is that they can't stop playing the victim. Yes, the Occupation was a horrible, horrible outrage. Yes, they deserve to be helped, and they certainly deserve understanding.

But... Personally, I get the feeling that the Bajorans think they have extra rights just because of the Occupation. It's Bajor here, Bajor there. They can get away with things (like terrorising Keiko's school just because she won't teach their religion) humans would never dream about.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's the feeling many people get, and I think it's closely related to the "whining" everyone's complaining about.

But I am in no way making excuses for the Occupation, heaven forbid. I just wonder why Bajorans seem to annoy the masses.

 

[Capt. Vulcan]

antisemitism?

 

[nx1701g]

I never disliked the Bajorans.

I personally love Fletchers description of Kai Winn though about her always having truly hated the Prophets and how she wanted children to throw rose petals at her feet when she appeared on screen.

But anyway people may not have liked them because (since DS9 was right next door to the planet) we always saw them.

 

[toughlittleship]

I loved the Bajorans in the series. One of the things I love most about the relaunch novels is that the Bajorans stll get a lot of focus despite having all of these other story threads going. :thumbsup:

 

[Ezri]

I did not have a problem with the Bajorans as a people. It is just that the Bajorans just looked human.

 

[LiquidCougar]

Nebusj said:
Romulans: everything about Vulcans except they whip up 400-year-long conspiracies and can be total drama queens.

Let's not forget that ridiculous superiority complex they all have..

 

[DanTheGrey]

I think that the Bajorans, despite the usual attempt at Star Trek to pretty much ascribe one motive/trait to a race, showed a lot of variation within their culture and politics.

They were terrorists, there were victims of the Occupation that couldn't see anything beyond victimization, there were the religious, there were the secular. They really were having an identity crisis after the Occupation and the show reflected that. Maybe because there were no real clear-cut heroes and villains within the Bajoran people as a whole, just a lot of regular people with opinions, they were harder to pin down than a typical ST race.

 

[Mal]

i think dukat said it best:

Their superstitions and their cries for sympathy, their treachery and their lies, their smug superiority and their stiff-necked obstinacy, their earrings and their broken wrinkled noses!...I should have killed every last one of them! I should have turned their planet into a graveyard the likes of which the galaxy had never seen! I should have killed them all.

amen, comrade. amen.

 

[Jayson]

Ezri said:
I did not have a problem with the Bajorans as a people. It is just that the Bajorans just looked human.

I have never understood this complaint at least when it comes to Star Trek universe. I have always felt that since aliens in the trek are more like different countries that it has never been that important for all the aliens to look wierd and alien like. I means you do have your more unique types like the Borg but for the most part I never really felt the makeup was a big deal and in fact to much makeup can look silly. Look at all the forehead aliens in trek that blend together. I think something can be said about one small difference such as pointy ears for vulcans and broken noise look for Bajorians and spots for Trill and so forth. I don't feel you got to cover all trek aliens in layers of latex. Just make them a intresting race and that is all you really need IMO for Trek.

Jason

 

[Stormrage]

I personally liked the Bajorans and especially the political angle that the writers were forced to drop. Unlike most species in Trek where every single person in one species have the same characteristics the Bajorans were different. They were allowed to develop into individuals.

But I started to hate them when the Cardassians were weakened and made to look stupid while Bajorans were prospering. Eliminating everything they said during Season 1 and 2 about the state of Bajor.

sbk1234 said:
I think the difference is that the Bajorans sought military targets with some kind of tactical importance.
Who are often the targets of real terrorists? Women and children in crowded markets and busses. Civilian targets of every kind.
They may have used the term terrorist on DS9, but I could see it as two different things altogether.

Didn't Kira (a main character and a resistance "heroine") bomb a family home knowing that it would kill women and children? Didn't she also say tough luck to an innocent Cardassian she crippled and disfigured with her bomb? His onyl crime was to take care of the unforms.

 

[Russell Croutear]

Stormrage said:
But I started to hate them when the Cardassians were weakened and made to look stupid while Bajorans were prospering. Eliminating everything they said during Season 1 and 2 about the state of Bajor.

sbk1234 said:
I think the difference is that the Bajorans sought military targets with some kind of tactical importance.
Who are often the targets of real terrorists? Women and children in crowded markets and busses. Civilian targets of every kind.
They may have used the term terrorist on DS9, but I could see it as two different things altogether.

Didn't Kira (a main character and a resistance "heroine") bomb a family home knowing that it would kill women and children? Didn't she also say tough luck to an innocent Cardassian she crippled and disfigured with her bomb? His onyl crime was to take care of the unforms.

Isn't that open to debate though? If you lived with a family memeber, who was committing attrocities in somebody else's home, would you feel like a neutral party? Kira and the Bajoran's were innocent people too.

I felt that the transition from Bajoran politics to the Dominion War was handled reasonably good. They built on what was already established, they didn't ignore it.