Worf almost dragging the Federation into war in "The Enemy"

[Enchanted Girl]

What's wrong with a character having a fault or making a bad choice?

That's actually what I liked about this episode. It's refreshing. It makes Worf more real and more easy to relate to. It made the episode deeper than if he had made another choice.

Characters who do bad things for no reason are unrealistic. They gave Worf a reason, that he had an understandable and personal grudge against the Romulans.

They also made him make what was set up to be the wrong choice. Everyone was advising him to do the opposite and as the audience, I think you're supposed to agree with those people, but he made the choices he did anyway and almost caused a war, only thinking of himself.

I thought it was GENIUS writing. Genius writing provokes debates like this. It makes you think. Shallow writing has the characters always doing whatever you'd think was morally right without much thought. Genius writing makes you feel conflicted about it. It makes the characters imperfect. You still love the characters and want to sympathize with them, but know that certain things they did were wrong or are unsure of certain things that they do.

I'm a writer (of novels) and I aspire to be as good of writer as this episode. It's one of my favorite TNG episodes ever.

 

[Timo]

OTOH, why would Worf's choice be "wrong"? He wanted to see his enemies die in agony, and that's good and right for him. He furthered his personal agenda without hurting anybody (except his enemies, of course), and learned that this was acceptable and something he should keep on doing in the future.

Which is also good writing: we the audience were gradually humbled into realizing that we had been in error all along, that mankind's moral standards (let alone those of one loud subset of it) aren't particularly right or important, and that it's perfectly all right for cool characters to slay their enemies and derive satisfaction from it (as long as they don't crack stupid one-liners at the act!).

Timo Saloniemi

 

[sonak]

I'm not sure how you get that interpretation from the episode. Just because Worf technically "got away" with not agreeing to the procedure was not supposed to mean an endorsement of his actions. Riker, Dr. Crusher, and Picard were all shown to have been against Worf's decision.

Also, the entire theme of the story on the planet was about overcoming prejudice so that two people in trouble came together to help each other. Worf EMBRACED his prejudice instead of overcoming it.

 

[Anwar]

And the fact he went to the Romulan and told him he could be saved, showed that Worf was willing to consider his actions beyond his own prejudice. Pretty well thought out all-around.

 

[indolover]

I'm not sure how you get that interpretation from the episode. Just because Worf technically "got away" with not agreeing to the procedure was not supposed to mean an endorsement of his actions. Riker, Dr. Crusher, and Picard were all shown to have been against Worf's decision.

Also, the entire theme of the story on the planet was about overcoming prejudice so that two people in trouble came together to help each other. Worf EMBRACED his prejudice instead of overcoming it.

But we see most Trek species exhibited prejudices.

Humans generally dislike and mock Ferengi. Klingons and Romulans mutually despise each other (it was funny for Marc Alaimo to call Worf a dog though lol). The Founders hate all solids. Worf was different to most other Klingons since the Romulans killed his parents, but I doubt Joe Klingon viewed the Romulans positively.

Whether Worf was right to hate Romulans up until Nemesis (well perhaps after seeing Romulans act honourably in his eyes he sobered on the hatred a bit), I don't know. I reckon it was understandable at the least. If somebody killed my parents as a child, and thus forced me away from my people, then I may feel the same.

 

[Timo]

I'm not sure how you get that interpretation from the episode.

Yeah, sorry. I should have said I get it from the succession of Worf episodes in TNG, not just from "Contagion". "Contagion" is the first time the character commits a deed mainstream humans might consider "wrong" (earlier on, he merely indicated he would like to do such things, and the other heroes stepped in and/or mocked him). He doesn't receive any comeuppance for the deed here, though - and he then moves on to slaying his enemies for a variety of personal reasons, most notably in "Reunion", and a pattern is established of his colleagues tolerating this even though they see the tolerance encourages Worf to continue.

Worf continues to hate Romulans on racial basis, and this becomes a character trait - a rarity for hero characters, I guess. Certain irredeemably evil enemies can be hated even by a hero (thank you, Herr Hitler, for your great contribution to the history of cinematography!), but Romulans never were indicated to be that sort... Even enemies with more overt, more recent displays of brutal hostility, such as Klingons, are "adorable rascals" rather than "animal scum" in the Trek universe. Yet Worf has the intriguing prerogative of seeing the Romulans as the latter sort and still remaining a hero.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[indolover]

I'm not sure how you get that interpretation from the episode.

Yeah, sorry. I should have said I get it from the succession of Worf episodes in TNG, not just from "Contagion". "Contagion" is the first time the character commits a deed mainstream humans might consider "wrong" (earlier on, he merely indicated he would like to do such things, and the other heroes stepped in and/or mocked him). He doesn't receive any comeuppance for the deed here, though - and he then moves on to slaying his enemies for a variety of personal reasons, most notably in "Reunion", and a pattern is established of his colleagues tolerating this even though they see the tolerance encourages Worf to continue.

Worf continues to hate Romulans on racial basis, and this becomes a character trait - a rarity for hero characters, I guess. Certain irredeemably evil enemies can be hated even by a hero (thank you, Herr Hitler, for your great contribution to the history of cinematography!), but Romulans never were indicated to be that sort... Even enemies with more overt, more recent displays of brutal hostility, such as Klingons, are "adorable rascals" rather than "animal scum" in the Trek universe. Yet Worf has the intriguing prerogative of seeing the Romulans as the latter sort and still remaining a hero.

Timo Saloniemi

Is the goodness or badness of persons a black and white phenomenon? Compared to most other noted Klingons of his era, Worf was the most honourable. This is of course against the backdrop of Gowron potentially ruining the war effort to discredit Martok, and Duras pushing his own father's wrongdoing on Worf.

 

[Jaro Stun]

Tomalok is furious at the prisoner's death while in Federation custody and is about to ATTACK when the lucky break of the discovery of another Romulan from the original scoutcraft is discovered.

Oh no, Tomalok was not going to attack. It was a chess, or rather a poker game. Bluff, nothing more. Picard even admits that it was a game in the end.

Romulans may be many things, but they are not stupid. At that time Federation was at it's peak (before Wolf 359, Klingon and Dominion war), so attacking it would probably do no good.
Additionally Federation was allied with Klingons, so we're in 2 against 1 scenario.