Klingons and Romulans living in peace together. The Romulan commander seems like a kind, caring person. Worf shows up and causes dissent among the children, and shows his prejudice towards Romulans simply because he is filled with hatred. Worf says he brought the children knowledge...knowledge of their true self...hatred towards Romulans in general. Worf it perpetuating his own racism. And the Romulans even send the children and Worf on a Romulan ship to return the children to the Federation. Pretty sure the Klingons wouldn't have done the same if it were Romulan children and the situation was reveresed.
The children had the right to make their own decisions, and the Romulans were taking that right away from them.
If Starfleet needs a person to insight mayhem and chaos? Just bring in Worf! I mean, this guy completely torpedoed that little civilization by his small mindedness; bringing in all those beliefs but failed to mentioned he was not raised by Klingons. WTF does he know of being true Klingon when he was raised most of his childhood by humans, lived most of his adult life around humans??? Worf should've mentioned to those kids about the factions which are present with Klingon society, and the Chancellor is pretty hard core about not accepting outsiders and descendants of collaborators. Give them the option to go when they were ready when he was - kind of*- as an adult. Going into the Klingon environment is no easy picnic and they could very well be killed the moment they arrive on this savage world. They were better off where they were, way to go, Worf!!! *I'm not sure if it's legit if Worf's majority of Klingon historical research and practices were all on a holodeck simulator; he never had to feel the heat of Klingons more than willing to kill him at any moment for an extended amount of time. His trips and dangers were normally short term because of his tour of duty for Starfleet, also Kurn and his house protected him like a tourist journeying through the Congo. Worf had this thought he balanced his life with Starfleet and Klingons evenly on DS9, but from what I'd seen he was predominantly Starfleet who happened to have a preference for Klingon culture. Does that makes him true Klingon???
Well he is pretty reasonable and maybe even pretty amiable, not a monster as he could be, but he still is the authoritarian leader/keeper. The kind-of benevolence came with the cost of intolerance of any dissent, much diversity of thought or practice, even historical truth. Worf is prejudiced against Romulans but I think not very strongly. He did provide the children knowledge of more aggressive aspects, I don't think they were based primarily on or around hatred of Romulans or, though he did disrupt the society, that the children in becoming proud of being traditional or true Klingons did become hateful to Romulans.
Worf is so bad in that episode that to characterize him, I could only use terms that decency prevents me from using.
Strongly enough that he'd rather let a random one die, than to lend life saving aid, when he is the only one capable of that aid, & not providing it might put everyone he serves with in peril. That's pretty prejudiced, about as prejudiced as someone can be, just short of wanting to eradicate people for the sake of it imho
I guess that Romulan could be considered just a random Romulan, he could also be considered, as he at least also was, a Romulan soldier involved in violating the terms of the peace treaty, illegally in Federation territory. With his family having been killed in a Romulan surprise attack, it's understandable there would be strong aversion. I guess with that consideration it is, was, excessive but with Picard considering it would be mostly just an excuse to start conflict it's also understandable Worf would consider it to be not that convincing a reason.
Didn't Romulans kill his real parents? InThink if something like that happened to a child where everyone in the entire village was killed by say the Russians or Germans in a child's mind the pain and hatred are an absolute and a blanket emotion for all people of that race, heritage species, whatever, that would be very difficult to ever remove yourself from.
In "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" Rigby Reardon beats up any woman who says the words "cleaning woman" because his dad ran off with the cleaning woman.
Worf obviously had the most prejudice, but there was plenty of prejudice to go around. The Romulan commander had his prejudices about traditional Klingon culture, the Klingon children were basically taught stereotypes & lies about outside Klingons. Worf had some change of heart by the end, not demanding anything more than the opportunity for people to know the truth and choose for themselves. He confronted his own racism, especially in regards to Ba'el, and made progress. Worf first arrived there with a very 1-dimensional view that was full of racism, but he left with some progress made. Such hatreds aren't conquered overnight.
It kind of reminds of me of when Russell Wilson, a black NFL QB was called "not black enough" by other players. Charles Barkley said in response, "For some reason we are brainwashed to think, if you’re not a thug or an idiot, you’re not black enough. If you go to school, make good grades, speak intelligent, and don’t break the law, you’re not a good black person." I kind of feel like that is something similar to what Worf was going for with the other Klingons. If you aren't brutal, violent, and insulting, then you aren't a true Klingon.
Yep, I remember a wonderful episode of TNG where Riker became a 1st officer of a Klingon ship. What an eye opener for Riker; he learned Klingons tell jokes, laugh out loud, and actually loves being around people, and OH! Not all Klingons like their own cuisines. Everything he thought of Klingons was through Worf, who's nothing but. Let me be clear on this, Worf is, and truly is, an honorable man (that is not Klingon), and I'm sure his interpretation of Klingon culture was seen through his rose colored glasses and glorified this world to kids who had no clue how dangerous it would be. That's Worf!!! He's sharing his fantasies of the culture but it's in the vein of a tourist who only visited the tourists sights but never spend his valuable time in the ghetto. I felt Worf should've cautioned them in taking this leap or rather be honest with them and do his best to talk those kids out of it. Those kids could not have survived during the Gowron Administration.
For Worf being an intolerant person, hopefully someone can appreciate some progress on his part as the series moved along. Consider his main love interests: Human/Klingon, Romulan/Klingon, Betazoid/Human, Trill. He idealized certain things, should've lightened up more, but did ok with overcoming prejudices about others (even when all he knew of them as a kid was that they killed his parents). Most of the time, other Klingons called him too "soft," that he'd been around humans for too long, but he tried as an outcast of 2 worlds. For all we know, the children who left that prison camp might have turned out to be key players in bringing Klingons & Romulans together - not only in that remote prison camp. The best kind of peace is a peace that spreads beyond its walls.
The problem with Worf is that although he's ok in some episodes, his behavior reaches apexes of stupidity in others. I guess that's just how he's written. That reminds me of a line of Jessica Rabbit: "I am not bad, I am just drawn this way."
Worf was full of Klingon crap. No wonder why he drank prune juice. Worf sold those Klingon youngsters on an illusion about the greatness of Klingon society. One of the reasons those Klingons were stuck living in that compound was that Klingon culture considered them dishonorable. They couldn't return to the empire without causing dishonor for the rest of their families. This is the same backwards culture that Worf wanted the youngsters to embrace. Worf embraced even the worst aspects of Klingon culture (at least, from a Starfleet human viewpoint), yet he himself didn't have the guts or the honor of living in the society that he worshiped. Worf lived in the safety and comfort of a relatively tolerant and open minded Starfleet. I thought it was dishonorable that Worf convinced those youngsters that the Klingon way was the right way, when he himself wouldn't be joining them on Kronos. Obviously, Worf went back to the easy life in Starfleet, whereas those youngster would have to go through the indoctrination of the Klingon warrior ideology and hatred for Romulans. At the end of "Birthright", what was sad was that Ba'el remained stuck in that compound. She didn't leave with the rest of the youngsters. Everyone knew that she simply wouldn't be accepted for who she was by Klingon society. But Worf made no effort to convince the other youngster to challenge Klingon society's prejudice against Romulans or the idea that Klingons who were captured, like their parents, had to be condemned as dishonorable. Those youngsters were never ever to speak about the parents that they had left behind in that compound. And Worf was totally ok about it because that is the Klingon way.
Yeah, Klingon society seems so full of warrior crap and all that it's a wonder it exists at all. How do they feed themselves, how did they design those ships that by our standards are extremely sophisticated and works on principles that we have yet to discover? Take the Japanese for example. They had a society similar to the Klingon's IN MEDIEVAL TIMES!!!
The episode makes me wish Worf got throw back in time to an era when Klingons didn't believe in the "cry of the warrior" or "heart of a warrior" crap. Enterprise made it clear Klingons weren't always a warrior society.
It would be funny if we discovered that in the past Vulcans were the violent ones (which we know) and Klingons the reasonable ones...
Well, we know Vulcans were extremely violent in their past, Ferengi used to be charitable, etc. That's been laid out clearly. But with regards to technology, we also know that Klingon society had a caste system with some castes that largely focused on things like science rather than fighting.