let's get some big bang posts out of the way
here, because it'll be easier to screen once it's been counted for points. *whistles*
for the prompts Breaking Point and Dressed Up at fandomverse
Gul Dukat in Waltz
(over 500 words, plus some images because this was meant to be a picspam at one point... that worked out well)
In this episode a previously captive Gul Dukat and Captain Sisko find themselves stranded on a desert planet together after an attack on their ship.
Before this episode we had last seen Dukat, broken and catatonic in a cell, after Damar killed his daughter Ziyal on their way of leaving Terok Nor, as Starfleet was retaking the station. Ziyal, who he had given up his ‘proper’ Cardassian family for and who he had loved as much as Dukat ever loved someone.
When he found the remains, or rather the earring of Ziyal’s mother in Indescretion he seemed to be actually grieving, showing us that what he always said - that he actually did love all of his bajoran mistresses during the Occupation -, might have been true. And then, after Major Kira, another daughter of one of his mistresses, had persuaded him to stand by his illegitimate daughter and not kill her, he started to do everything that (in his eyes) was best for her. This was something that radically changed his standing on Cardassia, but he presevered and build a new life, and most of all career around this daughter. Obviously it helped, that she was also his new link to Kira Nerys and whenever he visited one, he could visit the other and try to reclaim another part of his life that had been lost with the end of the Occupation.
Now, Dukat supposedly had put his mind back together in the interim of him losing the station a second time and this episode, but as we would soon be shown that was not so. We actually see that he got himself some imaginary friends, or that certain aspects of his mind had become hallucinations of Kira, Weyoun and Damar.
Sisko decides to use their time together to show Dukat who he really is, and when he notices Dukat’s delusions he only presses on further and further until Dukat’s true feelings about the Occupation are exposed.
At the beginning of the episode and in all previous mentions, Dukat remained that what he did was only to ‘help’ the Bajoran people and that if anybody else had had his job, it would have been much, much worse for them. He actually saw the Bajorans as his children and he was their caring father, trying to guide them. He would never maliciously hurt them, when he had some hundreds killed, it was only for the best. He had to show them that their behaviour sometimes was wrong, and afterall they killed Cardassians, too, he had to reciprocate. Spare the rod, spoil the child, as the saying goes.
Sisko remains that Dukat is inherently evil, something that Dukat denies over and over, because in his eyes he never was. But layer by layer Sisko reveals the hidden Dukat. The Dukat that even he himself had occasionally denied himself to see.
"From the moment we arrived on Bajor it was clear that we were the superior race, but they couldn't accept that. They wanted to be treated as equals, when they most certainly were not. Militarily, technologically, culturally-- we were almost a century ahead of them in every way. We did not choose to be the superior race. Fate handed us that role and it would have been so much easier on everyone if the Bajorans had simply accepted their role. But no... day after day they clustered in their temples and prayed for deliverance and night after night they planted bombs outside of our homes. Pride.. stubborn, unyielding pride. From the servant girl that cleaned my quarters, to the condemned man toiling in a labor camp, to the terrorist skulking through the hills of Dahkur Province... they all wore their pride like some... twisted badge of honor."
"And you hated them for it."
"Of course I hated them! I hated everything about them! 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!"
"You should have killed them all, hm?"
"Yes! Yes!! That's right, isn't it?! I knew it. I've always known it. I should've killed every last one of them! I should've turned their planet into a graveyard the likes of which the galaxy had never seen! I should've killed them all."
"And that is why you're not an evil man."
And with that Dukat finally accepted himself. Accepted his own evil and would not try to broker silly contracts with the Federation again
It was said about this episode, that people liked Dukat too much (and why wouldn’t they, he was just so very, very charismatic) and so it had to be shown what a maniac he really was. And they showed us very clearly. Still having them delve so very deep into his character in this episode and giving Marc Alaimo this much freedom to explore, was a joy to watch.
[quote from memory alpha, caps from trekcore.com]
((Proof I should never try to write meta whatever this is. But seriously, the episode was great and in a way it reminds me of what they’re doing with Damon on tVD, because they’re hellbent on making him irredeemably evil as well.))
4 gifs from Our Man Bashir
not!Kira
cheers!
*faint*
for the prompts Breaking Point and Dressed Up at fandomverse
Gul Dukat in Waltz
(over 500 words, plus some images because this was meant to be a picspam at one point... that worked out well)
In this episode a previously captive Gul Dukat and Captain Sisko find themselves stranded on a desert planet together after an attack on their ship.
Before this episode we had last seen Dukat, broken and catatonic in a cell, after Damar killed his daughter Ziyal on their way of leaving Terok Nor, as Starfleet was retaking the station. Ziyal, who he had given up his ‘proper’ Cardassian family for and who he had loved as much as Dukat ever loved someone.
When he found the remains, or rather the earring of Ziyal’s mother in Indescretion he seemed to be actually grieving, showing us that what he always said - that he actually did love all of his bajoran mistresses during the Occupation -, might have been true. And then, after Major Kira, another daughter of one of his mistresses, had persuaded him to stand by his illegitimate daughter and not kill her, he started to do everything that (in his eyes) was best for her. This was something that radically changed his standing on Cardassia, but he presevered and build a new life, and most of all career around this daughter. Obviously it helped, that she was also his new link to Kira Nerys and whenever he visited one, he could visit the other and try to reclaim another part of his life that had been lost with the end of the Occupation.
Now, Dukat supposedly had put his mind back together in the interim of him losing the station a second time and this episode, but as we would soon be shown that was not so. We actually see that he got himself some imaginary friends, or that certain aspects of his mind had become hallucinations of Kira, Weyoun and Damar.
Sisko decides to use their time together to show Dukat who he really is, and when he notices Dukat’s delusions he only presses on further and further until Dukat’s true feelings about the Occupation are exposed.
At the beginning of the episode and in all previous mentions, Dukat remained that what he did was only to ‘help’ the Bajoran people and that if anybody else had had his job, it would have been much, much worse for them. He actually saw the Bajorans as his children and he was their caring father, trying to guide them. He would never maliciously hurt them, when he had some hundreds killed, it was only for the best. He had to show them that their behaviour sometimes was wrong, and afterall they killed Cardassians, too, he had to reciprocate. Spare the rod, spoil the child, as the saying goes.
Sisko remains that Dukat is inherently evil, something that Dukat denies over and over, because in his eyes he never was. But layer by layer Sisko reveals the hidden Dukat. The Dukat that even he himself had occasionally denied himself to see.
"From the moment we arrived on Bajor it was clear that we were the superior race, but they couldn't accept that. They wanted to be treated as equals, when they most certainly were not. Militarily, technologically, culturally-- we were almost a century ahead of them in every way. We did not choose to be the superior race. Fate handed us that role and it would have been so much easier on everyone if the Bajorans had simply accepted their role. But no... day after day they clustered in their temples and prayed for deliverance and night after night they planted bombs outside of our homes. Pride.. stubborn, unyielding pride. From the servant girl that cleaned my quarters, to the condemned man toiling in a labor camp, to the terrorist skulking through the hills of Dahkur Province... they all wore their pride like some... twisted badge of honor."
"And you hated them for it."
"Of course I hated them! I hated everything about them! 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!"
"You should have killed them all, hm?"
"Yes! Yes!! That's right, isn't it?! I knew it. I've always known it. I should've killed every last one of them! I should've turned their planet into a graveyard the likes of which the galaxy had never seen! I should've killed them all."
"And that is why you're not an evil man."
And with that Dukat finally accepted himself. Accepted his own evil and would not try to broker silly contracts with the Federation again
It was said about this episode, that people liked Dukat too much (and why wouldn’t they, he was just so very, very charismatic) and so it had to be shown what a maniac he really was. And they showed us very clearly. Still having them delve so very deep into his character in this episode and giving Marc Alaimo this much freedom to explore, was a joy to watch.
[quote from memory alpha, caps from trekcore.com]
((Proof I should never try to write meta whatever this is. But seriously, the episode was great and in a way it reminds me of what they’re doing with Damon on tVD, because they’re hellbent on making him irredeemably evil as well.))
4 gifs from Our Man Bashir
not!Kira
cheers!
*faint*