Current Events > Who is the best DS9 character?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Wish I had more poll options to throw Dukat in there. Keiko, Kai Winn and maybe Nog too

Other will have to do



---

Garak.

Nog and Dukat would be my runners-up.


---

Tom Clark posted...

Garak.

Nog and Dukat would be my runners-up.

I loved Dukat right up until

He went nuts, became 'pure evil' and worshiped the Pah-Wraiths who are evil and want to destroy things because I dunno lol.

They took 6 seasons of a fantastic villain who had good qualities but was always brought down by his cowardice and ego with a fully rounded understandable personality.... And then made him Joey Generic boring Saturday Morning Cartoon villain.

One of the worst declines in the quality of writing of a character I've ever seen

---

It's tough to choose because the show was full of incredible characters. I cast my vote for Odo because it was great having an utterly original, truly alien character as a member of the regular cast.

I didn't mind Dukat's arc as much as a lot of people did.

For me, while it clearly wasn't handled very well, I actually don't think the specific story beats of it were really all that wrong. Dukat was a character who was pretty much always on the edge, but he kept it hidden below the surface - to varying degrees of success. He talked in Waltz about wanting the Bajorans to like him, but really he's always just wanted respect, and it eats him up that Sisko always gets the respect that he feels he deserves - we see Sisko be respected after taking over Terok Nor while Dukat was loathed. We see Sisko triumph as the figurehead of the Alpha Quadrant forces while Dukat fails and is replaced by Damar in the Dominion fleet. So it stands to reason that he'd turn to the other thing that Sisko gets respect for - being the Emissary. Dukat becoming the Emissary for the Path Wraiths to continue his dark mirror of Sisko position works. I don't think he embraced the Pah Wraiths because he wanted to destroy everything, I think he just wanted to be a better Emissary than Sisko, and the Pah Wraiths had a vacancy.

It wasn't handled very well - they should have spent more time building it up, and it should have been a more organic process than "this episode Dukat crosses this moral event horizon, and we'll next see him in half a dozen episodes' time for his next fall", but the overall shape of his arc was decent for me. He'd always been utterly despicable, and he'd always been Sisko's counterpart, and that did get taken - albeit clumsily - to its natural conclusion.

Don't get me wrong, I still definitely prefer the more nuanced, dangerously charming "mask on" Dukat to glowy eyed supervillain "mask off" Dukat, and I'd have rather the show lead to something more thematically satisfying than a punch up between Dukat and Sisko, but I don't think his arc dropped off as much as people say.

If anything, to me it was Winn who got absolutely fucked over by that storyline.

---

Tie between Odo and Sisko for me. Sisko I didn't immediately latch on to, but he kept growing on me as a person who's sorta stuck between begrudgingly becoming a religious figure, a stalwart captain of station prone to conflicts from uncontrollable forces, and a fairly functional single dad of a likeable kid character. Odo on the other hand is humorous and is supposed to be as emotionally detached as Data but can't help but be a loyal and capable guardsman to anybody who's ultimately on his side.

---

Dukat is not bothered by Damar becoming Da man.

He flat out gives him a pep talk and pretty much convinces him to oppose the Dominion

---

UnfairRepresent posted...

I loved Dukat right up until

He went nuts, became 'pure evil' and worshiped the Pah-Wraiths who are evil and want to destroy things because I dunno lol.

They took 6 seasons of a fantastic villain who had good qualities but was always brought down by his cowardice and ego with a fully rounded understandable personality.... And then made him Joey Generic boring Saturday Morning Cartoon villain.

One of the worst declines in the quality of writing of a character I've ever seen

Well said.

I have said the same thing myself in that they took two excellent villains in Dukat and Kai Winn and turned them in to mustache twirling cartoon villains.

As for the topic my favourite characters and the only decent characters in this shit show are Jadzia, Garak and Quark.

---

Also want to give a shoutout to the frequently overlooked general Martok

Managed to be a fully fleshed out Klingon while being consistent with the 2D klingons.

I love that scene where Sisko and Admiral Ross are like "We're not going to drink wine over the corpses of the enemies we just killed because we're big pussies!" and storm off

While martok just shakes his head and gulps it down like a boss

---