Today I was thinking about Cardassians, namely Dukat and Damar. Dukat starts the show as the villian, standing in for "The Occupation" in general. As the series progresses Dukat falls from favor with Cardassia, but becomes more sympathetic to us. Then he teams up with the Dominion, falls off his rocker and stays there up to the bitter end.
Damar, on the other hand, really enters the scene when he kills Ziyal. (His previous appearences are too minor to include here.) Not a very sympathetic action. Damar winds up hated by both the viewers and the characters. (Hated in the way all good villians are hated, of course.) But by the end of the show, Damar is a hero, fighting for the freedom of Cardassia.
Now, when I first started thinking about this, I thought about how cruel it was that Dukat "dies" a madman, while Damar gets off as a martyr. Even Kira seems to forgive him.
But then I had a realization. As the leaders of Cardassia, both Dukat and Damar represented everything the Cardassians had done in DS9. Specifically, the occupation of Bajor. Using this view, things are a little different.
Dukat acted in a way many of us viewers thought was honorable. Dare I say it, he was starting to act like a good guy. However, throughout all of that, Dukat never changed his views about the Occupation. Damar, on the other hand, became the only Cardassian we see (save one) to ever have the epiphany that maybe the Occupation was wrong. That's what buys him his absolution. Dukat may have redeemed himself in the eyes of many viewers, but he never took that final step.
Interestingly enough, the only other Cardassian to come out against the Occupation was Aamin Marritza, way back in "Duet". He also died for it. Curious.
Thoughts?
------------------
"Have you ever seen a bloody egg? Glass in hand, laying up in bed?"
--
They Might Be Giants
Besides killing Ziyal, what has Damar done that was really that bad? By the time he was installed as leader he didn't have a whole lot of power.
BTW, the entire entry on Damar in the Encyclopedia is as follows:
"Cardassian officer. Damar was assigned to the freighter Groumall in 2372, under the command of Gul Dukat. Damar went with Dukat after he commandeered a Klingon bird-of-prey and began a one-ship offensive against the Klingons."
See, that was one of the great things about DS9...a minor character can go on to play a major role later on. The same thing happened with Weyoun, for example, or even Morn.
------------------
http://frankg.dgne.com/
"I received an emotional letter of complaint after a strip in which Dilbert used the expression 'jeepers cripes.' The writer chastised me for using the Lord's name in vain. I can only pray that the almightly Gosh will not darn me to heck for offending his son, Jeepers." - Scott Adams
It's a whole Christ complex thing. Damar took on the sins of Cardassia and died for them. So did Marritza. Dukat never did that, and instead of dying at the end, he's committed to a symbolic hell.
------------------
"Have you ever seen a bloody egg? Glass in hand, laying up in bed?"
--
They Might Be Giants
Garak's response saying that Damar was more receptive to the comment meant that Damar was probably on the way to redeeming himself as a good guy. I am not surprised he died trying to fight for his home planet.
------------------
I can resist anything.......
Except Temptation
Hobbes
9908.7
------------------
Got Trek?
Federation Starship Datalink
------------------
"We took a small flight, in the middle of the night, from one tiny place to another."
--
Ben Folds Five