Rewatching DS9, Major Kira and the Bajoran resistance, especially the episodes that deal with unclean hands, like “The Darkness and the Light” really hit different when watching today, vs my innocent childhood.

I don’t really have a point, just DS9 has aged like fine wine with new flavors with each season passing.

  • SSTF@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Molten hot take, but I never really cared for the Bajorans as a people. As in, I didn’t ever feel very invested in their story. Somehow they felt like the weakest part of DS9, and episodes about Bajoran society and the resistance (aside from Duet, which was quite good) tended to fall flat for me.

    I much preferred the similar dynamic concept between the Centuari and the Narn in Babylon 5. For reasons I can’t quite articulate I felt a lot more for the oppression of the Narn.

    • jet@hackertalks.comOP
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      1 year ago

      I got super invested in emotions of Bajor… mostly the emotion was seething hate of Kai Winn… Space Karen made me feel hate more then I ever felt hate in a TV show.

      • SSTF@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Kai Winn is a special piece of fun to watch, but when she’s riling up the Bajorans, I find myself not caring about them as a whole.

        • jet@hackertalks.comOP
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          1 year ago

          I did care about Kira going from a terrorist to a government security officer and the struggles she had with the different world view approaches.

          it was good writing, I always was sympathetic, but saw the struggle as real

    • Makeitstop@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I think it’s easy to feel a lot more for the narns because of all the stuff they go through during the series, as opposed to just in the backstory. I think the fact that the narns as a whole and our main narn character in particular start the show as people obsessed with hate and revenge is also very important, both because it shows the impact that the centauri have had on them, and because it makes their arc and character development so much more dramatic.

      It’s been a long time since I went through DS9, but when I think of the bajorans, I think of their own internal political squabbling more than the occupation. Sure, we hear about it and on a few occasions even see what it was like on the station at the time, but there is nothing in there as powerful as the stuff we got in B5, like say, G’kar’s father on the tree.

      Hell, Sisco was thinking about retiring to a little house on Bajor. Ain’t nobody thinking that way about the narn homeworld.

    • eaterofclowns@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I respect that people can have different reactions to things but I can’t imagine seeing Louise Fletcher and having anything but both glee and dread for a Kai Winn episode.

    • mercano@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Having Andreas Katsulas articulate the tragedy of the Narn goes a long way. (No offense to Nana Visitor.)

    • evatronic@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      In B5, we heard about the oppression like the Bajorans. But then we got to see it again, first hand.

      • VindictiveJudge@startrek.website
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        1 year ago

        Vir: “I’m sorry. I wish there was something that I could do, but… I tried telling them, but they wouldn’t listen. They never listen. I’m sorry.”

        G’kar pulls a knife and slices open his own hand. In time with the blood dripping from his hand, he says-

        G’kar: “Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead. How do you apologize to them?”

        Vir: “I can’t.”

        G’kar: “Then I cannot forgive.”

    • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The great thing about the Narn was that they started as the Cardassians but turned into the Bajorans.

      • GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip
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        1 year ago

        You mean, like the actual cardassians who go from imperialist rulers to uneasy adversaries to willing subject of an even bigger imperialist, and then finally become the oppressed and exploited on their own world, like the bajorans were?

    • deegeese@sopuli.xyz
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      1 year ago

      Narn seemed more oppressed because Bajor had an effective resistance and Narn was conquered twice by the Centauri.