Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Anyone else think Commander Kira is a complete monster?

[DudeistBelieve]

I'm at the point in the series where Gol Ducat just betrayed everyone and sided Cardassia with the Dominion, so please no spoilers?

Maybe this is my post 9/11 pov, but freedom fighter or not, Kira and her band of Bajorans were terrorist. They didn't just attack/kill the politicians and rules occupying their planet but those people's familys, or hell anyone that was just your blue collar cardassian trying to make ends meet.

And what's disgusting is, she gets called on it. She gets kidnapped by this one Cardassian, who was disfigured in one of the bombs she set off that killed a LOT of innocent Cardassians. I mean these were people that had NO CONTROL over the occupation of Bajor.

And Kira's response is basically she doesn't give a fuck about them and she felt they were using their innocence as a shield.

And this is the person Sisko choose as his 2nd in command? This ***** deserves to be no where near starfleet. She's going to stand to have the nerve to call Ducat a monster thinking it completely justifies what she did?

Look, I know the cardassian occupation of Bajor was basically their Halocaust, but the moment you start hurting innocent people go fuck yourself, you have no moral high ground. "This was war!" >.> at least the Klingon's kill non-combatants because it fits their f'ed up sense of honor. The service working Cardassian's didn't deserve to die.

 

[Albino Boo]

Blue collar cardassian are working for genocidal regime, you cant claim to be innocent when you watch slave labourers being worked to death. Cardassia like Nazi Germany there very few innocents, the policies enjoyed widespread public support and no one could be under any illusions about what those policies are. The Bajorans were fighting a darwinian war, if they lost they ceased to exist as a race, were as the Cardassians were fighting for living space and didn't care who got in the way. Finnish watching and you will see what happens in the end of the dominion story arc.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Blue collar cardassian are working for genocidal regime, you cant claim to be innocent when you watch slave labourers being worked to death. Cardassia like Nazi Germany there very few innocents, the policies enjoyed widespread public support and no one could be under any illusions about what those policies are. The Bajorans were fighting a darwinian war, if they lost they ceased to exist as a race, were as the Cardassians were fighting for living space and didn't care who got in the way. Finnish watching and you will see what happens in the end of the dominion story arc.

And what the hell was the butlers or the tailors or the day laborer cardassian's suppose to do? Abandon their lives and families, risk being executed by the state least Kira and her band of jihadists kill them.

Oh and you know, what good does slaughtering civilians? Yeah kill the file clerk's daughter. That'll get him to pack up and leave.

Ya know it be one thing if she was like "it was war, we all did things." But she's not. She actively blamed the innocents for an occupation they had no control over.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

And this is the person Sisko choose as his 2nd in command? This ***** deserves to be no where near starfleet.

Hold up, is she in starfleet? I haven't seen the series since I was a lot younger but I thought her badge and uniform meant she was working for the Bajorans. I don't know what that would be called. She doesn't have a Starfleet rank either - 'Major'.

 

[bat_trapper]

What you have to understand is Kira and the rest of the resistance were fighting for the very survival of their species. What the Cardassians where doing was worse that a Holocaust, it was genocide. The Bajorans starved, where worked to death, used as sex slaves, and experimented on. And the Cardassians did this for 50 years. And Kira does care. She constantly says throughout the show that she knows she did awful things, things she regrets. But she also knows that she did them for the survival of her species. In the episode you use as an example, at the end she says "He wanted to protect the innocent and separate the darkness from the light. But he didn't relies that light only shines in the dark." Kira did bad things during the occupation (the darkness) to give her people a future (the light). They couldn't just assassinate the leaders and rulers because they were heavily guarded or off world or they just didn't know where they are were. And even if they did, another one would have just taken his place. They had to show the Cardassians that being there was more of a hassle than it was worth, and they had to do whatever it took to make them see it. If they didn't the Cardassians would still be there and the Bajorans wouldn't have a future.

 

[Signa]

I don't think she was a monster, but she certainly did things that were regrettable. I think it's more important to look at how she handles the Cardassians now that the war is over than what she had to do to survive. War brings out the worst in anyone, so it's not fair to judge her solely on that. Dukat even has a few moments where it does seem like he's less than the monster he is because of how the war changes things, but after a time, he shows that his true colors are no different than before, and that he is the true monster.

 

[Cidward]

A major focus of the character's arc is her past as a resistance fighter, the thin line between justifiable rebellion and terrorism, and the how her views of individual Cardassians evolves throughout the series. I don't think the character would have been conceived in the same way after 9/11, but that's a condemnation of the more simplistic way we seem to need to see those things portrayed now. I find her to be one of the more complicated characters in a Star Trek series, primarily because I'm not always meant to like or agree with her. Garak (the Cardassian ex-spy) is also a character who's done extremely monstrous things and is shaped by them (I won't even get into Gul Dukat, who the writers actually said became far more sympathetic than they intended and was later course-corrected in ways I don't really like, but he was a totalitarian ex-dictator and for a long time he's a pretty functional recurring character).

This sort of thing is probably why DS9 isn't the most popular of the Trek series, but it's also why it's my favorite of them.

 

[Zontar]

Cardassia like Nazi Germany there very few innocents, the policies enjoyed widespread public support and no one could be under any illusions about what those policies are.

I'm sorry, what WHAT?! Did you skip history class when the interwar and second world war was covered? I'm sorry, but this is flat out wrong on every level. Even at its peak in popularity the Nazis never had over 40% support, and that was before they started opening deathcamps and invading their neighbors. The reason there was less dissent on the policies wasn't due to the people accepting it, it was due to fear that the gestapo or the SS would come knocking at your door if you even talked about it the wrong way. I know it's from a cheesy movie, but the phrase "The first country the Nazis invaded was their own" is true in every sense. Your view on what the country was is but a fiction.

 

[Tanis]

He didn't 'choose' her, she was assigned to Sisco by the Bajorans and 'encouraged' (READ: Do it or quit) by Starfleet as a means of diplomatic workings.

Given that she was fighting Space Nazis...
Hell even Earth Nazis were nicer compared Cardassias, at least the Earth Nazis's KILL YOU, instead of keeping you alive for as long as possible so they could better torture, rape, and work you till death was some kind of sweet gift.

EVERYONE who worked with the Cardassia's knew what they were doing.
Those who chose to betray their people by being collaborators did so with the FULL knowledge that the rest of their race saw them as nothing more than Cardassia without the side neck-bones.
So, they CHOSE to put themselves in danger and pit themselves against their own people in hopes of betterment.

Kira wasn't a 'complete monster', she was a survivor who did what need to be done to fight against a race that had been slowing committing the worst of crimes.
Against a foe that had been destroying her people, her world, since before her birth.
A race, empire, whose 'end goal' was for the total holocaust of all Bajorans.

Don't forget:
American 'freedom fighters' committed MANY acts of terror in the name of freedom from oppression.
The reason why George Washington is remember in the same way as Adolf or Osama is because they WON.

 

[Zetatrain]

Ah that episode. Yeah I'll admit the way Kira spoke to the Carrdassian kinda rubbed me the wrong way. I think the episode was going for the end justifies the means/ collateral damage line of reasoning, but the way her words came out it sound like she thought the innocent Cardassians deserved to die that hey got what was coming to them. It's kinda jarring considering it seems to go against the message in "The Duet" from season 1.

I don't know maybe it as just an error on the writers part or maybe Kira didn't want to give the Cardassian the satisfaction of seeing her show regret over her past actions. or maybe I'm just remembering things wrong.

Overall though I don't think she is a monster.

 

[Zontar]

OP, one of the things which makes DS9 shine are that the characters have flaws, and walking the fine line between guerrilla and terrorist (and occasionally falling off) is a part of that. No one is perfect, no one is all good or has never made a mistake (or would be willing to make that mistake again if given the chance). Yes she did terrible things, but she also had terrible things done to her and it was never meant to be a black and white situation (Duet is personally my favorite episode for the way it makes you sympathies with a man who worked at a deathcamp due to the great writing coupled with great acting).

If you haven't seen it yet, just wait until "In The Pale Moonlight", my second favorite episode. Really sticks it to Gene's Box by showing not only is having his utopia be a farce not a bad idea, it leads to better ones altogether.

 

[ZephrC]

See, the thing here is that it's showing a harsh reality that most American media goes out of their way to avoid: War is evil. When you are involved in a serious war against someone who stands even a ghost of a chance against you, your choices are to do evil things or to die.

The best thing to do about war is not get involved, and if that's not an option the next best choice is to do anything and everything in your power to end it as quickly and decisively as possible. Anything else just results in even more evil.

 

[Neverhoodian]

I don't think she was a monster, but she certainly did things that were regrettable. I think it's more important to look at how she handles the Cardassians now that the war is over than what she had to do to survive. War brings out the worst in anyone, so it's not fair to judge her solely on that.

I agree. Kira was plunged into a life-or-death struggle against an implacable foe for years. She witnessed an organized campaign of genocide against her people by the Cardassians. Friends and family members suffered and died under the occupation. Given the circumstances, I'd say it's understandable that she didn't shed any tears over a few dead Cardassian clerks.

I think it's more important to focus on how her views have changed since the occupation. Since you're already a few seasons in, I don't think it's a spoiler to say that Kira's hostility starts to soften as she crosses paths with some decent Cardassians. Hers is a story of redemption, of making peace with her violent past.

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Ah that episode. Yeah I'll admit the way Kira spoke to the Carrdassian kinda rubbed me the wrong way. I thought she was going for the end justifies the means/ collateral damage line of reasoning, but the way her words came out it sound like she thought the innocent Cardassians deserved to die that hey got what was coming to them. It's kinda jarring considering it seems to go against the message in "The Duet" from season 1.

I don't know maybe it as just an error on the writers part or maybe Kira didn't want to give the Cardassian the satisfaction of seeing her show regret over her past actions. or maybe I'm just remembering things wrong.

Overall though I don't think she is a monster.

This. She basically says at the end that innocence is a shield, condoning her killing innocent cardassions.

I get that she was at war with space nazi's, but I can't rationalize how she can say that and think that she is any different than Ducat/Dukat

 

[DudeistBelieve]

Also where the hell was all this halocaust shit on Bajor during THE NEXT GENERATION?

You mean to tell me space genocide was going on but Ro was able to escape and join Starfleet?

Trekkies, I don't wish to mock the lore but none of this shit is making sense

 

[Tony2077]

ok you haven't seen how much of a evil bastard dukat can be

 

[Zontar]

Also where the hell was all this halocaust shit on Bajor during THE NEXT GENERATION?

You mean to tell me space genocide was going on but Ro was able to escape and join Starfleet?

Trekkies, I don't wish to mock the lore but none of this shit is making sense

When Ro was introduced (as well as the Bajorans in general) what the federation had was a large group of refugees coming from a hostile neighbor which had a strong police state. While there where implications as to what was going on, it was probably paralleling world war two and the escapees from the death camps, who despite telling the truth to the allies where not believed due to it being unimaginable. Until the liberation from the Federation's point of view the occupation was just an unjustified brutal one, but they where unlikely to see the real big picture of what was going on, or if they did would likely dismiss it as propaganda.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

Also where the hell was all this halocaust shit on Bajor during THE NEXT GENERATION?

You mean to tell me space genocide was going on but Ro was able to escape and join Starfleet?

Trekkies, I don't wish to mock the lore but none of this shit is making sense

Starfleet fought a war (off-screen) with Cardassia prior to Next Gen which ended in a peace accord between The Cardassian Union and The Federation, unfortunately Bajor was not a spacefaring power that could defend their own borders and they fell into the territory ceded to the Cardassians which means the Federation could not intervene without starting another war. A really good episode called 'The Wounded' covers the very start of Cardassia's rearmament. There was also one where some Federation colonists gave up their citizenship to stay on another world the Cardassians claimed ownership of, which leads to the beginnings of the Maquis when (spoiler alert) it turns out the Cardassians are shitty landlords.

Kira isn't a monster, she did monstrous things, some of which come back to bite her in the arse and made her a hard woman with bitter opinions and life outlook.

As for 'insulting the lore', I wouldn't worry. I love Star Trek but the lore is a twisted mess thanks to over 50 years of material and writers. Babylon 5 is much better in that regard.

 

[Cidward]

Lol 'insulting lore.'

Yeah, Star Trek 'lore' is a patchy mess of various writing regimes and different storytelling philosophies from series to series, so as a Trekkie (I guess, I like the series) I'm not insulted.

But, yeah, the Bajor/Cardassia situation was battered into series history with slightly more finesse than a bunch of other things.