this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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Risa
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Come on'n get your jamaharon on! There are no real rules—just don't break the weather control network.
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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.
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.
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.
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
Kira = John Wick. You try to leave the life behind, but the ~~streets~~ Guls keep calling.
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.
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.
But that’s the thing right. We are supposed to care about the Bajorans as a people, but the most memorable leader in their society is completely hatable. She’s fun to watch, but at odds with making me care about the plight of the Bajorans.
As a comparison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3_9Xb3U1V4&start=105&end=0&pp=ygUQQmFieWxvbiA1IHNwZWVjaA%3D%3D
In B5, we heard about the oppression like the Bajorans. But then we got to see it again, first hand.
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."
That scene, and the one in the council chambers with ".... we will teach it to them again." were some of the best moments of a show full of greats.
Here's that scene, just for fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJmuHNDcXLQ
Having Andreas Katsulas articulate the tragedy of the Narn goes a long way. (No offense to Nana Visitor.)
The great thing about the Narn was that they started as the Cardassians but turned into the Bajorans.
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?
It was a wild ride, Gul DuKat was selfish almost the entire time
Good point, yeah, the Cardassians go throuhg a similar change. There was a lot of cross-polination of themes in those two series. But I would still say that B5 did it better, since Gul Dukat never stops being an evil bastard (just a more facetted one), while G'Kar turns into probably one of the most heroic and selfless figures in the whole story (as far as I remember).
Narn seemed more oppressed because Bajor had an effective resistance and Narn was conquered twice by the Centauri.