LogFAQs > #933734669

13. Dukat
Yeah? Well I slept with your wife! I mean mother.

I really dislike how Star Wars stuff has crept into Star Trek over time. Superweapons and ancient prophecies and space magic. But call me a hypocrite, because I still love Dukat.

Star Trek doesnt have a lot of villains. It has a lot of one-episode guys who have goals opposite the heroes and a lot of omnipotent energy beings, but as far as Im in more than one episode and my goals are clearly evil and Im gonna getcha bad guys go, its basically Khan, Dukat, the Female Changeling, that one Khan rip-off in Enterprise, and the Borg Queen (I hate the Borg Queen, by the way, but thats a story for another time). And of all of them, Dukat is the bad guyest. Also, Im ignoring Discovery in that statement.

Dukats transformation from smiling, smarmy cog in the machine of fascism to giving up everything for my daughter to leader of the rebellion to leader of the fascist regime to insane megalomaniac to guy who sleeps with Kai Winn to physical incarnation of all that is evil is completely believable and makes total sense at every step. Theres never a moment when youre like well that was a big jump, but there are always crazy, surprising twists. Where Garak is someone who genuinely loves Cardassia and works for his vision of it, Dukat is clearly working for himself and, briefly, his daughter. If you actually pay attention to Dukats actions, he almost never accepts responsibility for anything or admits fault except with his daughter. Every other time, he either blames someone else or blames society or whatever. Hes the definition of an egomaniac, and its made funnier when he refuses any higher rank than Gul. Remember when he lies to Sisko about the distress beacon, Sisko realizes its off, and Dukat berates him for not trusting him? Remember when Sisko gets him to admit that he shouldve killed all Bajorans everywhere? Perfect moves for this character.

Part of what makes Dukat compelling is his willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve his goals. Hes like Khan in this way; what makes Khan interesting isnt that hes literally stronger and faster than you, its his cunning and cleverness and ability to win with inferior resources. Dukat is working from a disadvantage for most of the series (hes only really equal to Sisko at the beginning of the series, when he has Cardassias resources and Sisko only has a broken station, and when hes briefly in charge of Cardassia during the Dominion War), but he still always matches Sisko. This is as opposed to, say, a superpowered nanomachine computer that wants to mind control Section 31 into building a fleet of fifty ships, each of which belches out hundreds of manned space fighters, so it can absorb the knowledge of an ancient space ball.

I love how Dukat is a total egomaniac, but in the end, hes sort of proven right. Hes not really as smart as he thinks he is, but hes incredibly opportunistic and lucky. Remember when Kai Winn just straight-up poisons him, and hes saved by the Pah-Wraiths because he actually is the chosen one he believes himself to be? I guess youre not really an egomaniac if you think youre the chosen one and a god says yes, you are.

Lastly, because theres nowhere else on this list to put this, I love how Damar was supposed to just be killed in the last two episodes with no fanfare at all, then the writers decided actually, hes too important to die that way, so they changed it so he gets to dramatically utter half of a sentence before dying.

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Started: July 6, 2005