Caveat: All Trek Is Beautiful, This Is In No Way A Better/worse Thing

caveat: all trek is beautiful, this is in no way a better/worse thing

i joke that one of the biggest problems I have with tng characterization is the 'we need to give a character the Bad Opinion' phenomena.

an episode wants to explore a moral quandry through plot, but for that to work, they usually need to Give A Character The Bad Opinion– it's often Geordi, or Riker, or Worf who take a stance that's less generous, more defensive, or just plain wrong-through-misunderstanding. now this does give the episode narrative structure, where the character with the Better Opinion and the Bad Opinion can have interpersonal conflict, and then this can resolve in a nuanced understanding. I get it. it's basic plot construction. but this also gives these Bad Opinion prone characters some wildly uneven characterization over the show's run.

I've been rewatching some ds9 episodes (I only just finished my first watchthrough last month) and I've realized that ds9 avoids this issue by simply having so many more characters who are not good people.

It's weird when they write Geordi being unnecessarily stubborn and easily-annoyed towards Scotty, or Riker being a shouty hard-ass to Barkley– because both of these characters are fundamentally good people who we need to root for. It's weird to see them being complete dickbags above and beyond what seems congruous to their characterization, when the whole point of the show is that the crew of the Enterprise is flawed but fundamentally equipped to carry out their mission.

By contrast, it makes perfect sense that Garak would be the one to try and exterminate the Founders instead of finding an ethical peace. It makes perfect sense for Quark to position himself on the side of whatever benefits his business most, even if it's horrific. None of this feels incongruous with who they are throughout the rest of the show– because their function as characters simply doesn't depend on you rooting for them the way you want to root for tng characters.

just thinking a lot of thoughts about this horrible satellite zoo of freaks and bad people who still deserve community. thinking a lot about how you don't have to be good to have a home.